Who’s Behind BIOPset?
Tags: Community Development, Decentralized Finance, Trading Platforms, Binary Options, Community Engagement

Shalaquiana codes alone, but makes it clear that she wants to build a community around the BIOPset trading protocol. The BIOPset Discord (community communications) channel is littered with proof of her sharing design thoughts and soliciting feedback. She’s even built financial incentives into the protocol to benefit the earliest community members and promote collaboration.

That’s a lot of hassle. Considering the energy invested in coding and community building to benefit others that she doesn’t even know, you’d be tempted to think that she’s irrational. No doubt, her responses below indicate that she’s got a clear case of Satoshi Fever:

Build Global Financial Infrastructure

What inspired/motivates you to write the code?

Recently, while waiting for the boarding process to complete for a flight, I looked over my shoulder and witnessed the woman seated beside me earn $50. She earned it playing binary options. We chatted during the flight and she introduced me to her preferred trading platform. We exchanged contact information in case I had any further questions. When I eventually got to my computer, I was disappointed to find out that the platform was not available to citizens of my country. This is what motivated me to build BIOPset. In terms of inspiration, if I had to pick any historic figure to learn from I’d choose Hegic’s Molly Wintermute.

Have Fun

What sacrifices (time/money) have you made to breathe life into BIOPset?

At first, all I gave up was my holiday vacation. BIOPset began as a project to get done before the new year. My initial version was a prototype, but it’s grown beyond that now. I’m now into the second month of development. I’m also back at my job. BIOPset development takes place on the fringes on either end of that and on weekends. I’m staying up later and waking up earlier to have time to work on this project. I enjoy working on it. Like other developers building stuff, which can technically last forever on the Ethereum blockchain, I worry about future regulation. While decentralized finance (“DeFi”) is not a big target of governments at the moment, that may change. If it does, governments can connect the dots to hold someone accountable for developing these “grey” markets. That said, BIOPset is a relatively small project compared to others that challenge traditional financial systems. My goal is to provide a venue for binary options that doesn’t waste time with registration processes. Equality of opportunity. No KYC. Some jurisdictions consider this to be something that must be regulated, in part to protect gamblers from themselves. Where I live you cannot be involved with binary options unless approved by the state. Be that as it may, I will be a user of BIOPset like I am a user of other DeFi platforms that remain in somewhat of a grey zone.

3. Are you the type of developer that wants to build out a team like {ess} or Yam Finance? Or are you more like Hegic’s Molly?

I plan to complete all of BIOPset’s critical components on my own. I’m more experienced in working alone anyway. That said, I’ve often thought it would be fun to work closely with a team. Consequently, the Discord chat channel is open to anyone. All are welcome to join in the discussion and help in development. My impression is that a lot of the DeFi community’s core users have some experience with traditional finance. So they may find this project interesting. Let’s see what happens though. Binary options are sexy to me but very exotic.

Aspirations For A Community-Driven Protocol

How will you attract developers/collaborators to BIOPset? Are you thinking about a developer fund and treasury?

Early adopters are heavily incentivized to use the protocol. During the first month, early users will receive the BIOP governance token. The distribution favors the liquidity providers (“LPs”) above other user classes. However, BIOP tokens will be worthless until the governance contracts are completed and deployed. Once governance contracts are complete, BIOP token holders will be in charge of BIOPset. The protocol is designed to be very flexible.

Humble Wishes

If a genie granted you one wish for BIOPset, what (resource) would you wish for?