The journey · 2020
The chain years.
From 2020, Atakan Özalan learned blockchain from the inside.
He studied the algorithms, ran mining and created NFT collections, including ArcheMonsters.
Along the way he built communities that grew and earned together.
From 2020 · Blockchain, mining, NFT collections and communities
He came to blockchain the way he came to games: by taking the machine apart. From 2020 he studied the algorithms, ran mining, and set up nodes on test networks to see how a chain actually reaches agreement.
To understand NFTs, reading about them was not enough. He created collections of his own, to learn how a project works from the smart contract to the community around it. That experience made him an advisor to other NFT projects.
One of those collections is ArcheMonsters, co-created with his partner and published on Ethereum in September 2021: 220 pixel-art monsters in which archetypes are symbolised as wild anima personas. They made it to understand minting first-hand, and how a mint project is built from start to finish. It also brought together two things he had studied for years: archetypes and the symbolism of myth.
Around the work he built and managed NFT and mining communities: people who learned together, grew together and earned together. He also traded across many chains, and learned each one by using it.
The ezagor.com lore remembers the period as nodes across testnets, mining rigs humming in the dark and Discord channels full of patience. What he kept from it is the technology, the market and the craft of building a community.
