iBEED Academy

2022-2023 · Web3

iBEED Academy started in 2022 out of my curiosity about blockchain and became a community and academy for studying NFTs, DeFi, DAOs and web3 in depth, away from speculation. I founded and ran it alone, later with a partner, until closing it in 2023.

Role: Founder and Head of Strategy & Operations
Outcome: +600 members, 3 bootcamps and 1,555 NFTs minted

Context

In 2019 I bought Bitcoin for the first time, more out of curiosity than understanding what it actually was. Over time a question came up: why does this exist? It led me to blockchain, then to Ethereum, and it became clear that crypto was just the entry point to something bigger: new forms of digital ownership, new infrastructure, new governance models. Back then, most content on the topic revolved around speculation, unrealistic promises and scams. There was no space to study the substance and real utility of these technologies. iBEED Academy was born in 2022 to fill that gap.

What I did

I founded iBEED Academy in March 2022, and started on YouTube with videos about blockchain, NFTs, web3, self-custody and on-chain security. Those videos led to a Discord community that I structured from scratch: channels, roles, bots, token gating and NFT integrations, where we reached over 600 members fully organically, a small number, but fully engaged people. I set up weekly calls on Mondays, inviting experts and moderating the conversation to connect each topic to what the community already knew.

I launched the first NFT collection, iBEED Genesis, alone, used as a membership card. A developer partner joined later to build our own educational platform integrated with the blockchain ecosystem: instead of email and password, login worked through self-custody wallets (MetaMask, Ledger, etc.), with NFTs acting as the access key.

Detail

Four pieces from this cycle deserve a closer look.

The Beeders were participation tokens inspired by POAPs: every meetup, call or community milestone became its own collection, recording who showed up and recognizing the most engaged members.

Grid of the Beeder collection on OpenSea

Sources: Beeder collection on OpenSea; X post from launch day.

The iBEED Auditório was our live events space, Zoom-style, but with the NFT acting as the access key: only holders of the right token could get in.

Sources: X post showing the token-gated platform in action.

The three bootcamps (Discord, generative art and Solidity) combined technical teaching with blockchain end to end: enrollment and completion certificates, both as NFTs. For Solidity, the instructor was Felipe Fatique, my technical partner, with solid command of the language. For generative art, Fatique also built the script that shuffled the collection's trait combinations, while artist Atlan Coelho created every character element: body, hair, eyes, accessories, skin, clothing. For the Discord bootcamp, I was the instructor, showing how to structure a server from scratch: channels, roles, permissions, community gamification and NFT integration.

NFT certificate from the Solidity bootcamp

Sources: Solidity bootcamp certificates; generative art bootcamp PFP reveal; Discord bootcamp proof of work.

The weekly calls also brought in heavyweight names from the ecosystem: João Ferreira (founder of Picnic), Alexandre Senra (federal prosecutor), Jean Hansen (founder of Ipê City), Castaneda (founder of CastaCrypto), Tim Balabuch (founder of PFP Supply Co), João Kury, Guilherme Riba (researcher at Paradigma Education), Daniela Zschaber (Business Development at ChainstackHQ) and Victor Cioffi (founder of Nora Finance), among many other incredible people.

Result

Over two years, iBEED Academy brought together more than 600 community members fully organically, with no paid media investment. That included 3 complete bootcamps, 12 NFT collections minted and over 1,555 NFTs in total, between access keys, certificates and participation tokens. The YouTube channel reached 33,000 views, 1,800 hours of watch time and over 675 subscribers, numbers that kept growing even after the project ended, with no new activity.

I closed iBEED Academy at the end of 2023, when sustaining the original proposal (studying the substance of the technology, away from speculation) started demanding a structure that was hard to maintain. But the project took me from being an observer to being someone who builds: I learned to record video, run live events, communicate complex ideas clearly and sustain a community, in practice, by failing and testing in public.