Many of you know this man, and if you think you don’t, I’m sure you have seen work that flowed forth from his hands. Adept Cardano believer, father, engineer, craftsman, statistician and aspiring vlogger. His charts revolving around Cardano stats such as amount staked, number of wallets and breakdowns of wallet sizes have been used by many, and seen by even more! I’m talking about none other then Pieter Nierop!
Hello Pieter, Tell us a little bit about yourself, what are your areas of expertise? (Tech, finance, other), how did you learn about Cardano and what led you to adopt the role you currently play in the ecosystem?
Well I am a father of 4 children and my wife is from The Philippines. I am a Master of Science in mechanical engineering that ended up in IT security after years of work in database development and in Business Intelligence . In my work I focused on storing and handling data in central databases as well as the security of data and privacy matters.
I learned about Cardano from a friend who was asked to do some development work on crypto and used Cardano to test as it was cheap to buy and sell ADA. He told me back in 2019 this was a scientific project and could be of interest for the future. So somewhere by the end of the summer of 2019 I started to buy my first ADA at Kraken. If I am not mistaken it was 8 cents and went up to 8,8 cents and then made a dramatic fall all the way down to 2 cents. Not too good of an experience 🙂
So from getting to know Cardano, you made the move to buy in, and that started a roller coaster ride that hasn’t stopped till today has it?
Yeah, the price dropped but somewhere around march or April last year I saw the price crawl back up and decided to do something with Cardano. So I bought some more ADA and before I knew it I was busy scalping ADA. However after 1 month I found out I lost just as much as I won, so this was just consuming a lot of my time and didn’t get me anywhere.
In the meantime I found the whiteboard video of Charles and the TED talk as well. This made me realise with ADA one is in i for other business, the project itself. Meanwhile the price went up and I started to make profit on my ADA without all this trading. I told a friend of mine and before I knew it I was in a competition with him to collect half a million ADA. That was kind of fun. At the same time the price kept rising and rising. I started to become full of enthusiasm about the project and many evenings you could find me watching AMA and other video’s by Charles.
One of the biggest drawbacks you saw in the Philippines is the way the local people are forced to handle their money, especially if they want to move it. How has this driven your endeavours?
I have seen with my own eyes how people in the Philippines are affected by the current financial system. Remittances take a big chunk of the money people earn abroad after hard work. Also borrowing money for a house or other needs from banks is extremely expensive. 45% interest rate is quite normal for people out there. Cardano could provide these people a solution and I would like to do something with it in south east Asia to give the people out there a fair chance.
What’s the current state of business? We discussed a bit of a timeline on the phone during the preparation of the SPOt-light regarding projects of past, present and future. Can you elaborate on those?
I started last year around the 18th of November with sharing statistics on Cardano. It was a lot of manual work but in time I got help from Matteusz. Nowadays all the statistics are automatically created on a daily basis. That led to taking another role where I share news and get net people on twitter to find there way into Cardano. But also that role quickly was taken over and nowadays we have sites like cardanofeed.com. So I refocused and now want to educate people on Cardano and get people introduced into Cardano. I started developing course materials but I noticed a lot of YouTube channels are now already busy providing such content. Paul for instance is doing a great job on this.
So plans in time shift on what role I should take and nowadays my thoughts are going out to either doing some kind of Cardano Roadshow where I could rent a hotel once a month and inform people there about Cardano or to set up a permanent exhibition. In talks with Alfred (Hotel Ginebra) I got inspired to start a Cardano Guesthouse.
Ok, my main questions here revolve around the drawings you showed me earlier. The first visuals regarding the Cardano Guesthouse and the plans you briefly told me about. What is that all about and what is the current state of the project?
Well I want to build the Cardano Guest house in Bohol. We have the budget, made the initial design of the house and bought 50,000 m2 (538,000 square feet) of land. We wanted to start building by the end of December however covid came along and made it hard to travel there and arrange things. So probably we will have half a year of delay to start building. Right now talks are ongoing with engineers that will make the drawings that need to be submitted for requesting the building permit. We hope these drawings can be finished by January.
The idea of the Cardano Guesthouse is that every now and then we organise meetings to get people such as investors, business people and government officials familiar with Cardano. It will have a role in PR and education for south east Asia, just like the Cardano hotel in Barcelona is gaining such position in Europe.
So, from what I understood it will be built in a certain way, involving quality standards you will ‘import from Europe, but it will all be built by local craftsmen and companies. Why is that exactly and what do you hope to accomplish here?
Yes we previously build houses in The Philippines and during building I encountered all kind of problems. Hinges bought in The Philippines rust very fast, doorknobs break off easily, electrical equipment is dangerous and in general have very low quality standards.
We intend to build the guesthouse with local people, this in order to provide jobs and income for their families. Most people that work with us have children that need to go to college and by working at our site they have the opportunity to do so.
So far the ambition is oozing from every crack! That’s something we can really appreciate! You have told us earlier that building this project brings not just knowledge, skill, income and security for the local communities, but more? What direction are you thinking?
By building the Cardano guesthouse we inspire people that a better future is possible. They see it with their own eyes. The quest house has a role more then just for Cardano. It’s also a place where people from the community meet, have their Christmas parties, fiesta’s, new year and in general a place to gather to have fun.
Apart from this project, which will be a lengthy one, you have some other things you hinted at during our conversations, anything you wanna share? Maye readers can hook you up and help you develop what you have in mind?
Well I have 2 things in mind, the Cardano Roadshow I mentioned earlier and the development of educational materials on Cardano. Right now due to the whole covid situation I didn’t make much progress on all this. But it is my plan to make educational material for newcomers to get to know Cardano. And I also have the idea to make some kind of monthly presentation about Cardano somewhere in a hotel in The Netherlands. Would be nice if I can stand in front of a group once a month and tell them what Cardano is all about. There is so much to tell and so much energy and passion to be released.
Another thing I have in mind is creating a YouTube series “Man on a mission”, where once a month I will interview a mission driven stake pool and let them tell about their mission/goal, their purposes and what their plans and programs are and how they are accomplishing them.
A little off topic maybe, but a chance to give a shoutout. What is your favorite Cardano based project now and why?
Well actually there are several projects. I love the ongoing project of Mateusz of Cardano Fans (@matiwinnetou) to make statistics about Cardano available online. I think this is a great resource to use!
The other project I like is the ‘Street Art CNFT’ project (@Street_Art_CNFT) where 150 children in Brazil get help from the Cardano community to but things like food, clothes, shoes, housing and education as well as helping them to do sports and engage in cultural activities.
Any final thoughts?
Yes, I want everybody to know Cardano changed my life and of many of those around me in a very positive way. I noticed the Cardano community is composed of very smart and dedicated people with their hearts in the right place. The Cardano community became my home and I am very happy to be part of it.
Pieter, as always it was a pleasure to talk to you, from the spaces, phone calls and twitter ramblings, it never failed to excite me more about Cardano in general and the possibilities that lie ahead of us. Thank you for taking time so shortly after your recovery to talk to me and share your plans, We’ll be sure to follow you around in the future!
Bas @ Stayk