Weentar is building a blockchain social media platform with the ability to mint and sell every post as an NFT, and launch your own digital currency. Weentar CEO Eduardo Fonnegra shares more detail with us in this exclusive interview with TechBullion.
Please tell us a little more about yourself?
My name is Eduardo Fonnegra. I’m a Chicago native who grew up skateboarding in the northern suburbs of Illinois. I’ve had experience working in spaces such as AI, Real Estate, and Crowdfunding, but most recently my professional focus has been in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. One of my most rewarding experiences came from my work with Crowdcreate.us, a crowdfunding and marketing agency that has raised over $133 Million for various projects, primarily in the blockchain space.
I am passionate about culture, sales, recruiting, and all of the other subtle human elements of business. I also love leading teams and delight in creating sophisticated technology solutions with an eye on design and user experience.
Weentar started coming together early last year, while everyone was still locked in their homes due to the pandemic. Our goal is to create a platform that allows celebrities, influencers, and other creators to easily monetize themselves and their work. This means that they should be able to launch their own digital currency, a social token, as quickly as creating a profile. Every piece of media they post to our decentralized social media platform should be tied to an NFT, and easily sold to their fans.
What is Weentar and what unique services are you bringing to the blockchain market?
Weentar is our entire decentralized social media project. We are taking everything we have learned from Instagram, OnlyFans, and Patreon, and using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to create a system that focuses on the needs of creators. That means giving creators more tools to earn, more control and ownership over their content, and giving the users more power to dictate the future of Weentar.
It’s difficult to be unique in this space. The moment anyone announces something new, others are ready to copy it. I can say that nobody is bringing this technology together the same way that we are. It’s the total package, and our initial release is just the beginning.
Tell us more about the technology powering the Weenar platform; Is Weentar launching on any known Blockchain or is it going to have its separate Blockchain?
Our developers decided that building a separate Blockchain was the right approach. To accomplish this, they have forked the Ethereum blockchain, but we will be using proof of stake protocols, which will help us avoid the high fees associated with Ethereum right now.
Having our own blockchain gives us a lot more flexibility than launching on an existing Blockchain, which is extra important when we consider that the decentralized aspect of the project means users could take us in unexpected directions.
Decentralized social media is the next big thing. What do you think will separate Weentar from the rest?
The industry certainly does seem to be buzzing around this concept right now, but it doesn’t seem like anyone has quite gotten it right. I think our vision and understanding of the market and technology will set us apart from the rest. When we started, we could have chosen an easier path to market and really been the first of our kind. Instead, we took our time to make sure we could be the leaders of social media 3.0.
The old centralized social media has been hijacked by the elite class, and few creators are reaping the benefits of their content. How will Weentar incentivize or reward content creators?
Weentar is not designed to directly reward content creators. Instead we give them the tools that allow them to earn their fair share. Fans want to financially support creators, but the current systems just don’t seem interested in making that easy. That’s one of the reasons for the success of OnlyFans.
We are making the minting and selling of NFTs and social tokens so simple that anyone can do it in just a few seconds. Fans can also easily send tips with just a few clicks. We have a lot more on the drawing board, but we will be ready to launch these features with our upcoming MVP.
With Weentar, fans are also incentivized to take an active role in building up their favorite creators, especially smaller creators who have relatively more room to grow. Today, there are thousands of communities searching for the next big cryptocurrency, but the future will likely involve a search for the next big celebrity, buying their social tokens and NFTs early, and then hyping them up to their full potential.
Does the Weentar ecosystem include NFTs, and what type of NFTS?
NFTs are a major part of our initial feature set. I’m still learning about the seemingly endless possible use cases for NFTs, and the more I learn, the more excited I am for the industry. Content can be uploaded as an image, video, text, or audio clip and tied to an NFT.
On Weentar, creators will be creating their own social token (following the ERC20 standard). What makes this revolutionary and how does it work?
From a more technical side, creators are assigned their own collection contract which inherits special functionality from a network central template, and provides the option to easily create these social tokens. The details of these contracts and templates are the revolutionary bits, but we aren’t able to reveal them just yet. From a creator’s point of view, it will be as easy as creating a profile.
The volatility of the crypto market has left so many people disappointed. How is Weentar helping foster trust and profitability in the crypto market?
We added liquidity to Pancake Swap to allow for trading our token on May 18. On May 19, headlines read “cryptocurrencies crash in brutal sell-off.” The price of our token dropped sharply. It couldn’t have been scripted worse. The most important thing we could do in that situation was focus on developing value-adding features for our platform and giving our future coin a clear use case. That’s what we will continue to do.
We want it to make sense to use our coin, not just for those already in the crypto space, but for everyone. We recognized from the beginning the importance of trust in the current market, which is why our co-founders are transparently listed on our homepage. I’m proud to be the face of Weentar, because I believe in the project.
What opportunities are available for investors and partners at Weentar?
Our DMs are open and we love to hear from people looking to collaborate. We have done interviews and podcasts with some amazing people already. One of the areas we are aggressively growing is our partnerships with content creators. We have great relationships with management teams, but I would encourage any creators to reach out so we can discuss how we can benefit each other. As much as we want to decentralize social media, the current limitations of technology still require a central authority for optimal growth and user experience. As such, there is room for investors on the business side of Weentar, and we are open to proposals and discussions in that area.
Any other information you would like to share with our readers today?
Yes, I am excited to see where decentralized social media networks will take place in the future. Our goal is to build a platform that provides creators and their communities both: full control over their data as well as their reward system for monetizing intellectual property.
Your readers can learn more about Weentar and stay up-to-date on news and announcements by visiting our website and following us on social media.
