New Employee Handbook
A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one's there telling you what to do.
Welcome to Minestarters. This guide is your map to how we work, what we're building, and how you'll shape the future of tokenised mining assets. It's written by the people who've been where you are now.
Welcome to Minestarters
Who We Are
Minestarters is a funded blockchain company tokenising mining assets. We're building a decentralised marketplace for curated, tokenised mining assets on-chain — spanning physical minerals, early-stage exploration, development projects, and operating mines. We bring liquidity, transparency, and global access to one of the world's most capital-intensive and illiquid asset classes.
Why Mining + Blockchain
Mining is a trillion-dollar industry plagued by opacity, illiquidity, and barriers to entry. By tokenising mining assets on-chain, we create fractional ownership, transparent cash flows via on-chain Revenue Participation Agreements, and 24/7 global liquidity. We're not disrupting mining — we're giving it better financial rails.
Our Core Values
How We Work — Welcome to Flatland
Minestarters is flat. No management, no reporting hierarchy. We have a founder and leadership, but they aren't your managers. This company is yours to steer — toward opportunities and away from risks. You have the power to green-light work. You have the power to ship products.
Picking Your Own Work
You were not hired to fill a specific job description. You were hired to constantly be looking around for the most valuable work you could be doing. Ask yourself:
- ▸ Of everything under way, what's the most valuable thing I can work on?
- ▸ Which project has the highest direct impact on our users and token holders?
- ▸ Is Minestarters not doing something it should be doing?
- ▸ What leverages my individual strengths the most?
Cabals
Cabals are multidisciplinary project teams. They're temporary groups that form organically to get a product, feature, or initiative shipped. People join based on their own belief that the group's work is important enough to dedicate their time to. There is no approval process. You're already invited. Just start contributing or talk to the people who are.
Leads ≠ Managers
Someone may emerge as a "lead" on a project. They're a clearinghouse for information — keeping the whole project in their head so others can check decisions against them. They serve the team. They don't have authority over you.
Structure Is Temporary
Temporary structure forms to suit the project's needs, then dissolves. When structures persist too long, they start serving themselves rather than our users. If you see ossified process, be an agent of change.
What If I Screw Up?
Nobody gets fired for making a mistake. We couldn't expect so much of individuals if we penalised people for errors. Even expensive mistakes are opportunities to learn. We can always repair the mistake or make up for it.
There are bad ways to fail: repeating the same mistake over and over, or not listening to peers and users before or after a failure. Never ignore the evidence — particularly when it says you're wrong.
"Someone told me to (or not to) work on X. And they've been here a long time!"
Keep thinking about whether they're right. Broaden the conversation. Hold on to your goals if you're convinced they're correct. Check your assumptions. Pull more people in. Listen. Don't believe that anyone holds authority over the decision you're making — but they probably have valuable experience, data, or insight that's new.
Async-First Communication
The Golden Rule
"How would I move this forward right now if no one else on my team were awake?"
We're distributed across time zones. Async communication removes time zone barriers, reduces stress, encourages thoughtful responses, and creates documentation as a natural side effect. Working asynchronously is not a goal unto itself — it creates more space for the synchronous moments that truly matter.
Channel Guidelines
Google Chat
Internal coordination, daily standups, and the single source of truth for decisions and discussions. Bots in Google Chat integrate directly with platforms like ClickUp and GitHub, so conversations flow into tasks and code without context-switching.
Discord / Telegram
Community channels. Engagement, support, announcements. Everyone is expected to participate — not just marketing. We build in public.
Daily Async Standups
Posted in Google Chat every working day. No fixed posting time — just post before you start your deep work.
Format:
Yesterday: What did I get done?
Today: What am I working on?
Blockers: Anything in my way?
We measure deliverables, not hours. There are no fixed work hours. But daily standups keep everyone aligned and give blockers visibility before they become problems.
When Sync Is OK
After any sync call, document the outcomes. If it's not written down, it didn't happen.
Challenges & Mitigations
Loneliness
Schedule informal coffee chats with teammates. Not every call needs an agenda. Human connection matters.
