AMA RECAP: Sheesha Finance & LunarCrush

A few weeks ago, on January 20th, 2022, we continued our latest series of AMAs. These consist of community interviews with the founders of some of our outstanding project partners.

This time, we interviewed Joe Vezzani, the CEO and Founder of LunarCrush. This particular platform focuses on providing its investors with key, bite-sized social media data of various crypto projects. Thus enabling crypto enthusiasts to make informed decisions on which projects to invest in.

As you can imagine, the opportunity to ask Joe anything proved to be an exciting occasion for all involved.

In charge of the AMA for Sheesha Finance was our very own Albes Zhebo. Albes led the AMA in an exemplary manner and we’re delighted that the AMA was a resounding success!

Without further ado, here’s a recap of the AMA between Sheesha Finance and LunarCrush.

The Full LunarCrush AMA as it Happened

Albes Zhebo (for Sheesha Finance):

To start things off, can you please introduce yourself to our community, and tell us a little more about your crypto background and experience?

Joe Vezzani (for LunarCrush):

First off, thank you for having me and bringing me into the Sheesha community!

I’m Joe Vezzani, CEO and Founder of LunarCrush. I found Bitcoin in 2015 thanks to my co-founder Jon.

For me, it was love at first sight with Bitcoin, the convergence of technology and finance into one thing.

But over the years I’ve realized it’s much greater than that. It was the disruption of everything.

I’ve always loved economics and markets, but ultimately I love communities of people coming together to build something greater than themselves. That is what this industry is to me.

Albes Zhebo:

It’s great to hear about your remarkable achievements and experience in the crypto space!

Considering where you are now, how would you say your experience contributed to the creation of LunarCrush? What was the inspiration behind it and, for our newcomers, what problems does LunarCrush solve in crypto?

Joe Vezzani:

I’ve had a pretty eclectic background stemming from finance, software, advertising, product, sales, etc. I think it takes a combination of many fields to truly understand how to spot gaps in the market.

When Jon and I first started thinking about LunarCrush, there weren’t nearly as many projects on the market as there are today. And it was still an impossible task to try and understand which ones had communities and which ones didn’t.

Which one’s had social followers and a groundswell of people gravitating towards a project.

That’s where LunarCrush came in, could we accurately organize all the world’s crypto-specific content from the internet, and could we make it digestible for anyone who wanted to learn.

LunarCrush is now one of the most visited websites on the earth, with millions of users and billions of pageviews a month, all trying to understand how social impacts the cryptocurrency markets.

Albes Zhebo:

That’s truly remarkable!

Joe Vezzani:

It really is, thank you.

Albes Zhebo:

As you said, LunarCrush is all about providing digestible cryptocurrency data, and information is all the power we need to crush it in this space! With that being said, can you tell us more about how our community can use LunarCrush to its fullest extent as well as any key tools and metrics which help them do so?

Joe Vezzani:

Sure! Well, first you can sign up at LunarCrush.com. Then once you are in, we have a couple of different levels with the difference being you can see a little more social data at each increase of level.

Some of my favorite metrics to follow are AltRank, Social Contributors, Social Volume, and Social Engagement.

The LunarCrush AltRank is a combination of social data, market volume, and price-performance against Bitcoin. And we do this across the other 3,000 currencies listed on our platform.

Rank 1 being the best, it is a great way to understand where a project is sitting, at that very moment, in real-time, against the rest of the market with regards to the things that impact a project’s performance the most.

Social Contributors are unique mentions of a specific project, so even if I’m yelling $doge from the top of my lungs all day on Twitter, I only count as 1 contributor that day for Doge.

It helps people get an idea of the base level of how many unique people are talking about a project over time.

Then Social Volume and Social Engagement just work up the ladder. Social Volume counts every time that day I mention $DOGE.

Social Engagement racks up all the virality you get. So all the retweets, likes, upvotes on Reddit, news mentions, it’s the whole shebang.

So I like to keep an eye on all these together to really understand, over time, how a project’s community is growing, or shrinking, but hopefully not!

We also have a couple of other things I’d like to mention.

You can see all of the influencers from Twitter as well on LunarCrush, and get a more clear idea of what each person talks about over time. Helping you understand who is shilling and who is genuine.

And something super cool is you can set alerts for all our metrics as well. So you don’t need to be staring at LunarCrush all day to know if the Social Volume for any project is moving. Although some people do!

Albes Zhebo:

It’s exciting to hear that such a convenient project exists in the crypto space and your key tools surely make it so! Apart from using the platform and gaining real-world knowledge, what other uses and rewards can the LunarCrush community benefit

from?

Joe Vezzani:

Reward! Yes. Since our launch a couple of years ago, we have been thinking a lot about what organizations and protocols of the future look like. When you look at the platforms like Google, Facebook, and more relevant to our space, Bloomberg, CNBC, they are fully reliant on selling your data for money.

They shove a bunch of crappy ads in your face and then make you pay a subscription fee into perpetuity.

There is a better way now.

