The Importance of Really Understanding Crypto Projects
PoolTogether Community Interview #15: Bronder
Welcome to the latest edition of the PoolTogether Community Interviews. This time with Bronder.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Describe yourself in a few words/facts:
I’m a numbers person. I like to check facts and statistics to make decisions. I also like to calculate APR, profits, or whatever number to share it with other people and help them make the best decision.
How long have you been into crypto?
I first started getting involved in crypto around November 2019. As I knew nothing about it, I was just randomly trading some tokens without having a clue what I was doing. I was a lot into technical analysis and trying to make money at first, but with time I started to read more and more articles which made me get interested in the actual use of cryptocurrencies and particularly DeFi.
The deal breaker for me was reading the “How to DeFi” book from Coingecko (you can get it from free by logging into Coingecko and earn points).
Do you want to tell us about the main lessons you have learned since then?
The biggest thing that I’ve learned for sure, is that most people should stop being regular traders. Crypto markets are usually crazy and highly unpredictable, and most times people get too emotional and do not make the right decisions.
That is why I highly recommend to actually invest is tokens that you understand and actually trust in. These investments should have a longer time horizon and would allow you to sleep comfortably through the nights.
How can people learn to understand tokens and not be caught in trading?
Unfortunately, when most people get to the crypto world, it is because they’ve heard of somebody making x100 wins with whatever token, so they just come looking for that same money. Also it doesn’t help that if you look for advice in YouTube or other platforms, the first thing that you find is people that are finding “low cap gems” (by the way, never trust those videos or pump and dump groups).
So most people will start like that, but from time to time you will hear somebody talking about DAOs and actually trying to help and understand. It is those people that you have to learn from! Get into a DAO, try to understand how things work on the background (don’t need to get too technical), look at tokenomics… When you finally do that, you will have much higher chances of finding good investment options.
What was your best crypto moment?
Most likely when I won the CELO prize pool for the first time on PoolTogether V3. I had made higher amounts of money by trading random tokens, but it didn’t feel anywhere as great as winning around $250 on the cEUR pool. I was pretty lucky, and I immediately shared it with some friends and family!
Obviously, being part of the PoolTogether community has also been the best, but I would consider that as a whole journey instead of a moment.
And your biggest fail?
I would say my first interaction with DeFi. Around February 2020 I decided to try Synthetix, a cool crypto dApp that I had heard of. Following the steps froma YouTuber, I bought some Ethereum on a CEX and sent it to my newly creaed wallet, on the Ethereum network…
As you may expect, I got crushed by the fees and lost around $100 from the $150 I had deposited (and trust me, Ethereum gas fees were much lower back then).
What is your goal with crypto and DeFi? Why did you choose this?
I wouldn’t say that I chose it, definitely not to stay for a long time, but I ended up liking it, a lot! So, I actually just started with a friend trying to make money. I had no other goals in my mind. The markets were always up, so regardless of my terrible decisions, I was actually making money. However, I wasn’t making even a fraction of what I could’ve made if I the why and how different tokens played their part.
I started to learn more of different projects, once again just to make money. But in the process of doing so, I found out that DeFi is actually a great financial tool that can help people achieve better financial freedom while making transactions faster and cheaper than with traditional banks. PoolTogether was just the cherry on the top that made me see that I had to try and help build the community to help other people with their financial freedom.
After more than a year, my focus has shifted so much. Do I still want to make money? Sure, who doesn’t. Do I value the journey and the knowledge that I’m getting even more? 100%, my main focus right now is to help build and learn.
What advice can you share with people from your Technical Analysis and numbers background?
I’m still a huge defender of technical analysis and its usefulness, but in the crypto world things move much faster and unpredictably than in traditional finance. That’s is why I think that understanding the fundamentals behind a project will help you much more than just looking at charts.
How did you find out about PoolTogether?
I found PoolTogether around July 2020 and it was the first ever DeFi application I interacted with. The dApp is mentioned in the “How to DeFi” book, and when I read about it, I fell in love with the concept. In Spain there aren’t any linked savings (such as the UK bonds), so this was the first time that I was hearing about having the chance to earn prizes by just saving!
What made you stick around?
At first the idea of PoolTogether seemed too good to be true, so I decided to check the community discord trying to find answers to my multiple questions. It turned out that the people on there were really welcoming and helped me with any doubts that I had. After a couple weeks, I found myself helping other people that had the same doubts that I had before. In a couple months I was actively participating in the discord, governance forum…
My progression felt really natural and finding PoolTogether made me learn a lot more about DeFi in general and fall in love with the whole space.
How are you involved in the community? Tell us about it.
I’m currently translating the English substack to Spanish, and also beginning to produce a PoolTogether community podcast in Spanish. However, that is probably the tip of the iceberg. What I like to do the most is help other people in discord and give my opinions and ideas on the governance forum.
Would you recommend PoolTogether to others? How would you describe it to them?
Definitely! Do you want to earn some money while having the excitement to check for prizes all at once? Then you have to check out PoolTogether! It was a no brainer for me and I have no regrets about checking it out. In fact, it was my best decision so far in the crypto space!
Are you involved in any other projects or communities?
I’m present in many discord communities, but mostly as a silent reader. I would love to participate even more than what I do, but my job doesn’t give me all the free time that I would like.
I have recently started being a bit more active in the Whiteboard Crypto community. It is basically a guy that started a YouTube channel and is really good at making videos for other people to learn. He kept growing and now he has his own course that you can enroll to. I would definitely check out his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsYYksPHiGqXHPoHI-fm5sg)
We hope you enjoyed this interview. Please look out for this Sunday’s PT Community Newsletter