In the first part of this two-part interview we hear from one of the veterans to the entire BSC space.
Crypto Girlfriend: BSC Original
In another edition of our BNB Chain NFT Spotlight, we’re bringing in an original star to the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and BNB Chain family. With a name of endearment and massive social media following Crypto Girlfriend, has become a premier name on BSC. She was one of the original invitees to the BSC News Podcast back in January 2021, and we’re proud to bring her back.
In this chat, we learn all about how CryptoGirlfriend has become a stalwart in the BNB Space as a promoter, creator, and icon. With a name that is easily taggable on Twitter, the CrytoGirlfriend finds herself beyond busy hosting spaces, making educational Youtube videos, and generally appearing as a noticeable name across the space. Endowed with a wealth of knowledge that comes through years of experience, Crypto Girlfriend brings a comfortable and inviting attitude to make us all feel welcome.
In part one of this two part interview, we will explore the origins of CryptoGirlfriend, place her role in the history of BSC, and dive into her candid takes on Crypto Twitter and the health of the NFT space on BSC.
Q: Do you mind starting with your intro to crypto––what is your crypto origin?
A: I’ve always been into technology. I went to school for computer networking, and I’ve made my own websites, then I got into the music thing of DJing. I’ve always kind of been involved in technology. I was heavily on IRC [Internet Relay Chat], and chatting on those OG chat rooms all the time. Telegram which everybody’s on these days is kind of a natural for me, it’s the same type of thing.
Back in the day––I want to say it was around maybe 2010––I saw that a bunch of my friends from IRC were mining Bitcoin. And I was like, ‘Oh, this is interesting. How do I do that?’ But I had no clue how to do that at. So nothing happened until later on.
This one friend of mine got me into crypto. He was really heavily into crypto and was also a DJ/music producer. We worked on a lot of things together. I ended up getting involved and buying my first Bitcoin, then my first Ethereum, and my first Litecoin. I had Dogecoin too, which I actually won in a bet back in like 2017. I actually bought LINK back in 2017, when it was like 11 cents.
Eventually, 2017/2018 came around. I kind of got involved in some of those scam sites where you deposit Bitcoin, and you get promised the world on APR interest rates. I lost some money there. Then I got out of crypto again for a little bit, doing life things.
Once COVID happened, I noticed Bitcoin dropped down to like $3,500 or something in March of 2020. I wish I was paying more attention and bought myself a Bitcoin at that time, but I wasn’t. I found it again later and after that, I started paying attention and I haven’t stopped paying attention since.
Shortly thereafter, I rediscovered the LINK I bought back in 2017 and at that time, it was $4. So I thought: ‘Maybe I could really do something with this. Maybe I can figure out this whole crypto thing.’
So I started out again. I learned how to buy some AMPL. I got into rebase tokens. I started doing yield farming on Ethereum––all in 2020.
That all kind of led to how I started helping some friends launch some tokens and being around in the Telegram communities that I decided to start my Crypto Twitter account to promote my friends’ tokens and help promote things. Finally, I found the Binance Smart Chain in December 2020. From there, it was no looking back after that.
Q: It’s good to see you have a very historic background in the web and crypto. It’s great to know you have that background from the very beginning. Explain to me more about that time in December 2020 that changed everything. What was that moment? Take me back to December 2020 and the beginning of BSC.
A: Probably a little bit before that actually. So, my friends were all telling me about these projects. It was interesting because, before that, one of my friends––the same friend that got me into crypto––was working with some guys on an Ethereum project. They were making these NFTs, a special NFT series called CryptoGirlfriends. That’s sort of where my name came from––the series that they created because I was involved in it.
They asked, ‘Hey, since your a DJ, do you mind if we make one of these special Crypto Girlfriends and design it after you as a DJ?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, that sounds cool. I’m all for it.’ So I actually got involved in that. They made a Crypto Girlfriend that was a DJ version of me as an NFT––which I still have. So before I got on Binance Smart Chain, they were on Ethereum. They eventually ended up going on Binance Smart Chain, where they are now.
But some of those same circle of friends told me about JetFuel that was launching on the Binance Smart Chain. It was like December 6 or something, I got on to JetFuel for the first day that it started.
Prior to that, they were doing some test net stuff and I was trying that out. I didn’t even know how to set up Binance Smart Chain. I had to figure out how to set it up on MetaMask, then first use the testnet and after using the mainnet. I learned how to do all that.
Even getting money from Ethereum or from one of the exchanges to Binance Smart Chain was a challenge. I was like, ‘How the heck do I use it?’
It was this whole learning curve. It was so hard. I couldn’t even withdraw from Binance.US at the time in BEP-20. I had to do it via the BEP-2, which was the only option. So I was like, ‘Okay, I have BEP-2, how do I get it to BEP-20?’ I had to be like walked through all of this and handheld to figure it all out.
