“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

jigglyjams is a magician who resurrects the spirit of ancient golems to do his bidding across many a discord server. You have seen his ghosts. A veritable necromancer, he deftly spins up code that awakens forces of efficiency and workflow streamlining. His “nance” project— the fruits of which have saved countless man-hours— is just the beginning of his venture to take over the world, one bot at a time. Read on to learn more of what makes this master puppeteer tick.

Hey jiggly! How’d you find JB?​

The whole origin story probably goes back to October of last year. My sister launched this NFT project called Fly Frog. (A fun 10K pfp project.) She and my brother in law worked together on it; he drew the art, she generated media and wrote the smart contract for it. They launched in October and I helped with it. At first after launch, they only sold like 50 of their NFTs lol

We were trying to figure out how to get it going more and get some traction, then all of a sudden a few months later they completely sold out in a few hours.

With that came massive people into the discord, so I helped them manage the inflow with some different bots, writing custom sales bots, etc. Basically I just fell down the rabbit hole of discord bots, got super fascinated and really committed myself to learning how to make them. I was hovering around SharkDAO when it launched and kind of saw my first glimpse of Juicebox through that.

Then one day nicholas tweeted about CanuDAO as this community management DAO interested in bots. My sister tagged me and told me to go work for Canu. I reached out to Zeugh and my first project was the GM bot for JB, and from there I got more involved in JB as time went on.

You made the leap to JB recently as part of contributor team - what precipitated that leap?​

We’d been working with JB for a while through Canu, constantly trying to figure out the best thing to do for JB. It became clear that governance automation is really necessary. I was watching proposals come in and filipv and 0xSTVG would do a lot of manual manipulation, shuffling around, getting things on snapshot, and that got me zeroed in on governance automation as a specific JB need.

Then, I think in early March, filipv and I started working on that process of detailing all the steps he’s doing that could be automated. That helped me break down tasks into little code snippets and start doing governance automation. Five to six weeks later we had a decent prototype that could move proposals around between notion, discord and snapshot. At that time I was still working through Canu, and some Canu proposals didn’t make it though the JB governance process, so I switched over to be a JB contributor.

At JB currently I’m developing the stuff for this project called Nance (short for governance)—

Are you nancesplaining to me?​

Haha, yeah I guess I am. Well this nance project is really for JB at the moment, but it could eventually propagate to anyone who’s building on the Juicebox protocol. I’d love to see the option of like checking a box that says, “hey, I want to configure my nance.” As I work more with gulan and twodam I think we’ll integrate more and more as well.

Let me throw a criticism at you to react to. web3 is ostensibly full of these smart tech people, right? Why did it take so long to come up with the very obvious need to have bots like this, that save so much time?​

I’ve been studying other DAOs and governance systems for a bit - it’s interesting to think about this stuff. There’s a few different camps of people here. Some want to do everything on chain and have a governor contract deployed. That works for some DAOs, sure. But you have to pay for gas, so that decreases governance involvement from community members— why would people spend ETH, especially on proposals they may not particularly care about?

So it’s a weird dichotomy— you want governance because it’s important, but you want engagement, so you don’t want to make it cost money to participate in governance. We’re still figuring out that balance.

Take Snapshot for example— there’s a lot of these governance platforms, and Snapshot is basically the only one being used. It has an insane amount of proposals going through it. Yet even here, having people connect their wallet and click the vote button, like for each proposal, people find that burdensome.

It is burdensome! That someone has to do that 7 times in a row is legit annoying though, right?​

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of the smart people in the governance process get pulled away to work on fully on-chain stuff, which to me doesn’t make sense for how much it costs to do that. I think I’m on a path to that now, using github as a backend for proposals, kind of like a staged process of proposals where as a proposal moves through the process from idea to temp check to off chain voting to eventually on-chain voting, the proposal becomes more and more immutable.

Once you get to on-chain it’s fully immutable. So automating how that flow happens will get us to a real true DAO (true to the name!). We’ll really hit that “A” in DAO at that point. The on-chain part gets you the voting and automation but it misses the whole preamble of what gets you to that point, and that’s what I see nance as doing.

I love that people like jango, 0xSTVG, you, filipv, gulan, twodam and so many others understand the need for making this autonomous system for governance. It’s very exciting to have been accepted into the JB community!

If you talk to some of the diehards, the real ideologues, they’ll often tell you that automation in web3 is move toward centralization. In other words, why create and invoke precisely the systems web3 rebelled against. Do you think that’s a fair criticism of automation in web3?​

There is some natural centralization around the software I’m writing, absolutely. It’s a system that one puts a proposal through. That said, I am developing it open source— which is a huge part. Right off the bat, the code that’s processing this is open, so anyone can audit and see if the code is modifying anything or any proposals. Initially I was thinking should I do this all this open source, but then I thought fuck it, this will work out and it’s the right thing to do. That’s number 1.

I also think with open source, an understanding of how someone could run it themselves if they so choose, is important. Look at Snapshot, it’s open but people don’t recreate it, they use what’s there and running now. But the option that you can use it if you want gives you warm fuzzies of decentralization, even if in practice you’re not doing that.

And there’s also the fact that I can query Snapshot for all my data, and that they have an accessible API and formats and everything is markdown is a big piece as well. I think that’s crucial to getting buy-in for “decentralized” platforms. You always have the option to exit if you choose.

For example, recently I was looking for some block diagram software, and my last company was using LucidChart which I was used it. It’s free at first and after a while you pay 8 bucks a month. So I search around and I find something called draw.io, which has a hosted premium option, for the same price, or it’s open source so you can download it and use it for free. They have a github and a sponsor link, and I was so happy to see that, I sent them like 50 bucks, which is basically what I would pay at Lucid over the course of many months, but I felt more compelled giving to someone who is giving something away rather than committing to a locked system that is proprietary.

Who’s your fav contributor and why is it Matthew Brooks?​

Haha. Matthew Brooks is… let’s see… that drum rolling photography machine is freaking sweet, and Matthew does a ton of random stuff like keeping up with a lot of notion databases, this nice payout list he’s maintaining, his governance TLDR’s he tweets out, and he’s just got such a sweet voice too. He has this powerhouse voice.

His voice is pure silk. He could say anything to me and I’d feel fuzzy inside.​

I feel like he could also probably belt out a rock ballad or something. Like I could see him up there on stage singing some cool shit.

Crooner music for me.​

Yeah, he’d absoltely kill it.

What’s something people would be surprised to learn about you?​

I worked for a self-driving car company which was kinda cool.

The ultimate auto-bot!​

Haha, yeah. Also I was in an improv comedy troupe in school which was a blast. We would do shows and everything. Actually we did an all-improvised musical show with a 3 piece band where we’d kind of have a general idea of what songs are played and we’d make up the lyrics on the spot.

Nowadays, I still go to watch improv. I really thought it was a fun thing to do and it taught me a lot about how to speak to people. You’re doing imrpov all the time in real life, so practicing it consciously helps. One tenant is to heighten the partner on stage, in other words to take what they say and add to it— that’s a great tool to use socially and when working with people in real life. Can’t say enough how glad I am to have studied that.

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

Brileigh is 1/2 of the Juicecast, JB’s official podcast that profiles JB projects and their creators. She’s a passionate artist with a background in photography, and she regularly writes articles along with her other half, Matthew Brooks. She’s got a new NFT collection out and she’s kicking Death in the nuts with art. Check it out below.

Hi Brileigh! Let’s start with your origin story: how’d you find JB?​

Hi! I found JB through Matthew, who found it through nnnnnnnnnnicholas— which is a nonexclusive story because nnnnnnicholas is like this magnet that pulls people into JB.

He sounds powerful.​

He’s very powerful. We were exploring DAOs and looking for something that aligned with our interests. We went to the JB Town Hall and it became clear that this was where we wanted to be, and so we started exploring how we could contribute.

