Perhaps you’ve seen or met these new-age ninjas at a Bitcoin or cryptocurrency conference. Maybe you glanced over their profile images that stare back at you on your Twitter feed. It’s likely, actually, because these present-day ninjas hide in plain sight hosting content, answering questions on the fly, constantly building (many times community requested) new services and options, and sharing what they like to do with well-deserved downtime.
They, and the rest of those who make up the company’s blossoming staff and community, are, as Klever Director of Communications Misha Lederman likes to say, “Klever ninjas”. And while their teams seemingly operate at all hours because they’re spread globally, these ninjas don’t wield a shuriken or fukiya. Instead, they’ve equipped themselves (and users) with shrewd crypto and digital know-how, and financial freedom tools.
The incredible stream of tangible, technical innovation, along with the community spirit radiating through everything with a Klever logo on it, all feels a bit cartoonish — like the power flowing in one of Klever CEO Dio Iankiara’s regularly shared anime GIFs on Twitter.
Except, the power is real, especially for those closest to it.
“I don’t work for Dio, I work for Dio’s vision,” said Felipe Rieger, Head of NFT and Product Manager at Klever Exchange. “That is the same vision I have: Create the best crypto ecosystem in the world with tools focusing on real developers and top-notch game-changing products.
“This is our motto, this is the vision we work on every day.”
Marlon Gomes is a Klever co-founder and the Head of Software Architecture. Years ago, he was an intern at another company along with brothers Dio and David Iankiara, where they met Baiano and Vitor. The group formed Getty/IO, a consulting firm, but their real desire, according to Gomes, was to build their own product.
“I remember we were at Dio’s apartment making sketches,” Gomes said, “coding and discussing a lot about how we wanted to create the company we always dreamed to work on. [It would be] a place that would have a great culture and would evolve together with a great community and much more. And since that time, we were struggling a lot and will keep doing the hard work to deliver each dream, product, and solution to our #KleverFam.
“I believe the dream — of making a product that would bring a new perspective about crypto and would change a lot of peoples’ lives — is what put us together.”
Warren Manuel is a Social Media Manager for Klever. He assumed his role last year after several years of Director-level marketing work in Cape Town, South Africa, and London. Similar to the others, it was Klever’s vision that drew him.
“After engaging and working with all the divisions driving product creation, marketing, and brand, I know I’ve made the right choice,” Manuel said. “The culture — the development of individuals, the consideration that we’re more than just colleagues, we’re a Klever family — makes this all worthwhile.”
That positive energy likely is helped by the fact that Klever has products to share. (While that seems obvious, those who have been in an around the crypto and blockchain industries know it is not always a given that a company will actually ever produce anything past a website or paper.) And, it’s not just a couple of products, either. It is, as Lederman has said in various places, the beginning of an entire ecosystem. And, as new pieces of that system have come alive, they have allowed “AHA!” moments where those working realized they were on to something much, much larger than they perhaps thought initially.
“For me, it’s related to the Web3 new phase of the internet and the products we are building now, specifically the Kleverchain,” Rieger said. “It’s crazy, but seeing something that I talked about almost one year ago with Dio, JP, Sobreira, and others (when the big rise of the NFTs in 2021 was exploding). And now, it’s almost ready to go live globally with our own NFT Token Standard. [It] makes me almost emotional.
“We talked about the royalties, transaction costs, developing something unique, and when you see that what you are creating is going live and will help millions of people to create on the Web3, and impact their lives,” Rieger continued. “This makes you feel like you are really winning in life. You are using all the efforts and vision to impact people’s lives, to give them the power they need, the vision and opportunity they need. This is what game-changing technology and decentralization creates. This makes me ‘wake up’”.
That Rieger can talk in the present about creating such a breadth of products under a single umbrella is breathtaking if you pause long enough to consider what statements like his mean. In a lot of ways, it speaks to the entire industry’s growth and direction over the past 24-36 months.
For years, many blockchains and crypto companies have been siloed – built to accomplish a single task, provide a single solution to a single challenge, work on a single chain, etc. So it goes with early innovation and trying to whack every new mole of a problem when it raises its head. But, watching Klever’s systemic strategy of listening to users, determining root issues causing a stated problem, expanding a solution to cover a request, and also creating a cross-chain application, has been something to witness the past couple of years.
Amazingly, this ability has become so much of a norm that some of those solutions barely get noticed, even by those who benefit most from them. It has become an expectation, it seems, which is the point, actually.
That said, the budding expectation has done little in way of diminishing those neat “AHHH!” moments for those who have seen Klever grow from the beginning.
“I think the first time we had this ‘AHHH!’ moment was with the release of the first version of the wallet,” Gomes said. “[We] saw the potential of growth and integration this product would have.
“We still have this moment frequently,” Gomes continued. “Being on Klever is like creating something amazing every day — something that would challenge the market in a very good way. From an insider perspective, I also get amazed because when you look around all the products being developed with our own hands using our own tools and getting shaped and connected with the environment is something that makes us proud.”
All of this has many believing Klever is well on its way toward its goal of metamorphosing from the wallet it began as into the full-color, the blockchain-based ecosystem it believes itself to be, which is all very exciting for those involved.
“I cannot imagine one thing that we are building here that does not give me this [exciting] feeling, Gomes said. “The products we are working on are great ideas in concept, and with the help of the entire team, we keep delivering and building everything as a community-driven company. “And, if we look around we see that everything is really cool!
“Blockchain, K5, NFT Platform, Exchange, Swap, Klever ID, and much more.”
Manuel echoed the sentiment.
“I’ve been in crypto since 2016-ish,” Manuel said. “I started following Klever and seeing the community and brand develop before my eyes, thanks to Misha and Dio hand-in-hand driving the brand forward. After understanding their roadmap a lot better and seeing products being delivered on time and the quality of development, I knew Klever was going places.”
Rieger sees those “places” as, among other things, coming product benchmarks.
“Let’s talk again about the Kleverchain as I think it will hit hard the market these coming months,” Rieger said. “I’m honored to be part of and help to create a better NFT token standard and Kapps for the developers that want to benefit from this amazing technology.”
“[Klever] is a better technology. And with low transaction fees, transaction speed, royalties on-chain, and many other features, this continues to amaze me every day.”
By Curtis Kitchen, CAE (@curtiskitchen)
Curtis Kitchen, CAE entered the crypto space as a blockchain and crypto enthusiast in 2017. He is an association professional by trade, has served on the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) AI Ethics Task Force, and has a deep interest in helping make sure ALL people have equal rights. He is an avid Klever project supporter and holds KLV in his portfolio.
