Where does EP rank on your list of priorities? What obligations do you have outside of Echelon?
My work on Echelon will join the list of the highest priority time commitments in my daily life. Aside from my obligations to my family, my real world obligations consist of my a very flexible position as an engineer manager for a global streaming company. As far as my obligations in the crypto world, I am a founding member of Yunt Capital, where I work with a number of early stage DeFi and GameFi projects, including Parallel. My work with Yunt Capital will be absorbed by other members in order for me to allocate the time that the Echelon Prime Foundation is deserving of.
I recognize the importance of what a position as Emissary Prime entails. In my opinion, the work in the first 12 months is imperative to building a solid foundation for the Echelon Prime Foundation to grow from. If elected as an Emissary Prime I can commit at least 20 hours a week, with the flexibility scale up as needed on a week-to-week basis.
What are some short and long term goals for Echelon as EP?
My time as a software engineer has taught me many important lessons that will carry over to my position as Emissary Prime. Chief among those lessons is that you don’t over-engineer solutions for an ill-defined set of constraints. Until the full scope of tasks that Echelon will undertake are defined, it is my opinion that we should keep a broad outlook and a soft hand. With that said, I do have some initial thoughts on both short and long term goals:
- Short Term: Release $PRIME! First and foremost releasing $PRIME will expand governance and begin to shift power towards the broader community. In order for Echelon to release $PRIME we’ll first need to make any adjustments necessary for proper tokenomics and usage of $PRIME-generating assets, as well as locking-in snapshot dates. Additionally we need to ensure that staking contracts for PrimeSets and Parallel TCG cornerstone NFTs are all properly written, audited, and functioning. All of this work should be done ASAP.
- Long Term: Create a clear distinction between the Echelon Prime Foundation and Parallel Studios. EPF should be regarded as the distinct and separate entity that it is, not an arm of Parallel Studios. A big component of this will be onboarding other games into the PRIME ecosystem. Ideally these other games will not be developed by Parallel Studios. Echelon is meant to be a play-to-earn platform, and Parallel Studios is meant to be a game development studio. Cementing this distinction is important to the long-term goals of EPF.
Are there any policies that you wish to see enacted?
Of the current active proposals, I strongly support the adjustments to $PRIME distribution put forth by metaregular, RebelSpy, and Fall. The details of the proposal are spelled out here.
How do you think about building checks and balances into the governance structure at Echelon?
The separation of Emissaries and $PRIME holders will inherently provide a system of checks and balances. The board of 11 Emissaries, elected by the community, should always have the health and interest of the PRIME ecosystem as their top priority. The open submission nature of the proposal system means that this interest may not always be shared by $PRIME holders.
One of the responsibilities of Emissaries is to ensure that malicious proposals and actions in bad faith do not harm the ecosystem or the community. This responsibility will be expressed in the form of defense against governance attacks, sybil attacks, and the fall-back of the 61% super majority (Key Support). A point that I think should be laid out in detail, that the Echelon Whitepaper does not stipulate, is a removal process for inactive or malicious EPs. A formal process for removing an EP is likely needed as a last resort balance to the power than any group or individual can wield.
How should EPs be compensated for good conduct? How should they be held accountable for bad conduct?
EPs should be compensated similar to executives or directors of traditional boards and companies: some salary, some equity. Salary allows EPs stable pay for the work they do day-to-day while the equity component aligns the incentives of EPs with that of the overall PRIME ecosystem.
My initial framework for EP compensation is a 50/50 split between salary and equity. Salary can be taken in either ETH or USDC and be paid monthly or bi-weekly. Equity will consist of a $PRIME grant, with 1 year vesting cliff corresponding to the term of an Emissary Prime. After one year the grant fully vests and the EP takes ownership of the tokens. The salary can be paid from the Echelon Prime Foundation operating budget and the initial $PRIME grant could either come out of the Echelon Prime Foundation token reserve or via a $PRIME buyback on the open market using funds from the operating budget — both options have their merits.
As for holding EPs accountable for bad behavior my proposed compensation structure bakes this in from the start. With a $PRIME vesting cliff equal to the term of an Emissary Prime an early termination as a result of malicious behavior or persistent absence would result in said EP forfeiting the equity portion of their compensation. Given that my outline proposes 50% of total compensation to be equity based this presents a significant slashing in the event that an EP is relieved of duty.
