Interview with @Savil
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 12:49 PM]
Thanks Savil for your nomination to the CFC and taking the time to answer this interview. I wanted to give all candidates an opportunity to have a quick frank conversation so that people can get to know you as a person and your opinions on things.
Savil, [20/5/2022 12:49 PM]
Thanks for having me.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 12:50 PM]
So you’ve been around for quite a while now…maybe 2017 or so? We’ve gone through plenty of ups and downs, what has kept you in the Firo community?
Savil, [20/5/2022 12:52 PM]
Really the tech taking a practical direction working with cryptographic assumptions and the fact the team is so open and transparent. It makes it easier to get your voice heard. It reminds me of the small bitcoin/crypto meetups in Sweden, Switzerland, and Bangkok. I used to go to these kind of regularly when I first learned about this space and still new just to listen and learn from the conversations that took place.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 12:54 PM]
Yeah, the crypto space has evolved so much into the mainstream which is great but has also lost a lot of its ‘close-knit’ feel. I still remember that donation you organized in Lombok during the earthquake. Do you remember what was raised?
Savil, [20/5/2022 12:58 PM]
I think it was a few hundred dollars at that time. Even a little bit went a long way. Being on the ground at the time a lot of hands were needed just transporting a lot of things to the port on Bali to get on the boat.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 12:58 PM]
Yeah that was really admirable. Really liked that effort.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 12:59 PM]
What are your thoughts on the creation of the Community Fund and the proposed governance and its eventual transition to a Community Matching Fund? I’ve spoken to many people on this and the opinions have been divided. Some believe that community funds often lead to inefficient resource allocation and at most has limited benefit due to the technical nature of the project.
Would be interested to hear your views on this.
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:03 PM]
I think the take Firo team is taking is good in that first going with people that have long term presence and receipts for supporting the project. I think that is a good start for governance. I’m of the opinion that it further decentralizes the decision making a bit so it isn’t just the community asking the core to do everything for final approval. More options isn’t a bad thing and at this stage we have the benefit of learning how governance works out in reality from other projects. Then we can do what is best moving forward. Being still relatively small gives this project an opportunity to really try things before the numbers of participants in governance gets big.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:04 PM]
Yes its been a particularly contentious topic. While not really a CFC responsibility, what are your views on masternode voting?
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:18 PM]
Also while you’re writing that, back to the role at hand, you mention code audits, liquidity in DEXes and CEXes which for sure are low hanging fruit. Assuming that there’s a surplus of funds, what other initiatives would you be amenable to funding?
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:18 PM]
Masternode voting can mirror voting we see on stock markets. Those that have a huge stake probably also have bags in other projects and wouldn’t be too devastated if one particular investment doesn’t work out. It’s ok to be optimistic about everyone behaving well, but we also have to make sure that we are practical in planning for individuals to take advantage of the system with contingency plans ready. I initially lean on the side of planning on people taking advantage such as short-term voting of masternodes to pay themselves more no matter what. I was pleasantly surprised to see that when options were organized to have more of a share of the community fund, the votes trended toward a long-term solution for the project as a whole. I saw in the forums there is possible an idea thrown around to burn a coin for a vote which could also solve getting the total supply down to the original 21m. It would be interesting to see how that plays out in reality. I’m not sure if another project has tried that.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:19 PM]
Well technically, an option also is for the CFC to choose to burn funds haha 
(not that I’m advocating for or against it)
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:22 PM]
Other initiatives would be to do what already works such as a grant system initiative to attract community developers to work on Firo infrastructure to make it better. That was a good idea that was mentioned in one of the recent Firo interview videos with Voskcoin if I recall.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:22 PM]
Sure, but what sort of grants do you think you would likely fund?
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:24 PM]
I have some gaming related off the beaten track ideas such as sponsoring a pro player in one of the biggest games at the moment for exposure then watching the analytics to see if that is an affective outreach.
For grants I think killer apps people would need and use on the Elysium layer.
Extra Credits did a good video on Gamification applied to Education and a grant to get the community involved in spreading adoption could be good. Send emails requesting checkout via Firo to ten different businesses for an NFT or sort or prize. Daily and weekly objectives. Can try elements that keeps people engaged and coming back in games like MMOs. Can make community participation fun. Maybe even some sort of leveling up system
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:24 PM]
Yeah I’m really excited about Elysium
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:25 PM]
Okay well I don’t have any other questions but is there any final thoughts or anything you wanted to add?
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:25 PM]
Private stable coins, anonymous voting and other mechanism that would be fair. It would be great to see range voting implemented.
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:26 PM]
Give me a moment to think if there is anything else I can add.
Savil, [20/5/2022 1:34 PM]
I always think there are outside variables and forces such as the market we cant impact so I look at what I can do as an individual. Been holding masternodes for years and recently got into mining last October. I go back and forth between pool mining and solo mining Firo on a lower ranked pool to spread the hashrate around with the occasional request by email to businesses I use to accept Firo in addition to using the businesses that take Firo directly like Travala. I hope these small actions may also spark others to spread Firo. We all don’t have to code albeit it helps but we can do what we can.
Firo-chan Yap, [20/5/2022 1:37 PM]
Thanks Savil! Good luck on the elections!