That’s cool. How did you arrive on what you wanted to contribute?​

Well, previously I’d been creating content at RAW DAO, which started out like this kind of black box that nobody was really sure how it worked, and there weren’t a lot of contributors. So it was kind of low hanging fruit to try to develop a strategy to bring more visibility to the DAO. Through that I learned to make podcasts, write articles, take notes of town hall and all that good stuff. And so when we got to JB, we’d seen that nnnicholas was hosting a podcast but that it had stopped.

It stopped because nnicholas ran it into the ground?​

Exactly. That’s why he runs three podcasts, he’s so bad he can’t do just one, he has to do three of them.

Got it, makes sense (we love you nicholas!). So there was an open podcast at JB, is what I’m hearing, that you wanted to bring it back to life?​

Yeah, we tried to juice it up! We’d always wanted to get to know the story behind DAOs and how they started and the community around them, so it was a treat to tell JB’s story through all these projects. It’s not about us writing about JB specifically, but more about what is enabled by the protocol and what communities can start and grow by using it.

Over time we knew we wanted to evolve; I knew I wanted to grow my role to take on other ways to increase the visibility of JB as I’d done for other DAOs, so it made sense to repurpose my interview content with context and visual references so people could read it. That’s how the articles have come about.

What comes most difficult to you for podcasting?​

Hmm, that’s a good question. Initially, it was creating a sense of flow for the questions. There’s a balance— you wanna make sure you understand the DAO you’re interviewing, but you wanna leave some room to learn from someone and have it sound like a real conversation. Finding that balance is hard, and sometimes when I listen to podcasts now I pay really close attention to how fluid they make that conversation seem. And I take notes!

I’m wondering about the intersection of art and crypto/web3. It seems like the most successful NFT drops just involved pretty butt-ugly art that was uninspired and garish, and so many project creators don’t seem to really give much of a fuck about the art they’re selling. At the same time real artists exist in the space. What is that like?​

Web3 is definitely a different environment than the classical art scene. The fundamental problem, which is not exclusive to web3, is that because art is an asset, while there is value in what the work is about or the images mean, or the concept or narrative, you still have to convince someone that it’s worth buying. You have to have collectors that are giving money to that. In a very similar way to many of the successful NFT drops, it’s a game of waiting for someone to trigger someone to buy it, and that cascades and raises the floor of the art.

I’m thinking specifically of the award-winning violinist who decided to busk in the New York city subway and made no money. In a music hall like Carnegie he can (and does) sell out, and on the subway nobody even paid him a second glance. People tend to connect web3 art to pure hype, but is this story of the violinist an example of how classical art is no different?​

It’s an outsider view looking in versus someone within the space. The insider viewer learns about projects and sees that people use these things to rep their identity, It’s no different than someone who’s wearing an apple watch, or a hoodie that’s branded. It reps our interests and personality, just like art does in the physical world, but if you’ve never experienced that before then it’s just so easy to say “omg those stupid monkey pics, they have no value.”

Great point. You have an exhibit up and running yourself currently profiling some of your photography. Can you tell us a bit about it?​

Yes! I just have the first half of a collection out right now. It’s called Observations of Absence, and it’s a series of photographs made over the last 3 years right up until I fell into the rabbit hole of web3.

They stem from a long ongoing anxiety and fascination around death. Ever since I was little I was surrounded by death in one way or another (objects in my home that had superstitious value around death, personal losses). This got me thinking about death a lot in my day to day life, and instead of avoiding it or trying to repress its presence I decided to photograph it as a way to confront, accept, and embrace what it is rather than think of it as morbid. Basically to find the certain beauty in it where it may exist. Whether that’s a photograph of a house with a casket on the lawn because for whatever reason someone put it there, or a couple cobblestones revealed through thinning asphalt, they all resemble things we associate with death.

Very awesome. How has the reception been so far?​

Good! It’s interesting to think about the idea of reception in web3, because there’s a lot of expectation of immediately selling out, but that’s just one form of reception. I’ve received a lot of kind comments from people who say they relate to it, and have been engaging with the idea of it. It has a certain meaning to it and I like to think it’s a little more rich than the monkey pictures people talk about.

Heidegger said death is the most lonely thing in the world, and it’s the one thing that is truly unique to you, an experience that you must undergo completely and utterly alone— nobody can ever take your place in it. How was this project for you? Did you reach catharsis, or was it a solitary endeavor?​

It was definitely more of a personal therapy; I also wanted to be able to bring something to the NFT photograph space as a practicing photographer, and it made sense to start with something more personal and traditional rather than something more generative or web3 focused. Regarding death being a solitary thing, it makes me think of a quote— I don’t remember by who— which was basically along the lines of: “we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.” It struck me as something about death and life and how I believe we’re all interconnected through that. I think it’s solitary, but we’re all connected to it, but I have no idea how.

Did the collection help you with your anxiety? How’re you doing now that you got it out into the world?​

I don’t know, I mean, I started the work and I initially stopped making it in 2019, and I thought I was good, but then I made another image in 2020. We’d lost our family dog and discovered that my dad’s cancer came back, and I turned 25 so I had this big death crisis where I was just very scared all the time. The short answer is that I started doing breathing exercises and taking mushrooms, and I don’t have that anxiety anymore. I don’t think it’s something that can be removed entirely; it’s always there and normal. But the breathing exercises really helped.

Fair to say that breathing exercises are among the most effective ways to stave off death.​

Haha, yes exactly. Just don’t hold your breath for too long!

Who’s your favorite contributor and why is it tankbottoms?​

How did you know it was him!?

I think he’s everybody’s.​

I think so too! It’s my favorite pseudonym. I get to tell people all over the world that I work with someone named tankbottoms. His brain is insane. It’s going all the time; I’m amazed that he can switch from hardcore legal shit to front-end shit to other coding shit like contracts. It just blows my mind.

I heard he’s actually just 3 people in a trenchcoat.​

That’s why the banana costume is so big! You just fit everyone in it! Oh it makes perfect sense now.

To wrap this up: what’s an interesting fact someone may not know about you?​

Hmm... I don’t have a middle name! My parents forgot it when they made my birth certificate, and I think they wanted to give me one but never got around to it.

Awesome. If you had one, what would it be?​

Danger.

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

Mr. Goldstein is a charming JB contributor who has seen it all. Read on to for a cerebral discussion on DAO governance and the future of JB in the eyes of one of its early contributors!

Hey Mr. Goldstein, how’s it going?​

It’s been a long week, but good!

I’m super stoked to chat with you, our time at JB didnt overlap terribly much. How’d you get involved in JB?​

My JB story starts in June of last year, right after launch. I’d been in crypto for close to 5 years— never full time, though. I was always more of an investor in projects, especially early projects. Over time I started to take a more thesis-driven perspective, and began investing in projects that I thought may show the future of the web3 space.

I got very drawn to DAO tooling before it was cool.

Like a crypto hipster…​

Before it was cool, yes. I did research in the space to figure out what people are building. JB was very early on; it was a good product, but also and maybe more importantly a very good vibe. People joke about vibes, but I think vibes are important, especially in projects where the core thesis is selling tooling for communities. If you’re selling to communities, you have to have community yourself.

I mean from an investment POV, DAOs seem horrible: give money to community, no idea what they do, no control over how it’s going to go. What attracted you as someone who knows about investing?​

Let’s start meta— if you believed that the internet would follow the exponential growth curve it followed early on, then it would be everywhere, just as it is now. So web3 and DAOs, in my opinion, are the only way, with least amount of friction, to set up a common treasury between participants that are truly global. There’s no other way to set up a treasury between someone from Russia, Argentina, Venuzuela, Israel, and the USA. DAOs are the easiest way to do this, and we both know how much friction you have in crypto, and yet even with all that friction it’s still the best way.

I’m reminded of the Churchill quote, “Democracy is the worst system of government there is, aside from all the other ones.” But that being said, how are DAOs better than just sharing a paypal, or a Venmo wallet?​

In short, DAOs allow you to add layers of governance and management that are pre-defined. People setting all this up don’t know each other, don’t trust each other—they’re anons; it’s not friends from street that have a basketball team that they want to set up. If that’s all it is, then sure, a venmo account is fine.

