A live product. Thousands of users. Dedication to ICON.

This is why viral marketing platform AC3 thinks you should vote for them for P-Rep.

“In terms of execution, we were the first token that went live on the ICON network that had a price, exchange listings, and volume,” says co-founder Steve McGarry. “And on top of that, we have a live working product with thousands of users and paying customers. Having a working business on the network, in my opinion, is a massive vote of confidence in the future of ICON and votes from the community using the platform is just pouring more fuel into the rocket engine that’s taking place right now.”

AC3 is the creator of GrowYourBase, a platform for people to learn about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and tokenized assets and accumulate them in a portfolio. McGarry thinks the platform — which recently went 2.0 —  will soon become a household name. And having a working product sets his team apart.

“It’s an exciting thing to have a working product, paying customers and organic user growth,” he says. “I’m not aware of any other P-Reps that have that level of [progress].”

‘Coinbase-earn for NFTs and tokenized assets’

Content creator and social media personality Steve McGarry and finance veteran and long-time business partner John Fields co-founded AC3 — i.e. All Content Creator Currency — in 2017. It’s McGarry and Field’s third project together. Their second project, peer-to-peer lending service LendLayer, was acquired by lending startup Affirm, co-founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, in 2017.

AC3 is currently the leading IRC2 application token in market capitalization on the ICON network. McGarry said they’ve been onboarding hundreds of users a day to the GrowYourBase platform. On GrowYourBase 2.0, users can now seamlessly build a portfolio of NFTs and tokenized assets by going to the platform, completing tasks, and learning about digital assets of all kinds. McGarry says, “GrowYourBase 2.0 has been referred to as the Coinbase-earn for NFTs and tokenized assets.”

AC3 has the support of San Francisco-based blockchain development team and accelerator MouseBelt, including what used to be called No Rest Labs.

Supporting the mission, supporting the community

AC3 entered the P-Rep race in July. It was a natural thing for the team to do, given its close involvement with ICON and its community.

“We found that a lot of our users were ICON lovers,” says McGarry. “Myself, I’ve grown to become a top crypto-Youtuber reaching about 2 million people a month, and a lot of our users have come from my community. I interviewed Min Kim last week, and the ICON community went crazy over that.”

McGarry is especially impressed with the level of passion out there.

“I think that in terms of the rationale for getting into the P-Rep space, other than just supporting the network and mission itself, we want to support the community,” he says. “ICON is definitely one of the most vibrant communities out there. Being a Youtuber and seeing how passionate the ICON community has been firsthand, it’s worth supporting, doing all the promotion for ICON, and sending people to vote to grow the entire community.”

For the long haul

As P-Rep, AC3 will engage in educational activities to get people using ICON. McGarry and the team plan to do a video series on Youtube about ICON and what it’s like to run a P-Rep node. They’ll work with MouseBelt to create videos that discuss ICON from the technical side, too. McGarry says they’ll be “showcasing what goes into running a P-Rep and in turn giving [ICON] a ton of exposure.”

Unlike perhaps some other teams running for P-Rep, AC3 is committed to the ICON project, regardless of whether they become a P-Rep. “We’re definitely interested in the long-term,” says McGarry. “We’re here for the long haul. We’re going to help support and promote and drive more awareness for the community as a whole.”

To help get the word out, AC3 will use the GrowYourBase community, half of whom are probably ICONists according to McGarry. He says, “In terms of leveraging our own viral platform GrowYourBase to get the word out, I think that coincides with what I was talking about — creating content, marketing it on our own platform, getting people involved in ICON.”

AC3 has experience running a node. Prior to its 2018 token swap to ICON, AC3 operated its own network with 9,000 full nodes. McGarry himself has a series on Youtube where he was running 12 master nodes.

He digs what ICON’s doing on the consensus front, too. “I think the P-Rep example is a fantastic experiment at scale,” he says. “Moving to DPoS is such a fun thing to witness and be a part of, at this scale and with this many people involved.”

Taking ICON to the next level

AC3 is also excited about the direction in which ICON is moving, post-decentralization. McGarry is especially enthusiastic about the network’s apparent ambition to move towards becoming a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO. He predicts that even governments and nations could eventually function as DAOs. “That is the ultimate shift into decentralization. It’s virtually an unstoppable entity at that point,” he says. “I respect Min [Kim] and the whole team for moving in this direction because it’s a really exciting, innovative move.”

McGarry believes AC3 and their partners at MouseBelt have what it takes to help ICON be all it can be.

“In terms of a track record of successful building, my co-founder John Fields and I have been through this many times before, and we’re in this industry for the long haul,” he says. “We have the experience and all of the tools to take ICON to the next level with a growing business built on top of it.”

He again points to AC3’s rare combination of an actual product, users and paying customers.

“AC3 and MouseBelt would love to have the support of the ICON community to help the first functioning business with paying customers on the network,” he says. “Our team is seeing so much traction that we are confident GrowYourBase 2.0 will move the needle and help the industry grow. I’d like to think that it’s a valiant effort building a working business on new technology and helping us become a P-Rep would further our growth.”