Anay Simunovic

Posted on Oct 14, 2021Read on Mirror.xyz

The Weekly Hop #7: Humans of RabbitHole

The Weekly Hop is a newsletter written by Pathfinders. Click here to learn more about Pathfinders and our role in the decentralization of RabbitHole.

It’s my first intro for the Weekly Hop, and I already have a confession to make…

This introduction was supposed to be a riff on an essay from Packy McCormick’s newsletter on the progressive decentralization of narrative––a topic relevant to the development of web3 organizations. I planned to share the Pathfinders’ plan to get the community more involved, ideas for revenue generation, and how we can start building this blossoming DAO in public.

But when I started writing, I came to realize that an essay on how to build our DAO’s narrative with the community is hypocritical: you don’t even know my story (or most of the Pathfinders’ stories).

If we’re going to “build in public” and ask the RabbitHole community to build this narrative with us, we should start by shedding light on the Pathfinders themselves. As Packy wrote in his article:

“In an age of abundant things, and even abundant stories, the ability to tell a great story is a crucial building block. But stories alone aren’t enough. You need to let your community join in painting a narrative.”

That community is you, it’s me, it’s all of us finding our way in web3. It’s important to take a step back and share these stories, so that they don’t get lost or forgotten along the way.

It’s only fitting that I tell my story today. Hopefully, this is the first of many “How I fell down the rabbit hole” stories on the Weekly Hop. If you’re on the edge, I hope it inspires at least one of you to take the plunge into web3.

How I fell down the rabbit hole

To keep myself from writing a rambling story on my foray into crypto, I’ll do this in a Q&A fashion. Rabbits don’t have time to waste.

How did you fall down the rabbit hole?

It’s a boring, not-that-unique story but I’ll tell it anyway.

In 2013, I first learned about Bitcoin from my 11th grade econ teacher. I can still imagine the lecture slides with headlines of Bitcoin’s problems and supply/demand debates. Naturally, I wrote it off as a fad for criminals and kids wanting to buy drugs online. Sad but thanks for the early alpha, Mr. Edelman.

Fast forward to 2017 when I seriously fell down the rabbit hole. I was a junior in college when some friends started making ridiculous amounts of money in crypto. I was still skeptical but keen to learn more.

I educated myself on the implications of blockchain technology, and then quickly resonated with the importance of decentralization. Once the lightbulb turned on, there was no turning back. I made my first investment during the ICO boom of 2017/18.

Like many people working in web3, I came for the potential investment returns but stayed for the revolutionary technology. I knew I wanted to build something in crypto that could bring more people into the space.

In January 2018, I co-founded an educational blockchain conference focused on blockchain’s potential impact on different industries like supply chain, healthcare, and government. With over 200 people attending later that year, it was way more successful than either of us could have imagined, given that the conference was during the depths of the bear market.

The unexpected high attendance taught me something important: even though the market was bottoming out, people still cared deeply about how blockchain could improve the way we work. They still care.

It’s been a few years since then! What are you doing now?

Following graduation, I joined Venture For America, a 2-year post-grad program working for a startup in a mid-sized city. I got my first job in New Orleans doing sales at a co-working space.

Then, after losing that first job due to the pandemic, I was introduced to the team at Gilded. They are a crypto accounting and payments company aiming to help companies and organizations stay compliant in web3. Not long after that, I started a job in content marketing for Gilded and work full-time for them today.

Gilded was a no-brainer because I keep returning to the theme of how we can bring crypto to the masses and Gilded is playing a huge role in that fight.

How did you find your way into DAOs and Pathfinders?

I’ve always been fascinated by what the future of work will look like. Once I learned about DAOs, I wanted to get my hands dirty and see what all of the hype was about.

I started exploring the wild west of DAOs like Creator Cabins, mCLUB, KrauseHouse, and, of course, Pathfinders.

RabbitHole’s idea for an on-chain resume and provenance of on-chain reputation instantly resonated with me as a portal to web3. Helping the team to decentralize this movement was a no-brainer. I’m so excited to see where we can take Pathfinders next, as we build the foundations for years to come.

That’s the short story on how I fell down the rabbit hole. Four years in and I still feel like I’m just at the beginning of my journey. In a future post (perhaps on my Twitter?), I’ll dive more into what I’ve learned so far and where I see the future of DAOs going.

How did you fall down the crypto rabbit hole? Jump into the Weekly Hop Discussion channel in the RabbitHole Discord to let us know!

Written by @JonahBaer.

Pathfinder update:

As more DAOs are created, we’re beginning to notice what could become an evolution of echo chambers–groups of people that are siloed in their shared interests. To avoid this problem, over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been hard at work creating our Charter! This working document will set the foundation for the Pathfinder program’s mission, vision, and values. And with this common understanding, we hope to onboard the most diverse team possible.

We’re glad to have you with us on this journey!

New Pathfinder guides:

We’ve got one new guide for you this week, and you definitely don’t want to miss it!

Keep your eyes peeled for some exciting quests coming soon.

Section compiled by @anay_sim.

Rabbit of the week:

This week, we feature a photo of a QuestRabbit in their natural habitat:

Curated by @CurlyBracketEffect

Btw - For all of you rabbit fanatics out there, last week’s rabbit name was Crusader Rabbit! He was the star of the first-ever animated series produced for television.

That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to join the RabbitHole Discord or tweet us @pathfinders_gg to get more involved in the community.