But let’s say gamers on DOTA who want to set up a team and buy gear together, in 6 countries. That’s not just a venmo anymore. Remember, they don’t trust each other or know each other. But imagine it in crypto. You can say I don’t need a DAO, I’ll just set up a multisig. But what if there’s a disagreement? Oh, you need voting? Oh, you need light infrastructure? That’s the basic layer every DAO has, and it immediately solves those issues.

Fascinating, and spot on imo.​

I will say something controversial.

Hit it.​

I don’t think DAOs scale, or at least not as popular people believe how scaling works in web2. In web2, scalability is IP aggregation. The largest companies scale by aggregating IP and buying companies.

I don’t believe DAOs can scale this way because as we know, even from JB, there’s a layer where it won’t be efficient. Too much overhead. When it’s young and nimble? It’s great, like a series A where everyone knows the goal they’re working toward, with an open layer of communication on default. You can move extremely fast as a young DAO with 10-15 core contributors, and you have open communication, which is a huge advantage.

Above a certain level, though, you have governance issues and friction. Thus I don’t think we should have DAOs above that 15-20 contributor level. But that’s okay. The solution is just to spin up another DAO for new products, and have them in an ecosystem.

I believe we’ll see this happen and take form over the next 2-3 years.

When I think of JB, it seems like it’s happened/is happening. Around JB there is Wagmi/Peel/Canu, floating around in that ecosystem. Is that the kind of scaling you see in the DAO world?​

100%. That’s what drove me so much and got me interested in it. It’s the flywheel that starts with the terminal and rebates, where everyone has skin in the game. Even your service provider.

Let’s talk voting systems. In classic western liberal democracy, one person one vote, with anonymous voting, is the gold standard. DAOs, by and large, don’t do this. Yet governance is something we haven’t figured out for 3500 years, is it even fair to criticize DAOs for trying something new?​

I think it’s ever-evolving. You put it very well— nobody has figured governance out. It’s always been one-person one vote, but keep in mind there’s a regulatory body that accepts people and gives them the privilege to have a vote. Whereas in crypto, I can buy JBX tokens. What’s better? When the buying is not restricted to people, you can try to put safeguards in place, but someone can always come along and amass tokens with a bot farm and try to influence your governance model. It’s playing whack-a-mole. I don’t know which whack-a-mole will win, or what’s even better at this point, but I know we’ll have to work on it and I’m a happy investor in new innovative structures because of the the token model. I think it gives a lot of promise to these governance questions.

Agreed. Regarding JB, What was your role as contributor? How’d it wind down?​

My area of interest is two-fold. I believe in the token, and that the token powers the ecosystem. It’s really a mindbowing thing that something like a token can power so many things— like voting, transaction settlement layer, currency— the fact you can have that blows my mind every single day. I got so fascinated by the tokenomics jango created with the boding curve, discount rate, reserve rate, etc., and I tried to play with it and tool it up. I tried to model it out, to see how the variables move and interact. Secondly I tried to help with the treasury in an external adviser capacity, to push the treasuries and suggest to the community what I thought should be done. In some cases the community agreed, in others it didn’t.

I sounds like you have a strong finance and econ background. What is your background?​

Finance and econ, yes. And operational efficiency. By day I’m an executive in a large web2 company startup, so I know finance extremely well as well as econ and econ models. Being around crypto for a while I’ve seen thousands of tokens at this point and have looked deeply into them.

What caused you to take a step back from your JB role?​

My time is just scarce. I try to balance family with my primary occupation and with JB, which I love, but when I saw it took too much time with my family I had to take a little break. And I wanted to be fair with the community that I just could not allocate the same hours to JB as I was before, and I wanted to be up front about that. This is especially true if I’m extracting value, which I was. I want to be fair and keep my end of the bargain, and if I can’t, I want to take a step back; it’s just a matter of personal integrity.

People are so open to stepping back, it surprised me when I first arrived… Such a unique community where people are so open.​

Definitely. If the DAO space has merit, JB will be a top three project, because of what you’re describing, because jango managed to build a vibe and team and culture or ecosystem, of people being able to go in and out, be honest, and receive feedback and accept it— and that’s extremely rare. The fact that I’m not an anomaly is wonderful, it makes me even more bullish about JB.

How do you see your role with JB today?​

I’m still focused on the same areas, and I try to stay up to date about what’s going on. In some cases I will feel like having a stronger voice, and in some other cases you don’t always need to be in front and center. But I’m still a JBer at heart and around the discord.

Quickly— mass adoption of DAOs and crypto. What’s keeping it from happening in your view?​

The workforce needs to mature. We need a workforce that’s crypto native, grew up with on-chain assets, digital assets, and so on. Letting that younger generation mature into a workforce is when we will see that mass adoption. That happened for the internet, for mobile phones, so why are expecting anything different for crypto?

Who’s your favorite contributor, and why is it filipv?​

I will say that my favorite contributor is in fact filipv! I got to know him in NYC much better in person, and he’s very thoughtful and quick to learn a lot of things. I appreciate his ability to push back in a highly emotionally sensitive but thoughtful way, while not being combative. His EQ is through the roof. I respect the shit out of him that he found this place and made himself so invaluable. It’s not easy to find a good signal from all the noise in crypto, and to do that and find the right place, not just any place, but the right place like JB, is impressive. Which is honestly more than I could do at his age, so shit man, he’s awesome.

For sure, filipv is a sweetheart, and a powerhouse. What’s something that would surprise people to learn about you?​

Hmm… I hold three passports!

Do you want to reveal what they are, along with passport numbers/SSI?​

No. I can say they’re from three different countries that are very distinct, and that don’t always like each other.

I’m so intrigued, but we’ll have to leave it at that. Thank you Mr. Goldstein!​

My pleasure!

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

If Banny had a cool mom who went on wild adventures with him across the country, it would be Sage. The resident artist who created the iconic Banny, along with a whole cornucopia of descendant-Bannies, Sage’s role at JB goes way beyond branding. You can find her artistic fingerprints in the UI, in real-world designs and marketing materials, and in amazing infographs designed to streamline difficult concepts in a fun and digestible way. Read on to learn a bit about what Sage is up to nowadays and her journey to JB!

Hi Sage! What’re you up to right now?​

I just ate a frozen burrito. My boyfriend’s sister owned a little sundry shop which just went outta business so they had groceries for free! Yesterday we went and got like 700 bucks worth of bougie groceries. I have a big thing for frozen burritos.

Haha. I’m reminded of the story of the plumber in France. People are standing at the cathedral admiring the art and architecture, and the plumber just wants to go into the catacombs to see how they laid and routed their pipes. You can have anything, and yet the frozen burrito seems to be the winner!​

In addition to everything else! I also like frozen chicken nuggets, which I’m actually eating right now. Usually I eat pretty healthy but… when you have the option to eat gourmet chicken nuggets—

Walk me through “gourmet” chicken nuggets!​

Well they’re “organic” so yeah, whatever that means. I would never buy frozen chicken nuggets, but they were there so I figured I may as well grab them. The bougiest thing I got was, hmm… I got a free thing of 15 dollar fig pomegranate jam.

You know, I was once gifted a 40 dollar peanut butter jar.​

Holy shit.

Actually by a JB contributor— do you want to guess who?​

Hmm, filipv?

Filipv, yes!​

He buys 40 dollar jars of peanut butter?

He claims he got it as a gift… I feel kinda guilty opening it truth be told…​

In what world could a bottle of PB be worth 40 dollars?

Haha. I looked up the brand, it was a nice hipstery kind of homepage, lots of flowery language, but when I delved in I saw the process was exactly the same. I mean it’s just mashing peanuts.​

Maybe they mash them with their feet…

Haha, that would be hilarious. How’s it going work-wise? I know you’re working on a lot of designs at the moment.​

It’s been really fun, right now working on the Peri’s Pringlecream ice cream Banny, and doing more fun little drawings for the Morgenstern collaboration.