After developing for a year, in October we released $Lunr.

As the community is using LunarCrush, they actually can earn their way to our levels based on their activity on LunarCrush.com

In a way, it is almost like proof of community.

Then they can hold that $Lunr in their wallet on LunarCrush and continue to earn multipliers and rewards that increase the amount they earn every day.

This way we can bring the community in to be a part of what we are doing and much closer to the mission which is to create transparency in the industry.

Albes Zhebo:

That’s exactly why we all love the crypto space for bringing us awesome projects such as LunarCrush!

It’s also great to know that LunarCrush recognizes and rewards individual contributions towards the community instead of charging subscription fees the way similar Web2 platforms do. I think we can call LunarCrush a Learn-To-Earn platform!

Joe Vezzani:

LOL epic!

Albes Zhebo:

As you mentioned levels, can you tell us more about how the rewards system works and how community members can level up by compounding their earnings?

Joe Vezzani:

All they need to do is do what they’ve been doing on LunarCrush for years.

Just by being on the website, or either of our mobile apps on iOS or Android. They earn points.

Every day the community is earning these points for being on the site, providing their opinions on certain projects, influencers, or exchanges, sharing, making friend referrals…

Then at the end of the day, those points are tallied up and a certain amount of $Lunr is distributed based on your activity.

Then around 4–5 pm PT each day, the process starts over.

The brilliant part is it’s pretty much in the background, and all you are doing is researching and doing what you already do, and you are earning $Lunr.

Albes Zhebo:

To all current and future eSheesha stakers, we hope you’re taking notes. You will be getting the token behind this thriving project as a part of your rewards portfolio!

At this point, Sheesha Finance’s Marketing Executive, Miguel Prendushi, brought up an interesting point.

Miguel Prendushi:

Warren Buffet says first Learn, and then remove the L… but you say do both simultaneously.

Joe Vezzani:

Exactly. And that’s pretty amazing you all are doing that for your community.

Super cool.

Albes Zhebo:

Awesome!

Looking ahead, what are your plans to thrive even further in the crypto world, and what exciting new additions should we expect from LunarCrush in the near future?

Joe Vezzani:

From a product perspective, we have an absolute stacked roadmap.

You’ll be seeing something from us on NFTs, which are purely driven by the community.

Albes Zhebo:

Looking forward to it!

Joe Vezzani:

We have a plan to integrate the projects themselves further, making LunarCrush the one-stop shop for information directly from your favorite projects and content from around the web all in one place at your fingertips.

For the $Lunr Token, we have some fun things coming down the pike with regards to DeFi.

And then we have some amazing partnerships that will be announced this year that are out of this world.

We are talking Guinness book of world records type stuff on the partnership side, so stay tuned.

Albes Zhebo:

The future definitely looks bright for LunarCrush and we’re all excited to see how your plans unfold hereafter!

On that note, could you share with us any future marketing plans that will help LunarCrush reach an even broader audience?

Joe Vezzani:

Our growth has always been organic, we’ve never paid for growth, and believe it or not, we have never taken money from anyone to advertise with us.

It’s something we are insanely proud of being able to do and grow LunarCrush.com to now be a top 2,000 website on the internet.

With our growth in the last 90 days since the launch of $Lunr Token being truly staggering.

We are now closing in on 2 billion page views a month and have passed companies like Toyota in internet traffic, who spend billions of dollars driving users to their site.

So our future plans are to continue doing what we’ve done from day 1. Focus on the community and give them the tools they want to tell people about.

Albes Zhebo:

That’s very impressive indeed, not many projects would be able to do that through a fully organic growth

Joe Vezzani:

Never been done Albes. Web2 or Web3.

Albes Zhebo:

The effort and knowledge you’re putting into this project are phenomenal and it really shows!

But like every other promising project out there, there needs to be a strong team behind it. Tell us more about your core team, their expertise, and how they’ve helped build LunarCrush to what it is today.

Joe Vezzani:

It’s all about the team and their dedication over the years, you are right.

We have a phenomenal team, from the dev team, product, marketing, etc. Everyone is focused and working in the same direction on the mission.

We’ve put together an eclectic group of individuals, some were hardcore crypto when they came in, some were just learning. What I’ve found in my career is that experience can never outperform excitement and focus.

Everyone on our team embodies that and it’s a pre-requisite to question everything, but once the decision is made, to build like hell!

Big shout out to my co-founder Jonathan Farjo and my other co-founder Dan Williams.

Albes Zhebo:

That’s how we love to drive our work here at Sheesha as well, it’s all about the excitement and the focused efforts you are entirely right!

A great team and an amazing project, our members surely don’t want to miss out on LunarCrush.

Can we hear more about where LunarCrush is currently listed and how we can get our hands on the $Lunr token?

Joe Vezzani:

For sure!

$Lunr is currently a ZRC-2 and ERC-20 token. With another chain coming imminently.

And if you want to level up faster, you can go pick some up on Uniswap, Zilswap, XCAD Dex, Mexc Global, BKEN, Okcoin, or AscendEX. With a bunch more places coming soon.

