My fellow Polkadot agents:
I am requesting a tip of 1000 DOT for the last 4+ years of ecosystem activism and engagement. I will do my best to enumerate my history and provide examples across that time in an effort to demonstrate my ongoing commitment to the ecosystem and my fellow agents.
Brief Timeline:
During the summer of 2020, I began researching blockchain projects that I believed would be good investments, and I was immediately drawn to the promise of Polkadot due to the legacy of Gavin Wood and his vision of interoperability. This was when I stumbled upon my first YouTube video, What Is Polkadot? featuring Bill Laboon and Dan Reecer. I shared this video with family and friends on Facebook (cannot provide links as evidence, as I haven’t signed in for so long I’ve effectively been locked out of my account), and joined a burgeoning Facebook group where people were talking about Polkadot exclusively.
Fall / Winter 2020, I continue to accumulate DOT, watch more videos–including Web3 Foundation’s Blockchain Fundamentals MOOC taught by Bill Laboon. I also shared this series with family and friends who wanted to learn more about blockchain technology.
January 2021, I started my Twitter / X account “The Phunky One” (a riff on my original AOL screen name from 1995, “PhunkySid”) to start sharing my excitement for / love of Polkadot. During the first half of that year, I begin constantly interacting with others who were deeply interested in the ecosystem including GldCalf, LeemoXD, Alice_und_Bob, MoonBearer, YungBeef, effectively forming the proto-ChaosDAO on the Twitter timeline.
July 2021, I was invited to join ChaosDAO, but had to ask what a Discord server was at the time (lol)
For the following year, I became a Singular NFT junkie who supported and promoted artists working in the ecosystem. As a former educator, I found this new technology incredibly interesting, especially due to its ability to support and sustain artists via this new medium.
Winter 2021/2022, I excitedly deployed the vast majority of my smol DOT stack into crowdloans for teams I wanted to support and leave the rest staked.
October 2022, I was DMed by David Chapman (aka “KBL”) and asked if I had ever considered working full time in the Web3 industry. About a week later I had a fateful meeting with him alongside Rich “Shorty” Shorten, a Discord lurker who called me out for NOT being the oldest “grandpa” in ChaosDAO about a year earlier. He was also one of the co-founders of Lucky Friday, and I was hired shortly thereafter to become the Director of Fellowship and Protocol Relations, making me the second employee of the company.
November 2022, I officially started my job and made my first appearance on AAG with Jay and Leemo in my first week (Episode #9, November 7th 2022). My role as a regular panelist has evolved over that time to include the “State of the Phunk” and being the official timekeeper. Barring travel conflicts, I have been on close to 95% of the episodes and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, especially should Lucky Friday continue its role as DVs.
Summer 2023, I applied to be a speaker at Polkadot Decoded to provide a presentation on Teddy DAO, but was not selected. Undeterred by this decision, I recorded my own Polkadot Decoded talk and posted it on Twitter, and then hosted the first ever Polkadot Decoded watch party for the Tampa Bay region here in Florida. I have also applied to speak about Teddy DAO and Polkadot at ETH Denver every year, and will continue to do so until I have been accepted.
Winter 2023, I was tapped by Chris Wade (aka Learn Polkadot) to join him for a meeting with Andrew Stallings to help discuss and strategize a ref to potentially fund Conor Daly’s sponsorship by the Polkadot community. I attended regular meetings with his team and helped orchestrate a lot of things behind the scenes until it came to fruition.
Summer 2024, Lucky Friday was officially selected to receive a DV role, and I continue lead point on the entire initiative, from coordinating the setup of the bot in our server, creating the growing OpenGov public forum on TG, posting all voting notifications to proponents of referenda, gather and summarize commentary from fellow team members to provide detailed feedback, etc. All told, since June of this year, AAG and OpenGov duties have occupied at least 25% of my time each week.
For many months on AAG and in online forums we have discussed the need for spending stables and using the tipping function to “put DOT in the hands of good ecosystem agents.” We also talk a lot about the importance of social reputation in the ecosystem, and though my contributions have not been technical in nature, I have tried my best to provide value in a number of other ways and I hope that this brief timeline of activity above demonstrates that in a succinct way.
Thank you in advance for your consideration in this matter, and I hope you will consider supporting me with your AYE vote as much as I have supported the Polkadot ecosystem over the last 4+ years.
Gratefully,
Ryan / Phunky