That’s awesome. How’d you get started with JB, anyway?​

I started back when jango and peri were planning on calling it fountain. It was a similar analogy to JB— a fountain creates overflow. So I was doing a lot of drawings of fountains at first, not full time but juat when I had a chance. Then they decided to change the name to “JuiceBox” and then it started to get really fun. We were spit balling about how web3 is kind of outlawish and definitely not mainstream, so we started thinking about juice, fruit, and little punk fruit, and that turned into Banny being a weird little coding BDSM banana.

I always wondered about the chokers…​

Yeah! I guess he’s also more punk in the 90s punk sense with studded everything.

Fascinating. If you met Banny IRL, would you guys get along?​

I think most people would get along with him, except for the squares in the world. He seems pretty chill.

So the punk thing is not confrontational?​

No he’s just living his authentic life.

What’s a day in the life of Banny, in an authentic life?​

He probably parties, gets a lot of work done, does some crazy shit— just literally anything he wants to do. He dresses weird. He may not even be a he, he could be a she, an anything, it’s really just a banana.

He sounds like a fun banana to hang with. What’s something people may be surprised to learn about you?​

Hmm. I was a ballet dancer for 18 years, I did a lot of ballet and pointe work— that was fun. I’m really bad at like listening/remembering dance moves and routines/sequences, so I wasn’t ever super competitive but I enjoyed it a lot. I also do like to listen to music really loud and dance in my house.

What kind of music are you into?​

I basically solely listen to country music.

Favorite artist?​

So many! If I had to pick a top three, hmm… Waylon Jennings, Garth Brook, Sturgill Simpson.

Awesome. What’s something you’re looking forward to?​

Oh man, well one huge thing is that we’re working on the Bannyverse and that everyone at Wagmi is killing it! Burtula is making super sick backgrounds and animations. You’re writing amazing backstories for all the bannies! Tank and Natasha are building and making the site awesome! And Mieos is doing a killer job directing everything! I can’t wait to launch the site and for everyone to meet and make all the hilarious bannies we’ve got in store!

Another thing on a IRL level, maybe when gas prices go down, is that my boyfriend and I are planning to take our van out to do a tour and go see some friends in Utah and Idaho and Oregon, and do a dirtbiking trip. It’ll probably go for like a month, but we have some work to do on the van first. The best thing about working for JB is that I can do these things because I work remotely.

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

JohnnyD is a front-end dev and a core member of the Peel Team. His work is plainly visible on our website, where he takes an active role both in the front-end code and, increasingly, in the design elements of the website. How visual architecture complements site tooling and functionality are an area of great interest and focus for him. Recently, he’s been on the road with Zeugh at a couple of conferences, and by the time I caught up to him was traveling solo across Europe. Read on to learn a bit about his origin story, interests and future aspirations!

Greetings! I know you’re in the midst of traveling, thank you for taking the time. How’s it been going?​

Hey! It’s been really good. Some good wins, we think, and some good projects to follow up on. We learned a lot about how to communicate our value proposition and got a lot of good stuff.

So important. Here’s the million dollar question: what have you found is the ideal way to communicate JB’s value proposition?​

It really depends a lot on the projects. I think it’s really important to fish out what a project wants and what needs we’re there to give them. From there we’ll know what JB features that’ll help them the most— whether that be transparency in earning/spending, or the ease of launching an ERC-20 token and having that distributed to people upon contributing. Or whether automating payments out of the treasury and restricting/reconfigurations of that spending are the way they want to go. Those are the key points

It strikes me a scalability problem. We seem to have a boutique approach at the moment, almost like a concierge service. As we expand, how do we streamline some of that onboarding without losing that conversation with the user?​

You’ve hit the nail on the head, that’s absolutely what we have to focus on. I definitely have ideas around that; mainly I really like the idea of categorizing particular common projects/project types, like NFC Coops, straight up Web3 businesses, or the classic one-time fundraiser. I think having clear resources for these like links to pre-filled templates could be super helpful and useful. Essentially, we want people to come to the site and feel comfortable setting up a project themselves without having someone walking them through it.

For sure. Out of curiosity, what was it like gallivanting around with Zeugh?​

He’s a great guy! Super fun, super smart, super easy going, super hard worker. Oh man… constant networking! He can just keep getting the word out, rubbing elbows. He’s got unlimited energy— a total machine!

It’s funny, arguably the most powerful JB tool, the treasury, seems like a little on the backburner for most people. It seems like they don’t quite see the scope of its use. What do you make of that?​

Yeah exactly, there are so few projects using these treasury tools. I think it should be a big priority of ours to present it in a more understandable way; I’m keen to make it more visible on the front-end too. As great and flexible as the protocol is, it can be a tall order for people to understand.

Okay, now on to your origin story. How’d you get started with JB and how has it changed since you’ve been here?​

I was working as a front-end dev for a few years in web2, actually, doing React and some other stuff. Before JB a group of friends and I started getting into NFTs and we wanted to create a DAO to be an NFT Coop, with the goal being to acquire some of the more expensive NFTs. Aeolian was one of my buddies in that NFT and he found JB and looked at the github, started working a bit on it, and told me about it. After a week or so I started doing the same. It was so exciting, I pretty much quit my job 2 weeks later and said okay, I’m doing this.

Front-end seems like so cross-disciplinary. You’re juggling user-interface/design along with coding. What’s that like?​

I really love designing! Before JB it wasn’t a big part of my job at all. I would just get the designs and make it exactly as I was told. At JB I’ve enjoyed the challenge of just putting yourself in the user’s shoes and making it as smooth and seamless as possible.

That’s the beauty of web3, isn’t it? If you want to take something on, and you are capable, nobody seems to care whether you have formal training, degrees, etc.​

For sure, it’s an absolutely beautiful part of web3. I would say it’s even more like that in the software industry than in most other industries. Web3 has taken that to a whole other level. It’s totally about what you can produce right now, not what you did a while back, or what you’re promising you’ll do in the future.

Speaking of the future— what’s the future look like for johnnyD?​

Front-end! I really like the front-end work process, and I’m becoming more inclined towards the design if anything, which is interesting. As much as I love development, really feel a passion for design building more and more. So yeah, we’ll see where that takes me.

Awesome. Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. Who’s your favorite JB member, and why is it Sage?​

Haha, oh man. Sage does some incredible art— that stuff is really inspiring. I remember coming to JB and just loving the vibes so much, there was just something so original about it. Sage created those vibes in Banny, like a character who sets the tone for us. That’s why Sage is my favorite.

Can you see a future with Banny in the Louvre? Tourists lining up just to get a few minutes with an original, NFT Banny displayed on an LCD screen?​

Haha. I think we could see Banny anywhere and everywhere.

Cheers to that! Okay, I heard you’re into music, and that you even play. What are you into?​

I actually played trumpet quite a lot in high school. Like I was really into it. I also played the piano a little bit.

Another trumpeter! You know filipv plays a mean trumpet, right?​

Oh man, no I didn’t know that. I gotta connect with him, that’s so awesome!

I’ve been thinking, we have so many musicians at JB. What if we create like a little folder where we record samples, little licks and riffs. If anybody’s in sound production they could come and take those and fashion them into something.​

Haha, yeah I love it. If someone sends me sheet music and a tempo I’m down!

I’ll look into it, it would be awesome. Okay, last question: what’s something that people would be surprised to learn about you?​

Hmm. I’m quite into triathlons, so much so that before JB I was actually trying to make a career out of it. I’m still pretty into it, actually.

Bear with me here— that’s running, bicycling and swimming right?​

That’s correct, but in exactly the reverse order though!

Got it. Can you give me a sense of the appeal, versus just cycling/running/swimming on its own?​

I’ve always loved doing multiple sports, and there’s just nothing more challenging in my opinion than training for three disciplines. Then the events themselves are also extremely challenging. I love the lifestyle of being well-rounded as opposed to just hammering away at one thing, and I think triathlons with a bit of gym work is probably the healthiest activity there is. Can’t get enough of it.

Fair enough, it definitely sounds challenging! So where are you off to next on your travels?​

I’m actually heading into Lviv right now, I’m on a bus to get there. I plan to stay about three weeks. I’ve met so many Ukrainians so far on my trip, and they all tell me Lviv is just the best city in Europe. I’m keen to see it for myself.

