Could you introduce the team, how many are on the team and where are the team based?
The team consists of three developers, a marketing specialist and a designer/NFT-specialist, one of the early Solana-NFT creators, who we’ve managed to make interested in the project.
We also have an impressive advisory board, which includes two ex-bankers from Australia and Estonia, a Fintech-specialised lawyer from Dubai, Software Science PhDs from Estonia/Finland and Austria and a CBDC/digital identity specialist from Australia.
We are currently headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, but looking for a place to relocate the whole team.
It is stated: The Opus Dei Money Protocol (OPDP) is an open-source DAO platform with advanced functionality for NFT-tokens. – What is meant by advanced functionality for NFT tokens?
That is a good question! You see, we believe that the full technological potential of NFT is not yet unveiled. All these kittens, doggies, monkeys, punks or sexy Saddies (yeah, the Pythons) are great, but there is much more behind the technology.
In fact, can you imagine a discussion or an article about non-fungible token technology in some scientific magazine and the impact it would have on society today? That would be something around 0, right?
But what about the impact of a digital picture of an ape or a crypto punk sold for millions of dollars? Or wait… why do we need to imagine that? As we remember, it was a bomb.
Everyone started talking about it, and they still do. So, what we are saying here is with all that attention towards NFTs today, it is just a matter of weeks until we see something very interesting.
For us, NFTs will be among the central points of interest or main features of our services.
We plan to use NFTs as collateral in the lending/borrowing service already in the next version, we are working on functionality to allow a user to create a copy of NFT on any supported network, one of the main DeFi features – is the possibility to create a stable coin – will be backed by NFTs, joined ownership of NFT portfolios.
As mentioned above, we are working on a set of digital tools that will allow any third party (ofc, if the user allows it) to issue a document as an NFT in a separate vault of the Gebo wallet.
Which project did you start building first, and how did that idea come about?
OPD was the first project we started building. It’s kind of a story. We’ve been in the DLT/crypto industry since +/- 2014.
You know, red-eyed sleepless Polo nights and all that. By 2017, and after several projects for other companies, we’ve decided it was enough. But as it often happens, time moved on and/or once you get a taste of crypto, it just won’t let go. Ever.
Jumping over quite a few years, there was a moment when one guy told another guy about another guy. By a fluke, one of these guys happened to be an early Tezos follower and enthusiast, another two were developers.
As we were working with a fintech company before, DeFi was an obvious choice, we’ve filled the Tezos Foundation application and here we are today.
Where did the names come from? Opus Dei, Sad Python, GEBO
Opus Dei means work of God in Latin. One of the main postulates of our service is that the world we live in today has no analogs in history, it is something new, and that brings us to a conclusion that everyone can become God in it. Needless to say, we all remember the Deus Ex game, but there is one more thing…
There is a Catholic organization called Opus Dei. We aren’t connected, but there is an interesting fact about members of that organization. Members of the organization, sincere believers, have to live in the real world.
They are not hiding behind the monastery walls, they don’t hide in cathedrals, but have to carry their faith through all possible temptations of this world.
That earns great respect and if there is any association between us and that organization, we would choose the commitment to the chosen path.
Gebo is a Viking rune and a symbol of partnership. The team is coming from the North, and one of the first features of our wallet is a joined ownership of assets. All together makes it an obvious choice to choose Gebo as a name for our wallet.
SadPythons, well, it was almost a month of brainstorming – which animal we should use for the next NFT, cause almost all were already taken.
We still remember one Soviet cartoon «38 Parrots», and there was one naughty python – our Alpha version. Then we checked all the popular collections for copyright and names. Sad Python, Bored Ape….sounds good. But they are not all SAD btw)