Games, Apps, Tokens: An Interview with FedeGens, Founder of Taco
We catch up with this tortilla-loving technician to discuss play-to-earn, utility tokens, and the development of the Taco Universe!
NOVEMBER 19, 2021. INTERVIEWS. WRITTEN BY HYDRO.
Right now, there’s precious few apps built specifically for the WAX community.
Two spring to mind, and thankfully, both are superb. Tokenhead is one of them, and has grown into one of the best ways to track your WAX NFTs on mobile. The other has become a go-to for tracking and exchanging fungible tokens, keeping track of your wallet resources, playing your music NFTs and much, much more – and that app is Taco.
Starting out as a mobile-friendly token swapping tool, Taco has grown into a key mobile app for any avid members of the WAX community, and as they embark on their first steps into blockchain gaming with the development of the Taco Universe, now seemed a great time to have a chat with their founder, FedeGens!
Head to the end of the interview for our Taco Interview Card, dropping tomorrow at 18 UTC!
Keep an eye on our Twitter for an exclusive Taco giveaway!
Pssst… there’s three hidden claim links within this article. Happy hunting!
Hydro: Hey! Could you tell me a bit about yourself, your background and how you got into NFTs?
FedeGens: I started in crypto like a lot of other people, buying and holding small amounts of BTC and ETH.
I came across WAX less than a year ago and fell in love with it immediately – as a developer for 10 years, I found it super inspiring, full of amazing tools, easy to use and extremely fun! WAX opened my eyes to NFTs, and it changed my whole vision for the potential of blockchain technology.
What’s the story behind Taco?
My team and I work mainly developing Android and iOS apps. We found that there wasn’t much in the way of apps for WAX, so we developed a simple internal app just for ourselves to transfer and swap tokens easier – and that was the start of Taco.
After a few weeks of improving it, we released that we’d created something really powerful; a one-stop solution for trading tokens from the main WAX projects.
At the same time, we were working on building an NFT gaming ecosystem, and decided to mix the two projects. This gave us an idea; to create our own fungible utility token – TACO!
Why did we name it Taco? We’re the tortilla that wraps up the “ingredients” of all the other projects on WAX!
How can a user earn TACO and your other token, SHING? What’s the difference between the two, and how can they be used?
TACO is our fungible utility token, SHING is our in-game token. They’re directly linked – you can convert SHING to TACO, and use TACO to upgrade Venues in the Taco Universe – which can only be obtained with SHING.
There’s three ways to earn TACO; liquidity position rewards, Discord airdrops, and our Taco Tuesday drops.
SHING is generated over time from our Extractor NFTs, which can then be claimed. Extractors will be available soon – more on this later!
These two tokens can then be used throughout our shop to purchase sauces, lottery tickets, and a few other uses we’re working on.
I love the story behind the name! I understand you’ve got a big drop coming up?
We do! We have a drop coming on December 3rd – the Extractors drop!
Extractors are one of the two main assets needed to get involved in the Taco Universe – a new gaming platform. Rather than a single game, the Taco Universe will consist of various games using the same assets, mechanics and tokens.
Extractors are December 3rd – how do users obtain Venues?
Venues can be obtained via a drop coming in January. We’re super excited to see both of these elements drop!
For sure! When can the community expect to be able to check out the Taco Universe?
The full whitepaper and roadmap for the Taco Universe are now available, with the December Extractor sale and January Venue sale being the biggest events at the moment.
Once the Venues have dropped, users will be able to start upgrading them, adding customized names and building their communities in preparation for the launch of the first game in the Taco Universe, coming June 2022!
One important factor is that the future of the Taco Universe is based on community progress. Venue upgrades hold the key. If no Venue reaches the level required to unlock the door to the game in June, nobody will be able to play it until this is achieved!
Play-to-earn blockchain games are huge at the moment. Do you have any particular favourites?
Oh yes, I’m into a lot of games right now!
There’s Farming Tales, Train of the Century, R-Planet (who isn’t?), Alien Worlds, Green Rabbit, Colonize Mars… thanks to the utility and tradability of TACO, I’ve dived into as many blockchain games as I can!
You’ve just released an adorable collab with Digital Ducks – Taco Quacko! Are there any other collaborations in the works?
For sure, we love collaborating with other creators!
We’re extremely busy with the development of Taco Universe, but some other amazing collabs will be coming soon!
What other NFT artists or projects do you admire, WAX or otherwise?
YoshiDrops, Uplift, NFTGamer.TV, and anything related to art, music and 1/1 NFTs. I love the whole space!
Your Taco Lotteries have become very popular – could you tell us what those are?
Sure! Every week, we host a lottery with a variety of awesome prizes!
Collectors can participate by obtaining a Taco Ticket, which are obtained the Taco Shop. Prizes are either offered by our partners or by us ourselves. The prize pool usually runs into the thousands of WAX!
NFT utility and tokens are all the rage at the moment. Where do you see the future of these two both, and do you have any further use cases planned for TACO/SHING?
Utility is key. Having nice pieces of art is amazing, especially in blockchain world, but the real potential of the WAX blockchain lies in utility.
We have a lot of existing use cases for TACO and SHING, and many more are coming!
We’re always building new tools for collectors, creators and developers alike for the WAX blockchain – who knows what we’ll make in future!
2021 is almost at an end. What can we expect from Taco in 2022?
2022 will be amazing for Taco, what with our Venues drop, two different games planned for the Taco Universe, a variety of community events, our DAO, Taco Music, utility for creators, new perks for our VIP club, and an expansion into other blockchains – Taco won’t only wrap WAX NFT projects, but NFT projects on other chains too!
Anything you’d like to add? Would you like to say something directly to the reader?
Firstly, thanks for reading this interview – hosted by an amazing project! (<3)
I love what everyone is doing on WAX! If you need anything, Taco is here to help you promote, provide assistance, and together create one of the best meta ecosystems in the blockchain space!
Utility + Gaming. Who would want more?
It’s quick-fire time!
What fuels you?
Creating things, being inspired by others, learning something new every day, and the prospect of leaving a mark.
One unusual fact about you?
I only started to eat tacos after naming this project “Taco” – and now I can’t stop eating them!
If you could give one piece of life advice, what would it be?
Never give up. Even if you are alone, never give up. You’ll find someone to build something great with together!
You can invite three people, real or fictional, to dinner. Who do you choose and why?
Rick (from Rick & Morty) – would be fun and inspiring; Elon Musk – such an inspiration with what he’s doing with all of his companies, and Socrates – to have an out-of-time conversation.
What is your purpose in life?
To inspire. To create something that will change the world. To connect people in healthy ways – and of course, to enjoy our world!
How can we follow you and your work?
Taco is one of those projects that feel like they’ve been around the WAX space throughout this year, so it was a surprise when I checked their Twitter to discover they’ve only been around since June!
That tells you just how well they’ve integrated into the community in such a short space of time, and Fede’s unwavering desire to help and support all of the projects he comes across is a major part of how they’ve achieved it.
Their app has been a wonderful success thus far, so I’m looking forward to what the Taco Universe has in store for us!
To mark this interview, we have our Taco Interview Card, dropping tomorrow at 18 UTC!
The Tenacious Taco
Collection: nftinsiderio
Max mint: 150 (1 reserved, 89 public, 30 OGs, 30 Promo Holders)
Drop price: Free!
Dropping: 20/11, 18 UTC!