Do you anticipate any issues with the crisis happening?​

Lviv is more or less untouched from war, from what I’m told. What I keep hearing is, “The city hasn’t changed, but the people have.” So I’m curious to see how it is.

I’m sure that will be quite an experience. Keep us posted when you return, and until then safe travels!​

Thank you!

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

Big Daddy Mieos is the patriarch of Wagmi studios and a certified JB OG. He’s seen Juicebox evolve from it’s very beginnings to the robust platform it is today, and he launched one of its very first projects back in the day. Meios is a gentle conductor of creative JB branding and a level-headed voice of reason within the JB community. Read on to learn a bit more about this awesome JB contributor, what he’s up to right now, and the origin story of Wagmi Studios.

Hey Mieos! What’re you up to right now and what’s on your mind?​

Hmm… the thing that has been occupying my attention and creativity a lot lately has been this desire to convert the greater portion of juicebox projects from these crowd-funded single-purchase projects to something more like a product or service or longer-term projects that build out and make full use of JB tooling.

It’s really also about trying to find a way for creators to run creative endeavors on web3 because they believe web3 is where we’re going, but may not be super comfortable with web3 yet. I feel like I’m really hunting down people who I know may be able to bridge this gap and show some excellent JB use cases.

I think DAOs are still new enough where the people themselves have to be the tools, almost like fleshy UIs that can help navigate doers who may not be fluent or even conversational in the web3 world. Definitely not an easy person to find.​

No, haha, definitely not! We’re stuck in a beautiful moment where V2 is starting to open up an opportunity for non full-web3 nerds, whereas with V1 there really wasn’t much chance for non web3-nerds. V2 is starting to change that and I think that will lead to more great things.

How does Wagmi fit into all this?​

I think Wagmi has to take a position of palatable education. I think good branding does that. It points people in the right direction for the kind of info they want. I’ve always wanted Wagmi to be more educational, but when we started to do this with V1, V2 was on the horizon so we held off. After all with all the changes coming with V2 it didn’t make sense to produce a lot of content that would all just have to be redone a few months later. Now that V2 is here and coming into its own, we can really go full force into this endeavor.

For what it’s worth, when I started, as a total JB n00b, the Wagmi videos were really the easiest entryway to me.​

Yeah and that’s what it’s about. We want creatives, people who may be a bit unclear on web3, but who see where its going and recognize its value. And those people will bring their supporters over. Making great content to help ease that transition into web3 is a biggie to attract those people.

In terms of Wagmi’s future, I’d ultimately love to see Wagmi move away from full-time JB stuff and move more toward helping projects on the platform succeed. We could give these projects a little shove in the creative department, whether by helping them with animations, designing mascots, and who knows what else.

I’ve felt like JB High could be a central point of info for newbies. Obviously a lot of that exists already elsewhere on the web, but do you see any value in really doing like a “web3 crash course” on JB High to truly onboard a total n00b from starting to finishing their first project creation?​

I don’t think it’s overkill to do that at all, we just have to be clear on our time cost, and we shouldn’t invest too much time if there are more efficient ways to do it. I think a web3 crash course could be done in 2-3 animated shorts plus maybe a page or two on JB High; it’s not a heavy lift.

How’d you get started with JB, and how has it changed since you’ve been there?​

From the very beginning, I was trying to figure out from what JB could be. Jango’s take was that JB was a payment terminal, so I was like okay, are we building Stripe for web3? But then he was talking about treasuries, and discount rates and bonding curves, and pre-minting tokens and reserve rates, and I was like man, nobody’s gonna have any idea what this is. When I finally grokked it I was like “Ohhhh, this is what this could be!”

I saw some possible use cases, and was talking to some of the early guys about what it could do, but I think none of us really grasped it. It was so new and there just wasn’t really a concept you could build off, you really had to understand it for what it was, as something unique, and that took time.

But before even all that happened, I was working with Sage to figure out the brand and how we can we make this whole JB thing feel cool, and actually one of the first things we messed with was claymation.

I saw a claymation video floating around! Is that one of those early things?​

Yeah, that’s one of the first things Wagmi ever did! It was a lot of fun.

Another biggie early on, actually probably the first thing that came up as important, was starting to think was how could we help people understand what JB could do. So I figured “Oh, I could launch a project on JB and that could serve as an example for people of what to do.”

So I told Sage, hey, let’s run something like an animated studio/illustration studio out of JB, really as an example of JB’s power, and that was the birth of Wagmi. And it has been an absolutely great example. I’m really glad we did that rather than stay as paid contributors in JB itself. It serves as a great example for how projects can coexist in the space and serve one another.

Was JB your first jump into web3?​

Yeah, it was! I’ve just always been interested in tech projects and when I got to know jango and peri and they were talking about tech projects I just wanted to hang out and learn, and to try to help in any way I could.

Man, that’s such a high bar for a n00b to get into.​

Haha, yeah it was a high bar, I still remember it took me 4 months! I spent 4 months saying the words and having no idea what I was talking about— “Yeah yeah yeah, the payment terminal, and getting ETH out and bonding curve, and the redemption rate,” I had no idea what I was talking about, and then, finally one day it clicked! It was so rewarding, and it validated to me so much of what I had been trying to grasp.

I ran into that in a very dense philosophy text once that was like that. So hard to grasp, you wanna walk away, since you definitely don’t wanna stick around and feel stupid. That’s a tough spot to be in.​

Yeah! Sticking around and feeling stupid sucks. You want to help, you want to chip in, and halfway through a sentence you realize damn, I don’t know what I’m saying, but now I’ve started talking and I gotta finish this sentence, haha. It’s like the brain needs contextual points of knowledge to learn the next thing, and some things are so far away from these basic knowledge nodes that you can’t bridge the concept. Then you’re like “Oh, it’s like Uber for Mcdonalds?” and it clicks all of a sudden. But what if you don’t have that basic script where you have to really put two or three of those nodes together to bridge over to a new concept. Sometimes you have the right teacher and they know that’s the case, and they’ll build that out for you, but otherwise you’re kind of reinventing the wheel in your mind, and for sure that can be so frustrating.

I’m glad it clicked for you (and for me!). Who’s your fav contributor, and why is it Stevie G?​

Haha, I love this question. I would say the thing that attracts me to Stevie G is his uncanny ability to come off as hyper-authentic. There’s never a moment where I listen to him that I’m not like, “This dude is so real, he’s like, such a good human.” Regardless of whether or not you are a good human, or you think you are, many times I come off as an asshole—

Oh yeah, you don’t need to tell me, coming off like an asshole unintentionally is a lowkey superpower of mine…​

Hahaha! But Stevie G, man, I never once get that impression from him. Stevie G is an authentic G.

Definitely. What would people be surprised to learn about you?​

Hmm… Let’s see… I’m an avid mountain biker. I actually used to be an avid kite boarder, but I picked an occupation that’s in direct conflict with kite boarding season. There was a point where I thought I may go pro. Hmm… other than that, as a child I was forced to do Hooked on Phonics, it’s probably not funny for anybody under the age of 35 since it didn’t exist for anybody that young, but like, when I had to do it, it was a joke, it was literally a joke that people would say to diss each other.

I remember that… it was a schoolyard way to call people dumb.​

Right! And when they said to to me I was like, “Yeah, actually, I am dumb!”

Haha, to be honest that’s a pretty awesome comeback! Thank you for taking the time, Mieos!​

Thanks!

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

Podcast extraordinaire and overall smooth talker nicholas took a bit out of his schedule to sit and, for a change, be the interviewee. Starting out as a JB contributor who went astray, the prodigal son is returning to the JB atmosphere with twice the gusto he had before. Don’t call it a second coming, just call it finishing what he started. Read on to learn a bit about this erstwhile contributor-turned-vagabond, his aspirations at JB upon his return, and what his plans are for the future.

