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Exclusive Interview: In Conversation With Phoneum’s Ivan Likov About DeFi, NFTs And Gaming Industry

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We recently spoke with Ivan Likov, the Founder and Lead Developer of Phoneum. Let’s dive deep into Phoneum and what the executive has to say about the current environment surrounding DeFi, NFTs, blockchain technology, and most importantly, where the gaming industry stands right now.

A quick primer on Phoneum: 

Phoneum is a mobile-only cryptocurrency that is built to provide the user with a simplified  user experience and platform that allows users, irrespective of technical aptitude, to seamlessly participate in the new crypto economy.

Here’s the transcript of the conversation with Ivan Likov, the exec of Phoneum.

Ivan
Ivan Likov

Chayanika: How did it all begin? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey from Bulgaria to being the CEO and Lead Developer of Phoneum today.

Ivan: Ever since my family bought our first computer when I was 12 years old, I have been fascinated with computers and software. I came to Canada in 2009 and enrolled in college to study computer science, software development, and web design. After graduating, I started developing websites, Windows and iOS software applications. As mobile devices became more popular in 2010, I decided to focus on mobile development. Then, in 2014, I was introduced to blockchain and Bitcoin. 

I studied how a blockchain works at its core and what makes Bitcoin so revolutionary. 

As I learned more about it, I saw a database unlike any other, but also a completely new way of looking at how data can be stored and processed. I began to consider how to make this technology available to the masses. That’s how I started thinking about mobile devices, which are in everyone’s pockets, hands, and day-to-day lives.

Back then, it was difficult for regular people to get into blockchain and crypto because of high computing power requirements and specialized knowledge needed to use them.

With a passion for smartphones and blockchain, I decided to merge the gap and build a mobile ecosystem called ‘Phoneum,’ which is a fun mixture of “phone” and “Ethereum”. Then I introduced a cryptocurrency that would allow anyone, regardless of technical knowledge or skills, to participate in the system and earn the token without putting any strain on the device.

The most difficult task was to be able to differentiate computers and mining machines (ASIC miners) from mobile devices. This was important so that only mobile devices could participate in the network. 

There were a ton of checks or validations that needed to be done. I developed for about seven and a half months a unique algorithm to do this differentiation and to build the Phoneum network. The rest is history.

Chayanika: Phoneum is a mobile only cryptocurrency that is based on Tron. And it has also been touted as one of the most reliable mobile cloud mining platforms. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Ivan: Yes. It is one of the most reliable mobile cloud mining platforms because we make our application as simple and easy to use as possible, with no technical knowledge required for people to participate. You only need to press single button to begin earning, and the application will handle everything in the cloud for you. You You can keep using your device without putting any stress on the system.

Chayanika: You have been in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for a long time. So, how has Phoneum evolved over the years, and what capabilities do you believe will be added in the future?

Ivan: That is a wonderful question. And the perfect gateway from my last sentence. As previously mentioned, Phoneum has evolved significantly over the last four years. We started the company in 2017, and the mobile miner came to the market for the first time in the first quarter of 2018. Now, I say miner because, around mid-2018, mining was allowed by Google and Apple to be done on mobile devices because there were not many miners.

After a number of apps began to maliciously include cryptocurrency mining in their code, both Google and Apple both decided to ban cryptocurrency mining on mobile devices through any kind of application.

Eventually both companies stated that they would now allow mobile mining, as long as it’s done in the cloud. Now, this is a little bit of a weird statement. How could you do mobile mining in the cloud? So you’re technically not doing any mining. You’re actually calling up some stats from a server that does the actual mining. .

But it was a perfect opportunity for us to recapture the initial hype and interest that drew investors to us and build the community around the actual miner. So we revamped it to what we now call “cloud earning”. 

Now users can earn for free as well as stake; their tokens that they have earned to gain some interest on them. And if that’s not an evolution, I’m not sure what else could be.

Smartphone-based cryptocurrency was also a perfect opportunity to merge the gap between blockchain and gaming.

We have since built a few games over the years, including Crypto Treasures, Green Karma, Crypto Cards, and Crypto Planet, that have shown not only a proof of concept, but also have received so much interest that we will continue development, moving forward.

Chayanika: Phoneum had recently announced a huge update for Crypto Cards. What more do you have planned for the gamers in the coming days, now that the game ecosystem has transformed to a huge extent. What do you think is untapped and that you are planning to explore?

Ivan: We are currently working on a new set of features to introduce to all our games. One of our focuses has been on bringing digital collectibles. Crypto Cards is one of our most popular games because of this.

In the next couple of month, we will be slowly introducing NFTs. The non-fungible tokens have blasted the news nowadays, and so people have paid attention to that and wanted to see something of that sort implemented in Crypto Cards. We are actively working on bringing that aspect to the game.

Chayanika: NFT is the craze at the moment. It has taken the world by storm. Artists and musicians are minting millions with NFTs. Recently, Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan released an exclusive NFT collection on Tron. What kind of future do you see for Tron in the NFT market?

Ivan: To be honest, Tron has always been my favorite blockchain. Even back in the day when we were an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum blockchain. Tron works with gaming a lot better than Ethereum does for the fact that you have bandwidth, you have energy, and you could also use the network to do transactions. Tokens can actually benefit from that in a way that you could virtually send any Tron token for free, without the need of having TRX to cover the transaction fee.

Low or free fees on the Tron blockchain definitely make it a good choice for frequent or small transactions.

Chayanika: There’s another competitor now, especially at the backdrop of the DeFi explosion. We’re talking about Binance Smart Chain [BSC]. So what do you think about BSC and its place in the gaming industry? Also, what do you think is the significance and the usage?

Ivan: So Binance has really shown some muscle and power when it comes to blockchain and crypto in the last few years. They were a bit late on the race, but they have quickly become one of the best exchanges on the market. But cryptocurrencies that are listed on Binance are either already accepted by everyone or they have paid a significant amount to get listed. That also puts them in the realm of how Apple is with mobile devices.

The one downside to that is, it’s only compatible with platforms that do work with the Binance chain. As for Ethereum and now Tron, those networks are pretty much adopted by anybody. So, you know, it would be hard for a token or an NFT built on the Binance chain to be accepted everywhere due to the fact that Binance needs to get implemented. But rest assured, just mentioning that there are the high-end of crypto exchanges and platforms, they will definitely make their way into being globally accepted, but it will take time.

Chayanika: Which one do you think is the stronger contender to Ethereum? Is it Binance Smart Chain or Tron?

Ivan: I would say, hands down Tron. They definitely have built their system in a very stable and active way. Their staking mechanism has worked for years now, and it has proven to be completely reliable and bugs free.

Of course every software has its own downside, but the one thing that Tron really shines is with transactions per second. It could go to thousands of TPS, as opposed to the 50 transactions that Ethereum can do. In case of Binance, they are very new. Hence, you can’t really consider anything new, that’s older than two months as things move with the speed of light in the crypto world. But I know that Binance can definitely grow to be one of the standards for sure.

Chayanika: A few protocols on the Binance Smart Chain were actually compromised recently. What do you have to say about the rampant security breaches when it comes to decentralized finance [DeFi] protocols?

Ivan: We have always seen networks and the systems being breached, hacked maliciously, used in any form and shape, because it is a game of cat and mouse or rather a chase. If you patch one gap, or an issue, then another one is opened up. Even with the big giants, like Google and Apple, there’s always a way to hack them.

We, at Phoneum, work on our security to improve it everyday, little by little.

There are a lot of different aspects that need to be taken into consideration. And while Binance has allowed this breach, that only makes them stronger. There are always losses and victims in a battle and as long as the war is won at the end, the malicious entities have only helped them become stronger. I admire everyone that stands up after a hack and fixes the system.