When I was on Ethereum doing yield farming, it was like harvesting maybe once a week. And when I started on JetFuel, I could harvest every single hour, and then re-compound it and the fees were so ridiculously low. I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’m never going back to Ethereum for yield farming ever again.’
Q: So you mentioned the idea of hand-holding, and then meeting people to help you along. How do you explain to other people what you do? If you were to explain to somebody who’s not a crypto person––what do you explain to them? How do you explain your job to someone who’s outside of Web3?
A: That’s a good question. Everybody, everybody wants to know more since I was so successful with my yield farming last year. They say: ‘Well, how did you do it? I want to do that? I want to make money too.’
It’s not that easy, though. It’s not something that you could just teach a normal person, or where anybody can start learning how to yield farm. It took me some time, and luckily, when I first started back in 2017, I learned some basics. I knew how to transfer from wallets, what are different wallets were, and how to buy and purchase. When I started back again, it was a little bit easier for me the next time.
I was also struggling so hard with this technical stuff that I realized if I’m struggling, and I have a technical background, then other people like normal non-technical people are going to struggle. This is how I came up with the ideas to make videos and educate people with all my ‘How To’ videos.
I like to teach people and I like to help other people learn how to do yield farming, learn how to use the Binance Smart Chain, and know how to do this whole NFT thing.
When you teach somebody else, you have to really learn and master the subject yourself. Maybe I didn’t know every single little piece, but as I’m putting together the script for these videos and trying to figure out how to easily explain it in layman’s terms so that somebody can understand it, that helped me learn to have stronger knowledge as well.
And so who am I? I guess I would say, I’m a Social Media/Twitter Crypto Influencer that educates people through YouTube, Telegram, AMA’s and a variety of sources.
Q: Speaking of Crypto Twitter. That’s a question I specifically had in mind for you. How do you handle your sanity on it? I don’t mean to sound pejorative or something like that, but your name––it seems like a target in some ways. You’re THE ‘Crypto Girlfriend.’ I feel like a lot of people would be drawn to that name––not just in negative ways––it’s a name that attracts attention.
I get tagged every single day. I’m tagged with CZ and tagged with CryptoFinally. I’m tagged with GirlGoneCrypto. It’s really crazy that I’m tagged with all these hi-end people that are really in the industry. It is crazy and very interesting.
I think I’m more focused primarily on BSC so that it’s been not as bad as it could be. Even though I do promote other projects and other chains from time to time––that is because I’m on the other chains.
However, I would say it’s a little bit more manageable. I’m just constantly checking my notifications and mentions all the time. I don’t have my DMs open unless I am following the people because that would just get super, super crazy.
Q: In a similar light––how do you navigate promotion? How do you navigate the partnerships that you’re developing? As you said, you’re probably getting tons of people who are tagging you saying, ‘I want promotion. I want to be with this. I want to be with that.’ What are the criteria you look for in a project?
A: It started out with friends or people I knew or something a friend recommended. I’m heavily involved in the main BSC Telegram chats like BSC Gems, for example. That is one of the primary ones I’m involved in.
They don’t allow just anybody to go in there and shill and spam. They’re very protective. Unless you’ve been in there participating for some time, or you’re a trusted member, they don’t let people show and do any of that stuff.
So from being in those types of communities and other private Telegram communities, those are the ones that I more or less trust a little better. But, can we really trust any of these? Especially with most of the people being anonymous?
I try to at least get some recommendations from some of the more reputable people that are in BSC. A lot of times if I like the project, I’ll just start promoting it. Like this month I’ve got a new project that minted: OddBlocks. It’s something different. It’s the first on-chain NFT project, where everything resides on the chain.
If you find these gems, you can find something different. You might need to talk to the people. I might talk to somebody for a while in DMs or messages just to feel them out if I think they’re gonna be scammers. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been scammed before. I’ve talked to some people about their kids and their family. but still, in the end, they rugged. It was horrible. You have to at least give it a shot, or else you’re not going to promote anything.
“I’m creating this crypto comic book. There’s a scene in it where you could see some NFT artwork on the back of a wall. I got the idea that I wanted to put at least one of the OddBlocks on my wall in the comic book, just like you’d have a picture hanging on the wall. I plan to do that in person and I think that’s a cool way to collaborate with another BSC project. I think: ‘how else can I insert some of these other NFTs or artwork inside things like my comic book and other projects I am doing?’”
I actually minted some OddBlocks as well. It looks like a cool project. I heard them in a Twitter Spaces. It was cool to hear them explain how they’re pioneers in what they’re doing.
I’m creating this crypto comic book. There’s a scene in it where you could see some NFT artwork on the back of a wall. I got the idea that I wanted to put at least one of the OddBlocks on my wall in the comic book, just like you’d have a picture hanging on the wall. I plan to do that in person and I think that’s a cool way to collaborate with another BSC project. I think: ‘how else can I insert some of these other NFTs or artwork inside things like my comic book and other projects I am doing?’
