That time I spoke to Dan Larimer, Roger Ver, Jackson Palmer, influenced the NEO development and aided Loopring...
The cryptocurrency space is so young that it's still very easily accessible and actually be part of the community. I realized that over time, I've actually connected with several key players in crypto as well as done 'my part' to help advance the space, small as it may be. I'm collecting anecdotes now!
That time I spoke to Dan Larimer, Roger Ver, Jackson Palmer...
When you think of famous people in the tech space like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the like, they can often feel very far away and much like movie actors or presidents it's unlikely that you'll ever really come in contact with them. Not with crypto!Cryptocurrency is still so young that it's very accessible, even to newcomers. Perhaps it is because of it's open source nature, or perhaps nowadays our means of communication is more efficient, but I realized that over time I've actually communicated with a variety of important figures in the cryptocurrency space.
Jackson Palmer
Take for instance Jackson Palmer, the creator of Dogecoin, who posts on Steemit under the handle 
Though Jackson Palmer is by no means a 'big' player in the space, he is not unknown either and I still think it's pretty cool how easy it is to connect to someone like the Dogefather.
Dan Larimer
Or what about those times that Dan Larimer responded in person to two of my posts on Steemit? At the time EOS had just made known that they were going to use a Byzantine Fault tolerance consensus model much like NEO and I made some posts comparing the two projects and offering criticism, and Dan Larimer himself came out to respond on two occassions:
First he showed up here:
And later on my other post:
That's pretty cool! Maybe one day, it will be like saying "Oh yeah, I communicated with Bill Gates about Windows once back in the day".
Roger Ver
So of course when I spotted Roger Ver's posting the other day here on Steemit, I couldn't help myself and decided I would add to my little collection of 'I once spoke to...''s and I went ahead and flat-out asked him to respond so I could! 😀
It continues to amaze me how easy it is to actually get in touch with people like this. I think I'm going to continue to play this mini-game of collect 'em all of mine, with the ultimate goal being to add Vitalik Buterin and Da Hongfei to my list. And, Mr. Nakamoto himself of course, though that seems a little more out of reach. 😉
That time I aided Loopring's marketing...
A while ago I had discovered Loopring (LRC) and was very enthusiastic about my new investment opportunity. It was then that I discovered how easy it is to not only get in touch with people, but actually get involved as well. I saw that Loopring was a good project with an interesting idea, but as Chinese developers it was clear they had trouble reaching out to the community. At the time I was also enthusiastic about a crypto Youtuber The Crypto Lark and I realized that he was the perfect person to interview the people from Loopring. If only I could connect the two together...somehow.Oh right, of course I can! And so I did. It resulted in the video interview below.
I like to think this helped the project a lot in reaching a wider audience in it's early days and getting the word out. And I think the project deserved it, and I also think the Crypto Lark deserved getting the scoop for it.
I almost joined the 'Fellowship of the Ring' community initiative after that, which has similarities to NEO's City of Zion, and actually got an invite too but by that time I had sold my Loopring and was busy with other things and it didn't feel like it made sense to do so.
That time I influenced the NEO development...
This one is still on-going! It happened only a few days ago on the NEO sub-reddit where a discussion was taking place on the new voting mechanism. A communitymember was doing a poll on what the community prefers as a voting model, and when the pro's and cons of each option were discussed somebody pointed out that exchanges like Binance will have a lot of NEO in their wallet and as such have an unfairly large amount of voting power to influence (centralize) the voting process.I made a suggestion to change the voting mechanism in such a way that in order to vote (or even receive GAS) one needs to lock up their NEO for a certain period. This would prevent exchange-abuse because the lock-up period means they cannot participate in voting because they would risk running into liquidity problems if users want to withdraw their NEO. Additionally, it would increase the HODLing power of NEO because the lock-up means less people can panic-sell. The idea was met with much enthusiasm and it is currently being inserted into a new NEO proposal. I believe if it makes it in, there will be a little reference to my reddit name to give me credits for thinking of it.
The idea is now travelling upstream towards the developers, and I sincerely hope that it makes it in. Not just because it would be a good idea, but also because I would be really proud of it! It would really make my day/year if I could say: "You know that feature XYZ that we all love so much? That's in there because of me!"
It's too early to say, but I'm getting enough joy out of the thought of it already.
I have to restate: It's amazing how easy it is to connect with the cryptocurrency community and actually be part of it. The developers and famous people are not at all hard to reach, and you can actually talk to them and pass along ideas or help out in other ways. It's a kind of culture that I haven't seen in any other space ever before, and I completely love it.
Have you ever spoken to, or met, any famous crypto people? Or have you in other ways been a part of the community in a more than passing way? Do you have any Crypto-Anecdotes? I'd love to hear them!