Chayanika: Since we are talking about the DeFi explosion, it is imperative to note that it has created many new avenues for users, developers and for the market system, in general. So how do you think decentralized finance can further help the gaming industry this year? What does 2021 look like for the DeFi and gaming industry?

Ivan: DeFi has made it to headlines more in the last year. While it was overshadowed by NFT, now at the beginning of 2021, it has definitely not fallen off and continues to grow. I think that DeFi appeals more to investors and ones that are paying attention to the markets rather than the gamers.

I think for gaming, the NFT is a better suitable way of exploring blockchain than decentralized finance. I mean just the name of it itself speaks for what it’s all about. It’s about finance. So it’s about the way we work with finance, the way we operate as opposed to the way we entertain ourselves. And, collectibles have always been something that people see value in and something that can grow over time in value.

But at the same time, it is for fun. It is something that we have been very familiar with as humankind. We’ve collected different stones because of shape and size all the way to cards and pictures and all sorts of different collectibles. So collectibles are something that is more for gaming than decentralized finance, in my opinion.

Chayanika: How has the behavior of the institutional investors evolved when it comes to pooling in capital in the gaming realm?

Ivan: No offense to anybody, but the institutional investors are still old school. I, myself from personal experience have had the chance to speak with a few in the past. And all of them look at the gaming as, “Oh, is that like Candy Crush or, oh, is that like Pokemon that you’ve got to collect it and, you know, throw those balls to monsters?” And they laugh. But, in reality, if we look at some financial statistics, the gaming industry is one of the most lucrative businesses to be in. While a lot of people in the world play games for fun, there are others that actually make a living off of them.

People do spend money on games, not only for progress, but also to skip that repetitive gameplay that gets boring after a while, so they can get to the new level. And that’s what generates a lot of money and revenue for those companies. Now, the one thing that I got to mention, when it comes to institutional investment is that at the end of the day, most of those investors are really good with numbers.

So they look at the numbers be it in terms of downloads, revenue, capital, advertising, demographic for these games. And that’s something that should not be left out of the picture, because the more people that play the game, even if it’s completely free ad free, in-app purchase free, can generate millions of dollars. It’s just building that community – that is the million dollar check. It is the community. It always has been, and it always will be. Institutional investors are not gamers themselves. They wouldn’t understand it as much as the public would.

Chayanika: So you think institutional investors are still hooked to Bitcoin and Ethereum? Do you feel this behavior will change when it comes to crypto and blockchain powered gaming platforms, now that they have attained a popularity that was never seen before?

Ivan: Yes. And most definitely it will be. As the blockchain continues to evolve, there would always be new ways to introduce the system within other applications. I mean, we have seen Bitcoin from 8 cents to $60,000. We have seen a game as simple as Crypto Kitties, just some pictures of cats make headlines. We have recently seen an online collage sale for $69.3 million. There is a lot of money that gets invested in those, for sure. But the one thing that I know for a fact is that gaming and blockchain are, I wouldn’t call it the best, but, is a perfect fit for each other.

Gaming has suffered over the years a huge, huge amount of security breaches. Popular games can go down the drain if a groundbreaking glitch, bug or even, malicious software, third-party software breaks the game.

So that does impact the gaming industry. Gaming companies bring in millions every single day. If that’s not enough for institutional investors to get involved, I’m not sure what else could be. But because of these hacking instances, it is hard to maintain the security, you always have to improve and patch holes, but blockchain could help to a large extent. Games stored in a blockchain could hardly be hacked or tampered with.

I think blockchain and gaming will definitely continue to evolve, even in ways that we haven’t even paid attention to in the last few years, as we have been blinded by the used to Bitcoin skyrocketing in value, and, the few updates that have happened to either Ethereum or the Bitcoin forks that keep happening. But blockchain is a great technology for gaming moving forward.

Exclusive Interview: Reef Finance’s Denko Macheski Opens up about The DeFi Protocol and Regulations

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We recently spoke with Denke Mancheski, the CEO and Co-Founder of Reef Finance. So here we are up with the transcript of the interview.

Reef in brief:

Reef Finance is the first DeFi cross-chain Operating System powered by Polkadot. The liquidity aggregator recently completed a seed funding round worth $3.9 million. The capital raised will be deployed to support the platform’s goal to make decentralized finance [DeFi] more accessible to the average retail investor.

 

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TWJ: Hello Denko, Could you please tell us a little bit about your background?

Denko: So, I am Denko. I am the CEO of Reef Finance I have a tech background. I began programming in early high school, started with C++, did algorithmic competitions. And then a few years later, I moved into the enterprise world. I worked for two companies that provided ERP software. I built some modules and some mobile apps for them, which are still in use today. And then a few years later, I moved into healthcare. I have worked for one of the biggest healthcare platform providers in Europe. I was there for over two and a half years, and in the last six months, I was leading a team. We were working on a complex app for healthcare data modeling and around five and a half years ago, I discovered crypto.

I got into it, started to develop the blockchain myself. My first experience was with NXT (then turned into Ardor), and I have also been doing a lot of Solidity (Ethereum), Steem, and some EOS. Basically, I am based in Slovenia. Here the development community is not so big. I’ve been working with familiar people on different projects and around two years ago we decided to team up. So we worked on multiple blockchain projects as well as for analytics projects. Last year, we mostly did analytics in the B2B sector. Around November last year, we decided to fully focus on DeFi. And in January, I started working on Reef and since then I’ve been basically, you know, working full time and that’s, that’s about me.

TWJ: Congratulations on closing the $3.9 million funding round. Could you please tell us how Reef Finance aims to solve the technical barrier that investors face while they attempt to participate?

Denko: Yes, thanks. We see that the landscape has three, basically different issues. The first being the liquidity problem, you have centralized exchanges that are completely isolated and prone to hacks. While the decentralized exchanges have unstable liquidity, they are slow, hard, and more expensive due to Ethereum’s network congestion. Additionally, neither of them, centralized or decentralized exchanges, they don’t integrate with the DeFi ecosystem directly.

The second is the yield problem. It has a high technical barrier of entry for the average retail investor. So when they come into the landscape, they are confused. They don’t know the names of the projects. They don’t know what exactly they have to learn. It’s overwhelming and they cannot keep up with the best strategies and stay safe and well-diversified. And on top of that, again, due to the Ethereum network congestion, the gas fees are skyrocketing for certain activities, like $70 or $140.

And the third problem that we see is the fragmentation problem. So participating in different activities, such as trading, lending, staking yield farming are currently fragmented and painful experiences. You need to go to five different websites, learn how to use different UI made by different vendors. And it’s overwhelming. It’s hard for the average users to learn all of this. And basically, while they’re learning these things, they are missing out on the available opportunities. So would Reef we aim to solve these problems basically.

TWJ: When you say the Yield Farming ecosystem is fragmented, what do you mean by that? 

Denko: This landscape is moving very fast and in order to be able to get the best opportunities out there, you have to stay very well connected. You’ve got to follow all the new farming protocols and it’s super hard because there are like five new projects coming every day and all of them offer different farming opportunities, but they have different interfaces, they’re on different websites, and so on. And it’s super hard for the average user to like find all of these and basically jump on them and start yield farming them. And, through the Reef’s yield engine, we are basically like integrating all of them and we are also monitoring the whole landscape. So we’re able to add those things, automatically.

TWJ: You stressed about Ethereum congestion fees. How do you work around this? Also, while this has posed as a massive problem for the ecosystem, on the brighter side, it has sort of, paved the way for other alternatives. In that respect, what kind of future do you see for Polkadot?

