Zieg

When @spacebudznft launched in March 2021, it felt like the beginning of something special for Cardano. I had already been investing in Cardano and collecting NFTs on other chains, so when these little astronauts appeared, I was instantly hooked. I minted 3 Budz, my babies, and quickly became very active in the community that formed around them. Along the way, I also became friends with Ales. Over the years, I've watched him build things that quietly shaped parts of the Cardano ecosystem in ways many people may not fully realize. The funny thing is, Ales never really saw himself as "a dev." He was just exploring, building things he found interesting, and sharing them openly. Before any of this, he had already become an SPO with a simple mission: to prove that Cardano was so energy efficient it could run on Raspberry Pi computers, and to teach others how to run nodes and become operators themselves. Like many great builders in open source, Ales built on tools and libraries that came before him and shared his own work openly so others could build on it. And through that same curiosity and generosity, he ended up enabling a lot of what people build on Cardano today. Amongst them: - The CIP-25 NFT standard, which SpaceBudz and Berry NFTs helped pioneer. - Nami, which helped make dApp connections possible. - The SpaceBudz marketplace, the first smart contract-enabled NFT marketplace on Cardano, which he open-sourced so other marketplaces could build and flourish. - Lucid, a JavaScript library that made development on Cardano much easier. - CIP-68 NFT Standard (programmable NFTs), opening the door for more advanced on-chain assets. Recently, Ales shared with me that after a lot of reflection, he feels ready to step away from the digital world and pursue a life that feels more grounded in human connection. And as part of that decision, he chose to pass SpaceBudz on to new hands. And I fully support him in that choice. SpaceBudz will always remain a special part of Cardano history. It wasn't just a collection, it was a moment when imagination met experimentation, and suddenly the possibilities of the chain felt wide open. A huge thank you to @berry_ales and @punk9968 for creating something that sparked that moment and sharing it so openly with the ecosystem. And thank you to the SpaceBudz community, which has always understood what this project was really about. Exploring the capabilities of the chain, building with open tools, and letting each Bud take on a journey of its own. Ales, thank you for your friendship and for the journey we’ve shared through all of this. I will never forget it. And to @Knackfish and the @TavernForge team, now stepping in to guide SpaceBudz forward, thank you for taking the torch and continuing the journey! SpaceBudz has always been about curiosity, exploration, and the courage to step into the unknown. A reminder that sometimes the greatest adventures begin when we choose to see what might be possible beyond the horizon. I'm excited to see where you take the Budz next and look forward to the adventures still to come. 🚀