This week, we want to introduce you to a Centian who has dominated the leaderboard for the past couple weeks — Mahesh Shrestha. He has provided tremendous value to the Cent community so we thought he would be the perfect person to sit down with this week.

In this interview, we get to know Mahesh, find out which bounty spurred his interest in Cent, learn what excites him about the blockchain space, and most importantly, what tips he has for Centians to maximize their earnings.

[Note: Parts of the conversation have been edited for clarity]

Tell us a little about yourself.

It’s been over a year since I graduated with my Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering. Yeah, I’m a Civil Engineer. I’ve always been fascinated with gadgets and the tech world since I first interacted with my dad’s old, black and white screened, Panasonic phone. And that’s what made me who I am today.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently focusing on my tech startup, Tech Vumi. We’re focusing on making e-learning more accessible than ever in Nepal.

How did you first get into crypto?

It’s funny just remembering my first memories of my introduction to crypto. I was in 9th grade and a show on Discovery introduced me to Bitcoin. Still, I was never invested in crypto until BTC went to the MOON and crashed down to earth. Yeah, it’s just been around a year or so since I first got into crypto.

What excites you the most about the blockchain space?

I’m not yet totally in the blockchain space. However, the transparency, being able to witness and track the things going in and out, plus the people jumping with excitement wanting to be a part of the future excite me the most.

How did you first hear about Cent and why did you choose to join the Cent community?

I have a very blurred memory of how I first heard about Cent. I guess it was either googling “the best dApps list” or maybe on Steemit.

I am very open to joining communities. Anything unique on the internet, count me in, I might be already there. However, my activeness depends on the interaction between the mods, users, and UI of the website or products. To be honest, even after I joined the community, I wasn’t truly responding to the bounties until I saw a bounty regarding “reducing environmental impact.” That bounty hit home for me, making me realize the Cent is really the future of the bounty.

The bounty that started it all.

How has your experience been so far with Cent?

It’s been amazing. In fact, I never thought a bounty-based community could be so true to its core, with zero trolls, sarcasm and hate speech. That’s one hell of an extraordinary accomplishment.

As the top earner on Cent, do you have any tips for new and active Centians for earning money on the platform?

Before I reveal the secret, let me tell you one thing first — your first impression matters. It’s a universal truth. People like the eye-pleasing things or things that are made eye-pleasing. I’m suggesting you make your responses as eye-pleasing as you can. Insert some nice, funny, or cute pictures or more importantly, GIFs.

Plus, the timing of your responses is another crucial part. The quicker you respond to the bounty, the more exposure your response gets to other Centians and the more upvotes you get comparatively to the responses made later.

With just that said, that doesn’t mean the content is less important or is third in your list of priorities. Content is always king, the other two considerable things are queens. 😂

Any final thoughts? Feel free to plug any projects you’re working on!

If blockchain is the future of the internet, Cent is the future of the bounty-based community.

Since we are already part of the next-gen internet-world, Centians will be one of the first ones to know the progress of my projects, but until then, no spoilers, my friends.