Denko: Yes. So, there are a few things. Reef has infrastructure both on Ethereum as well as Polkadot. But regarding helping around the Ethereum’s network congestion in the fees, we’re currently building like a pooling mechanism. So whenever you participate in DeFi through Reef baskets, the pooling mechanism is basically the first smart contract. Here, the user funds will be pooled and their requests will be taken. These orders will be routed after a certain amount of time or after a certain amount of money. Allocations will be fulfilled and vice versa. Whenever people want to liquidate their baskets, the order is taken to be buffered, basically pooled. And then the baskets are liquidated, so users will be able to save on fees. That’s with regard to Ethereum, whereas with regard to Polkadot, being able to do upgrades and high throughput, this will never be a problem.

TWJ: These days, it is not just only about 100% decentralization. It is also about integrating and sort of bridging centralized and decentralized capabilities. Can you explain why it is so necessary in today’s world and how Reef is working on that front?

Denko: So Reef has two parts. One is like the decentralized part, which is our basket engine, and all the smart contracts that are deployed on Ethereum and Polkadot and soon [will be deployed] in different places. And the other is the analytics engine. This is our centralist component and is basically sourcing intelligence. The reason why it exists in the first place is there is a lot of processing that needs to be done. For example, we collect a lot of data from exchanges, from social media, as well as blockchain traffic. So we run our own nodes. We are storing this data in a database and we are processing it with different algorithms. Currently, all of those things are not possible to be done properly in a decentralized manner. And that’s why we need to use decentralized infrastructure.

But Economics wise, this centralized component does not influence anything because everything is transparent. We are fully non-custodial, we don’t hold user funds. We don’t hold personal information. The only centralized part is just sourcing intelligence through the analytics engine. Until the whole landscape matures and we are able to like fully decentralize everything, it’s completely fine to have certain components centralized because our main focus is the user base. We need to be able to onboard average users, we have to lower the technical barrier of entry. And if certain centralized components help with that, they’re welcome.

TWJ: Reef functions as a DeFi yield engine. There have been recent talks that Yield Farming statistics have cooled down on Ethereum. What opportunity does that bring for Reef Finance and Polkadot? And, do you think Yield Farming’s popularity has declined? How does the future look for this sector?

Denko: Yeah. So, you know,  just like in any landscape that’s new, you have these psychological cycles where there are ups and downs and it’s part of the whole evolution and the iterative process. So when certain things show up such as some form of farming, everyone jumps on it and then you have the peak formed very fast for interest. And then it slowly, because of bubbles and different, technical issues and, bad actors, everything peaks. And then comes the period where things need to stabilize. The whole thing needs to earn social capital from the community and slowly get back. What happens here is that we’re at a point where, certain people try different games.

Most of them do not have a lot of utility, but it was a nice way to participate. And now everyone is participating, but they’re more cautious and so on. So I think that this DeFi landscape will evolve in multiple parallel tracks and they will have different like psychological cycles. But eventually, like projects that want to do something serious, projects that are backed by something tangible and productive, these projects will survive long-term because they are sustainable. Eventually, the whole DeFi landscape will mature over time.

TWJ: Reef Finance recently partnered with Bluezelle to leverage Bluezelle Oracles. can you please elaborate on how it is working out for you and why did you choose Bluezelle?

Denko: We have a lot of data in the background, and we’re looking for ways to turn all of our centralized parts into decentralized parts. This is our ultimate goal. The reason we partnered with them is that we are now able to store data and keep the data fresh and resistant to censorship. And these are just a few of the projects we’re utilizing.  We are also planning to announce more projects that will help in certain other things besides data.

TWJ: Is Reef Finance planning to expand the one architecture to some other layer apart from Polkadot?

Denko: Yes, that’s correct. When people hear about Reef, they have to understand that through Reef, they will be able to access the whole, basically the landscape, and currently most of the users and activities are in Ethereum. And that’s why we decided to use our initial version to support all of the Ethereum protocols. And right after we’ve been implementing all the Polkadots related things, and we want to be like the first product that will give access to the Ethereum user base and give exposure to Polkadot DeFi activities.

TWJ: Last month’s KuCoin hack was one of the biggest security breaches in recent history. Despite the fact that it was a centralized exchange whose hot wallets were compromised, the names of many DeFi platforms were also dragged into this incident.  This reignited the debates about centralization-decentralization and questions were raised as to whether the decentralized principles were abandoned to save the decentralized systems. What is your take on it? 

Denko: Over the last few years, we’ve had a certain monopolization of power around centralized exchanges, and with all the innovations that have taken place in blockchain technology, we’ve seen users switch to platforms like Uniswap and Balancer that are fully decentralized protocols. And I feel that centralized exchanges are slowly losing the battle, because they are being pushed from two sides, not just one, from a legal point of view. So, as you can see, they’ve moved to different jurisdictions. The regulations are becoming more and more strict and they also have been pushed for technology innovation. So I think long-term, decentralized exchanges are the way to go. Even though I think centralized exchanges are still very important because they are the main points for entry and exit between the fiat world and the crypto world.

But I think over time, most of the activities will be happening around decentralized exchanges, especially the fact that you cannot get hacked easily. You can diversify risk easier. And the hacks will most likely not be of the scale of like Kucoin in $200 million. I think the problem with centralized exchanges is not about, transparency and the technology being centralized, but the fact that there are a few people that are controlling a very big portion of the system. And that’s what happened. This was obviously an internal hack and in a decentralized world, this cannot happen.

TWJ: Due to the hack, DeFi has attracted a lot of bad press. Especially accusations of money laundering through a few DeFi platforms emerged. So do you think episodes like this are going to draw regulatory attention?

Denko: Yes.  I believe the DeFi regulations are definitely coming. I think every time something new happens, you have bad actors coming in.  It doesn’t matter if it’s called DeFi or something else and the fact that you have bad actors coming, it’s usually a sign of innovation because they are aware that the regulators are lagging behind the innovation. They don’t understand these technologies, but I believe that regulations are coming and again, with those regulations will make the landscape more mature.

TWJ: What sort of regulation do you expect in the future from the authorities?

Denko: Well, certain things cannot really become centralized because when decentralized protocols such as Reef are deployed out there in the world, it’s kind of impossible to take them down. Even the team or the creator cannot do it. But I believe it will be sort of a hybrid system. And I think the regulation will happen only at the edges of the system. For example, the exchanges, the entry, the exit, and, the rest of the things will just stay as it is because it’s just impossible to regulate certain things.

TWJ: Before wrapping up, could you please sign off by talking a little bit more about your product and how it is going to help the newcomers that are struggling to understand the extensive DeFi world and how does Reef makes it accessible for them?

Denko: Yeah. So, basically, what Reef aims to do is what Robinhood did to the traditional financial landscape. The way in which Robinhood gave access to traditional, average non – tech-savvy users to complex option chains and derivatives, and to equity from different markets with a very simple click, the way in which they abstracted the interaction with the order book, is what Reef aims to do to the DeFi landscape. And our goal is to be able to onboard an average user with a credit card, and we are working towards that.

Exclusive: The Bitcoin Man Talks about BeFaster, Impact of Coronavirus on the Economy and Much More

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The cryptocurrency industry has seen its fair share of updates and developments that have propelled it into the mainstream stratosphere. One of the most popular personalities in this growing industry is Mr. Herbert Sim, better known as ‘The Bitcoin Man’. He is also the founder of Crypto Chain University– the world’s first repository for blockchain and crypto research papers. Sim’s credentials also include being the Chairman of FortuneZ, a portal for iGaming, crypto and forex news.

Mr. Sim made news recently when he joined the BeFaster team as an investor and consultant. Tron Weekly caught up with him and was able to pick up his brain on the questions which we all wanted to ask. The interview covered all the topics from his ‘origin story’ to his vision for the future of the cryptocurrency industry.

