Today we have a chance to talk to Axel Foley, founder of the first European and French BSC Community. Together, we will discuss his first steps in crypto, what made him start the BSC (now BNB Chain) community, his biggest wins & rekt, and much more. Let’s dive in!
[SurferInvestor] Hi Axel! Tell us about yourself, what is your background?
[Axel Foley] I am Axel, the founder of the first European and french BSC Community (BSCFrance rebranded on BNBChainFrance) and DefiScience in 2020.
I also managed a private group of developers (DeFi Builders) which has about 90 people. And now I ended this beautiful adventure to devote myself to other projects 😉
[SurferInvestor] Everyone has a story, “My first contact with Crypto was in the year 20xx (generally before 2015) however, I looked at it and told myself “this is worthless” and now I am of course regretting it, what is yours?
[Axel Foley] My first contact with crypto dates from 2013, but at that time I thought Bitcoin was only used to make illegal transactions on the darknet, despite the fact that I saw the blockchain as a technological revolution, I did not make any move. I came back to it in 2017 and like many, I got rekt in the madness of ICOs. At that time I swore to stop definitively, but the emergence of DeFi fascinated me so much that I returned to the game at the end of 2019.
[SurferInvestor] What was your biggest crypto win to date?
[Axel Foley] It’s an intrusive question *laughs* my biggest crypto win is on the CAKE token. Which is the token from the Pancakeswap protocol – the main Dex on the Binance Smart Chain (now BNB Chain).
[SurferInvestor] What was your most painful moment in crypto?
[Axel Foley] Oh, there were so many! Rekt by so many scammy ICOs in 2017, Rekt by a loooot of DeFi projects between 2020/2021 (Pancakebunny, Titan, and many others…).
[SurferInvestor] You were one of the first to build the BSC French community. What was your impulse?
[Axel Foley] The BSC was not very well known at that time, the ETH maxis which monopolized the DeFi space rejected us, so with some friends we decided to set up our own community to help each other and educate beginners. That’s how BSC France & Science – now called BNB Chain France & DeFi for Science, came to life.
[SurferInvestor] Could you say a few words about why the name of the group was “science” and each community member is a “scientist”?
[Axel Foley] In the beginning I created BSC France but as there were a lot of degen projects. I preferred to create a secondary/high-risk “Science” channel to post everything about degen farming and talk about more serious&reliable projects on BSC France. Each member of Science is a scientist, we did a lot of interesting experiments in Degen plays. For science!
[SurferInvestor] Now the community is called “DeFi for Science”. At which point was it clear for you that the community had to move beyond BSC only?
[Axel Foley] When I saw the explosion of layer 2, I myself didn’t farm much on BSC anymore, I thought it was time to open up to all the chains. We ran a survey to the community and everyone agreed to open up the channel to other l1/l2.
[SurferInvestor] Is crypto your main occupation? Or do you still have a fiat job? If it is the main occupation, do you have some tips for those who want to go full crypto?
[Axel Foley] I still have my fiat job to keep my feet on the ground, crypto and DeFi is a savage world, everything could happen. We spend too much time on screens, I think it is very important to keep a social link IRL but it is only my opinion.
[SurferInvestor] What did you find the most heartwarming from your community?
[Axel Foley] Some members sent me DMs to thank me and tell me that thanks to my communities their lives have changed, I remember a member who followed our scientific experiments and who earned enough to pay for a new house for his mother, it made me really proud.
[SurferInvestor] In an ideal world, what would the community look like in 5 years?
[Axel Foley] I hope it stays as it is now. I like a lot the values of the community. No crazy advertising or shill, no referral links, people are helping each other so much. I hope it stays like this in the future.
[SurferInvestor] Anything particular you are looking for to develop further the community? Funding/Developers/Admin?
[Axel Foley] Managing these communities took me a lot of time, for two years I was almost full-time on it. Today I stopped managing these communities to focus on other projects, I was tired and I wanted to move on.
[SurferInvestor] Anything you would like to tease for your next steps?
[Axel Foley] I cannot reveal too much for now, but I got really excited about the Teleport Network. They did an AMA with us some months ago and I also got along with the team very well. The rest, I will communicate the bit later. You will have to invite me a second time *laughs*.
[SurferInvestor] Thanks a lot for your time Axel! I am myself a member of the community since the end of 2020, so I can relate to how much this community helped me. Sponge, Beefy, Cake, Bake, etc… What a fantastic time it was. Wish you all the best for your next steps and I hope to welcome you again to SurferInvestor whenever you are ready to talk about what’s cooking next.
We hope that you enjoyed this Interview with Axel Foley, Founder of the BNB Chain French community as we as the DeFi for Science channel. In case you want to reach out, go ahead and join:
