Guardian of the Week — Edition #8 — Meet ‘Toñin’

Welcome to Edition #8 of the ‘Guardian of The Week’ series! After a short hiatus, we are back to recognise a very special member of the Guild of Guardians community. This is our way of acknowledging and celebrating all the contributions, love, and hard work you have all given to this family 🖤

We appreciate every single person who has contributed, and we hope this series gives everyone an insight into the people that make this community what it is!

To resume our Guardian of the Week series, we are celebrating a man that needs no introduction, Senior Moderator, Toñin!

Toñin has been a valued member of our community for just under a year now, and in that year, he has been very busy! Hailing from Spain, it is only natural that Toñin spent a lot of time in the Spanish channel, where early on Toñin became a respected and active member of the community. His participation in the chat and open communication with the mod team have enabled us to moderate the channel better than we ever could have done without him.

When the time came to bring on new moderators, Toñin was an obvious choice, and we were fortunate to have his support and interest in the role. He took on that mantle with skill and dedication and quickly earned the position of Senior Moderator.

When members of the community were asked about Toñin and his activity on the Discord server, the love and respect were evident in the replies. To quote one of our members, “Toñin is not only knowledgeable about GoG, but he is friendly, kind, and a joy to be around. He is a perfect example of how a mod should be with their community.” We could not have said it better.

We were able to catch up with Toñin and ask him a few questions:

What brought you to Crypto and GoG in particular? And what interests you most about the community and the project itself?

I started in Crypto in March of last year, 2021, investing little and learning all the technology of this new world I had just discovered. I discovered GoG by chance after watching a YouTube video of one of the ambassadors of the community, Íñigo Echeverría, and from that minute, I knew I wanted to be part of the community. I’ve played video games all my life (I’m 35 years old), Mario Bros, Pokémon, Final Fantasy VII, World of Warcraft, Diablo… And when I saw a fantasy RPG, I met the people of the community; it was love at first sight! I joined in July 2021, and I hope to be here for many more years.

Being a gamer, how do you feel about the potential use cases for Blockchain and NFTs? I see a lot of people in gaming having very negative views about Web3.

Human beings are change-averse by nature. If something works, why change it? The world of video games is no different, there are many negative prejudices toward NFTs. I think it is more due to misinformation than for any other reason. For me, the real meaning of the integration of Blockchain and NFTs with video games is the sense of ownership, the feeling of being an important part of the game. In addition, the new NFT game developers give a lot of importance to the community, creating a sense of belonging, which makes me even more passionate about this new wave that has come to change the paradigm of video games.

In your experience, what video game genres are your favourite?

My favourite games are Final Fantasy VII, Word of Warcraft and Diablo. RPG is my favourite genre.

You do such a great job as a mod; your efforts certainly don’t go unnoticed. Has your perspective of the community changed as a result of your time as a mod? What about your opinion of the game?

Once you are a Mod, you are the visible face of GoG, you have to behave differently from your previous stage as a user of the community, try to help new people, try to calm things down when there are some arguments, and be more patient. Obviously, I love the game, and I have a lot of confidence in the team. I’m looking forward to seeing the progress of development and to continue meeting goals and growing with the community because soon, there will be thousands more of us.

These are exciting times to be in the space, and I am looking forward to these projects coming out and playing these games! But we are now in a Crypto Winter, and there is a lot of FUD out there. Has the market downturn caused you to reassess what you are investing in at all?

It sounds like a cliché, but I am calm because I made my investments with the long term in mind. I am not afraid of the cold market, it is always important to invest what you are willing to lose; that makes you sleep better and lets the “long term” come as soon as possible.

What advice would you give to people that are feeling anxious about the downturn of the market?

I am not a veteran in Crypto, but the only thing I would say is that you have to investigate and look at the projects in a calm way now that there is no FOMO on the streets. It’s a good time to learn from mistakes, and the market has up and down cycles; good times will be back soon, and bad times make tough people.

Moderator, then Senior moderator, where are you going tomorrow? What are your plans from here?

Well, I have not thought about it. With the growth that GOG will experience in the future, I would love to help the team as much as possible; sure that the Spanish and Latin American community grows a lot, I would like to be there to contribute what I can.

Let’s talk for a moment about the Spanish community. I know there was a move to organise the Spanish-speaking guilds into a more unified group. Are the guilds still looking to work together?

Right, there is a group with several Spanish-speaking guilds; we’re trying to gather several guild owners and create a mini-community there. Right now, we have many guilds, and their participants are ready. Activity has decreased, but soon it will be back on fire!

Activity is down across the board, which is expected in a downturn like this. I am confident that things will pick up! Now is the time to BUIDL! Is there anything you would like to personally add to what we have already talked about?

I just want to thank the whole community for their love, and I am very happy to have met great people. I hope to meet you all in person soon!

How can people get in touch with you?

You can find me on Twitter at @Tonin_NFT and, of course, on the Guild of Guardians Discord as Toñin#1556.

We hope you enjoyed our eighth edition of ‘Guardian of the Week’. Every two weeks, we’ll introduce a new community member to acknowledge and celebrate their valuable contributions and achievements.

Guardian of the Week is a community-run initiative written and managed by Bayrd from Pax Custos. You can follow Bayrd on Twitter here and on Discord as wusong101#7530.

Until next time, Guardians.