Yesterday, the coolest moment in poidh history dropped:
We made it happen @drsalsaverde !!
Legendary skateboarder Dave Bachinsky broke the Guinness World Record for most skateboard kickflips in one minute to claim a poidh bounty worth 10 million DEGEN (~$29,000 at the time of claim).
How did several different parties come together to fund such a massive prize pool?
Back in August, Jacek put out a call to the DEGEN community for viral marketing ideas. One of the top suggestions was to fund breaking a world record with DEGEN on poidh:
I followed up with a suggestion that we could do a 10,000,000 DEGEN bounty to break the “most kickflips in a minute” record:
This received support from Jacek, and also piqued the interest of a certain Farcaster (and professional skateboarder) named Dave Bachinsky:
Based on this positive reception, I went ahead and created a bounty with about $100 worth of DEGEN (26,666 DEGEN). All that was left to do was add another 9,973,334.
While Jacek was interested in the positive spotlight this initiative could generate, he was also (reasonably) hesitant to rush into depositing 10,000,000 DEGEN into poidh for the vague idea of "breaking a world record.”
I chatted through the concept with him, explained how we would deal with controversy by using Guinness as our "oracle" in this scenario, and we came to the conclusion that this could be a legitimate, unique, and fun way to spotlight DEGEN (and the Degen Chain L3 that poidh utilizes).
However, funding all 10,000,000 DEGEN from the treasury was a steep ask for an unproven marketing tactic.
So I reached out to a crew of fellow Farcasters who have helped fund poidh/DEGEN-related activities in the past: The Haberdashery.
Originally known as Degen DAO because the DAO's treasury was pooled from individuals (such as myself) who voluntarily gave up a portion of their original DEGEN airdrop to join the DAO, the Haberdashery now primarily operates out of a Farcaster group chat with governance designated by ownership of Degen Haberdasher NFTs. The group's mission is simple: incentivize meaningful content across Farcaster.
I proposed that The Haberdashery could fund 3,333,333 DEGEN, with Jacek then doubling their contribution with 6,666,666 DEGEN. While some in the group were (again, reasonably) skeptical about doing such a silly thing with a large amount of treasury funds, there was enough support to get the proposal moved to a vote.
At that point? I sent 500+ DMs over the course of the next 4 days to people to explain what we were doing, why it was fun, and why they should take the time to vote.
The result? A whopping 94% of voting members voted "yes" to fund the proposal:
The Haberdashery's founder, Purp, then deposited the 3,333,333 DEGEN on behalf of the DAO and we were up and running:
Shortly after, Jacek and the official DEGEN treasury came through to round out the 10,000,000 DEGEN grand prize:
With all funds in escrow via the poidh smart contract, we set about spreading the word across social media and IRL. $30,000 was on the line for anyone who could break the record, and people were stoked:
We got a feature in Decrypt:
And even Google's AI was hyped about the big "kickflip bounty":
Then, two weeks after Jacek took the bounty to 10M DEGEN, I got a message from Dave:
There was a claim on poidh:
And a post on Twitter:
We made it happen @drsalsaverde !!
"This is for DEGEN"... and then a minute of world-class greatness. Just like we'd envisioned.
These past few days have been full of celebration as everyone involved has enjoyed the moment. I'm thrilled that poidh was able to incentivize something so impressive, Farcaster friends are stoked that the purple app community helped make this happen, the DEGEN community has a landmark accomplishment that will always be tied to their meme, and the skate community has a new reason to celebrate someone who was already a legend:
We're continuing to spread the word, and people are taking note that incentivization markets may be something special:
We made it happen @drsalsaverde !!
Graham knows a thing or two about viral crypto events. He helped start Constitution DAO back in 2021. He's a fan of these "world record" challenges, and we're going to keep leaning into them. Next up, we're trying to break the Beer Mile world record, and we already have over $2000 committed to the cause:
Want to help prove that crypto can be a force for pushing the limits of human excellence? Consider adding some ETH on Base via the bounty page here: https://poidh.xyz/base/bounty/723
We've come a long way from being a little experimental app on Farcaster running $5 photo bounties, in no small part thanks to the friends and fans who have supported the vision from day one. Cheers to you all, and to many new records to come.
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had a lot of fun writing this one DEGEN, @thehaberdashery, and the story of @davebachinsky's kickflip world record 🎩 https://paragraph.com/@poidh/degen-haberdashery-dave-bachinsky-kickflip-world-record
@nounishprof full story here in case you were wondering! but you were pretty spot on in the GM Farcaster summary
TY! I had seen the casts looking for someone to try this — awesome that it actually happened!!
Amazing!
the haberdashery is goated as is @purp
I'm so glad degen is going to be famous more and more every day :)
Good night friends
Morning kenny $degen