How do you think about managing the transition of power from Prime Key holders to $PRIME holders?
$PRIME will, in all likelihood, be released before the first game in the Echelon ecosystem goes live. While the mechanics to facilitate this transition should smooth out the obvious pain points the biggest risk to keep an eye on will be $PRIME re-concentrating in the hands of whales and DAOs as the result of early sell pressure from the initial $PRIME distribution.
As early $PRIME recipients look for liquidity on their initial Parallel investments without having to sell their cards there will be an opportunity for large wallets to accumulate. This is a pattern that we’ve observed time and time again. Echelon will need to monitor the accumulation closely and take measures to mitigate potential sibyl attacks or other abusive behavior. A few measures that Echelon could put in place range from setting up money market pools on something like Rari Fuse to reduce sell pressure on $PRIME , implementing quadratic voting, and splitting out $PRIME distributions into multiple tranches.
How do you think about adjusting $PRIME initial allocation, if at all?
I support the adjustments to $PRIME distribution put forth by metaregular, RebelSpy, and Fall that are detailed here.
How do you think about adjusting the function of assets, if at all?
I would adjust the following assets:
- Masterpieces: The incentive to complete PrimeSets of SE and FE Parallel cards and stake them for $PRIME will have a material impact on the volume of cards traded on the secondary market. As Masterpieces (MPs) pull their sole revenue stream from these secondary market sales this PrimeSet staking has an outsized impact on these cornerstone NFTs. To mitigate this impact while still rewarding PrimeSet stakers I propose taking 0.5% of $PRIME emissions from the 2.00% allocated for PrimeSet staking in the latest Metaregular, RebelSpy and 4LL proposal and shifting it to a sink for MPs. All staked MPs would draw from this sink equally, creating a duel emissions system for MPs. This compromise still keeps a solid incentive in place for PrimeSet staking while mitigating some of the negative externalizes experience by MP holders as a result of said staking.
- The Core: While the name implies this cornerstone NFT is important to the Parallel ecosystem many investors have been unhappy with the details in the Echelon Whitepaper and Prime Proposal. An adjustment I propose is to expand the scope of cards The Core pulls royalties from to include all Prime rarity assets. This would mean secondary market sales for assets such as cardbacks, art cards, and any other Prime rarity asset would be added to the royalty pool for The Core. Furthermore, while this is outside the scope of the Echelon Prime Foundation itself, Parallel Studios could consider novel ways of including keys into the lineage system to further bolster The Core.
Wen Token? Wen Snapshot(s)?
While I broadly support the proposal put together by RebelSpy, MetaRegular and 4LL the one adjustment I would make would be to hold the first snapshot two to four weeks after PD3 rather than just seven days. I would like to allow the market for PD3 to develop a but more and allow collectors to trade with a bit more leisure. The final snapshot would happen similarly two to four weeks post the sixth and final pack drop — PD6. I think these snapshot time frames help reward newer participants while the aforementioned proposal’s anti-dilution measures for the first snapshot protect early investors.
As for when the initial distribution should occur, presuming all the smart contracts are in place I would propose a token distribution and asset staking shortly after the first snapshot.
What draws you to Parallel?
I love most things science fiction. This started at a young age with Star Wars. As a kid I must have watched Return of the Jedi a couple hundred times. To this day I make sure I tril it up at least once a year. I even immortalized my life long romance with the greatest story ever told in ink with a “Han Shot First” tattoo. More recently I fell head over heels for Liu Cixin’s stunning Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. The Dark Forest is one of my favorite books of all time and the prose of the English translation is truly enchanting.
Beyond my love of science fiction I have been playing of Magic: The Gathering for the better part of two decades. I mostly play limited (draft) these days on Magic: Arena and typically end up doing at least 50 drafts for most formats. Before I was grinding the ranked ladder on Magic: Arena I used to compete in Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers (PPTQs) playing Modern and attended the odd Grand Prix here and there. Grixis Death’s Shadow was my deck of choice once Wizards of The Coast banned Splinter Twin (RIP)!
