Welcome, citizens of the Kingdoms! This series is called True Hero of the Week. Every week, we will be hearing from a valued community member, get to know them more, and listen to their DeFi Kingdoms story! I hope that you are all excited to meet the people that makes this community great. Enjoy reading!In my own words, I call MrZipper the DeFi Kingdoms Community’s Data Scientist. He is well-known for his blockchain data analyses, which includes drop rates, hero statistics, hero wallet breakdown, summoning percentages, and probably more in the future. These are all summarized excellently on his series The Hero’s Hold. Definitely give him a follow on his Medium if you are curious about these numbers. It will help you a lot in your DFK journey.
In real life, he is a researcher, writer, and educator (he’s an academic!). He has also been a long-time computer guy and PC gamer: building computers as a kid, and having grown up with Blizzard games like Warcraft 2 and Starcraft and then spending way too much time in college (his words) playing World of Warcraft. If you know MrZipper, it might come as a surprise for you that he is not a programmer. However, he shared to me that he picked up a little bit of python over the years, and he found his love of diving into data and building little projects, especially around games that interest him.
Like so many others, he started getting involved in the crypto space early on this year, when the sudden explosion of DogeCoin made him go back and try to find the wallet that he had created in 2014 and subsequently forgotten about on an old hard drive (it was worth about $40). He took that opportunity to dive in, discovering Nano, then Banano, and finally settling in with the CryptomonKeys (NFT crowd over on WAX). Some careful moves and a good bit of luck have allowed him to build a modest crypto portfolio without having ever added a dime of fiat — something he’s rather proud of.
His in-game name is MrZipper. As of this writing, he currently has 1,000 xJewels and 12 heroes. He has 2 gen1 heroes, 4 gen2 heroes, 2 gen3 heroes, and 4 gen4 heroes.
This is his favorite hero — Campbell Birchborne (#7777), a rare Paladin. He absolutely loves the visual effect and he was stunned the first time he saw an image when she was first summoned: the rare wing mutation in gold matching the armor, the Light element and the Island background, and of course the giant sword. The whole thing is just perfect. I agree as well.
Campbell Birchborne reminded him a bit of the original artwork to Magic: The Gathering’s [Serra Angel] (link), and consequently brings up all that nostalgia from his childhood.
How did you discover DeFi Kingdoms?
I initially heard about DFK in an r/cc ‘shill your crypto’ thread, where somebody said that DFK was basically a “money printer.” That was enough to get me to Google it, and given my background in WAX, it was obvious that DFK was what all of the games in that space wanted to be. Since it was the tail end of Epoch 2, the 80k% APR was enough to get me to throw some money in, but spending some time with the community, hearing directly from the devs, and working through the Docs made it clear that there was vision and serious thought being put into the whole thing, and that the game was being built for the long term and specifically to avoid all of the problems faced by new DEXes. And that was enough to get me to stick around and pay attention.
In your opinion, what makes this project great?
Pretty much everything, really. As I mentioned above, I love that the devs wanted to do something new that combines all of the best elements of DeFi and crypto games in a way that really hasn’t been done yet — and that most importantly, they actually have the talent and development skills to pull it off. And just as importantly — they wanted it to be something fun as well (I’m looking at you, Alien Worlds and rPlanet), that could new bring people into defi, hit that element of nostalgia, and not bankrupt them with transaction fees in the process.
But also there’s the community. In general, I’m still a bit of a crypto skeptic, especially because of some of the kinds of people that it attracts and the communities that form around it. And so I wouldn’t stick around if it weren’t an enjoyable experience to be a part of. I initially found a great group of people among the CryptomonKeys, which set a high bar for what a really positive crypto community can look like, and I’m so glad to have found that here with DFK as well!
What would you like to see in the future?
I’m really excited about all the possibilities that land will bring to the game. Although I know I’ll never own land in DFK, I’ve always been a crafter at heart, and the idea of collecting materials and turning them into Something is really appealing to me. That said, I’d love to see two things that coincide with land: 1) A really expanded crafting functionality — making armor, weapons, etc. that I can sell to other players. And 2) The ability to set up my own shop for that on somebody else’s land, even if it means paying a small transaction fee to the landowner. Something like that would expand the potential of the P2E aspects of the game while also making land valuable (and hopefully profitable) to average players whether or not they’re part of a land-holding guild.
Describe DeFi Kingdoms in 3 words.
Message for the Community
It’s mostly just a message of gratitude. I certainly did not set out to become a font of community knowledge for all things DFK (the “Discord librarian” as I got called the other day), but everyone’s support has made it such an enjoyable experience. It’s a pleasure getting to share that knowledge with you all, and I’m so glad that I can be helpful, especially to better inform people about the decisions that they’re making with what is, in the end, their money (although sometimes it doesn’t feel like it). My own work IRL has an audience of very close to zero, so when I look at the read statistics on even the handful of Medium articles that I’ve published, it’s deeply humbling to know how many people I’m reaching. So my deepest thanks to you all!
Contact Information:
https://twitter.com/MrZipper7
https://medium.com/@MrZipper7
Discord: MrZipper#7564
