Kickflips for Crypto? This Project Will Pay $28K for a Guinness World Record

As countless crypto projects work tirelessly to reshape Wall Street, a relatively novel one is focused on Guinness World Records.

The premise: Skateboarding history will either be made, or a group of backers will accept their ambitions are quixotic and promptly liquidate.

For three weeks, a little-known project called POIDH—“pics or it didn’t happen”—has been incentivizing people to do more than 36 kickflips on a skateboard in a minute, hoping that a crowdsourced bounty of meme coins will be enough to motivate someone.

A kickflip is a skateboarding trick that combines an ollie with a flick of the front foot to rotate the skateboard 360 degrees along its longitudinal axis in the air. That requires skill. Doing so 37 times in a minute would break the current world record.

Although the bounty was worth $28,000 on Friday, only one person has filmed themselves hitting pavement. The official title—per Guinness’ website—has remained in Australia with Ricky Glaser, a professional skater and streamer, since 2012.

That was a long time before the social media protocol Farcaster existed; as well as Degen, an unofficial token that’s used primarily for tips among its users; and The Haberdashery, an independent group of Degen holders that received the token for free and occasionally likes to bankroll things.

POIDH’s pseudonymous founder goes by Kenny, who is also a member of The Haberdashery. He told Decrypt his interest in crypto’s potential “to organize humans to get things done in the real world” dates to his discovery of the space over a decade ago. But only in the past couple of years has Kenny been trying to bootstrap his vision.

Given Kenny’s stake in POIDH, The Haberdashery’s contribution of 3.3 million Degen, representing a third of the total bounty, is an obscure marketing tactic, he said. Still, the initiative echoes the spirit of groups like ConstitutionDAO, famous for its ill-fated attempt to purchase an original copy of the U.S. Constitution at auction in 2021.

Kenny described POIDH as rooted in some of the same principles as decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs. In their most common form, DAOs are used for funding and governing projects. POIDH essentially hosts miniature versions of DAOs, which can focus on anything, such as kickflips, or even finding a “rat hotspot” in New York City.

Kenny said the platform is self-custodial. Anyone contributing funds to a bounty can recover them at any point, unless someone is actively trying to prove that they completed a bounty, he added. In order for a payout to be authorized, contributors need to vote, and that’s weighted against the amount of money that they’ve put up, he continued.

POIDH is designed in such a way that if a bounty’s backers no longer want to support it, everyone recovers the money like nothing happened, Kenny explained. POIDH charges a 2.5% fee on completed bounties, he said.

“There just aren’t that many use cases that I feel like I can show to my friends and family and be proud of in the industry,” Kenny recalled, saying that FTX’s high-profile collapse in 2022 left him frustrated. Kenny said he primarily works as an SEO consultant.

To be sure, POIDH doesn’t pay out bounties in cash. It doles out Ethereum and Degen, and Kenny noted that the platform’s biggest bounty yet has fallen from $30,000 over the past week as a result.

“The price goes up and down based on funds added or withdrawn, and the fluctuation of the underlying crypto,” he said, referring to a POIDH bounty. 

Since its debut, roughly 2,500 POIDH bounties have been created. But only 1,400 have been successfully completed, according to a Dune dashboard.

“I’d be speechless”

A skateboarder who goes by JD on X said he is pushing 32, but told Decrypt that six hours of effort, so far, has yielded some results.

JD said they’ve done at least a few sessions, but rainy conditions are making it difficult to take additional stabs. Less than a week ago, JD shared a video of himself completing 26 kickflips on a skateboard in 39 seconds.

“After you get to 25, it’s really tough and tiresome, but you just fight to make the last stretch happen,” he said. “If I really won that amount of money, I’d be speechless.”

JD said that he would likely use a portion of the bounty to catch up on debt and pay some overdue bills, while keeping some Degen to “see what happens.” But he’s not the only one that’s taken aim at the Guinness title held by Glaser.

Professional skateboarder Alex Decunha recorded a video of himself beating Glaser’s record in 2021, but Glaser still appears to be the official record holder. In a conversation between the two, Glaser acknowledged that “submitting so much paperwork to Guinness” takes forever.

The bounty on POIDH is pretty specific in the regard: In addition to submitting a video that’s not doctored or sped up, while including a visible timer, whoever wants to successfully claim the bounty must also be “verified by Guinness as the new world record holder,” per its description.

“You must say, ‘This is for DEGEN,’” it adds.

Some pseudonymous skaters may hesitate to reveal their names, but professional skateboarder Dave Bachinsky has signaled on POIDH that he’s in the running with JD. On X, Glaser has called the bounty “sick,” raising the possibility of entering the contest himself.

Decrypt has reached out to Glaser and Bachinsky for comment.