In Parallel two things I already love have been brought together in such an awesome way. Frankly it was pretty easy for me to fall in love with this project! Most TCGs are set in the fantasy design space so Parallel going science fiction excites the hell out of me. I think there is such a massive appetite for good science fiction and everything I have seen so far from Parallel makes me think that we’re truly building something special here. I mean look at this shit!
What talents/experience do you have that will benefit the long term success of Echelon?
As I mentioned in my announcement post I consider myself something of a jack-of-all-trades with a guiding mantra of “strong opinions, loosely held”. My career has been a totem to this. My degree is in Economics with a minor in Food Studies. Before I landed in my current career in software development I spent time in a variety of different positions and industries.
My journey started interning for a large investment bank doing market research during the 2008 financial crisis. Quickly realizing a career in finance wasn’t for me I joined an international advertising agency shortly after graduating college. After a brief stint in the agency world I joined an ad-tech start up with a bunch of my friends where I work in sales and business development. While I was a mediocre sales guy I thrived in an environment where individuals were given more agency and responsibility.
Not content to stay on the sales side I decided to teach myself how to code. My ambition propelled me to a full time software engineering role in about 6 months and from there I rose quickly through the ranks to land where I am today as the technical lead and engineering manager for one of the largest streaming companies in the world.
My diversity of experience professionally, as well as holding both technical and non-technical roles throughout my career, makes me uniquely situated to bridge the gaps between different domains. I have a proven track record of absorbing information quickly, forming opinions and working closely with others to refine those opinions as more information is gained. All of this makes me a valuable asset and the ideal candidate to fuse together the many areas of focus for the Echelon Prime Foundation.
How can Echelon help educate and onboard non-crypto natives?
Parallel’s original intent was to create an inclusive game that requires zero knowledge of crypto to play. Keeping concepts like wallets, NFTs, tokens and exchanges behind the scenes is powerful, especially given how polarizing crypto is proving to be within the broader gaming community. While the ethos that underlay this mission are clear to those of us who have been following Parallel closely I don’t believe this has been effectively communicated or marketed outside of our own bubble.
As the game launch begins to loom larger this year I believe that Echelon can play a leading role in bridging the gaps in knowledge that will inherently exist as those with little crypto knowledge discover Parallel. As the first game to be launched within the PRIME P2E ecosystem the Echelon Prime Foundation has a duty to educate players and make crypto onboarding as seamless as possible. Echelon can take a leadership role in deriving extensive collateral (videos, guides, etc.) around baseline crypto topics (such as wallets, NFTs, etc.) as well as partnering with specific communities within the PRIME ecosystem to assist in onboarding players to this exciting and rapidly growing space in ways that are more tailors to specific games.
How can Echelon collaborate and grow with outside parties?
Partnerships are key to the growth and scalability of the PRIME Ecosystem. While we the Foundation will forever be grateful to Parallel Studios for being our first partner both on the gaming and the tooling side it’s important to onboard new developers and studios if we’re to truly be a platform. A goal of mine as EP is to tap into the non-crypto world a bit more, be it game developers or content creators, to expand the reach of Echelon and the PRIME ecosystem.
Parallel Studios is already extremely well known within the crypto space. With further education I believe we can effectively reach new developers that are already interested in developing games on the blockchain. While this is definitely exciting there are far more opportunities outside of our existing sphere of influence — people just don’t know we exist. Looking to work with existing eSports teams to have their players stream games within the PRIME ecosystem and engaging with the broader game developer networt can help both raise awareness about P2E gaming in general and grow the PRIME ecosystem at the same time.
Relevant Disclosures:
Do you own any PKs or other Prime Assets?
I currently own one Prime Key. Additionally, I own the following prime assets: one The Core, one Galaxy Key, one Overclock Key, and several card backs.
Were you an early investor in Parallel?
As a founding member of Yunt Capital I am an investor in Parallel Studios in both the seed and Series A rounds. Additionally I have been collecting assets since before PD1 and have aided the Parallel studios team in areas such as tokenomics, the Codex Twitter Bot and sourcing artists.
Are you affiliated with any other DAOs or organizations?
As mentioned above I am a founding member of Yunt Capital. We operate as a DAO and have several investments in early stage crypto companies, including Parallel and Paragons DAO.
