The year 2023 has been a chapter of my life marked by unexpected adventures, tough decisions, and unique opportunities. In this 365-day journey, I left behind old jobs, embraced new challenges, and immersed myself in projects that pushed me to grow both personally and professionally.

Join me on this recap, where I'll share the ups and downs of my career, experiences from different corners of the world, and the projects that shaped my path in the Web3 ecosystem. From contributions to startups to unforgettable moments at global events, this year has been a rollercoaster of emotions and learning ✨

I began 2023 with two similar yet distinct jobs: one at Fanz, an NFT Ticketing company, and simultaneously at Fanstastic, a decentralized social network for creators. However, I ended the year contributing to Talent Protocol, an ecosystem unlocking a unique reputation system to showcase human potential.

At Fanz, I learned and grew professionally for a year, transitioning from Content Manager to Head of Business Development. Over the year, we evolved from collaborating with small events to becoming a secure ticketing infrastructure for major events across Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and the USA. I'm grateful for the team and shared experiences, undoubtedly a promising venture in Argentina.

In less than four months, I joined Fanstastic as business development and growth, sharing a vision with the team to reshape the current social media landscape. This blog isn't solely about this topic – I've written various articles on it. Instead, it's a special mention of the team and shared moments.

In early 2023, fueled by the energy of being a world champion ⭐️, I got the opportunity to join the core team of Talent Protocol, a Web3 startup focusing on creating an open-source ecosystem for talent-focused applications. After collaborating partially and finding their protocol intriguing, I fully immersed myself in this adventure, contributing from the Growth side. Today, one year and some months later, I'm involved in Growth, Product, and leading Take Off, our scholarship system. Being a Swiss Army knife, you know, startup stuff 😅.

Now, I can proudly say I'm proud of the journey with the team and excited about what we have planned for 2024. 🔜

A highlight of 2023 was my continuous development in the area of decentralized social networks, formally known as "Decentralized Social Graphs" 🌐. While 2022 laid the groundwork for this, it wasn't until this year that the trend took off with the emergence of Lens Protocol V2, Farcaster, Friend.tech, and more.

This was also the year I uploaded the most videos to the platform, trying to step out of my comfort zone. Initially consistent, I admit my commitment waned. Other priorities took over.

https://www.youtube.com/@JuampiHernandez

https://tape.xyz/u/juampi

I highlight the constant support from the Avara and Lens Protocol teams, with whom I developed a strong friendship, admiring their vision and commitment to the ecosystem.

I believe that traveling is the best way to invest our time and money. Experiencing new cultures, meeting people, and facing new challenges enrich us as individuals. Among the standout moments were three fruitful trips: Portugal, Istanbul, and Buenos Aires.

These weren't just opportunities to explore new cities and customs but also incredible chances to connect with colleagues and individuals in the ecosystem whom I hadn't met personally. Participation in hackathons and the prizes won will be mentioned later.

In Lisbon, I met my work team for the first time in person during Builders Week. I can only say they are tremendous professionals. This trip wasn't entirely solo; I shared experiences with 10 scholarship recipients from our Take Off program. Together, we aimed to participate in Builders Week. What did we build? Web3.me.

🏆 Web3.me

Social reputation is a key factor in business and interactions. Leveraging blockchain, we built Web3.me, a platform analyzing on-chain data, providing various interpretations of our information along with charts and context about wallet activity.

This project won us the 2nd place 🏆 in the competition, capturing the interest of participants, the audience, and even judges. Undoubtedly, an incredible experience. Special thanks to Domenico and Lucas for participating, absolute geniuses 🙏🏻.

Ethereum Argentina arrived, the land of builders. The event comprised conferences and a week-long buildathon 👨🏼‍💻. It was a fantastic week where I connected with the local ecosystem, something appreciated living on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

A significant highlight was hosting my first event, #ReFi Day ♻️, as one of the side events during the week.

But let's get to the important part – what did we do in the Buildathon to win one of the awards? I'll explain below.

🏆 Prochain

Prochain is a user-friendly Web3 explorer. I genuinely believe that social capital is as relevant as, or even more than, economic capital. For this reason, I decided to build a blockchain explorer not only focused on finances but also on the social aspect.

We utilized user information, such as token quantities, NFTs, protocols user interacted with the most, social graphs, identities, and more. The goal was to create a comprehensive view of wallet identity and activity. We also leveraged protocols like Lens and AAVE for native interaction from our dApp. This secured us the first prize in the Lens Protocol track 🏆.