How’d you get started with JB and how has it changed since you’ve been here?​

I found Juicebox originally in June/July of 2021, and I was one of the people who came in through the SharkDAO door. I was involved in SharkDAO and I got to meet some of the people there, and got to meet jango who was the lead protocol dev there. Eventually my interest turned primarily to JB. I’ve always been interested in these tools that allow for social integration and JB was right up that alley in terms of tooling that lets people coordinate to create whatever project they want. On top of that they have this X factor which is the spirit of a true DAO— it’s not about VC or cash grabs— and I think that’s really interesting given the last 20 years or so of centralized social development in web2.

I contributed at JB where I could, did a lot of governance, operations streamlining, starting tye notion library and working on organization. In early 2022 I decided to take a step back, focus a bit more on programming stuff, solidity, NFTs, etc. Over the course of a few months I realized I’m just too fascinated by JB, and especially with V2 coming out and seeing this amazing potential. JB feels like an open source project with a revenue model, which is attracting incredible people from all over the world.

So I decided to jump back into JB. I put proposal in for trial payout and I’m hoping I can jump back into the team.

There’s a lot of excitement around V2. What specifically has you interested in coming back?​

Two things are drawing me back— tankbottoms, who has been building/adapting stuff related to NFT creation and minting and turning those into tools that can be used more broadly. If it can be pulled off correctly, I think it’ll go way beyond just JB. It’s really revolutionary and applicable in so many different contexts. I feel like I can be useful there in design/code/helping out.

That’s obviously enabled partly by V2. The treasury management stuff being discussed right now— like creating projects that allow you to diversify the treasury into other tokens, and using JB as mechanism for doing that— is extremely cool. V2 is so open-ended, and part of the lift involved is getting that tooling across to people.

I think that’s a biggie. JB has so many tools, but I agree that it may be overwhelming for a newbie coming onto the scene. There’s also a kind of idea like, if you spotted a restaurant that served Italian, Japanese, Greek and Turkish food, you may think okay, they can’t possibly be doing all that correct. What do you make of that?​

Yeah, for sure. What’s great is that JB has really shown that it is aligned with memetic fundraisers in the past. I don’t know if you’d call it product market fit (PMF) yet, but it has the orientation toward PMF with these memetic raises, some of them more enduring than others. Hopefully it can be useful for enduring long term treasury management functions.

One thing I think about— there’s lot of NFT projects that set aside a portion of sales/royalties to a treasury (which is sitting in a multisig somewhere). Maybe the collection lost momentum, who knows, but that funding is still hanging around somewhere. I have an assumption that there are dozens or more multisigs that belong to a DAO that have 50-250 ETH sitting in it without a lot of activity. If those things had been run on something like JB, maybe there could have been tools JB would have offered to make sure funds like that were put to use.

I definitely do agree regarding the interface/tooling offerings— it’ll be interesting to see what happens since JB is one interface right now, and that has value. But ultimately I think we’ll see more interface experimentation. In the past when the Mandarin speakers came in, I was supportive of the idea to create some kind of interface that’s more conducive to that new community group. As JB grows I think we may see things like that.

What do you think PMF looks like for JB?​

I’m most interested in enduring projects that use the protocl as their treasury. I think—and maybe my thinking has evolved on it— but last year as I got to understand JB in greater detail, I felt like there’s two functions for DAOs. One is a place to hold your assets— that’s JB— whether assets are ETH or NFTs or whatever— and the other a place where governance happens. I don’t know that we’ve figured out the most effective way to run governance, but JB governance works extremely well in my opinion. The way JB uses the treasury to handle contributor salary, other expenses, or the network effect when projects pay each other— for instance how JB relates to Wagmi, Canu, Peel, Lexicon Devils— collaborative DAOs end up holding a piece of each other and having a stake in each other’s future. That has potential to have a serious network effect.

Look at SharkDAO, they have a huge amount of JBX, in their case they don’t really vote on stuff and their JBX isn’t super valuable, but it would be nice to start to see that happen with partner DAOs.

I think the thing we’re missing is the NFT thing— that’s the key in my opinion to returning revenue over time. Canu, Wagmi, etc., are paid through JB, so they can show how great the network is because they have locked in revenue from the revenue fees JB takes from all projects on the protocol. I think if we could create non-JB originating revenues, that would be fascinating.

Not to mention the landscape may be changing a bit here. Let’s talk about “Soulbound” tokens (SBTs), which may be on the horizon. The idea here is tokens that are non-transferable. Some say good idea, others say it’s just a way to make resumes in web3. What do you make of that?​

The idea of non-transferable tokens… it’s interesting. I think no matter what in web3, if you’re an amazing code you will probably always get work. But that being said treating SBT’s like a resume can definitely happen too. I have to say I haven’t read the paper yet, so I’m just going off of what I heard floating around the web3 space.

Long term, there’s a decent argument against it, which is that in ten years I don’t think any of us will be using the same wallet. But overall, I think it’s trying to answer the problem of these membership DAOs. If you base your membership on holding a market-tradable token, the appreciation of the token will ultimately result in the dilution of the quality of the members of your community as people sell.

Also JokeDAO comes to mind, where if you participate in their competition by submitting a joke, you get voting tokens for the subsequent competition.

One-time use tokens in other words.​

Yes exactly. I think that’s even more interesting to be honest. The ecosystem rewards people for trying new things and experimenting.

What about SBT’s as a scarlet letter, in other words as a means to damage someone?​

For sure that could happen, I think it will depend on the person minting and their reputation. One of the things about NFTs I wondered was people doing antisocial NFTs, like people tokenizing their virginity, or tokenizing school shooters.

Excellent points. Who’s your favorite contributor, and why is it tankbottoms?​

Haha. Tankbottoms is great. There are so many great contributors honestly. If I had to point to anyone in particular, the person I admire most or seek to learn the most from is jango. There are many talented contributors, but jango has the talent I most wish I had— which is real clarity. It doesn’t mean jango knows everything and everyone follows him. It means he has real clarity around orientation to questions. You could call it vision, but that maybe that’s reductive. It’s more like in discussions he’s able to refocus very fluently. And of course being able to travel up and down the stack is incredible. Tankbottoms also is an unbelievable contributor in terms of accumulated experience and raw skill, which is so great. I mean, he’s just turning out stuff that other teams talk about for a year, and tank turns it out like that.

What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?​

Lately I’ve been doing kickboxing every week with my girlfriend and roommate. I’m also a total youtube fanatic and I rarely watch under 2x speed. My biggest interest for the past little while is in Magic the Gathering! A friend gave me the idea that we’re like the CPUs when we play MtG, and the game is the rules of machine, and… it’s like if javascript was run by a company and the only thing you could exercise and execute were functions that are sold 10 times a year. I’m really fascinated by it. I also love going on really long walks, like for hours and hours.

What does the future have in store for nicholas?​

I’m working on an NFT collection, actually, that I’m really pumped about. I can’t share anything just yet, it’s not finalized, but once it’s ready I’ll let everyone know about it!

(This interview was stylized from a discord call, and shortened for brevity. For those who want to hear the full interview, click this link for a mp3 file.

Who knew the pot smoking banana was the least strange one among us?

8:00am​

It’s a normal day at Wagmi studios. Burtula has posted a new animation of a Banny (Peach Banny to be precise) getting kidnapped in her sleep. Mieos likes it, but suggests smoothing it out, so the kidnapping can seem more natural. Tankbottoms is asking about asset folders to be filled out, and Sage is coming off being stranded in Idaho with a transmission-less car and working feverishly through her phone.

It’s only 8:30am. The day is just beginning. Felix has spent the better part of two days sourcing custom-made condoms— tri-fold condoms, to be exact, so each Banny can have their own condom packaging, with a pop-out tri-fold to really bring the point home. A banny wrapped in the coital experience, Felixander would tell you, is the most salient testament to the human condition.

12:00pm​

Burtula is taking Mieos’ words of advice to heart. After all, if a banny is going to get kidnapped, that should look natural. What will future customers think if such a traumatic experience seems rushed or premature? Premature— Felix is thinking of a joke, but he’s abstaining. She works tirelessly to craft the Peach banny with more finesse, and in the wait one wonders about banny backgrounds— are we even saving all of them?

