As most everyone is aware, I’ve been rather quiet on the announcement side because I’ve been heavily in development pushing the community in the direction that I’d imagined in my post: Valhalla Community Trading System
Since August of last year when I announced “Valhalla 2.0”, the community has seen incredible leaps in it’s functionality and the value that it provides to the people here. This is in large part due to the positions system which has made this community the most transparent and and advanced trading Discord that I know of. Even more importantly, it’s brought accountability to the forefront and I think we’re all better off for that.
I’m recovering from a second bout of COVID but I got started today on my next push in development, which will complete the link between the forum and the various callout commands and finalize the system that will guide our collaborative efforts to research asymmetrical trading opportunities in a way that is easy to follow and navigate.
Community Funding Initiative
This has been a topic that I’ve personally avoided for a long time as it’s extremely unpopular to discuss, but the time has come for Valhalla to be responsible for itself and for the community to get the funding it needs to further build out our platform.
Before I continue I want to sincerely thank all our current Patrons. While it’s absolutely true that Valhalla has only paid it’s own bills one month out of it’s existence, the burden has been greatly lightened by your continued support, even in times where the value for that donation might not have fully been there. So sincerely, thank you for sharing in the vision of this place and helping to make it happen.
One of the most important things to me still remains keeping the community accessible as I believe that the education provided here is truly beneficial to people who may not have the means to afford a monthly subscription, so with that in mind I’m going to continue to keep the community donation funded for now (and hopefully forever) and instead more actively target the funding goals that are established.
With that said, building out this community is of supreme importance to me and if funding is a limiting factor for our progression I will unfortunately have to convert to a monthly fee to ensure our continued growth.
Goals
#1 Fully Funding Current Functionality
The server is currently operating in a deficit on a monthly basis (as always 
) and I’d like to bring the funding back up to where it’s in the green. This funds our current set of servers for the forum & mimir, data subscriptions used throughout the system and various other fees associated with running Valhalla. This puts the first goal at $2,500 a month. We’re currently at 42% of this goal. (You can see the goal bars at Valhalla | creating a smarter trading community. | Patreon at any time)
#2 Fully Funding Expansion Efforts
The above goal funds our current system, but we have planned expansions to our offerings to provide more data, tools and research. The infrastructure for this is currently fully unimplemented so to do so, we’re going to need to increase our funding amount to $5,000. When this goal is met, the current roadmap for the community is funded and attention can be paid towards development.
For transparncy, the following blueprint for donation spending still applies:
- Data fees for things such as ORATS & ORTEX.
- Premium Discord Bot subscriptions.
- Costs of this Forum.
- Dispursements to staff members for their time and continued dedication.
Is Conq profiting off of this?
This is honestly my favorite thing that always comes up. When we briefly discussed this in the last VC Night someone pretty immediately asked for a full accounting of the Patreon donations, what they’re for, what they’re going to, etc. The subtext of this is of course “Is Conq making money off Valhalla?” with many people taking great interest in making sure that I’m not (which gives me a chuckle).
The answer right now is no and has been no since inception. People often forget that our “tools” predate the Patreon itself. I initially funded everything we had and did for many months before we started accepting donations, a move that I made because of community requests. Even after that I’ve continued to pick up the extra amounts while investing over 40 hours of my time in dev work for the community without issue.
Is there a point in here where Patreon buys me dinner? Hopefully tbh. But it’s a ways off. Regardless, donations to this community are because you find value in it and I think that I’ve done more than enough to prove that I have the community’s best interests at heart. If you don’t trust me, or don’t find value in the community, don’t donate. Goal one is getting the bills paid so the focus is on hitting $2,500. After that I will gladly share reasons for additional funding goals and what we’re doing.
How to Donate
There are currently three ways to donate:
- Patreon (Monthly Subscription) - You can sign up for one of the subscription tiers ranging from $5, $10, $25 through $1,000 a month.
- Cash App (One Time Donation) - Members wanting to make a one time donation may do so via this method.
- BTC - Those that prefer cryptocurrency can use the following BTC address:
392pm7Jy1dw2HdQwBevqDqHAceQL7CJMpy