Coronado’s Crypto Beginnings

The adventure of El Dorado kicks off with its founder, Coronado, who stumbled into the world of cryptocurrency when he was just a teenager. Like many newbies, he was introduced to Bitcoin on the famous Silk Road, where he bought an ID with just a few dollars' worth of Bitcoin. Sometimes as low as $8!

As Coronado moved on to college, his interest in crypto developed into a deeper passion. He began investing during the Bitcoin boom from 2015 to 2017, all while kicking off a career in seed-stage marketing. In 2020, he found himself in Austin, Texas, where a casual chat with a friend from Coinbase sparked his desire to switch full time into the world of crypto, even though he was anxious about his lack of technical background. His friend told him not to be held back by his “no-code inferiority complex” and that every team needs writers, communicators, and partnership leads, which led Coronado to quit his job and devote himself fully to Web3.

The Birth of the Maya Protocol

Things took a charming turn for Coronado when he encountered Maya Protocol, a friendly THORChain fork geared towards connecting chains and improving DeFi. In late 2021, he met Aaluxx, the visionary guiding Maya, and the two hit it off. Their partnership laid the groundwork for what would eventually become El Dorado. One memorable moment was a phone call with Maya's enigmatic leader, JP, who called in from a jet ski. JP’s infectious enthusiasm for technical details and his ambitious vision for Maya convinced Coronado that they were on to something special.

As Maya grew, Coronado realized there was a real need for a decentralized exchange (DEX) within its ecosystem. With Maya’s support and his knack for networking, he set out to build a DEX rooted in the Maya protocol, which would evolve into El Dorado.

The Journey of El Dorado Market

In 2022, while the broader crypto market was struggling, Coronado assembled a team around the concept of a Maya-native DEX. They initially gave it a Mesoamerican theme with a playful, mythology-inspired name: El Dorado. By early 2023, they had shaped it into a fully self-funded project, with Coronado throwing himself wholeheartedly into its development and funding it out of pocket.

The DEX officially launched with swaps live in April 2023 at Consensus. Users were drawn to its low fees, nostalgic web1 feel, and seamless access to rare tokens like Kujira’s KUJI and Maya Protocol’s CACAO, assets with high promise that were hard to get. El Dorado stepped in to provide a much-needed platform for Kujira trading, which helped it gain traction and grow its community post-Terra.

El Dorito: The Golden Rebrand

Fast forward to Fall of 2024, when the El Dorado team decided to revamp their identity, transforming El Dorado into El Dorito and launching their Solana memetility token DORITO. The idea came from their “spiritual advisor,” Coach Bruce (@OX_DAO), whose funny suggestion to embrace the energetic meme really struck a chord.

The playful rebranding created a buzz and attracted more attention from the Solana community, aligning perfectly with their mission to make crypto feel more fun and accessible. The meme came with simple utility: holding 3,333 tokens would convey feeless access to all platform features, saving users thousands, a membership El Dorito branded “The El Dorito Country Club”.

So where is El Dorito now? And what comes next? In Part 2 we’ll dive into all the crunchy details…