The past few weeks have been a tumultuous period of time, not only in the financial space but also in global societies. This has also been a time when new technologies have come to the fore in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

During the interview, Mr. Sim noted that digital technologies need to be the need of the hour as countries who do not take that path may be left behind.

China is currently leading in terms of technology like 5 G technology and will soon be launching its digital Yuan, Mr. Sim said. The former Huobi Global Operations Director first became fascinated by the idea of decentralization at Oklahoma City University. It was at uni that he leaned toward Punycode by involving himself with ‘T.com’ by the unicode / punyhcode of xnv6d.com. The Bitcoin Man was also generous enough to share his views of the industry and how far it had come since its inception. According to him:

“So much has changed over the years. When I first started off, it was difficult to get your hands on Bitcoin, there were no exchanges then. It was all OTC, and directly from miners per se. As a firm believer in Bitcoin then, all I could do back then from 2010-2013, was sitting on the sidelines, compiling research papers from an academic angle, in the hopes that as more people got access to the knowledge, then legitimacy and credibility will come too.”

Herbert Sim Bitcoin Man Profile Chinese 5

Herbert Sim also gave us a picture of his experience in the cryptocurrency industry when things went awry and the markets crashed. His main point of reference was the infamous Mt.Gox hack, which he recounted as:

“And then 2014 MT Gox happened, and the entire industry’s credibility crashed even further. At that time, I was hit very badly as well and switched my focus to another start-up I founded called, WardrobeTrendsFashion – High Fashion & Luxury online magazine, which was acquired in 2017. It was sometime in 2016, that I founded TheBitcoinMan.com, simply to house my digital illustration work of Cryptocurrency, and Blockchain. And eventually became known as the ‘Bitcoin Man’ to many within the industry.

The Bitcoin Man then talked about his latest venture, becoming part of the BeFaster team. He stated that there were many factors that led him to come on board, including the business idea, the market potential as well as the technology used. Mr. Sim did not fail to mention that another reason for his entry was the passion and drive he saw in the founders. He claimed BeFaster was literally going to be faster with plans in the pipeline to draw more investors.

The differences between the Fintech world of the East and the West were another main point of discussion. From 2013 to 2017, more than 80% of the world’s cryptocurrency trading volume came from China, with the crypto winter of 2018 redistributing some of that concentration to the west. Bitcoin Man has urged new members to join the industry and keep an eye out for regulation.

An exclusive interview with Mazer Gaming and Gokhshtein eSports Division founders

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Tron Weekly Journal had an exclusive interview with the founders of two exciting eSports industry key players Mazer Gaming and Gokhshtein eSports Division. A couple of notable highlights from the answers provided by the founders we interviewed include: eSports is the next evolution in league sports and a future category in the Olympics, and eSports needs blockchain to improve on itself.

Undoubtedly, eSports is disrupting the entire sports and gaming sector quickly. We have seen eSports platforms that in no time grown in popularity, and now, another elephant has entered the house already, Mazer Gaming. Mazer is a professional entertainment and gaming organization.

As such, another new (but very promising) player that has joined the eSports race is Gokhshtein eSports Division, an eSports body of Gokhshtein Lifestyle and Crypto Magazine. David Gokhshtein, a famous cryptocurrency industry influencer and a Forbes’ contributing writer is the founder of Gokhshtein.

Now, it seems Mazer Gaming is all set to take control of the eSports industry at full. Why? We hear you ask. That’s because Mazer Gaming has partnered with Gokhshtein eSports Division alongside bringing David Gokhshtein (Gokhshtein owner) on board as their new CMO.

Today, we got lucky enough to be able to conduct an exclusive interview with the founders of both Mazer Gaming and Gokhshtein eSports Division amid their partnership. Both will be telling us about themselves, their ventures, why they partnered, and much more in this interview!

We start with David Gokhshtein, and then comes Mazer Gaming co-founder Sam Kijak.

Interview with Mazer Gaming’s new CMO David Gokhshtein

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and experience?

David Gokhshtein Forbes Finance Council
Image Credit: Forbes

I have worked in finance and sales for almost two decades. It comes naturally to me coming from two entrepreneurial parents. I’ve always been a team leader, and I enjoy educating and helping others. That’s how it ended up where I am today.

How did you meet with crypto and blockchain?

Through my family. My mother is pretty tech-savvy, and my uncle is a computer guy. One day they were talking about crypto and technology. I was fascinated! After that, I learned everything I could.

Tell us about how you came up with the idea of the to develop Gokhshtein’s esports division.

My nephews inspired me to pursue an Esports division. They’re always talking about the next game to be released, codes and hacks, and who can beat who. I wanted to bring something, build something that they could get excited about, too.

What do you think the eSports industry going?

Up. Esports is going to be huge. The next evolution in league sports and a future category in the Olympics. Sports won’t be relegated to a grassy field, pool, or court. Not anymore.

In your opinion, what would be the most significant challenges when working on eSports projects?

The same challenges will be found in Esports that are found in traditional league gaming. Finding Sponsorships, competing to be the best, and building a community of followers will all be crucial to the success of the league.

Apart from partnering with Mazer Gaming, you’ve been appointed as the new CMO. Many would love to know why you chose only the Mazer Gaming. What can we expect in the future?

I like building things up. Lots of people reached out to me regarding the future of Egaming with Gokhshtein Media and our Esports division. I chose to focus on a single team, one that I believe is groundbreaking in the industry, so that our efforts could be concentrated towards success. No one can predict the future, but I can say that I’m aiming for our team to be the best.

What role do you think the blockchain will (or can) play in eSports in the time ahead? As such, how will the blockchain change the eSports industry?

The challenge to the blockchain will always be mass user awareness. Until we can build new infrastructure in the old way of doing things, people are going to struggle to adjust to this new technology. For Esports, the technology is excellent for gamer’s smart contracts, in gameplay, and keeping a ledger of unarguable gaming statistics.

What imminent activities you’ve in mind to do as the new CMO of Mazer Gaming? Please share any new ideas you’ve for the new ally and company of yours.

My primary goal, at this moment, is to help the team grow. That will be through sponsorships, competition opportunities, and building relationships in the Esports community. There’s so much potential here. I hate even to presume to say where the best place to start would be because I don’t want to limit any of our opportunities.

What advice do you have for folks willing to follow your footsteps and become an eSports advisor or CMO?

Dream big! You won’t get anywhere without action and big ideas. If you like something, find out more about it, get involved, and don’t limit yourself with cants.

Interview with Mazer Gaming Co-founder Sam Kijak

Please tell us about your background, and how did you get into eSports.

I originally started in 2014 with graphic design, where I was able to find work through the gaming community. Eventually, I got a lot more involved and decided to start Mazer Gaming as a content group posting videos to YouTube and then eventually expanding into esports and getting to where we are today.

Tell us about how you came up with the idea of Mazer Gaming.

It’s a hilarious story. We had the original “M” logo (which you can now find hidden in the Tiger’s mouth in our current logo) made before we actually had the name. So I was looking for and listing off random words that started with that letter. Eventually, Mazer stuck, and once we released our new branding in 2017, we changed it to Mazer Gaming.

eSports has changed so much since the late ’90s if I’m not wrong. So, where do you see the eSports industry in the next five years?

I mean, it’s going to be huge. We were just recently featured on the TBS Network for the Gears of War Invitational in August. It’s no longer just a small industry; it’s mainstream. You can watch the Overwatch League on TV. There are esports arenas all across the world and a lot more professional stadiums being built; it’s no joke at all. This industry is going to keep rising and becoming one of the biggest sports in the world.

In your experience, which have been the most significant challenges when working on an eSports project?