All this project was rushed in a few days, thanks to Jose and Julian, a shoutout to them 💥

The year ended on a high note in Istanbul, attending the largest event of the year, Devconnect. 24 hours of travel were worth it; literally, the entire Crypto niche was united in one place.

This was also my first experience as the host of Take Off, where I guided 10 ecosystem enthusiasts, and we shared great memories.

While the conferences in Devconnect were top-notch, the Eth Global hackathon stole the show – 10/10, a complete experience. Although this time I spent more time in the massage area and networking, I managed to deliver a project on time.

🏆 Builderscore

Continuing with the premise of on-chain reputation and its importance, we developed a badge that scores us based on our skills as builders.

Using Lens's open actions, deploying on the L2 of Scroll, and the APIs of 1Inch, we delivered a functional protocol useful for any protocol wanting to integrate an on-chain verification model. While there weren't significant prizes, we received a Scroll Runner Up for the best integration.

At the end of 2022, we were winning five awards at Eth Global Bogota with my team. Like any competition, once it's over, there's a hunger for more.

After months of deliberation, I decided to continue the "Coconnect 🥥" project on my own in mid-2023, taking advantage of everything I learned in those 8 months and the feedback gathered. I underwent a complete restructuring of the protocol, changed workflows, raised capital, connected with key stakeholders, and assembled a new team to take the project to the next level.

Months later, we launched our first functional version. Not everything had been integrated, as expected, but all the key features were there. The experience was more tedious than beneficial, so, summarily, the project went on standby. Nevertheless, it was a period where I continued learning about leadership, organization, and developing as a professional.

Shoutout to my team for developing Coconnect in 2022 and to the Block Coders team for joining in the new 2023 version 🙏🏻.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude and give a shoutout to some of the people who helped and whom I met this year:

• Chris Comnrie — Phaver.

• Stani Kulechov — Lens Protocol.

• Nilesh — Orb.

• Pedro — Talent Protocol.

• Rudnevsky — Talent Protocol.

• Tolga — Talent Protocol.

• Simon — Blurred Future.

• Joan — Ethic Hub.

• Lucas Cosivi — Open Zeppelin.

• Domenico — Take Off.

• José — Block Coders.

• Julian — Prochain.

• Luz — Take Off Istanbul.

• Santiago — Take Off Istanbul.

• The entire Zurf team.

Excited for what this year holds for me and the ecosystem in general. I'm sure 2024 will be a great year!

The year 2023 has been a chapter of my life marked by unexpected adventures, tough decisions, and unique opportunities. In this 365-day journey, I left behind old jobs, embraced new challenges, and immersed myself in projects that pushed me to grow both personally and professionally.

Join me on this recap, where I'll share the ups and downs of my career, experiences from different corners of the world, and the projects that shaped my path in the Web3 ecosystem. From contributions to startups to unforgettable moments at global events, this year has been a rollercoaster of emotions and learning ✨

I began 2023 with two similar yet distinct jobs: one at Fanz, an NFT Ticketing company, and simultaneously at Fanstastic, a decentralized social network for creators. However, I ended the year contributing to Talent Protocol, an ecosystem unlocking a unique reputation system to showcase human potential.

At Fanz, I learned and grew professionally for a year, transitioning from Content Manager to Head of Business Development. Over the year, we evolved from collaborating with small events to becoming a secure ticketing infrastructure for major events across Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and the USA. I'm grateful for the team and shared experiences, undoubtedly a promising venture in Argentina.

In less than four months, I joined Fanstastic as business development and growth, sharing a vision with the team to reshape the current social media landscape. This blog isn't solely about this topic – I've written various articles on it. Instead, it's a special mention of the team and shared moments.

In early 2023, fueled by the energy of being a world champion ⭐️, I got the opportunity to join the core team of Talent Protocol, a Web3 startup focusing on creating an open-source ecosystem for talent-focused applications. After collaborating partially and finding their protocol intriguing, I fully immersed myself in this adventure, contributing from the Growth side. Today, one year and some months later, I'm involved in Growth, Product, and leading Take Off, our scholarship system. Being a Swiss Army knife, you know, startup stuff 😅.

Now, I can proudly say I'm proud of the journey with the team and excited about what we have planned for 2024. 🔜

A highlight of 2023 was my continuous development in the area of decentralized social networks, formally known as "Decentralized Social Graphs" 🌐. While 2022 laid the groundwork for this, it wasn't until this year that the trend took off with the emergence of Lens Protocol V2, Farcaster, Friend.tech, and more.

This was also the year I uploaded the most videos to the platform, trying to step out of my comfort zone. Initially consistent, I admit my commitment waned. Other priorities took over.

https://www.youtube.com/@JuampiHernandez

https://tape.xyz/u/juampi

I highlight the constant support from the Avara and Lens Protocol teams, with whom I developed a strong friendship, admiring their vision and commitment to the ecosystem.

