It is our pleasure to offer a warm welcome James aka @Team Crypton to the MNZ Management Team. James has been helping out since day one as an enthusiast, welcoming people to our Slack team, engaging in conversations and volunteering to help the team out wherever possible. We were thrilled when we reached out to James and he agreed to take on a more official role as Monaize Support.

Below is a small Q & A that will allow you to get to know James a little better:

Please tell the community a little bit more about what you do for Monaize?

“I am part of the support team here at Monaize and feel like I am the boots on the ground for being in contact with the general public. Sometimes it can get really crazy at Monaize’s headquarters, so my main job here is to keep a cool head and communicate all the exciting stuff that we are doing. Further, I am the main point of contact for collecting feedback from everyone about things that they would like to see from Monaize. My previous marketing and social media experience puts me in a perfect position to come up with new ideas to get our product out there and to figure out what the community wants to see from us. On top of it all, I like to think of myself as the greeter to the slack channel and do my best to help people understand the sometimes complex things that we are trying to do as we bridge the worlds of banking and blockchain.”

2. How and when did you get into the fascinating world of crypto and blockchain?

“I got started in the cryptocurrency community in 2014 and was really attracted to the idea that I could learn how to build my own computer and make money from it. I was in university, and it was one of those things when I didn’t really know what I was getting into at the time. It was due to the interesting aspect of allowing the ‘little guy’ a chance to be his own micro-treasury, mining Litecoins and Dogecoins, and seeing my digital assets grow from just a few GPUs. It was a hobby that I would go back to time and time again due to the rise and fall of the markets and the sheer fascination with blockchain technology. Everyone told me that I was insane for spending my hard earned money on some ‘magic internet money’ that was ‘in a bubble’ or ‘going to poof into nothingness’ anytime the crypto community got some bad news. Well, ASICs for scrypt came on the scene and then all of a sudden my GPUs were not worthwhile anymore. I found my interest dwindling and eventually put it all on the back burner as there really wasn’t much for me to do with some obsolete tech so I walked away for a brief time. Sadly, after a hiatus where life got in the way, I lost nearly all my accounts but I came back to find the accounts on exchanges which used to have minuscule amounts of cryptocurrency on them were now worth upwards of 300 dollars!

So I dusted off my skills and built a few more miners. Then I popped back into the forums to find my accounts locked. Luckily starting from scratch, I found that there were tons of things to learn about new coins and algorithms that I had never heard of and technology that I saw as legitimately revolutionary. Since then, I have looked for ways that I can get involved in a whole new way. I attempted to really establish myself in a way that I had never done before, so that I could grow in my understanding and really take advantage of this awesome technology!”

3. Where did you find out about Monaize and what attracted you to the project?

“I first heard about Monaize through the announcement put out by the Komodo Platform team. I loved the fact that there were real people here developing the coin, who I could identify with. Not to mention that they were some of the most relate-able people I have seen in cryptocurrencies development teams. I am no stranger to this world, and honestly have had my fair share of bad experiences. Most notably, my hesitation comes in when I think of people like GAW miners from back when I was first involved in the scene. The owner, Josh Garza, was always seen in a suit with a super professional manner. That is one of the reasons that he was able to create a massive ponzi scheme and walk away with a ton of money from investors into his so-called cloud mining operation. The Komodo guys are the exact opposite. I love that! They are like me! Just average guys who want to change the world with some really awesome tech. I have seen the team really look at the feedback they get from the community as a whole and make changes within the ranks as to how things are done, to better appease the public. Just this simple characterisation of real people doing great things was enough to have me seek out their Slack community. Plus, they announced it during the live-stream. They were partnering with a BANK! Everyone was so focused on some brown sheet that they didn’t hear what the live-stream said! When I tried to explain the whole thing I got some backlash on blog sites and such, so I really went out of my way to better understand what these guys were doing. Whenever I found Monaize being discussed on the slack channel, I was able to see how big of a deal this thing will be. And then I saw they were looking for a community manager! I know some things about the community, and really care about the project! I can do this! So I applied, and after an interview in which I actually spent more time interviewing the team than they did interviewing me, Robert explained that he had other a lot of other people to speak to about the role …. but I already felt like I was on on board no matter what the outcome! Like any good crypto-investor I jumped right into the Slack channel and started greeting people as I saw this was an area that needed some love. I didn’t just say “Awh man, these guys are not doing anything when someone new comes online.”, like some crypto enthusiasts or investors may do, or like I may have done in the past, but instead I made the changes that I wanted to see. I jumped in and greeted people. I answered questions as far as I could with my limited understanding and asked my own questions as they came! Eventually the team wanted to Skype about questions that I had been gathering from the community and such so I plugged in and after some discussion, I discovered that they wanted to get me on board! I was blown away, as I was just this average enthusiast invited to join this team doing amazing things!”

4. Anything else you would like to add?

“I honestly do believe this is the beginning of a revolution. There is a lot going on in the world! And honestly we believe this is the service for the people and, thanks to the Monaize/Komodo partnership and the the first every decentralised ICO , by the people. That’s one of the reasons that we are really getting into this, as most of the team ourselves hold cryptocurrency and are excited to use this technology to revolutionise a very well established market and pillar in the global economy. If you are having doubts about Komodo Platform or Monaize, learn their tech. If I have learned anything since 2014 in cryptocurrency it’s that the thing that we will really win out of is the technology.

I remember seeing hundreds of potential projects come by and none struck me like this one. Sadly, the general market doesn’t feel the same way. They like the fancy marketing and branding — not caring if the technology is unlike anything that has been done before or if innovation is taking place. There is a massive divide between the fundamentals and the speculation, and thats not a bad thing. I have been saying it consistently for as long as I have really understood crypto, the technology will determine the winner, not the bells and whistles. At the end of the day, the markets will side with the tech. Thats why we are all here. Cutting edge technology. And ultimately that’s why I have been thrilled to throw my hat into the ring with the greats in the industry — A true diamond in the rough in the cryptocurrency scene.”

We hope our loyal supports will join us in welcoming James on board!

Please feel free to James him directly through our Slack @Team Crypton or via email at teamcrypton@protonmail.com.