5 creative people stuffed into a studio, and not a shred of organizational prowess between them. Do we have a Peach Banny background? Of course we do. But where is it? Oh yeah, it’s in one of the thirteen discord channels at Wagmi, and it was posted a month ago. It may as well be in the ether, but that doesn’t stop us all from scrolling up wildly to find it.

Meanwhile tankbottoms is white knuckling it on at least hour 36 of a god-knows-how-long working sprint. His work pace has Cocaine saying bro, slow down, you’re harshing my vibe here. We try to get in touch with him, but on hour 36 the quality of response you can expect is a bit frayed to put it mildly. Tankbottoms operates on a bonding curve of consciousness— if you get your request in early, he will deliver a fucking spectacular answer. But if you’re in that last 5 hour span, you’re gonna get caught holding the bag.

5:00pm​

Meanwhile we’re trying to get a presentation on some UI from Sage. The Figma files are fire, and between randomly being jailed and what one can only assume is the wisdom derived from several ayahuasca trips, Sage delivers. She elegantly goes though all the work she’s put into the latest UI iteration, and everyone is blown away and gives her praises, but she has to cut it short because a coyote chewing on some old cigarettes by a roadside is giving her the stink eye, and it may get nasty.

They ask Felix what he thinks about the UI, but all he can think about is how a single tri-fold condom costs $1.64, but if we get ten thousand that price goes down to $0.46 per unit. He wants to make a joke about units, but he abstains. He’s crafting an email asking how many banana-pictures they can print on a single tri-fold, and he’s doing the math and thinking that we can make condoms cool, one self-referential banana at a time. He’s wondering if we can turn this all into a romance novel, where the Bannies fuck each other in only the most pleasant of language.

8:00pm​

We look to Mieos for guidance, but he’s on a treasure hunt deep in cryptovoxels, and he’s trying to embed 12 seed phrases the best he can and he’s having a blast doing it. Meanwhile Burtula is waiting for an answer about her animation, and people may be ready to start considering it, but just at that moment tank is wondering why these blog posts are even generated by lowly meatsacks like Felix— can’t all this shit be generated on chain?

12:00am​

For this hour, nothing really happens at all, and nobody is working on anything.

1:00am​

The day is winding down. Condoms have been designed for an order that’s never likely to happen. An animation is still waiting to be fine-tuned. Sage is coming off some hard psychedelics, or at least she should be for the amount of work she does. Tank is crashing for the next 47 hours. Mieos sits back in a recliner with a cat that he caresses knowingly, cackling into the moonlight as he reflects on another solid day.

Nothing finalized, nothing completed. Incremental progress happened, but the struggle continues the next day. But a hell of a lot of fun was had.

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

aeolian is a longtime JB member and a front-end wizard. He has worked tirelessly for the JB cause and seemingly writes lines of code in his sleep. Lately he has championed discussions around how we evaluate compensation in the DAO, and most recently has submitted a proposal (in-process as of this writing) to reduce payouts across all JB contributors. Read on to learn a bit more about this front-end developer turned fiscal activist.

How’d you get started with JB and how has it changed since you’ve been here?​

Before JB, and technically even now, I’ve been a software engineer in the traditional web2 space working for startups, etc. I’ve been loosely dabbling in crypto over the years, but I always wanted to dive into it in a bigger way. Generally when I want to dive into something, I really wanna get into the nuts/bolts and learn it from the ground up. I finally found myself with the time to do that, and me and a couple friends found this NFT project we liked, and even though we couldn’t really afford to buy the NFT separately, if we pull our funds together… and it was like a lightbulb moment. We thought hey, what about this whole DAO thing happening— what if we make a DAO that buys some NFTs. So I found JB and started poking around, and it was coincidentally the same time that ConstitutionDAO was happening. I was drawn in by the amazing branding of Banny (a banana smoking a joint was just amazing) and the next day I wake up, log into discord, and I see the treasury has grown to like 20 million overnight. Once I saw that and started really thinking about the potential of this thing I immediately dropped everything I was doing and started trying to contribute where I could, especially on the dev side and front-end side. Peri welcomed us with open arms and the rest is history as they say.

Awesome. So much talk lately about V2! How would you put V2 in perspective for someone not technically aware of all the changes?​

V2, hmm. When we talk about V2 we’re talking about the protocol itself. Jango, Drgorilla and a bunch of others have identified some tings about V1 which were restrictive, like that projects can only raise money in ETH and not in other currencies, that there’s less flexibility around how they can configure projects to meet their needs, and so on. The protocol guys said let’s start developing V2 and improve it from the ground up, and so the front-end’s job in that is basically to support those new additions. There’s exciting potential use cases, like funding your project through your own NFT launch, or like a project that comes along that says we want to award contributors with an NFT that they can sell on secondary market, and the proceeds of those NFTs will go straight into a JB treasury. Another biggie is supporting multi-currencies— projects accepting stablecoins instead of just ETH. Truthfully we don’t even know all the possibilities that it is hopefully going to open up, which is what makes it all the more exciting.

I’m reminded of the story of that city planner in England way back when, who had the roads built twice as wide as necessary. People thought he was crazy, but he saw a future with population explosion. Do you view V2 as built for the realities of tomorrow?​

Haha, I super admire anyone that can have that kind of forethought and conviction in their idea of the future. When you’re building a protocol as the ecosystem saw with V1, it enables a set of use cases which, in the case of V1, proved to be successful with big fundraisers that make big volume in a short amount of time. Look at the internet– such a non-restrictive, base-level protocol, and look at it now. The creators of the internet would have had no idea that it would become what it is now. Not unlike JB with this website of this smoking banana that enables millions of dollars of fundraising.

There’s been this wonderful discussion about compensation lately. Where does a DAO strike a balance between compensating members and staying lean for a down-the-line bigger payout?​

It’s really hard. Like someone said in that thread on compensation— I don’t remember who— but comparing people based on a number is just not healthy, right? That’s what people don’t like about traditional corporate life, and that’s why people find themselves in web3 and crypto. They want to escape that world and operate in a space that lets them do what interests them the most. In terms of how to think about it from a first-principles perspective, which I’m trying to do, let’s start with startups. I don’t think the startup model is perfect by any means– it probably disproportionately rewards the founders more than early builders. So that’s not exactly a blueprint for us either.

It’s just so complicated right? So many smart people and no one has been able to find that holy grail answer...​

Right. And drawing from the corporate world and those structures probably is not the right way to go about it either. I’m not a crypto/web3 maximalist in that sense though, I do think people can learn things from those who have come before us, but we’re here to make our own rules and to do what makes sense for us and what leads to the most amazing ecosystem that we can possibly build. That’s what we’re all here to do. The fact that that thread exists and other threads like it exist is a real testament to this community because we’re driven and passionate about figuring this stuff out. That, in my opinion, is the sign of a really healthy community.

No egos can be around in this right– how come egos don’t seem to clash more in these situations?​

There’s something about JB, or the way that the community presents itself, whether on socials or within the discord, that it leads to a certain type of person sticking around. People are sufficiently motivated at JB. When teams break apart and things don’t happen it’s because people gave up on figuring out how to make it work. Everyone here recognizes the opportunity we have in front of us, to build this amazing thing and a solid foundation for us to all go forward. It’s a recognition that if we can really sit down and work all this stuff out we’re really gonna be able to build amazing things.

Do you think the JB runway threatened by the compensation models we have now? JB never had any VC coming in, so how do you reconcile that?​

That’s the key point– and I’ve been guilty of this in the past myself— JB is very unique and the dynamics of the ecosystem are crazy. We really do have to think about this stuff. We have to sit down and think about it from a first-principles perspective, rather than approaching it in the traditional way of doing these things.

What about the workflow over time problem– ie, what happens when your job drops off in work to do because you executed the task, but you’re still getting this big recurring payout?​

That’s the biggie, you’ve hit the nail on the head. One model we’ve stewarded is that the front-end team has broken out into its own treasury in Peel, and that allows us to be more intentional with how we fund projects. It really allows two things: we can onboard quickly those who we think are really good, and we can also understand their skill set right away. We know what we’re looking for and the broader DAO doesn’t have to go in and make a decision on every single recurring payout proposal that comes through that affects the front-end. That’s one model that’s been working for us, but these things are all emerging, and that what makes me super excited to be here in JB and in web3.