Miscommunication
Over-communicate context. Assume good intent. Write as if the reader just woke up in a different time zone with no prior context.
Information Gaps
Handbook-first culture. Answer with a link. If the answer doesn't exist in docs yet, create it.
Non-Linear Workday
Work when you're most productive. Need to take a long lunch, hit the gym at 2pm, or pick up your kids from school? Do it. Block your calendar. We don't track hours — we track outcomes. The only ask: post your daily standup and deliver on your commitments.
Tools & Setup
Google Chat
Internal comms & daily standups
Google Docs / Drive
Documentation & shared knowledge
GitHub
Code, issues & project tracking
Day-One Checklist
Create Your Personal README
Create a short document that helps others understand how to work with you. Share it in your Google Chat profile or pinned in team channels.
# My README
Name: ___
Role / Focus: ___
Time Zone: ___
Preferred Working Hours: ___
Best Way to Reach Me: ___
Communication Style: ___
What I'm Great At: ___
What I'm Learning: ___
Mining 101
You don't need to be a geologist to work here, but understanding our domain makes you a vastly better builder, designer, and communicator. These curated resources will get you up to speed.
Introductory Videos
Mining For Beginners — How Mines Work
Ore to product: a visual walkthrough of the complete mining process.
Mining 101: Geology Matters
Basics of Earth and minerals — why geology underpins everything.
Mining & Exploration Mini-Clips
Short, digestible clips covering exploration and mining concepts.
Reading Resources
Podcasts & Audio
Suggested Learning Timeline
Tokenisation 101
You don't need to be a Solidity expert on day one, but understanding the fundamentals of what we're building — and why — will help you contribute faster.
What Is Asset Tokenisation?
Tokenisation is the process of representing ownership of a real-world asset — mining claims, mineral rights, royalty streams, equipment, or entire operating mines — as digital tokens on a blockchain. Each token represents a proportional economic interest, enabling fractional ownership, transparent settlement, and 24/7 global liquidity for assets that traditionally took months to transact.
Key Concepts
Smart Contracts ▸
ERC Standards (ERC-20, ERC-721, ERC-1155) ▸
Wallets & Gas ▸
DeFi & Composability ▸
RWA (Real-World Assets) ▸
Revenue Participation Agreements (RPAs) ▸
How Minestarters Does It
Expert curators construct diversified baskets of mining projects. Investors receive proportional vault tokens representing economic rights. All cash flows are routed through RPAs and settled on-chain. Project documentation is verified via trusted oracles, with basket NAVs updated on-chain for continuous transparency.
For deeper technical context, explore the Minestarters platform docs and the codebase directly.
The Minestarters Token Ecosystem
Minestarters operates three distinct token types, each serving a different role in the protocol.
Vault Tokens
Vault Tokens are securities. They represent fractional ownership in curated baskets of mining projects, issued under applicable regulatory frameworks. Holders receive proportional economic rights — revenue distributions, royalty streams, and NAV exposure. These are structured investment products designed for compliant, on-chain capital formation.
ART Tokens (Asset-Referenced Tokens)
ART tokens represent the underlying mining assets themselves and are designed to trade on centralised exchanges. They give holders liquid, exchange-tradeable exposure to the commodities and projects backing Minestarters vaults — without the securities wrapper. Think of them as the market-accessible layer of the protocol.
$MINE Tokenomics
$MINE is the protocol’s utility and governance token. Its design aligns incentives across curators, investors, and the protocol itself through three interlocking pillars.
Basket Signaling & Access ▸
Stake to access discounted vault entries — $MINE stakers receive preferential pricing on new vault offerings. The deeper your stake, the greater the discount tier, creating sustained demand for the token ahead of each vault launch.
Stake to curate & incubate — Curators stake $MINE to signal confidence in projects they bring to the platform. If a project is accepted and performs, curators earn rewards. If a curator promotes misinformation or a project fails due diligence, their stake is slashed — keeping curation honest and skin-in-the-game.