It’s really been the funding. I’d love to have a million-dollar budget to work with. We have so many ideas and esports titles we want to expand into, but the funding isn’t there yet. We expect to add some new sponsors by the end of this year, so definitely be on the lookout for more teams and events Mazer might be at.

How do you feel about the current Mazer Gaming roster, and when you guys started trialing these players as an effort to build your roster up?

Every single person and the team works hard. Since we first originally signed some of these guys, the improvement has been insane. For example, our Gears of War team at the beginning of the year was only placing around 7/8th and now is looking at being one of the best two teams in the Pro League this year.

Talking about the “eSportification,” how can a hopeful development crew craft a successful eSport?

I think it’s essential that the developer and the pro players are on the same page. One of the issues with Fortnite is that they are continually making changes to their games and making the esports players unhappy. If you want your game fully catered to the pro scene, you need to develop it with those people in mind. Also, investing money into big tournaments will always be a great way to attract people. Having a smoothly ran tournament with a big prize pool will always make esports players happy and wanting more.

Can and how will the blockchain change the eSports industry going forward?

Esports needs blockchain to improve on itself. There are many struggles that esports deals with, such as monetization, transparency, and more. Blockchain is the perfect solution for this, in my opinion.

Can you share with us what you’re working on at present, and any cool plans you have got for the future?

We’re starting an esports academy with Call of Duty. If we see success with this, we will probably do this with many other games and build on these ideas. It’s something I’m looking forward to and can see it becoming a massive part of our future. The “Path to Pro” system in esports is sturdy, and we want to make that easier.

What imminent activities you’ve in mind since you just partnered with Gokhshtein ESports Division and got David Gokhshtein on board as the CMO.

We’re really going to work on increasing our connections and creating some formidable partnerships and sponsorships within the crypto industry and the esports industry.

Is there anything else you’d want our readers to know?

We’re aiming to dominate the esports industry. Hopefully, I’ll be able to look back on this and say we did.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market conditions and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Never miss our daily cryptocurrency news, price analysis, tips, and stories. Join us on Telegram | Twitter or subscribe to our weekly Newsletter.

Tron-based BeFaster’s Founders and CEOs Speak Exclusively with TronWeekly

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Current fitness apps lack user experience, reliability, usability, convenience, and security. Tron-based BeFaster is here to fix that all. In essence, BeFaster, the world’s most decentralized fitness application, is here to transform the fitness and health management.

Unlike traditional fitness apps in the market, BeFaster is a Tron blockchain-powered app that brings decentralized tech to the real world. The application does this by offering a pedometer built as Tron dApp with a good number of pleasingly rousing features.

BeFaster strives to not only become just another fitness mobile application for phones. But it also aims to enable everyone to take ‘better care’ of their health and create a financial incentive in which their very own health is the motivating issue.

Two of the BeFaster’s Co-Founders and CEOs, Irina Manilitsch and Maximilian Jurtz spoke exclusively to TronWeekly to discuss all about this revolutionary Tron-based fitness application with us in an interview. Here it is!

TronWeekly: Can you please tell us a little about your experience and background?

Our team consists of six people. Tim, Jonas, and Nicole are in charge of graphics, presentation, presentation, marketing, web design, and implementation.

All three are trained specialists in their fields and have several years of international experience. The three CEO’s Max, Irina, and Frank come from the financial analysis and financial planning sector. Together we have more than 40 years of professional experience.

BeFaster Tron fitness dapp founders
The three co-founders of BeFaster. Frank on the right, Irina left, and Max in the middle.

Max has experience in building and managing companies. Irina is a lawyer with particular expertise in international and European law. In addition to the ubiquitous legal certainty, the last point is particularly useful in our global expansion. Frank is one of the founding members of Tron Europe and thus a man of the first hour. He contributed to the successful growth of Tron Europe.

TronWeekly: What led you to develop BeFaster?

BeFaster came when Max and Irina were struggling on a treadmill in the gym. As everyone knows, you need a lot of motivation to get over their weaker selves. What motivates more than health and money? Because of the health, we were there.

At that time we had no idea how to earn money by running. When we talked to Frank about this seemingly crazy idea, he boldly said that the blockchain could make it possible. Blockchain technology inspired us from that point on.

We were looking for a way to make the Blockchain and Crypto world accessible to the general public. Because currently, knowledge seems to be reserved for only a small circle. We were lucky that Frank already belonged to this circle. BeFaster was born.

TronWeekly: What is the most significant USP of the BeFaster project?

The closed business cycle of BeFaster. The combination of challenges, marketing partners (BePartners) and the corresponding marketplace is so far unique. The advantages of this combination have not yet been available to all users of well-known running apps.

TronWeekly: What are the biggest challenges you expect from BeFaster to succeed?

Since BeFaster will be a global DApp, we are confronted with numerous legal and partly political regulations. It’s a big but manageable challenge to build BeFaster in such a way that it meets all current and future regulations.

TronWeekly: How do you assess the impact of your blockchain BeFaster solution on the health and fitness industry of the future?

An evolution! BeFaster creates its ecosystem. For BePartner, it will be easier to filter and reach their desired clientele. Marketing costs are significantly reduced, and the effectiveness of contract conclusion, sales and scheduling are increased.

The users (BeUser) earn money continuously and access attractive prices and offers on goods and services of BePartners. The BeUser can pay these perspectively with the run and won Coins (BFC). Blockchain makes it possible.

TronWeekly: What is your business model?

We connect users who are interested in sport and health and those who want to become one with BePartners who offer goods and services in the fields of health & care, sport, and wellness.

TronWeekly: What incentives does BeFaster offer for those who are invested or planning to invest in the project?

Everyone who has invested in our project (BeInvestor) acquires the BeFasterHoldertoken (BFCH). It gives them the right to participate in the company’s profits in the future. BeFaster distributes 50% of all profits to the investors in proportion to their investment.

For this purpose, we have developed our ROI (Return of Invest) Calculator, in which everyone can calculate his investment and the corresponding amount of his ROI.

Unlike many other ICOs, where investors only acquire coins and hope for rising prices, our focus is on corporate earnings. BeFaster will also generate revenues in Fiat currency. BeFaster will thus be broader in scope and secure the income and financial prospects of its investors regardless of the value of the BFC.

TronWeekly: What does the project that claims “your additional income” mean for general BeFaster users?

The BeUser receives the BFC for his steps and challenges won.
With increasing global BeUsers, the interest of BePartners in a connection to BeFaster also increases. For a connection, the BePartner has to invest in the project to increase the value of the BFC tok3n.

BeFaster rewards the users for something they do every day in their lives anyway – namely, to run. By the fact that the BFC will be perspectively exchangeable in Fiat currency, it is an additional income.

TronWeekly: What are your goals for the future?

BeFaster will be a global application and a constant companion for everyone in the world. In this way, we want to develop numerous addons and gadgets that will make your use of BeFaster an even more beautiful and personalized app experience.

BeFaster would like to be active in the future (horizon from 5 years) also in the area of charity and to create for this a private donation.

Of course, we also have the legal aspects in mind and will support our users in the future with tax questions regarding the payment of their BFC.

TronWeekly: Do you have anything else you would like to share with our readers?

BeFaster is THE ideal application to make blockchain technology and cryptocurrency accessible to EVERYONE. BeFaster can explain the connections and functions simply and playfully.

It is to be expected that large parts of the worldwide population will turn to this exciting and promising topic. The newly gained attention will give the entire Crypto world a tremendous boost. Of course, this will have a positive effect on the performance of all cryptographic currencies.

Crypto will be the master, with us it will BeFaster.

Thank you guys for all of your answers and taking the time to do this interview. The team at TronWeekly is grateful to you for your valuable thoughts and insights. If people want to follow BeFaster, where should they go?

