Getting to Know CNFTs With Paperbag: Wallet Bud

Well, hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of Tinkerers Meetup. To those of you joining in on the fun, we’re here to talk to other tinkerers to get to know them and to learn first-hand what are they tinkering with. For this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Trench from WalletBud.

Okay, so let’s get this started with a quick ice-breaker to get to know you better: what’s your name and favorite snack?

Hey there! My name is Callum but I go by my online name: TrenchATop, or Trench for short!

My favorite snack(s), yes there are more than one, is currently a specific brand of chips that are cooked into crunchy perfection. They pair perfectly with a tub of sour cream. My other favorite snack is, of course, sushi!

Sushi? I love sushi! My favorite one is at this hole-in-the-wall place in Oola. What was its name? Hmmm… ah yes! Sushimi. A kid there prepares everything themselves! Ok ok, so what can you tell us about your project? Where did the idea come from?

Yes, sure! So, my most recent project goes by the name of Wallet Bud.

It was an idea born from a combination of me being a Cardano fanatic, lazy and curious all at once. I always wanted to know exactly what was going on with my Cardano wallets, so I was constantly checking my pool.pm bookmarks while I was in class or whenever I was away from the desktop that held my wallets. That’s when it hit me; the idea for a system that “watches” your wallet for you and would replace manual pool-checking with a notification, freeing up more time for me to waste!

Over the last 4 months, I’ve been teaching myself to code during my free time until I reached the point where I possessed enough skills to translate my ideas to code, creating something I always held in the back of my mind.

Amos, my good bud from Pet Bot, is helping me create logos and graphics for WalletBud; In fact, he was the mastermind behind the name! I have him to thank for the most important “non-core” parts of WalletBud.

Damn, Trench! That’s impressive. There’s no doubt in my mind you could live up to be one of the most well-known Tinkerers in Fort Gotten, helping your squad solve one problem after the next. With that in mind, what problem does your project solve?

Wallet Bud aims to fix the problem of “not knowing”. Not knowing when you receive that asset you are trying to mint. Not knowing when your asset sells on a marketplace. Not knowing if you got an airdrop from your favorite project. Not knowing these things without checking pool.pm or looking at a transaction explorer was my biggest issue and the first problem I set out to solve.

I decided to use Discord as my medium for letting people know this information and it is now a widely used app for all CNFT users that allows them to seamlessly integrate and enable push notifications! I use Discord on a few devices, mostly on my phone, so being able to get these notifications while you are out and about can be extremely handy.

Love it! Changing the CNFT world, one push notification at a time! I get the impression that you’re not the type of Tinkerer to stay cross-armed when they’ve got such an innovative project in their hands… so tell us, what’s next for WalletBud? What’s on the map?

Oooh next up is definitely more collaborations and partnerships. I love how welcoming the community is and how open they are to new ideas!

Recently we introduced the ability to “watch” multiple wallets simultaneously, so the natural progression on this will be to add personal/customized names to identify each wallet!

Scaling and outreach will be big key parts of WalletBud’s future.

That’s such a useful tool to have, especially for CNFT advocates like us… am I right? I’m curious now, what NFTs does your wallet hold? Any favorites?

I hold a few NFTs across multiple wallets, quite a few from long gone projects that I keep mostly as sentimental jpgs, while also having the usual, diverse amount of pictures looking at each other. My favorite NFTs are currently my 3 Pixel Heads from The Pixel Head Squad. They have an amazing team who have been super helpful and a core pillar of my Cardano journey. Props to them! Some other of my favorites are these amazing cards from the project Ore Ore Ore, and I know I have seen a few Fort Gotten kids hiding out there as well!

I love to see how wallet’s like yours can grow to become a tiny CNFT universe… and yes! Our kidz can be a lil’ sneaky at times, hiding around the Fort Gotten world. Speaking of which, if you could pick any of our regions, which one would it be: Beach, Mountains, Forest, City or Desert?

Look, I live on the beach so it might come as a shock when I choose the forest… Being surrounded by the crisp, fresh air makes me want to go back for more!

It’s always nice to have a change of scenery, you would fit right in with our forest camps! Living by the beach sounds like paradise, though. At least for us who don’t visit as often! What do you do to relax and chill?

Relax? Ask anyone I know and they will tell you I am never seen apart from my laptop. When I am spotted away from it, I love to chill and unwind by walking my dogs or playing some football during the weekend.

You might be destined to be a Tinkerer. They’re always working on new projects and trinkets. Living by the beach must make it easy to unwind, though!

I’ve been to a few bonfires at Oola, the Ocean camp here in Fort Gotten. Once they disconnect from work, they’re some of the most carefree kidz I’ve ever met… singing and dancing around a bonfire all night long. Speaking of music, do you happen to have a favorite song?

Hold on let me just open Spotify… Profile… Top tracks… yes, It seems my favorite is… “The Adults Are Talking” by The Strokes. I love everything about the track. This was a hard choice since I have about 10 favorite songs, but I want to avoid turning this interview into an essay!

We’ll have to add it to some sort of Fort Gotten playlist and make sure to play it at the next bonfire! Going back to WalletBud… you mentioned that you’re looking into collaborating and partnering up with more people; have you made any collabs yet? Who else would you like to collab with?

Well, collabs are an integral part of Wallet Bud. I’ve had the privilege of working with the Tent trading team for our very first “custom notification”, with subsequent notifications for Borg Club’s brand new mint. There are also two “powered by WalletBud” floating out in Lending Pond and Borg channels! There’ll be more to come soon hopefully.

I am already in talks with Cardano Crocs (thank you Hendo!), Lazy llamas, and Moccosi for custom “breeding / mutating” events, which will bring some snazzy notifications for the WalletBud users doing these types of mints.

Not gonna lie, Trench. I’m extremely excited to see what comes next for you and Wallet Bud in the future! I’m sure you’re quite busy with all these things going on, so let me let you go with this final question: What would you say to your inner kid?

Well… I’m still a kid… So I’ll end with this instead:

I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world… To leave my mark, so to speak. Im not saying that a simple discord notification bot quite fits this, but bringing convenience and a tool that makes people go “hey that is kinda cool to have” and knowing that someone, somewhere is enjoying something I built makes everything worth it.

Well, there you have it kidz! Thank you, Trench, for taking the time to chat with us. You have an amazing project in your hands and such an exciting path ahead of you. Hope to see you around our camps soon!

Best of luck!