Q: Shifting gears since you’re a veteran and pro BSC: what’s the health of the Binance Smart Chain (BNB Chain)?
Binance Smart Chain…I would say when I first started getting into it, it felt like a small community. It felt like everybody was helping each other. They were very friendly. It was a really nice place to be.
And last year, there were a lot of projects, a lot of yield farms, and a lot of meme coin launches. I think some of the meme coins broke the network for a minute. It seems like it’s kind of changed over the past year or so, where everybody was all excited and friendly, and into the community with BSC.
I feel like, towards the end of last year, people either started going their separate ways or began doing something different. I didn’t feel that strong of a sense of community like I once did when I was first involved in BSC. Maybe people are jumping ship and going to different chains? I think Fantom recently ended up briefly overtaking BSC for most transactions or most users or something like that.
There are so many different chains popping up now that it’s harder for BSC to compete. But at the same time, BSC is king. There are all these other networks that claim they could do all these TPS per second––transactions per second. It’s really not real. It’s just a marketing scheme. I know some BSC developers that run projects who have attached nodes to different networks, and these other chains are getting nowhere close to what they’re claiming.
BSC also has Binance backing them, per se, where they can afford the hardware necessary to run a chain that is going to be ‘The Chain’ to support both Metaverse and GameFi. C’mon.. a game launched on Polygon recently and it completely rugged the network. And that was one game. Nobody can compare. Ethereum can compare. They have a solid network, but it’s expensive and a lot slower than Binance right now.
I think Binance is still going to be king. Binance has invested a lot of money in metaverse-type projects. And I think that is what we’re gonna see more of in this coming year: Metaverse and GameFi on Binance. I think they’re just getting started in that area.
But I felt like last year, halfway through the year, things started dying down. Not as many yield farms were launching, not as many meme coins were launching.
I did eventually start dabbling in NFTs last year in about the summertime. I ended up finding a community on Telegram of Binance: the BSC NFT Lounge. It made me feel more like regular BSC in the early days––that community vibe. Everyone was friendly and cool. People want that––especially in COVID times where we’re all locked up and can’t go places. You want to find a group of people to hang out with and kill some time.
“It’s about coming up with ideas to try to further the growth of BSC. We all have the same goal. We want more users in BSC NFTs. We want the space to grow. We want more high-level projects.”
Q: Speak to me about that community of NFTs on Binance Smart Chain? It seems to me that NFTs on Binance Smart Chain don’t have a great reputation. For whatever reason people prefer Ethereum, or want Solana for whatever reason. However, from what I can see is there seems to be a community that is thriving on BSC, and really just for lack of better terms doesn’t give a fuck about these other chains.
A: Oh, they don’t. It’s obviously not as large we’d all hope but we’re still early when it comes to BSC NFTs. It’s interesting because what I’ve been finding is that on Ethereum, you have OpenSea as one main marketplace. Anybody could be on there. On BSC, it’s not exactly like that.
I would say PancakeSwap has some of the largest, if not the largest volume, on any site on BSC. That NFT Marketplace––we were all waiting for it, we were all hoping that it would be like the premier marketplace. And I think we can all agree that was a little bit underwhelming once it came out.
But what I noticed is that you can’t be on PancakeSwaps Marketplace until you have minted out your entire collection. That’s one of the criteria. How are we ever going to get more notoriety, more recognition if we can’t even be on the premier site until you’ve minted out? It’s not easy.
I think that is a barrier on the BSC side. Some of the other marketplaces like NFTKey are similar––and it’s a little easier to get on there. But it’s the same thing, it’s a closed-off system. It’s not open completely. People love BSC because they love the low fees and accessibility.
So far, most of the people that you find in BSC have been pretty friendly in the NFT community space. Some of the guys took it upon themselves to create an Alliance Group –– the BSC NFT Growth Alliance –– to bring together project owners and influential people in the BSC space. Maybe it’s a community manager or someone that does YouTube promotions or whoever it is.
It’s about coming up with ideas to try to further the growth of BSC. We all have the same goal. We want more users in BSC NFTs. We want the space to grow. We want more high-level projects.
We’re all trying to do our part. There’s DeHuffski starting the Twitter spaces that he’s doing regularly. I’m trying to start doing more YouTube videos. I prefer to do YouTube videos for NFTs because I can show them on screen––NFTs are visual, you know.
I think as long as there are people like us that are working hard to try to further the community then we’re going to get there.
It is interesting because I had somebody reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, I like your project. I’ll help promote it for you. Can you just give me one of the NFTs?’ And I say, ‘Yeah sure, totally.’ And then they’re like, ‘oh, it’s not on Ethereum or Solana. Just kidding. Nevermind.’
Like what? Why does it even matter? So BSC still might get a bad rap, unfortunately, but we’re gonna make it work one way or another.
Where to find CryptoGirlfriend
Source : bsc.news
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