Thank you for having us Ali, anyone interested in learning more about BeFaster can visit us at www.befaster.fit or connect with us on the following platforms:

Twitter: Befasterfit
Telegram: BeFastefitEnglish
Facebook: BeFaster.fit

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Never miss our daily cryptocurrency news, price analysis, tips, and stories. Join us on Telegram | Twitter or subscribe to our weekly Newsletter.

Meet Moon Marketing, the firm focused on merging the gap between the Tron blockchain and gamers

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The dedication of Moon Marketing is to bridge the gap between gamers out there and Tron dApps. How? We hear you ask. The answer is straightforward. By utilizing their DarkMatter (DMX) Gaming Platform and of course, innovative marketing tactics. The blockchain marketing firm launched its Tron-based token DMX last month as well as partnered with TronWeekly (yes with us).

Now yesterday, Moon Marketing managed to attract another cool partner, Aircoins (an augmented reality crypto app). Thanks to the newly-formed partnership, users could use their collected tokens for interacting with the DarkMatter (DMX) ecosystem.

So, as the Tron-focused blockchain marketing organization, Moon Marketing, keeps making waves in the space, we decided to interview them today. Let’s find out all about them.

Please tell us a bit about your background and experience?

Marketing is such a beautiful thing. We feel as though everyone does marketing at some point; rather you realize it or not. Our team comes from a pretty spread out the background.

Weston is currently attending college going after a degree in cybersecurity. Weston has worked in his hometown alongside Rickey helping local businesses market their company and products and showing them how to properly utilize simple marketing tactics and social media to their advantage.

Tahj has been marketing local tournaments to his hometown for years now. He has set up tournaments in both sports and video gaming to helping the local community see the fun in coming together to compete with one another to do the things that they enjoy.

Rickey is a sole proprietor that started a lawn service when he was just 15 years old. He marketed his business from the ground up. Ten years later and the business is doing better than ever. He now also enjoys partnering with Weston to help other businesses in their hometown use the social media and marketing tactics he used to build his own customer base.

Together we formed a team that is very passionate about the Tron community. We plan to use our combined knowledge in gaming, Tron, and marketing to help grow the amazing projects on the Tron blockchain. The ultimate goal: turning the dream of decentralization into a reality.

You said your team has experience in marketing and networking outside of crypto too, how did you meet with crypto and blockchain?

The idea of decentralization thru Cryptocurrency has always intrigued us. We like many others took notice of the most recent bull run. That is when we discovered cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin (obviously the most well known digital asset) During that process we found the Tron blockchain and the vision Justin Sun had.

We took one look at Tron, and it was like a light switch as it was a cryptocurrency that could most definitely be used in the real world. With the amazing things going on inside the Tron blockchain here we are today.

We now believe that with the potential of this blockchain the decentralization that we once dreamed of is now at our fingertips. We want to do our part in bringing Tron to the world by making the blockchain, it’s projected, and it’s many possibilities both easy to find and well known.

Tell us about how you came up with the idea of Moon Marketing.

As we all came into Tron, we found ourselves looking through many projects and having to hunt down information ourselves to learn about them. We saw projects not only as investments but as visions. As we continued to look into projects on the tron blockchain, we learned that some had amazing real-world use cases and we could see the future potential of those projects.

We felt like our biggest need as of then was a marketing team that could be trusted to sort through the many projects on the Tron blockchain and bring those with promising visions to the Tron community. That is when we started reaching out to Tron projects to offer our assistance with marketing.

After joining a few project teams, we decided we would like to offer our service to the tron community as a whole by creating MOON Marketing. Our goal is to teach not only the tron community but everyone about the many amazing opportunities, investments, and visions that Tron has to offer.

How do you guys access good ICO projects and what is the nature of your relationship with ICOs and investors?

When it comes down to picking a project to run an ICO for, our top priority is making sure the product is of high quality and safe for investors. We want our community to be confident when investing in a product we are backing. This will hopefully come from delivering a consistent level of quality over a period of time.

In your experience, what investor solicitation channels are now the most efficient ones?

This is precisely why we have created Moon Marketing. We feel as though there are very few options as far as a hands-on teams bringing these projects to the community. Think about how you usually find out about a project.

Right now with all the success that many projects have on the Tron blockchain, they have to be spread by person to person messages and the occasional partnership agreement with other channels.

We are here to create a more efficient way to bring the most significant projects to the community in a hands-on the manner in which we study those projects, their visions, and there plan so that we can share them with the community that makes all of this stuff possible in the first place.

What are the biggest challenges when working on blockchain gaming projects?

Ease of access for sure. We know there are tons of people out there that would love to earn monetary value just by playing these games. The challenge lies in reaching these people and making cryptocurrencies easier to understand and adapt.

Gamers are already frequently using forms of digital currencies, from coins in Super Mario Brothers to V-Bucks in Fortnite; they have had plenty of exposure to the concept over the years. In our opinion, this gives gamers a head start when it comes to understanding cryptocurrencies and one of the many reasons we will be heavily targeting them with our marketing efforts.

You recently launched your crypto gaming currency, can you tell us about that in brief?

To keep things short, Moon Marketing will use its most recent project DarkMatter to bring both gamers and users of social media into the wonderful world of crypto and what better place to show and help them see the potential of decentralization than the Tron blockchain.

To learn more, please stop by our Telegram at https://t.me/MOONMarketingfirm

Do you have any major partners you will like to share with us, and what are the benefits of becoming your official partner?

We do have some upcoming strategic partnerships planned to help us to reach beyond the Tron Blockchain; unfortunately we will have to wait for details to finalize to give more information.

We are very excited about our partnership with EMStoken Group. They have several use cases in the works. We help them create strategic marketing strategies. The future of this partnership is very bright, and we can’t wait to show you what our teams have been up to.

We will offer many benefits for the projects we partner with and support including:

  • We will utilize the Moon marketing community to tailor a unique plan around marketing each partners project to their target audience.
  • We grant our partners access to use our Social Media Exchange, where our community can earn precious DarkMatter by adding value and supporting Moon, and it’s partners on social media.
  • They receive access to commercial space during our live Dark Matter Gaming events
  • They will also receive aid with completing a token sale for new dApps or projects trying to reach the community.

What are your future plans or projects?

Growing and supporting Moon Marketing, our token, DarkMatter, and our partners will be our focus for the foreseeable future. We aim to build Moon for many years into a staple of the Tron Blockchain, becoming a platform to reach the best and most exciting projects across the community. You can expect constant updates and communication along the way as we progress forward.

An exclusive interview with Chibi Fighters core developer, a blockchain-based game that’s expanding to Tron after Ethereum

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The blockchain undoubtedly is disrupting the whole gaming experience effectively and quickly. We’ve seen some blockchain games that have grown in popularity in no time, and now, it seems there’s another elephant in the house, Chibi Fighters.

Chibi Fighters gives you an incredible, fun-filled survival game (where you need to secure your pet dragon) to enjoy and a platform to make handsome money through cryptocurrencies (you earn real crypto rewards, in TRX).

The game had been running on Ethereum for some time already but the developers decided to expand to Tron recently (the game will be fully-launched on Tron by coming March). Powered by the Tron blockchain technology now and with cool graphic designs, the core developer will be telling us in detail about himself, Chibi Fighters, why they chose Tron, and more in this interview.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and experience?

I started programming in a time where bulletin boards and aol existed. Back then there was this nifty little program called 3D Studio Max, which of all the 3D programs had a German translation. Btw. That’s why it’s still super popular in Germany.

Anyway, long story short: Making art for my games was more fun than trying to write them so I studied Digital Arts, became a digital artist, left Germany, worked at Weta Digital in New Zealand and was living my personal dream.

While working on Avatar, Hobbit and the likes was an amazing time, crypto was also very interesting. And with it being new, hyped, interesting, I decided to quit my day job and have a go at this bitcoin thing.