Got it. Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. Who’s your favorite JB member, and why is it jango?​

Jango said something a while ago that really nails home why he’s so amazing, and the culture he’s ushered in at JB. I’m just gonna quote it here:

“i like hangin with folks that can be fluid between bullshitting and manifesting, fluid between appreciating beauty and ugly, fluid between conversation and silence, fluid between humor and practicality, fluid between been in awe of everything and focusing on the next idea in front of us. I'm attracted as fuck to people with big imaginations who make moves towards them.”

That was like such an amazing statement because it’s really hard to find people who are your people. I feel like my people are this: people who strike that balance between brilliance and focus, but also are able to laugh at the ridiculousness of life, and so I guess when I read that I was like damn, I will definitely be vibing here for many years.

But my homies at Peel definitely need a huge shoutout. This is the dream team and I'm super lucky to be a part of it.

What’s something that people would be surprised to learn about you?​

Hmm… I don’t really know. I guess one thing is that I started programming very late, and I actually always wanted to be a film composer— writing music for movies. That’s what I was doing before becoming a software engineer. Through high school I was pretty much all about music; I played piano and a bunch of other instruments and I got really into writing music for film, and I thought I would take that road. Eventually I kind of just realized it wasn’t coming from a place of pure passion and excitement. I realized as a musician you have to write music you don’t care to write oftentimes, and take jobs that don’t interest you at all. So I looked for another avenue and it was kind of just random how it happened: I went to university for some unrelated degree and fell in love with programming and comp sci along the way.

“Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

0xSTVG is a JB die-hard, having been around since the early days. As the DAOs onboarder and bona fide swag and sticker monger, you can see him around the discord always helpful and ready to answer questions. Recently we had a moment to chat and I was able to hear his wonderful JB origin story, and his priorities in the JB space. Check it out below!

How’d you get started with JB and how has JB changed since you’ve been here?​

I was in there early! I learned about DAOs through Rare Pizzas and this guy named snax— who I gotta give a shoutout to ‘cause he’s the one who introduced me to DAOs— was buying free pizzas on pizza day. It was me and him and 2 other peeps on Clubhouse, and I was like this is stupid, no way this is gonna happen. As I got more comfortable in the DAO space, I eventually found my way to SharkDAO. I had started seeing these SharkDAO logos and I figured hey, I have a printing shop, I should make some hoodies with logos on them to give away, and I did (and they were expensive!). Jango and nicholas were people who helped guide me through sending out those hoodies, and so I got to know them and got to know JB. I decided to start making some JB clothing with graphics as well, and eventually I got put together with Zeugh and the talk was about community. I started helping wherever help was needed, like with governance, moving proposals along as they were coming in, etc. Eventually filipv jumped in and we started tag-teaming it and doing the podcast, which ran for a while.

Filipv is great. Is it fair to call you two the gruesome twosome?​

We worked very closely together and he ended up taking on some huge responsibilities, but we still lean on each other a lot when it comes to opinions and direction. I would definitely say I’ve learned a ton from him and I think he would say the same. Every once in a while we’ll pick up the phone and call each other and just say “Hey, how you doin’?”.

I see you as this onboarding wizard, where did that start?​

It’s definitely a roll I’ve grown comfortable doing. I remember doing onboarding with MoonDAO and Slice, and eventually then for JB. It’s also interesting that that sort of merged into this weird testing and feedback roll too. I found myself in the front-end chat more and more (I don’t know if I’m providing value there– I hope I am!) to try to test various things, launch projects on test net, find obscure bugs that are here and there and provide suggestions/feedback based on what the onboarding calls are giving me, so it’s kind of become a merged roll. Being in that close proximity to the user gives a lot of great insight and perspective.

I also think there needs to be a shield between the regular user and developers. I’m very adamant that there needs to be some distance there. I’ve always appreciated jango saying we’re all builders at JB, but let’s be honest, they’re (the devs) are the builders– the developers on the JB protocol side and the Peel Team, they’re really building and everyone else is providing support. Since I joined JB I’ve always felt the need to kind of protect the jangos of JB because they’re so hyper focused that distractions can lead to mistakes, and that can be a big problem. I think a lot of organizations should take on that approach, to be honest, to make sure those core builders are shielded from the basic questions that other contributors can answer. I feel like that’s where I slid right in, I can answer those questions.

I’m reminded of high level athletes and how they’re trained. The trainer almost has to take a caretaker role, ensuring that distractions/obstacles are cleared so that the athlete can do what they do: perform.​

Exactly. It’s all about minimizing distraction. It’s interesting that you bring up athletics; I was a former athlete and after that have been involved in high level training— olympics, NCAA athletes— and the one thing I’ve carried on in my life moving into JB and other things is to eliminate distractions and be in the moment. If you are distracted about the outcome of something, you’re taking away energy from the task that you’re actually doing, and in athletics that could be the difference between a win and a loss, a championship and coming in second. It sounds super corny but launching new extensions has become that for me– that’s the championship, we gotta get there, how do we get there, how do we stay focused are the questions I have bouncing around in my head. I’ve always been an idea person— someone who can really thrive in environments where we’re talking about ideas— and I’ve always been good at that I felt, and JB is this crazy environment where people take ideas and build off of it into something else. It’s like a dream come true.

There almost seems to be a hippy spirit at JB– people are just so open. I’m thinking of the compensation discussion from a few weeks ago. Just an open discussion, no one at each other’s throats.​

Yeah, especially with a topic that’s been so sensitive our whole lives– we don’t talk about salary IRL, and to have this open dialogue is special. More so to have the validation that what you’re providing is worth the payout that you’re receiving– there’s no better feeling than that. Having the support of the community has been an amazing feeling for me. People don’t realize how important that is to me– to my personal being. It’s quite an experience and one that I don’t take for granted.

Regarding compensation, if you don’t pay the people who are irreplaceable, they’re gonna go somewhere else. I think that’s an important point. There’s also people within the DAO that are just completely connected to the DAO itself, like if jango leaves, or Drgorilla leaves, what is JB, or Peel, or what even happens to JB?

Fair question.​

I’ll tell ya right now– if jango decides to do another project, I would ask him if I can go with him. You just can’t replace certain people. So if you don’t pay them, they’re gonna be gone. All that said, I do think we need to be aware that we don’t have unlimited resourced. At the same time I think there’s enough people in the DAO that aren’t necessarily leaning on JB for all their bills/everything they do. So if there’s an emergency situation where people have to back off/reduce payout, I think we’ll see that happen.

Why the lack of assholes and mentally checked-out people at Juicebox?​

I think because everyone at JB right now has proven their value, and people who haven’t don’t stay around for very long; they weed themselves out. I think there’s also a level of respect from each person that everybody kind of has each other’s back. If you come in and try to take advantage of the DAO, I think the community can read that like a book because we all had to pay our dues. Everyone who’s being paid recurring payouts has been told no at least once– that’s a common denominator we all have. I think when everyone’s gone through that there’s a level of respect and community, which you see in how we treat each other in our day-to-day.

For sure! Okay switching gears: who is your favorite contributor, and why is it Zeugh?​

Haha, I think Zeugh is great– he’s awesome!

You know, I don’t know who my favorite contributor is. I’ve worked closest with jango and filipv probably, but I’ve gotten to know the peel team a bit more and I’ve really enjoyed them asking me for feedback/allowing me to provide feedback. Right now I couldn’t answer who, I just love working with jango and filip– they definitely help me out and give me a strong feeling of purpose.

What’s something somebody would be surprised to learn about you?​

I think the biggest surprise would be… I have four kids! That is something that actually helps me with what I’m doing at JB– I’m good with time management/organization, and can make time for everything. My oldest son is really active with sports, so I’m juggling a lot, but even on the sidelines I’m always on the discord.