Our latest AMA (Ask Me Anything) features xrp.cafe, one of the leading marketplaces on the XRP Ledger. ICYMI, we discussed NFT infrastructure, user experience and what 2023 has in store for NFTs on the XRPL.
Check out the full recap below, and head to xrpldevs.com to join the community and tune in for the next AMA!
BiasGoose: Everyone join me in welcoming tippyfodder and xrpl_Adam from xrp.cafe to the first XRPL Developers AMA of 2023!
Also congratulate them for being a wave 4 grantee! Just announced 10 minutes before this. Such excellent timing.
Please introduce yourselves briefly and your project please.
Tippyfodder: I'm Chris, the product designer at the cafe. I made the UI.
xrpl_Adam: Hey everybody, I'm Adam the lead developer at xrp.cafe. We're focused on bringing mass adoption of NFTs and enterprise utility to the XRPL! Thanks for having us Goose 🙂
Tippyfodder: Super excited to be here.
BiasGoose: Awesome! Welcome guys. Happy to have you here. Can you tell us a bit about your background before the xrp.cafe?
Tippyfodder: I've been working on consumer and enterprise applications for several years. Mostly I focus on design systems. I live in the Pacific Northwest.
xrpl_Adam: I've been a developer since 2005, I got into crypto/ethereum/EVM development in 2017 and have been a long-time holder of XRP and supporter of the XRPL ecosystem and went pretty much exclusively into XRPL development in 2021.
BiasGoose: That's great! I am a huge fan of both of your works! Before we dive into the community questions, tell us how the idea for xrp.cafe came about.
Tippyfodder: Moonkie hit me up on twitter
xrpl_Adam: So xrp.cafe came about partly because of the hole in the marketplace space that we wanted to fill when Clever Gallery switched chains, so it was a natural fit that the PARC team and xShrooms team came together to fill that void and really build out something that we saw as badly needed for the XRPL. Both in terms of usability and in terms of creating a great experience for NFTs in a standard that is so new.
BiasGoose: That makes sense! It was great to see two projects with a following already coming together to figure out what they needed in a marketplace and build it!
One question for tippy before we dive into the community questions which I think may be more for Adam. Tippy, what were some things you prioritized when making the xrp.cafe experience what it is? While I may be biased, I think your UX is possibly the best one out there for NFT marketplaces.
I am a fan of very simple and clean experiences, for example I generally choose Looksrare for trading NFTs on a different chain and I find the xrp.cafe experience somewhat similar.
Tippyfodder: Logical priorities in how we build features, starting with the most basic buy/sell experience. Now I'm focusing on the browsing experience with the creator experience next. Using a system is also very important. When there is a need the system should provide. Making it up as we go is also important.
BiasGoose: How is xrp.cafe attracting collections to its marketplace? And do you curate collections? If so, what is the process?
xrpl_Adam: We've had a lot of organic attention to the marketplace, so we've had a lot of projects and collections reach out to us for help in facilitating the onboarding process. Adding an existing collection is as easy as connecting your issuer wallet and basically just hitting a button and filling out a few fields. The only curation we do is having a verified badge for certain collections that we feel pass our own verification process in terms of KYC/dox and other metrics we use to attempt to keep users safe in the process. We'll be rolling out some more content curation features in the next year to help users be able to filter and see content according to their interests.
BiasGoose: Are there any projects in the pipeline that have to do with music, fine arts or phygital NFTs?
xrpl_Adam: Yes, I believe another user in this discord actually has a music collection coming out soon. In terms of fine arts we've been in talks with various artists in order to roll out some physical pieces of art paired with an XRPL NFT as proof of authenticity.
BiasGoose: Amazing! I am excited to see those projects flourish on the XRPL.
Another question: Is your app built in C#? Did you write your own library? If so, did you write a websocket client?
xrpl_Adam: Our tech stack consists of next.js/react + nodeJS + mysql and then we have various backend services and run several rippled and clio servers.
BiasGoose: Here is a fresh question for you: xrp.cafe is now a wave 4 grantee. How do you think this grant will help propel xrp.cafe to the next level?
Tippyfodder: For me - more time to work on the project.
xrpl_Adam: It's definitely going to help us in terms of building out new features/components and bringing our vision to life on the XRPL. From the start we pretty much saw ourselves as more than just a digital art marketplace and wanted to bring some really interesting enterprise products that will be incorporated into the marketplace later this year.
BiasGoose: Can't wait to see that! For both of you: What was the most challenging part in building xrp.cafe?
Tippyfodder: Pretty easy so far.
xrpl_Adam: One of the hardest things for me at least was coming up with a solid architecture that wouldn't lead to technical debt down the line. Using best practices, scalable architecture design and just putting the first line of code into the screen. Once we got on a good cadence, everything kind of came pretty easy for the most part since we had a solid vision of where we wanted to go. Another challenge was just dealing with clio and rippled—having to wear the system/DevOps hat which admittingly is one of my weaknesses. But it's forced me to learn a lot of new things and become much better in that aspect.
Tippyfodder: I think wrapping my head around what's possible with blockchain. How we think about what a connected user is has changed a bit for me.
xrpl_Adam: Definitely not a power user with clio, but shout out to the team for helping me a lot with questions I had.
BiasGoose: That's great to hear! What do you think sets xrp.cafe apart from other platforms?
Tippyfodder: The real answer to this question is coming later this year.
xrpl_Adam: We are community centric and really built a solid foundation and are well connected to the community. Community is everything. We have our secret weapon in tippyfodder who is a wizard in usability. I am biased, but I think we have a team that really meshes well that have different skills and we're almost always on the same page in terms of vision, so we've been able to move really quickly through a lot of other projects.
BiasGoose: Having that type of environment in a team is very underrated! It really gets things moving at a different pace.
One last question before we start closing out this AMA! What are you looking forward to the most in terms of the XRPL or projects in 2023, and why?
xrpl_Adam: I'm just excited every day to see this space grow so rapidly… Things like XLS-30, hooks and EVM sidechains are really going to open the door to a lot of possibilities—not just for us but for everybody building on the XRPL.
Tippyfodder: I would love to see more art in all its forms and to see that art find new areas of expression through technology and community. Basically I want to see us nerds and artists mix it up and make cool stuff.
xrpl_Adam: I would also add that it's very difficult to keep up with everybody building. There's so many underrated projects that haven't gotten much attention. Apex is always a great venue to learn/see what people are building and wish there were more developer centric XRPL events.
BiasGoose: Amazing! I wanted to thank you @xrpl_Adam and @tippyfodder for coming on here and speaking with the community! For those looking to follow xrp.cafe more closely follow them on twitter! They always host spaces and events. Check out: https://xrp.cafe/.
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