My ASIC became my best friend.

How did you meet with crypto and blockchain?

Being surrounded by passionate digital artists, rumors about Bitcoin traveled fast. It soon became office talk #1.

Tell us about how you came up with the idea of Chibi Fighters.

Originally it was the art that convinced me. Asa is such a talented artist, not to forget Kiwi of course, who is also very amazing. The original wave of Chibis was just a game asset. I needed to work on an incredibly low budget. I knew something could be done with those little fighters. While back then there was no animation or even RPG elements planned and soon grow big.

What are the biggest challenges when working on blockchain gaming projects?

The blockchain, interaction, updates. The area is so vast and new, it is impossible to keep up. You would need at least one programmer exclusively dealing with blockchain stuff, per blockchain.

Ethereum is super relaxed. Things hardly ever break. So, we can use our energy and focus on Tron.

Why you chose Tron (also, why you decided to move from Ethereum)?

First of all, it is important to me that we are not moving blockchains. We are expanding. Since we are a fighting game we thought it would be fun to have cross blockchain battles. The Tron server will be completely separate from Ethereum. However, markets will be merged where possible. That way players benefit from each other while still maintaining a friendly hostility.

The move, of course, was a similarity between the chains. It’s basically a clone of Ethereum. So easy to move over, or so we thought. Tron has various benefits over Ethereum, like no gas prices and no annoying ABIs to deal with. But their tech is very very new and is updated constantly.

We see you’ve got a referral program, would you please mind providing some details about that to our readers?

Yes, we do. Everyone can create a referral and receives 20% of sales created with their ref link. It is hardcoded into the contract so no requesting anything from us is needed, you get auto-paid.

What are your future plans or projects?

We just released a multiplayer module for Chibis. Moving forwards we are missing raids and a new clan system. Basically expanding multiplayer, and go from there.

Last, in your opinion, how will the blockchain change computer games from the way we’ve known them for years?

Difficult question. Of course, we all hope to Moon no matter what blockchain it is, but let’s be serious here for a moment. Games run on tight budgets (yes even a AAA title have tons of expenses, one bad choice, and the studio is bust) so adding on top of that the additional hassle of dealing with a fragile very volatile software and the market scenario is a decision, not one CFO will approve.

That being said though, this is exactly the strength of the new medium. Giving players ownership of their goods. You can dump 1000h in your WOW warrior, Blizzard laughs their ass to the bank and might just ban your account because why not.

Same goes for Magic, introducing their Duels where you can’t even trade cards anymore, an odd choice for a trading card game. Hearthstone etc. Studios will suck you dry.

Now actually owning your characters, assets and being able to sell them is something that is, of course, great for players, so this will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

In addition, it is easier to offer ingame revenue. Normal payment processors like PayPal would block your account if you dare to give the player a profit. Or fees will just kill you.
Pyramid schemes are fun, but having a quick game of something, and even if you just make some cents, it’s some cents you made by having fun, this will be interesting to see where it will take us.

Head over to https://trx.chibifighters.io/ for more details.

Discord: Chibi Fighters

Meet The Founder Beatzcoin

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Tron is a blockchain-based decentralised platform that aims to build a free digital entertainment system that allows easy sharing of content and provides a decentralised storage technology. Tron attempts to bridge the gap between content creators and content consumers. The Tron ecosystem is experiencing immense churn with various digital currencies being introduced in the market Both Beatzcoin and Tron work on the same share principles of secured content and providing creators a platform to showcase and leverage their talent

Beatzcoin is a front-runner in digital currencies that utilizes blockchain technology and is traded on VibraVid, a multi-chain decentralized podium.. VibraVid is a platform that taps into this space, offering a free peer to peer desktop and mobile streaming application that enables viewers to view and listen to content in the form of videos and audios. Content creators can upload, store, market, lease and sell their content to the users of this app alongside activities such as crowdfunding and sell merchandise and event tickets.Beatzcoin is a cryptocurrency which is the value of exchange on the VibraVid platform

Meet  Steven Zambron the founder of BeatzCoin

Beatzcoin, Steven wants to reinvent the global marketing platform for the digital content producers and the consumers

 Could you tell us about yourself and your position within VibraVid/Beatzcoin?

Sure. My name is Steven Zambron. I am the founder of BeatzCoin, the TRC20 (Tron Network) token for the VibraVid platform.

What inspired you to start VibraVid?

I was an aspiring rapper and then producer in my younger days. One of the greatest challenges my peers and I faced was ‘being noticed’. It is still very difficult to drive attention to your music (or Youtube™ video) without having a fair marketing budget, or spending hours a day begging for views. A lot of people with a ton of talent simply go un-noticed in this space. Once I became more aware of blockchain technology, it became apparent that the digital content industry not only needed to be tokenized but tokenized to the extent where extra incentives are put into place. Using fiat currency simply cannot achieve what we are doing.

When did you know it was time to convert the idea into reality?

I began teasing with the idea as far back as December of 2017. In early January I devoted most of any spare time I had to creating a business plan. As time went on, I reached out to a friend of mine, George Tobias, who was mining cryptocurrency at the time, and I pitched my ideas to him. I asked him if he’d help me to start putting the plan into motion. He agreed to come aboard, and we both began researching and testing ideas. In March I began reaching out to other people, as I definitely needed more help. Slowly but surely I put together a very small team, and I continued with the leadership role. By mid-April, the project had become a full-time job for me, even though I still continued to work a day job. Here we are today, after several thousands of devoted hours, our webpage and token (BeatzCoin) are alive and well!

What is Beatzcoin, and what differentiates it in the market?

BeatzCoin is a TRC20 token on the Tron (TRX) network. When using the TronScan wallet, transactions are extremely fast (usually 1-2 seconds), recorded on the Tron blockchain, and extremely cheap to process. Right now, BeatzCoin can be used in conjunction with the GoSeedit Bot to instantly send and tip BeatzCoin to Telegram™ users. This usage will be available on more platforms as time allows. What differentiates BeatzCoin from other tokens is that it is the primary token on the VibraVid social video and music sharing platform. VibraVid was taken down as there were some vulnerability discovered, and our team is working on correcting these issues, as well as adding some updates.

How will the investors benefit from investing in your project?

We do not recommend anyone to invest in BeatzCoin as our token is not any type of investment or security. Cryptocurrency presents many risks, and the market is very volatile. Anyone is welcome to join our bounty campaigns, airdrops, and giveaways. We have dedicated a whopping 6% of our total supply right now to these offers, and have frozen an additional 15% to launch more reward programs beginning 2 years from now! The VibraVid platform and the entire model of BeatzCoin are optimized for user and token holder reward. Aside from our standard campaigns, the VibraVid platform will provide users with several ways in which to earn more BeatzCoin. For example, someone may upload a video, and provide a bounty for you to view their content. VibraVid will also offer rewards in the form of contests. For example, we may announce that the video with the most views in 24 hours will receive 1,000 BeatzCoin. These are just some of the many ways we will continue to reward our community.

You started your journey from January 2018. How have the past 8 months been for you?

Like anything else in life, it has been a real roller-coaster ride. We have had many ups and downs. Several roadblocks have come our way but we’ve always managed to move forward! We’ve reached milestones that we did not see as possible. To do what we are doing takes a lot of time, dedication, and patience…and of course, money. All-in-all, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, and we are only in the beginning…

 What are some of the learning points and challenges you have faced so far?

