By Web3ArtBlog.NFT

Dave is a real Web3 grassroots builder. He walks the Web3 talk and has his finger on the Polygon blockchain pulse.

I feel like I got to know him better during the course of making this interview.

Some of the things that struck me the most about him are his clarity of purpose, attention to detail, his humility and great zeal for building the Web3 community.

I look forward to collaborating with Dave Swinbank and Pollygon Alliance in the future because they are doing a lot of great things for the Web3 community.

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Dave Swinbank co-founder of Pollygon Alliance.

Question: Could you please tell us about your amazing work with Polygon Alliance, for the uninitiated?

Pollygon Alliance wants to make Polygon the No 1 place for NFT’s and DeFi. Learn, Grow, Support. 

Polygon Alliance is a community of builders, collectors, creators and more. It was formed from several Discords and a community of builders and creators built on a Twitter Spaces hosted by BelugaBayNFTs, myself and various other people from October to March, Polygon Community and Project Spaces. Polygon Alliance was founded by Beluga, SethiusArt and myself. We are supported on Discord and Twitter by a multitude of amazing people. 

They are back every Mon-Fri, 2-4pm EST. Without Beluga right now. Called #ThisIsNotAShill, hosted by me, co-hosted by Cynthia, Subzero & PolygonHoodie.

We are offering networking, resources, services and tools to help people achieve their potential. We want to keep services affordable and tools accessible. We do this through a network of Spaces, our Discord and our Website. 

We follow these core values – care, compassion, consideration, empathy, kindness, love and trust. We want to build people up and are pushing for equality of opportunity for all. We believe that crypto and NFT’s make this a possibility. 

We are not purely Polygon and have Ethereum, Solana and Wax artists that are very welcome and offer value to a larger NFT community. We have recently built communication channels with Polygon, PolygonDAO and are offering what support we can to OnePlanet NFT, to help them with their migration from Terra to Polygon.

We host regular community events. Creative Owls curates the Polygon Showcase in Spatial and we make these more successful every time, the next one is in July. J Mibster hosts community competitions via her marble gaming platform.

We have hosted one Charity Auction for the People of Ukraine in March. We have our next Charity event on 9th June, for FCancer. Follow these accounts to find some of the Spaces hosted in our community; TroglodyteSoci1, Komards NFTS, MegaRetroNFT, DaturiansNFT, Crypt O Manimal & Nftcoinlaundry.

These will lead you to more people who host other valuable Spaces within our community.

We are building out our website and are encouraging people to make profiles for themselves and their projects. We want to boost sight and visibility for all of us and feel that a well ordered website with links for your sites, social media and YouTube’s is the best way to do this. There are free tools available for creators and collectors. A range of DeFi and NFT options. Please take a moment to check it out and create a profile here.

There is lots more information in the Twitter thread below, it will give you a greater understanding of our aims and what we have achieved. Feel free to join our website and/or Discord. We welcome all.
Dave Swinbank, Discord , Pollygon Alliance Website

Question: You are part of a cool Nft project CryptoGoonz. Could you please tell us more about that project and your experience with the nft community

I found CryptoGoonz in Sept. Just after ‘they’ dropped and I won a giveaway. The artist and founder, CryptoAbsolem (Chris) had seen some instant traction after reducing the price. He formed a team from the interested people shortly after. I did my first giveaway on Twitter on the 24th Sept 2021. I had 64 followers on Twitter before that giveaway, I am now at over 20,000. From early Sept the growth and our build has been exceptional. It has come from nothing. It is all organic and all of our reinvestment has gone into the build. 

We had to rejig our team in Nov/Dec 2021 due to personal circumstances and since then Absolem and I have pushed everything and I am now a partner in the project. 

We have 10  Eth volume on our OpenSea storefront contract – our first 3000, Goonz, Femz and Zombz. We have seen success moving onto our own contracts with Deadz and Astroz. Astroz are currently minting now for 15 matic. The last part of this collection will be released in July, CyborgGoonz. 

We have a storyline, or GoonzLore, to go with every drop. Each series of drops will have a feature length story that will connect with a comic book (under creation), our Sandbox experience (we own a plot of Sandbox land) and a way for holderz and creatorz to interact with the Gooniverse by adding their stories as we expand. 

The opening up of our Gooniverse is planned to be in Q3/Q4 this year, and is part of our story. To achieve this we have on-boarded a dev, we have verbally agreed to have a Sandbox builder continue our experience build, we have a Super Secret Summer Drop planned to boost engagement and have fun and we have our next series planned – Goonimalz.

Our Dev has helped us add some excitement and fun into our mint. We have hidden 10 Legendary Astroz in the mint. They are all 1/1’s and not generated. They will be worth 67.5 matic to the holder when the mint closes. There is a 2% chance of rolling a free mint when you purchase. We have a further 5% of the mint to go back to our holderz, and they will help us decide how. And we have merch to give away to holders when we reach certain mint milestones.

Our Dev has also enabled us to build our own PvP battle simulator game. You will be able to battle your Deadz, Astroz and Cyborgz (Cyborgz to be released). This will be released as a simple Beta in June 2022. We want our community to help us decide the direction the build will take. 

We have got an experienced builder for Sandbox, who is highly regarded in regards to his voxal art. He will be making sure our experience has room for a playable experience, a community area and much more.

We have partnerships with Elegant Elephant Society, Cartridge Punkz and Umbria Network as well as multiple relationships throughout the Polygon and NFT community. These relationships continue to add value to our build and there is always an exciting prospect just around the corner that we never expect. 

