A Hero is NOT about quid-pro-quo. You did not become a Hero to get Airdrops, special privileges in Farming, or to gain a special discount in Sale.
Before we had $500M TVL, we had 300 Heroes.
We read the Declaration together, we traded not only raucous memes, but also principles and viewpoints – holding some of the most civil but hard discussions in crypto about topics like what it means to be a fair launch, how to solve distribution inequity in protocols, and other hard crypto community problems. Many of us told our friends about this secret new gem Integral, because of the clear first pillar of innovations and vision in the product. However just as importantly, a second pillar of our strength has emerged, our strength and resilience as a community.
Every, single time when it wasn’t clear how this little grassroots project would grow next, we rallied. We celebrated the birth of the resistance with Chad Resist, we donated on Gitcoin to drive us to #1 dapp, we stood in awe as our superstar advisors stepped off the sidelines to join us – validating that we indeed have been building the unmistakable backbone of a community that simply will NOT stop.
Come launch day, we had a crisis getting your flood of deposits into the pools, as our entire team was fighting the fire, many Heroes stood behind us and showed true leadership to the new folks. One of these heroes aired his frustrations:
I have a complaint to make to the so called heroes, I don’t exactly know what our role should be but I was frustrated that instead of trying to help out they were complaining in the heroes chat, making even more noise than #general. I think that in a situation like this, heroes should calm down the community.
I also think people in TG were handling the situation and uncertainty better than here in discord.
We are at a pivotal moment where we are now the beacon of what crypto communities could be. We understand that the stress during the launch crisis was an anomaly. But we must not repeat the behaviors that episode. We must upkeep our strong community roots with our band of Heroes.
Heroes are true believers in Integral. You may have joined because you believe network monopolies can be broken down, de-bundled, and then owned by the people. You may have joined because of BFS. Or you may have joined because you believe that Integral has the right assembly of innovations to forge the last exchange.
A Hero is NOT about quid-pro-quo. You did not become a Hero to get Airdrops, special privileges in Farming, or to gain a special discount in Sale. For many being a Hero is an act of sacrifice to strengthen our community pillar, not a ticket to entitlement.
But we are all too human, and it is completely understood that faith is not binary and that it can grow gradually. Many of our Heroes began a little skeptical themselves, and are capable of first giving without taking. But most also require some stake in the protocol to open the horizons for their budding faith. This is absolutely okay and human.
Many of you are acquiring a stake in Integral through farming. Many of you will soon be able to acquire one in our public sale (It’s going to be an incredible, rare occasion where you can invest in the Integral seed round alongside the best crypto VCs on the same terms).
The community superhero program was designed as an additional, experimental way to acquire a stake in Integral through good community work, but we realized that limiting the reward to only 6 Heroes was not democratic enough. Therefore, we will remove the restriction: 30 ITGR will be awarded to an unlimited number of Heroes, pro rata to the upvotes they receive on our Sunday election event for what they have done for Integral.
It’s a sort of “Faith Farming”, where you earn through good-faith contribution.
At the same time, we must preserve and cherish the true Hero membership and sift out clear non-believers. Mirroring the upvote mechanism that rewards Heroes will be a downvote mechanism. In any channel over the course of the day, if you consider a Hero’s message unworthy of the identity, you can choose to downvote the message. It serves as a warning to the Hero to remember what this identity is about. Others are encouraged to join the downvote to signal the degree of unworthiness.
“The things you own end up owning you.” This has happened to too many crypto communities. Let’s work hard to prevent this from happening to us. Integral Heroes are our own miracle. Many of the top Defi leaders are watching your actions to decide whether this model of community is a temporary fairytale or a lasting reality. Let’s keep up the pure heartedness of the Integral @Heroes – in every degen, chad, honest farmer – there is a true believer. This is your chance to prove that.
To quote one of our newest Heroes @guldara:
Hey guys, happy to be one of the new heroes, thank you for looking into my app.
My attempt to provide LP reverted on the launch day…I have to be honest that I decided not to continue trying as I was burning gas (not a big capital guy) but that does not make me resent in anyway. I’m happy to be part of the project in some form here and I hope it’s still okay to be a member without providing LP. I learnt something reading about this project and think this is an amazing project. Even if I’m not doing LP now. I’m sure I will get to use the exchange and other functions pretty soon!
Cheers for the incredible TVL and I can easily see us going way north of 1 billion valuation soon!
Happy for all of you guys farming!
Heroes,
LEAD,
and Keep the Faith!
（Originally published on Apr-01-2021）
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Integral is a DEX: we are building the last DEX, that belongs to the people.
Exchange: https://integral.link
twitter: https://twitter.com/professorjey
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