Albes Zhebo:

Thank you for all the useful info, Joe. Our members will definitely find it easier to be part of LunarCrush now!

This is also a good time to remind the community that by owning and staking $eSHEESHA tokens they have already secured a decent share of $LUNR tokens.

While on the topic of tokens, can you talk us through the distribution schedule for $Lunr and give us an overview of your tokenomics?

Joe Vezzani:

Absolutely. If you want to read more yourselves, you can always go to the website and also check out the whitepaper on there.

The majority of the tokens are distributed over a multiyear distribution by earning through your proof of community.

There wasn’t an IDO or ICO for the $Lunr Token, and with the built-in community we had, most of the Initiatives funds will be used towards the growth of the community.

Albes Zhebo:

That sounds like a great structure that should provide sustainability and support for your token’s price action in the future.

Regarding your platform’s features, you mentioned that you measure tokens by their social volume, engagement, and dominance. Can you go into more detail on what metrics you take into account in this process? We would love to hear what Sheesha Finance can do to climb the ladder of your rankings.

Joe Vezzani:

It’s all about the community. Anything mentioning Sheesha across places like Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and all the news shared on the internet is combed for mentions of all cryptocurrencies.

So the more the community grows and sustains over time will be reflected and measured against the rest of the market.

So if you are a believer in Sheesha, go shout it from the rooftops on social!

Still to this day, most of social media is driven by 20% of the content creators.

Get that 80% riled up and posting!

Albes Zhebo:

You heard it from the source folks, like, comment, and share our content on Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, and Telegram! Let’s climb the ladder of LunarCrush rankings and gain more exposure to the wider crypto community. I’m sure Joe would like to see us get there!

We also know that partnerships are a crucial part of every project’s success. Could you name some of your current partners? How do they help improve LunarCrush and your community?

Joe Vezzani:

Man! Almost too many to mention.

Over the last almost 4 years of running LC, we have done partnerships to some capacity with almost everyone in the space. Whether it’s been AMAs, Twitter Spaces, LunarCrush Live!, YouTube, conferences, etc.

Some of our recent partners that are helping to evangelize the spirit of without a community, there is no crypto are, Techstars, DraperGorenHolm, Nomics, Manutara Ventures, Zilliqa, Okcoin, TRGC, Kano One, Okcoin/Okgroup, Shima, Woo Network, Krypital, Altcoin Buzz, Mask.io, Swissborg, Cryptoslate, Algorand, Avalanche, Cardano, Stacks, Citycoins, Dogecoin community, Terra, Tezos, Polygon, BSC, many many more

I have so many telegram groups I cannot even keep track anymore, but we love them all.

Albes Zhebo:

That’s a huge list you got there! Awesome!

Thank you for all the useful information and insights you’ve provided us with, Joe.

Once Albes and Joe had gone through the first set of questions, it was time to open the floor up to the live audience with Joe offering 100 $Lunr tokens on top of the usual $20 up for grabs.

Albes Zhebo:

Now, let’s get a couple of LIVE questions straight from our dear TG community. In the next minutes, the group will be unmuted and members can all ask their questions to LunarCrush, for a chance to earn $20 too!

Joe Vezzani:

I’ll top them off with 100 $Lunr to achieve Level 3 as well.

Albes Zhebo:

The group is now unmuted, shoot your shot folks!

First to ask questions were our community members, LX and Farukul Islam.

LX:

Very interesting AMA! I would like to know why $LUNR launched on Zilliqa and what your plans are to grow with and support that network?

Farukul Islam:

I am student honor’s level. I’ve used LunarCrush since December 15 and am now level 2, it is the best platform to learn about crypto. Can you please say how to go level 3, when is level 4 unlocked, and how many $Lunr is needed for that? Thanks, LunarCrush team

Joe Vezzani:

(Replying to LX) Great question. We believe in interoperability, the Zilliqa network has been super supportive in that category.

As we move to other chains, we needed someone who supported that.

Joe Vezzani:

(Replying to Farukul Islam) In order to get to level 3, you just need 100 $Lunr! Level 4 will be announced very soon.

Albes Zhebo:

On behalf of the whole Sheesha Finance community we thank you very much for joining us today, Joe. It’s been a pleasure!

We hope that everyone enjoyed this session and got to know LunarCrush and their most interesting project on a deeper level.

Thanks and see you all next time!

Joe Vezzani:

Thanks so much for having me!!

And thus ended a fascinating conversation with LunarCrush’s Founder about the project and its many benefits.

Earn $Lunr Tokens and Much More…

We’re delighted that the AMA was a success. We’d like to thank our wonderful community for taking the time to be part of it.

We’d also like to remind you LunarCrush rewards have started being distributed on the 21st of January. It couldn’t be easier to secure your allocation of the $Lunr token together with a diversified portfolio of premium rewards from a whole range of other amazing projects.

Simply purchase and stake $eSHEESHA tokens on our dashboard right now!