My experiences in the NFT community have mainly been about people and business structure. We need the good practices and structure that a solid business plan and build offers. We need to be adaptable and flexible due to the constantly changing landscape. It is important to provide things that our communities want to engage with. Building everything out in a way that offers 2 way value is a good way to start building relationships. Good relationships are the lifeblood of Crypto and NFT communities. Not all the relationships we have built, have worked out, but the ones that have will be long lasting and meaningful, and are already adding insane value. Being accountable, consistent and visible have allowed me to add trust to the relationships I have built. 

Learning how to set my expectations has helped me to deal with the pressures of this space. I don’t always get back what I offer, but that is OK because I know that is how it works. I always aim to value time and effort more than a financial return. I feel this has helped me keep pushing forward and keeping myself true to my values, through some of the toughest adversity I have ever faced. 

Amongst all of this, I have found a place that allows me to be me and a place where I finally feel comfortable enough to express my creativity. That is due to the people, I appreciate this and will forever be grateful for it. 

The most important thing is to remember to have fun and smile. We are here building and creating what we want, we should be having fun whilst we do it.

Project Links:

CryptoGoonz Website, Twitter, Astroz mint – 15 Matic, Discord, Dave, Dev, Sandbox Architect.

Question: Some on the mainstream media are writing off nfts as a dead fad, how do you see the NFT community and space evolving?

Answer: I think NFT’s can be difficult to understand and until we can make the process of understanding NFT’s and how they represent things it will be tough to gain mass adoption. It is also awkward to buy crypto, move it between wallets and then use it on a platform to buy an NFT. The end user journey is complex and frustrating to someone new to crypto and/or NFT’s. 

In regards to the above, I feel that we have a responsibility as builders and creators to make it easier for people to understand the potential and onboard them. The future is in our hands. We need to make sure we are compliant with financial regulation and we are offering security for our communities. We do this by being accountable, trusting and visible, as a larger community, in my opinion. 

I also think that we do not communicate effectively and react after going through emotional circumstances. This can create big rifts in the community concerned. And is arguably a larger pattern across the whole of society. If we take some time to understand why someone may feel a certain way, we can resolve most situations in a satisfactory manner. 

Question: Vitalik Buterin has been talking a lot about SBTs that are essentially nfts bound to your wallet and un-transferable. What do you think about that idea?

They have been around for a while. Like everything, they come with benefits and risks. 

Key benefits. 

You can stop one person buying control of your DAO. This means you always know the mechanics of your DAO. It means you can offer rewards directly to a wallet, maybe for being an early buyer. It can enable a deeper individual connection between holder and creator. It means the holder can sell their NFT and still get rewarded for being an early investor.

Key risks. 

What if a wallet gets hacked? What if a wallet gets lost? Do you punish a holder for their wallet being compromised? What if you need holders to create a guaranteed majority vote system and one gets lost meaning votes can end equal? In regards to rewarding, do you want people to get the reward if they sell that NFT?

Work out what you need as a creator and then analyse the potential solutions available before making a decision. What do you need? What allows you to be adaptable whilst adhering to your values?

Question: Polygon recently announced a collaboration with web2 data capitalist Meta exFacebook. Do you think Web3 start ups risk being swallowed by web2 capitalism and that the dream of decentralization could be put at risk by the likes of Meta who made billions via illegitimate decentralization of our data!?

Answer: Yes we are at risk. But every business model is at risk all the time. Especially from people with money. And money is king in a decentralized money market. Crypto is famous for pumps and dumps that wipe millions of dollars out of the market. This is just a different risk that we know is coming. We can potentially mitigate it, because we are aware of it. 

None of this stops people from being successful. This is arguably our biggest opportunity ever to drive meaningful and lasting change, through the transparency available on the block chain. 

I think big corporations will be taking advantage of that and using it to clean up some of those practices end users don’t like. Terms of service and regulations will always be part of life. The legal requirements are getting clearer with recent charges of insider trading in the US. One for Nate Chastain, the other for Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna in relation to Frosties NFT’s. Regulation is already here and being enforced as per real word rules. We have to ensure our builds are legally compliant. 

Question: What was the first Nft you ever bought and why?

Sorare. A football NFT. I collected stickers and sticker albums as a kid (and an adult) and this really appealed to me. I could trade, rarity was added. Maybe I will win something rare… I was sold. That was August 2021. I had not purchased any crypto before. I am also a huge sports fan. So this really appealed to a lot of my hobbies and aligned with what I enjoy.

Question: What is your take on the role of nft domains now and in the future?

I like that unique end ownership of everything, including domains, is becoming more and more accessible. I know there are limited use cases for NFT Domains right now, beyond ease of transfer of NFT’s. It will take time for us to work out what we need and then get the developers to make it happen. 

The potential is there to host on a web3 platform through a domain you own. I have no idea how this plays out, but I hope it adds more power to the individual. In terms of ownership and potential income from their data.  

Question: How do you see Web3 evolving 10 years from now?

I see Web 3 being where Web2 is now. In terms of technology, ease of use, mass adoption and much more. The ability for ‘instant’ transactions and unique end user ownership offer vast potential. If we don’t grab the potential and make it for everyone, someone else will, and they may want to make it more Web2. 

The first iPhone (computer in our hand) was only available in 2007. 15 years later…

10 years from now, what comes after Web3…

One last thing, my Koji link with all my personal info and links is below. Thank you for taking the time to read this. 
Koji Link