There is no particular order; however, I would like to note that funding and dedicated people are the 2 most difficult assets to acquire. I am no expert on all things, so I needed help. In the beginning, I had to pitch my idea to 100’s of people in order to add 1 person to the team. That was the ratio I was working with. The learning process was never much of an issue for me. The problem that usually arose was not having enough time to do things, and needing other, more knowledgeable, people to work on different areas of the project. We started with absolutely no budget. In that scenario, it becomes very difficult to convince people to work for free, however, every now and again you find the right person with the right talent, and they see the same vision. Another challenge for me was working with a completely remote team, as well as people that were not fluent in the language that I speak. Then, of course, were legal concerns. We basically restructured our entire project in order to not be considered any type of security offering.

 To what extent are you trying to innovate to stay ahead of the competition?

During the past 8-9 months we’ve discovered or seen similar projects appear. Some of our competitors are Veracity, Steemit, Vuily, among a few others. Although you may find similar projects, most of them are very fancy in appearance, have some money backing them, have spent a lot more than us on PR but when it boils down to it, none of these projects are creating what we are creating. For instance, some of these projects are using Ethereum. I respect Ethereum but it is not good for micro-payments. We, in fact, were forced to abandon the idea of using Ethereum, specifically due to this issue. I often wonder why people invest in these projects. Another thing that concerns me is that a lot of these projects are using centralized methods of hosting and storage, yet claim to be some type of revolutionary, decentralized project. We are not concerned with the performance of our token. We are testing our own blockchain but we have full confidence in the Tron network. BeatzCoin will continue to remain involved in the building of the Tron community and infrastructure, and that, in my opinion, keeps us ahead of any competition.

At the moment how do you measure your success? What are your metrics?

I don’t see myself, or our project getting comfortable anytime soon. In fact, right now is more important than ever as we push for community adoption and usage. We have set many goals, and continue to achieve them. We, in nearly all cases, meet strict deadlines. Our roadmap is right on course. That is the only measure of success that I can give you at this time.

For someone establishing their own start-up, what advice would you give them?

Gather your ideas. It is very important (and sometimes difficult) to extract the ideas from your mind and put them into words or on paper. Keep editing your ideas until they are reasonably complete. It’s a never ending process but at some point you need to leave that alone and move forward with action. Build a good team. Don’t settle for people who are not willing to give 100%. It will only cause you heartache. In the beginning, not many people will see your vision as clearly as you do. This is perfectly normal, just understand it and accept it. Have patience. Don’t let anyone tell you that it cannot be done. Find and make ways to get it done! Read, study, and observe those who have found success. See what they did…and do it! Utilize any open-source or free methods to do things. You do not need tons of money to start your project or business, though many people will try to convince you otherwise. Lastly, believe in yourself, and always learn from mistakes.

It was our great pleasure to interview Steven Zambron. We TronWeekly Journal  are very impressed with project Beatzcoin is going introduce. With thousands of applications, platforms and websites available, over 5,00,000 hours of music video content is uploaded daily from across the globe on this wonder that is the internet. Add technological advancements, better mobile data connectivity and superior streaming services to the mix, and we notice a steady shift from conventional music platforms to digital music. While this is a boon for the music industry at large, it certainly creates a difficult situation for emerging talent to gather resources to fund their content as well as be noticed in the online space among a herd of creators.. Existing platforms also focus on marketing and revenue generation as their primary motives, failing to incentivize new content creators or users who give fresh content a chance. Here’s where VibraVid and Beatzcoin come in.

The beauty of this application is that at every point a user and well as a creator has the chance to earn Beatzcoin which they can use for a wide plethora of activities on the platform. A user earns Beatzcoins by signing up on the app, participating in bounties, watching paid to view advertisements, completing daily weekly/challenges and much more. On the other hand, creators cash in when someone watches/listens to their content, allowing paid to view videos ads on their content, crowdfunding among other activities. VibraVid has effectively tapped into a gaping market gap that is certain to benefit and reward video creators, record producers, musicians, music enthusiasts and the entire industry at large. VibraVid & Beatzcoin certainly make for a fun experience for one and all!

Meet The Founder Tron Loot

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Tron Loot takes digital assets distribution to the next level by taking the initiation of introducing new tokens on the Tron network to the Tron community in a fun and unique way.

This is great honor for Tron Weekly Journal to kick start the segment “Meet The Founder” with the Founder of TronLoot.

What do you and your team bring to table

TronLoots mission is to bring excitement, fungibility and asset sharing to the Tron Mainnnet. We aim to get as many unique and interesting tokens into as many wallets as possible in an incredibly fun way, which inadvertently promotes those assets to be shared and traded; increasing their desirability and overall value.

At this moment how do you measure success? what are your metrics

We measure success through positive token trade activity by the Tron community. We regularly monitor trade channels after introducing a token into the TronLoot Reward Pool to watch for an increase in that tokens tradability. Fairly reliably we see that after introduction, a token will become more desirable by the community due to big winners trading their newly acquired token in trade channels for a profit which in turn spreads that token into a larger pool of Tron wallets. This spreading further improves a tokens trade value and in effect it’s desirability.

How will the investors make money by investing in your project?

Making money through the TronLoot project is fairly straight forward. A user purchases TronLoot through either trade channels, or through TronScan, then sends TronLoot to our main collection address which is posted on TronScan, Telegram and Twitter, and in return that user receives back a random token in a random amount as a prize to their sending address. This prize is selected using random.org (for amount awarded) and a digital spin wheel with all token choices included on the wheel (for token awarded). This prize is variable based on the amount of TronLoot you send in; 1 TronLoot = a chance at between 1-10 of a random token sent back to you, 10 = 11-100, 100 = 101-1000, and our Max allowed amount per spin is 1000 which rewards between 1001-10,000. We include “a chance at winning” in our description due to the “You Lose” option included on the digital spin wheel, which has a chance of 19.79% per spin. All reward amounts, proof of payment, and proof of fairness is provided in our TronLoot Rewards Chat so that users have peace of mind when participating. We have also recently included multipliers on wins to make big wins even bigger! An example of this is “A user sends in 1000 TronLoot, and their spin on the Prize Wheel is (IGG x2), then random.org is rolled for a prize between 1001-10,000 and the result is 9567, this user has just won 19,134 IGG, which is a 382 TRX win on a 250TRX investment based on the TronScan trading prices of IGG and TronLoot.”

What do you hope to accomplish within one year?

We hope to have TronLoot known as a popular and exciting choice by token founders, collectors, and traders of the Tron ecosystem within one year. Currently we are fairly unknown, as our project has only been listed on TronScan for 6 days. But in those 6 days we have formed 13 Token strategic alliances, have built up the trading value of over 30 tokens including TronLoot and we have built a following of 145 users on our telegram chat. We have also released huge updates to trading (multipliers) and have continued to add onto our list of future developments.

Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t have ?

We believe that we have found a particularly interesting niche in the Tron ecosystem by having an early entry on being the foundational force behind spreading tokens in a fun and exciting way. We will continue to update and upgrade our systems as demand and feedback increases and hope to form a long lasting legacy within Tron.

why is now the time your company to exist?

Now is the perfect moment for TronLoot to come into existence. Tron Mainnnet is at an early stage, with only 200 tokens (increasing daily) available on TronScan; this allows TronLoot to spread these tokens and build a long term userbase before the amount of tokens available is far to over encumbering to feasibly build a foundation of value (which tokens need to be vetted for addition to the TronLoot Pool, What should their value be i.e. what multipliers are reasonable, is this addition long term or is this addition going to be detrimental in the long run, etc.). All of these variables are much easier to decide when the potential pool of choices is much smaller.

According to you what will be your biggest threat?

Our biggest threats at the moment are scam coins. We want to make sure that we include tokens of potential future value on the TronLoot Prize wheel and given that 99% of projects out on mainnet are new and information on them is coming out daily we have to tread lightly when choosing Prizewheel additions. The last thing we would ever want is to spread scam tokens into potentially thousands of wallets.