How a Canadian nursing student launched Ass Finance and built a community of 100,000+ token holders 🚨 This article is 4 years old...
How a Canadian nursing student launched Ass Finance and built a community of 100,000+ token holders
Meme projects are everywhere in crypto. Some want to be more serious than others, however.
5 min read
Updated: May. 11, 2021 at 8:50 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Warning: This story contains some adult content and may not be appropriate for younger readers.
There’s a part of the crypto bull market that brings forth funny-sounding projects that are wholly indistinguishable from scams. Food, birds, space, and body part names are slapped onto an obscure fork with the words ‘crypto’ or ‘blockchain’ and some end up outperforming the little investment research you’d worked on for years.
But behind the scams and funny names are real people. Some of them are pure-play money grab artists, shifting from crypto, to real estate, to pokemon cards, to wherever the social investment trend is in the hopes of covering rents for the next month.
There are then the others, who are trying to build solid, legit products regardless of whatever the protocol is named.
The latter is where Liv, who goes by ‘CryptoLiv’ on social media, fits in. She’s the 26-year-old creator of ASS Finance (Australian Safe Shepherd, not whatever you’re thinking), a community-driven, Binance Smart Chain-based token with baked-in features for a quintessential going to the moon crypto play.
ASS started off as a “moon play” after stuff like “SafeMoon,” “SaveEarth,” “ElonMoon,” and other “noun+safe” tokens ended up giving gazillions of dollars in profits to a select few.
Liv wanted to go down a different route, however. The self-confessed “LINK Marine” (what members of the Chainlink community call themselves) did create ASS as a meme coin, but decided to work full-time on the project after it zoomed to a $110 million market cap and captured 70,000 holders in a single week.
Today, dozens of members contribute to the ASS community from all around the world, working together due to achieving several use cases and solving various problems. Liv shared in a note to CryptoSlate:
“I want to leverage our platform to give women a voice and encourage more women to enter into the DEFI space.”
“To further our goal of empowering women, I have spoken with several companies that are interested in integrating our token as an available payment method on adult video websites,” she adds.
want some $ass? https://t.co/tOGD2qsMlK
— crypto liv ? | ass mommy ? (@ugliestduck) May 9, 2021
But the fame doesn’t come without dirty games. Liv’s ended up receiving death threats for her vision of ASS for merely promoting sexuality and aiming for adoption from adult websites in her plans.
She’s however unfazed and continues to develop the network daily. Her choice is memes that aren’t frogs or couches or multicolored eyes, but apt images that tend to crypto bros, dudes, and chads instead:
we know @mikemajlak strictly plays 4D chess.
confirmed $ass man. pic.twitter.com/taO5QgwwRu— ASS (@assfinance) May 5, 2021
Liv’s not a top-shot software developer or blockchain coder either. She’s still a third-year, Bachelor of Science nursing student who is working towards becoming a registered nurse, and purchased her first cryptocurrency, LINK, only in 2018. She reminisced:
“The brilliance of Sergey Nazarov and the amazing community behind it aka the Link Marines had me go ASS first down the blockchain rabbit hole.”
Liv’s story with ASS is only just beginning. And to know more, we caught up with the fearless ASS queen to learn more about the project.
Interview with Liv
Q: Tell us why you decided to start Ass Finance?
Liv: I woke up one morning to several messages in my home Telegram community from members asking me to make a meme token. Being the impulsive person that I am, I decided it was a fantastic idea!
Of course, we decided to make a dog token, because who doesn’t love dogs? Because Elon Musk is already the King of Doge, we collectively decided on the Australian Shepherd and settled with the ticker name $ASS.
Fast forward seven days, we now have over 100,000 hodlers and counting, including the creator of Doge itself Billy Markus, which tells you a lot about the community’s love of ASS.
Q: How many people are working on Ass Finance and where is the team located?
Liv: We have dozens of members contributing to our community from all around the world, working together due to one common interest: ASS.
Our fantastic admins are determined to keep the community informed as we continue our rapid phase of growth. Personally, I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Go Raptors!) and still live here today.
I am especially proud to be able to contribute to the Canadian crypto community, which has been led by visionaries such as Vitalik Buterin (Toronto) and Changpeng Zhao (Montreal, Vancouver) who have helped establish Canada as a critical global blockchain community.
Q: What has been the community reaction to Ass Finance? What has surprised you?
Liv: A frequent reaction that I’ve seen from the community is confusion. I’ve received many baffled messages from white collared people in finance who are trying to wrap their heads around what the hell we’re doing.
Our community is very dedicated and we’ve grown a cult following, with many appointing me as their ‘cult leader’. Whether we are hated or adored, we have the attention of the entire crypto space and we look forward to pushing the envelope with the help of ASS lovers everywhere.
Q: Why did you choose to build on Binance Smart Chain over other platforms?
Liv: This is an easy answer for me, I am biased toward Binance for many reasons. For one, Changpeng Zhao also known as ‘CZ’, the founder of Binance has corrected many of the flaws that hinder alternate blockchains at this point in time. ‘CZ’ has created a platform that is faster, cheaper, and safer than many alternate platforms.
Binance Smart Chain uses a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm which completes a block every three seconds; which is four times faster than their competitor Ethereum, which completes a block consensus at 13 seconds.
Next, Binance Smart Chain has clearly become the optimal platform for meme tokens to grow to reach a significant size as quickly as possible. Whether you’re an $ASS person or prefer $TITS, BSC has everything for the meme-friendly crypto investor.
Q: What utility does the ASS token serve?
Liv: Even though we are a meme token, I want to leverage our platform to give women a voice and encourage more women to enter into the DEFI space. To further our goal of empowering women, I have spoken with several companies that are interested in integrating our token as an available payment method on adult video websites.
The pandemic has underscored the importance and legitimacy of sex work around the world, and we feel content creators deserve to be fully compensated for their hard work. We have also applied to be listed as a method of payment on ‘Travala’, which would allow you to purchase flights with ASS from around the world at https://www.travala.com.
Q: What can you tell us about the product roadmap? What upcoming features are you most excited about rolling out?
Liv: We have a charity fundraiser coming up soon that we are setting up with our team to donate to one of my favorite local charities. The charity, ‘Covenant House’ is the largest agency in Canada serving homeless and at-risk youth.
While our token is listed under the ticker ASS, our ultimate goal is to leverage the power of memes and the attention they create to bring awareness to the issues facing women in all facets of life.
Women, like everyone else, deserve full autonomy and control over their bodies and decisions, and I look forward to working with Covenant House to improve the lives of as many women as possible. I encourage you to visit their website here.
Q: What is your most controversial opinion relating to blockchain and/or cryptocurrency?
Liv: I believe anonymity in crypto has the potential to cause significant issues in the space. While anonymity is important for privacy purposes, it can also create issues including scams and mistrust, which is why I aim to communicate directly with the ASS community to instill trust in each and every one of our investors.
In nursing, we use a tactic called ‘therapeutic relationship building’ that I believe will help foster a healthy ASS community. Through active listening, teaching, and empathy, I intend to connect with community members to build cohesive relationships that will set the foundation for a strong network of holders and builders.
The growth of the decentralized finance space has only just begun, and we look forward to introducing DEFI to the greater blockchain community through our common appreciation of ASS. After all, what better way is there to spend your crypto than buying some ASS?
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