Value Accrual & Supply Management (Yield) ▸
Protocol-driven buybacks — A portion of protocol revenue is used to buy $MINE on the open market, creating consistent buy pressure and reducing circulating supply over time.
Commodities exposure & NAV tracking — Because $MINE underpins a protocol backed by real mining assets, its value is structurally correlated to the commodities and net asset values of the vaults it governs.
Protocol revenue — Fees generated from vault management, entry/exit, and RPA settlements flow back to the protocol treasury, a share of which accrues to $MINE stakers.
Liquidity pool yield — $MINE liquidity providers earn trading fees and protocol incentives, deepening on-chain liquidity and tightening spreads for all participants.
Protocol Insurance Layer ▸
Risk absorption for exploration projects — A dedicated $MINE insurance pool absorbs downside risk on early-stage, exploration-phase projects. Stakers in this pool earn elevated yields in exchange for underwriting the higher-risk portion of the portfolio.
Liquidity backstops — In periods of market stress or vault illiquidity, the insurance layer provides backstop capital to maintain orderly redemptions and protect vault token holders from forced liquidation at distressed prices.
Your First 30 Days
- ▸ Set up all accounts (Google Chat, Discord, Telegram, GitHub)
- ▸ Read this entire onboarding guide
- ▸ Post your intro in Google Chat
- ▸ Post your first daily async standup
- ▸ Introduce yourself in Discord / Telegram community
- ▸ Watch the Mining 101 intro videos
- ▸ Read the Tokenisation 101 section
- ▸ Create your Personal README and share it
- ▸ Shadow existing work — read code, docs, issues, chat history
- ▸ Have a 1:1 coffee chat with each team member
- ▸ Pick something to work on — or form / join a cabal
- ▸ Start contributing code, content, research, or design
- ▸ Daily standups are now routine
- ▸ Start reading the Mining 101 blog posts
- ▸ Ship something small — a minimal valuable change
- ▸ Give and receive informal feedback from your peers
- ▸ Actively engage in Discord / Telegram community channels
- ▸ Subscribe to 1–2 mining podcasts
- ▸ Team retro: what's working, what isn't, what should change
- ▸ Suggest improvements to this onboarding guide
Growth & Culture
No Titles, No Ladder
Growth at Minestarters isn't measured by title or org-chart position — it's measured by impact. Your growth trajectory is entirely in your hands. The "growth ladder" operates exactly as fast as you can manage to grow. You're in charge of your track, and you can ask for help anytime from those around you.
T-Shaped People
We value people who are both generalists (skilled at a broad set of things — the top of the T) and experts (among the best in their field within a narrow discipline — the vertical leg of the T). An expert too narrow has difficulty collaborating. A generalist who doesn't go deep enough ends up on the margins.
Peer Feedback
We give each other regular, informal feedback. The best feedback is directive and prescriptive — it tells someone specifically what to do differently, not just what was wrong. Don't save your feedback for formal reviews. If you see something, say something — with kindness and specificity.
Hiring Is Everyone's Job
Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe. Nothing else comes close. When you're working on hiring — participating in an interview or referring someone — everything else you could be doing is secondary.
Bring your friends. One of the most valuable things you can do as a new employee is tell us who else we should hire. If you agree that Minestarters is the best place to work, tell us about the best people you know so we can bring them here.
Culture Rituals
Daily Async Standups
Yesterday / Today / Blockers in Google Chat. Every working day.
Monthly Retros
What went well, what didn't, what do we change. Documented and shared.
Coffee Chats
Informal 1:1s. No agenda. Just human connection.
Community Engagement
Everyone participates in Discord and Telegram. We build in public.
Team Celebrations
We celebrate shipped work, not just big launches. Incremental wins count.
Handbook Updates
See something missing or wrong? Update it. This guide is everyone's responsibility.
Work-Life Balance
Working overtime for extended periods indicates a failure in planning, not dedication. If you find yourself regularly working long hours, raise the issue. We hire great people and we want them to stick around — that means maintaining a healthy balance between work and the rest of life.
Take time off without asking permission. If you need a day, take it. Just let the team know so they can plan around it.