I believe that traveling is the best way to invest our time and money. Experiencing new cultures, meeting people, and facing new challenges enrich us as individuals. Among the standout moments were three fruitful trips: Portugal, Istanbul, and Buenos Aires.

These weren't just opportunities to explore new cities and customs but also incredible chances to connect with colleagues and individuals in the ecosystem whom I hadn't met personally. Participation in hackathons and the prizes won will be mentioned later.

In Lisbon, I met my work team for the first time in person during Builders Week. I can only say they are tremendous professionals. This trip wasn't entirely solo; I shared experiences with 10 scholarship recipients from our Take Off program. Together, we aimed to participate in Builders Week. What did we build? Web3.me.

🏆 Web3.me

Social reputation is a key factor in business and interactions. Leveraging blockchain, we built Web3.me, a platform analyzing on-chain data, providing various interpretations of our information along with charts and context about wallet activity.

This project won us the 2nd place 🏆 in the competition, capturing the interest of participants, the audience, and even judges. Undoubtedly, an incredible experience. Special thanks to Domenico and Lucas for participating, absolute geniuses 🙏🏻.

Ethereum Argentina arrived, the land of builders. The event comprised conferences and a week-long buildathon 👨🏼‍💻. It was a fantastic week where I connected with the local ecosystem, something appreciated living on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

A significant highlight was hosting my first event, #ReFi Day ♻️, as one of the side events during the week.

But let's get to the important part – what did we do in the Buildathon to win one of the awards? I'll explain below.

🏆 Prochain

Prochain is a user-friendly Web3 explorer. I genuinely believe that social capital is as relevant as, or even more than, economic capital. For this reason, I decided to build a blockchain explorer not only focused on finances but also on the social aspect.

We utilized user information, such as token quantities, NFTs, protocols user interacted with the most, social graphs, identities, and more. The goal was to create a comprehensive view of wallet identity and activity. We also leveraged protocols like Lens and AAVE for native interaction from our dApp. This secured us the first prize in the Lens Protocol track 🏆.

All this project was rushed in a few days, thanks to Jose and Julian, a shoutout to them 💥

The year ended on a high note in Istanbul, attending the largest event of the year, Devconnect. 24 hours of travel were worth it; literally, the entire Crypto niche was united in one place.

This was also my first experience as the host of Take Off, where I guided 10 ecosystem enthusiasts, and we shared great memories.

While the conferences in Devconnect were top-notch, the Eth Global hackathon stole the show – 10/10, a complete experience. Although this time I spent more time in the massage area and networking, I managed to deliver a project on time.

🏆 Builderscore

Continuing with the premise of on-chain reputation and its importance, we developed a badge that scores us based on our skills as builders.

Using Lens's open actions, deploying on the L2 of Scroll, and the APIs of 1Inch, we delivered a functional protocol useful for any protocol wanting to integrate an on-chain verification model. While there weren't significant prizes, we received a Scroll Runner Up for the best integration.

At the end of 2022, we were winning five awards at Eth Global Bogota with my team. Like any competition, once it's over, there's a hunger for more.

After months of deliberation, I decided to continue the "Coconnect 🥥" project on my own in mid-2023, taking advantage of everything I learned in those 8 months and the feedback gathered. I underwent a complete restructuring of the protocol, changed workflows, raised capital, connected with key stakeholders, and assembled a new team to take the project to the next level.

Months later, we launched our first functional version. Not everything had been integrated, as expected, but all the key features were there. The experience was more tedious than beneficial, so, summarily, the project went on standby. Nevertheless, it was a period where I continued learning about leadership, organization, and developing as a professional.

Shoutout to my team for developing Coconnect in 2022 and to the Block Coders team for joining in the new 2023 version 🙏🏻.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude and give a shoutout to some of the people who helped and whom I met this year:

• Chris Comnrie — Phaver.

• Stani Kulechov — Lens Protocol.

• Nilesh — Orb.

• Pedro — Talent Protocol.

• Rudnevsky — Talent Protocol.

• Tolga — Talent Protocol.

• Simon — Blurred Future.

• Joan — Ethic Hub.

• Lucas Cosivi — Open Zeppelin.

• Domenico — Take Off.

• José — Block Coders.

• Julian — Prochain.

• Luz — Take Off Istanbul.

• Santiago — Take Off Istanbul.

• The entire Zurf team.

Excited for what this year holds for me and the ecosystem in general. I'm sure 2024 will be a great year!