The Dood: Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions for this interview. Could you tell the readers who are you, a little about your background in the crypto space and your relationship to cryptochat.io?

Bill Cassidy: I’m Bill Cassidy. Crypto Enthusiast, Podcaster, Volunteer and big time surfing dood. I joined the crypto space in early 2014 after watching bitcoin soar to new price levels. I’d heard about bitcoin before but ignored most of it because I didn’t have the technical skills to understand what was going on. I am Co-Founder of CryptoChat. My specific role inside the project is not really defined right now I just do a whole bunch of stuff.

The Dood: Can you explain a little about cryptochat.io and what it does?

Bill Cassidy: CryptoChat started as a slack group dedicated to one project. About a month ago myself and the two other slack owners decided that we no longer wanted to focus on just one project so we pivoted our idea and created CryptoChat. At the moment we have our slack room and CryptoChat. CryptoChat is built on the matrix.org… framework and currently in private beta testing. Matrix is open sourced and distributed much like CryptoCurrencies which makes this a perfect match. We’ll be opening up public beta testing in late November.

CryptoChat is a hub for all kinds of Crypto projects. We aim to build bridges between the many different chat platforms directly into CryptoChat. Platforms such as, IRC, Slack, Gitter, Telegram to name a few. CryptoChat users will have access to all these rooms simply by registering and logging into our platform. Our slack group is already bridged to the CryptoChat rooms and we’re building bridges with other projects as well. Another cool feature of CryptoChat is that we will be able to offer encryption for direct messages between users (this feature is still being tested so it’s not quite ready).

The Dood: Great idea. I think this was something the community needed. We have slack channels and IRC channels all over the internet. Till now, there really hasn’t been one place for people to find, projects, news, and chat all together in one place. How has this project been received by the cryptocurrency community in general?

Bill Cassidy: There are so many slack groups it’s not even funny. I’ve literally signed up for over 30 slack groups! When we were only focusing on a single project our growth was pretty slow. Since changing our focus we’re already seeing the number of new users increase. Chatter has slowed a bit but that was to be expected during the transition phase. It’s picking up again and soon there will be too much for even one person to read. I think a lot of the crypto community members see value in what we are building. People will use it for different reasons and that’s exactly what we want. One of the best parts about CryptoChat is that we are very inviting and welcoming to new members. Kindness goes a long way and people remember that.

The Dood: At the time of this writing CryptoChat is hosting 24 + chat rooms dedicated to various altcoins and cryptocurrency projects. Are there any special requirements that need to get met or can anyone get a chatroom for their established altcoin or cryptocurrency project?

Bill Cassidy: The owners of CryptoChat are building some guidelines/framework for choosing which projects will be added or not. We’ll be adding a lot more projects to the closed CryptoChat platform, more-so than the slack platform because we want to draw people into CryptoChat. I think one of the best ways to get a channel on our platforms is by proving to us you can bring in members and create some conversation.

The Dood: Now is this an exclusive club or can anyone join in on the conversation as far as just the average person, with no connection to any crypto project? Can anyone join up to chat, learn, and maybe get some of the latest news on different projects?

Bill Cassidy: This is a very INCLUSIVE club. Anybody can join even your Grandma. There are a lot of people who provide technical assistance for each of the different projects, specialist of every kind. We set up news bots for each channel so you can always stay up to date with the latest.

The Dood: So what’s involved in getting a chatroom going on cryptochat.io? Say I’m Joe Crypto starting some new project and I want a place to meet friends and future associates and talk about the latest happenings with my project. What do I have to do, who do I have to contact, and how hard is this to set up?

Bill Cassidy: I want to note: There is a difference between our slack and CryptoChat. It’s really easy for someone to get a channel on our CryptoChat, it’s a little more difficult to get a channel on slack. The easiest way to get added is by visiting slack to start conversation and create activity related to your project. If you can prove to us that you’lll bring over new members and help CryptoChat grow we would love to have you. There is no real specific guideline for adding projects at the moment. So if you’re interested don’t hesitate to ask. At the minimum you gotta join the slack though so head on over to www.cryptochat.io and click “get invite”.

The Dood: When we talked on twitter you mentioned something about being able to plug a twitter feed into a chat room on the cryptochat platform? How hard or how easy is that to do and what other features do these chat rooms offer that I may have overlooked?

Bill Cassidy: While I was typing my responses to this interview I went ahead and created you a channel in our slack and on CryptoChat. The channels are bridged so you can chat from either one. I also set up an RSS feed from your twitter account which gets posted to both slack and cryptochat. All this took me about 15 minutes.

One of the best parts about the CryptoChat platform is that the chat history is saved forever. Slack limits users to view only the last 10k messages. I’m also looking into creating a slack<>slack bridge. At the moment we’ve got bridge from our slack to the ShadowCash Slack which was setup by one of the ShadowCash developers.

The Dood: I think I seen in your twitter that this is the brain child of a few different people. Care to talk a little about some of the other devs and what each one brings to the table?

Bill Cassidy: I was the original founder of the slack group I think back in Feb 2016. Within the first month I found my two partners Solarminer and Inthewoods. These two guys helped me form a team around the original slack group. When we decided to pivot we lost some of our team members but brought in 5 additional owners. CryptoAdvocate, Grant, Alexander, SteveCash, and CryptoAtm. Each one of us brings something to the table. We all have our special skills. Everyone’s main priority is to create chatter because at the end of the day this is a chat room. If there’s no chatter what’s the point?

The Dood: I popped into cryptochat a couple times when I started writing up this interview and I have to say it looks like a really great platform. I chatted with a few friendly community members and I’d say you guys are off to a great start! Is there anything else you want to tell the readers about that I may have missed or over looked? Maybe some cool feature that I didn’t point out in the other questions or some important news?

Bill Cassidy: As I said earlier we’ll be opening up public beta testing soon. I’ll have a form at cryptochat.io where you can sign up for the beta testing in a day or two. We’re really excited about this project so keep an eye out for progress.

The Dood: It’s a really exciting time to be part of this cryptocurrency experiment. Everyday I feel like we are all making history as cryptocurrency continues to grow. I ask all my interviews the same last question. Could you share any thoughts, predictions or observations of where you think cryptocurrency in general is heading in the future?

Bill Cassidy: I’m not old enough to have been apart of the early 90’s Internet craze. When I read about the 90’s and how the Internet came about I sometimes wish I was born sooner so I could have been a part of it. Now I believe we ‘re living in the same type of era with CryptoCurrency and blockchain technology. These projects are more than just digital currencies. There are so many different projects it’s impossible for one person to keep up. I think in 10-15 years people will be using bitcoin or similar technologies and they wont even realize it. I think it’ll all take off when people can use this technology in an easy way.

The Dood: Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. The Dood really appreciates it and wishes you and the entire cryptochat team success with this project and all your future endeavors!

Bill Cassidy: Thank you too man. I love what you do for the space and appreciate you taking the time to interview me.

Join CryptoChat : www.cryptochat.io

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