HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.
I am Madalin, the CEO of Sphynx Network. I grew up in Bucharest - Romania where I have been working with and understanding traditional markets and their cycles since 2011, trading and riding the waves on charts starting in 2013. I spent the last 12 years around trading stocks, commodities, currencies, and indices. I’ve been a business developer for different renowned trading companies around the world. I first interacted with crypto back in 2016, as an investor, and ever since then, I have been involved in the growth and development of crypto projects.
What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?
It’s called Sphynx Network and it introduces the NFTs into the DeFi space.
We aim to improve the fundamental nature of DeFi, using alchemy in blockchain technology. This will work with the next generation of yield farming and liquidity mining by implementing NFT staking. Focusing to deliver an NFT fractional ownership marketplace and a blockchain-based play-to-earn NFT game.
What is the origin story?
First of all, I have the cat, the sphynx :) It was easy to find the name and the face of the token. Being an investor in different projects, being up to date with what is niche is mainstream in crypto, we have decided to marry DeFi with NFT, first. I have been amazed by the technology geyser v2 from Ampleforth that introduces a new and even more exciting standard: the “Universal Vault”.
Universal Vaults are a type of composable NFT standard that provides an interface for locking and unlocking tokens. It offers the users of the vaults a non-custodial staking alternative. It means that Universal Vaults allow users to increase their capital efficiency by allowing the possibility of subscribing to their LP tokens across rewards programs, with different multipliers in rewards.
From this point, we have developed the concept of fractional ownership NFT marketplace and the blockchain base play-to-earn NFT game, which will be the fourth product of Sphynx Network.
What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?
I work with very talented people, I get to learn new stuff from them every day. We are not a big team so business and personal life tend to mix into a perfect match and I can proudly say that we are all friends, if not family. Everyone is trying to improve themselves and we push boundaries and innovate on a daily basis. Despite being a handful of people in the core team, we work with people from all around the world and all age groups, diversity providing the different perspectives and skills to succeed.
If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?
I guess most likely I would be part of another team building someone else’s project.
At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?
At the time is progress, publication, and adoption, we measure success based on organic traffic, worldwide expansion, and delivering more than we promised on the roadmap.
What’s most exciting about your traction to date?
Great question - we are super happy that we have healthy growth. Also, we see more and more usage of our staking program. With the NFT staking feature to be launched soon, we are confident that our traction will get a solid boost.
What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?
I’m most excited about alchemy in blockchain, being able to stake an NFT once and unlock multiple rewards from different platforms simultaneously. Every way that NFTs can be used in DeFi, from NFT collateralized loans to NFT staking and tokenized insurance, decentralized identity, and
behavior systems. I’m not really worried about any specific technologies, but maybe the way that some groups are using technologies, for example, censorship and control; which is why I’m excited about blockchain, because they will let people overcome powerful forces that work against liberty.
What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?
HackerNoon is great at marrying the current state of technology with compelling angles on difficult topics. Since your content is from real tech professionals, the nuances of technology are detailed in an interesting and easily understood way.
What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?
Don’t underestimate the value of setting clear, easily explained goals in helping your organization move more quickly. Make sure you invest the time so your goals are unambiguous and disseminated across the entire organization. It’s not rocket science, just hard work.
What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?
You need to let go sometimes. And have fun too. I found that stressing over things doesn’t help at all. It’s worth it to have some quality time with yourself and the people you love as much as you can because things will keep on going even if you are not there 24/7.
Vote for Sphynx Network as Startup of the Year in Bucarest!