Five Questions with Jamil from Gamma

Odds are you have bought some NFTs from Gamma, it is after all the most utilized NFT marketplace on Stacks, and you probably know of its creator Jamil.btc . The importance of Gamma to the STX ecosystem is undeniable, and as such I do not feel as though I can add much to the conversation in that regard. That said, I wanted to know a bit more about Jamil. From his tweets, podcast interviews, and conversations the impression that I got was that this man is highly intelligent, ethical, hard working, and a problem solver. So I wanted to learn more. I asked Jamil if he would mind being interviewed for my blog, and sent him a list of 5 questions. So without further ado, lets get to it.

1. What is your background and when drew you to crypto, specifically Bitcoin/Stacks?

My background is actually not professionally in crypto — it's in artificial intelligence and machine learning. I spent about four years doing machine learning research and engineering at one of the big tech companies, but have always had a deep interest in crypto. I made my first Bitcoin transaction in 2014, and so while it's not super early, it's early enough to see the space evolve considerably since then. 

The simple, elegant, and strong principles behind the Bitcoin whitepaper have always held appeal to me, though I also appreciated the amount of innovation and development happening on the EVM-style "world computer" chains — they brought the same principles of decentralization, except in a much more holistic way than just currencies. Suddenly, we all have a shared global state that all computers agree on, that's not determined or orchestrated by a single party. This is an incredibly powerful concept. In fact, when you think about it, the world operates in a similar way; we all agree on a single global state (the state of the physical world), but no one person can unilaterally change or reorganize that state. That promise comes to the digital world with the "world computer" protocols like Ethereum.

Stacks merges the principles, security, and decentralization of Bitcoin with the power of Ethereum's world computer. That's incredibly powerful, and that's what appealed to me about Stacks.

2. What have you learned about NFT exchanges since starting Gamma, and what can we look forward to from Gamma in the near future?

When I got into this space, I knew next to nothing about NFTs. I was a great smart contract programmer, a great developer, but admittedly, I didn't know anything about NFTs, communities, or anything like that. I'm not exaggerating; I had no idea what an NFT marketplace's role was, how to gain market share, how to build one at all. This past year has been an incredible deep dive into what makes an NFT exchange or project successful, and what can hurt it. 

I built (what was then) STXNFT out of my own personal frustrations with the state of the Stacks NFT ecosystem; for example, there was no place where you could just type in your BNS and view the NFTs you had in your wallet. So that was the first version of the site. That's all it did. It didn't make any money, it wasn't meant to be something that was profitable, it was just supposed to be useful. I then built out functionality to transfer NFTs, which gave me my first introduction to actually interacting with the blockchain. 

Then, I had people reach out to me asking for advice on launching their projects, and getting their work out there. At the time, the dominant marketplace on Stacks was charging 40% in commissions to artists, and wasn't open. I had a prominent project say that they were rejected by that marketplace, and other projects saying they asked for complete exclusivity. That's simply not in line with the values I have around decentralization and being artist-first. So I really wanted to help these artists, but I had no idea where to even start. I started reading about SIP-9, learning a bit more about smart contract development on Stacks. Eventually, I was able to help some of the first NFT collections launched on Stacks. Some turned out well, some didn't, and it was interesting to see the patterns around what worked for these projects and what didn't.

It's definitely a cliché right now, but only because it's true; I didn't realize how much community mattered, and what a difference it made. I think some of the previous marketplaces and NFT projects didn't find success on Stacks for one simple reason: they didn't talk to people. I don't think this is unique to web3, actually, a cardinal rule of business is simply to know your customers and your users, and importantly, be one of your customers and users too. I get just as excited about NFT projects as our most excited community members. I think other founders in this space do this well too, including John from Neoswap, and even our competition at Byzantion.

In terms of what we can look forward to, I think in this bear market we're seeing some diversification in the types of assets people are using NFTs for. It's not just about profile pictures; we see people are deploying NFT collections on Gamma for a plethora of media and use cases; software subscriptions (such as BlockSurvey), fine art (such as Grace Hye’s “Your Black Flowers”), music (“Multiverse FM” from the Mintery), environmental fundraising (“Origem” by ePioneers), and more.

I think marketplaces have a role in facilitating these use cases from both a creator and marketplace perspective. Making sure our creator tools showcase these use cases, and allow users to onboard to different tools like Flatlay, Frens, Console, StackerDAOs, and others — making sure that people can use their NFTs as more than just jpegs.

3. What commercial uses do you see coming for NFTs in the future?

As mentioned before, I think the possibilities are limitless. Many have used NFTs for software access, like Blocksurvey and Sigle. We've seen NFTs being used for in-game assets, something Magic Eden has really leaned into. We've seen DAOs adopt NFTs as voting mechanisms, like LinksDAO and Zora have done. I'm most excited about the real-world membership use cases for NFTs, personally; we've seen them become effective at bootstrapping digital communities, and I'm excited to see them bootstrap real-world communities as well. Some examples of this are LinksDAO on Ethereum, and the Outerverse passport on Solana.

4. What do you think will help push mass adoption of crypto to the masses?

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think it is when NFTs and crypto make a difference in your real life; the internet existed and was in use for about a decade before we saw this transition, from usenet groups that would just chat online, to e-commerce and tangible use cases that provided value in most people's lives. We're yet to reach that moment, broadly, in crypto.

5. What do you want the readers to know going forward?

One of the great things about crypto is that it's very "bottom-up"; everyone has a role to play in building the future. We've had artists, creators, programmers, writers like you, all contribute to the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem. It's one of those points in history where literally anyone can take a stand and help push the movement forward. I'm happy to help anyone that wants to get involved in the space, whether through NFTs or something else. We've built up a great team at Gamma that comes from so many different backgrounds; from teachers to marketers to coders like me. Everyone has their role to play in building the future.

After reading Jamil's thoughtful answers, and speaking to the man in preparation for this piece I find myself even more impressed with his character and vision. It is obvious to me that he cares deeply about the creators and users of not only Gamma, but the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. I learned how important it is for him and the Gamma team to allow the individual to have control of their art/experience, and that is huge. This is just another facet of what decentralization means in practice, and I could not be more excited for the future of Stacks with developers such as Jamil leading the way. This ethos runs through the veins of this entire ecosystem, and if that doesn't make you bullish anon I don't know what will.

Thank you as always for reading. A like, follow, and retweet always helps, and if you could give me a follow on Sigle on the way out I would definitely appreciate it. That is all I have to say for now. Until next time, Jack.

*I would be remiss not to give a big thank you to eliherf for all of his help, and recognizing his great work as the Head of Community Growth at Gamma. Thanks mate, you're a real one!

*The easiest way to DCA your Stacks here