🌍 This Week in Web3forGood
A weekly roundup of the ways web3 could make the world a better place
Happy Friday, everyone! The bear market might still be dominating the headlines, but we are feeling optimistic and energized after a great week in NYC attending some pretty cool NFT.NYC satellite events and getting to meet some of our impact-focused Web3 friends IRL while we were there. Our biggest takeaway? Web3 needs more horizontal communities. Why and how? We wrote more about it here. More importantly, we are thinking deeply about how to embody this ourselves as Web3forGood evolves.
This week’s newsletter is packed with great content that will make you think. What would a digital country look like? Why are some developing countries more optimisitic about the market crash? How do refugees spend the cryptocurrency they receive? Plus, jobs, events, and a newsletter about #WomeninNFTs. It’s all inside.
Thanks for being here - we appreciate you. If you find anything in this newsletter valuable, we’d love it if you’d share with your friends :)
What’s Inside
🕊 Tweet of the Week
📣 Latest News
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🚀 Opportunities
📡 On Our Radar
🌊 Web3 Needs More Horizontal Communities
It’s nearly impossible to enter any Web3 space, be it virtual or physical, and avoid the evocation of the idea of “Community.” DAOs, NFTs, tokens, protocols; every independent group has a community, although what it means to be a part of that community in practice varies widely. What is a community, then? Oxford Languages offers two definitions:
a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. ("the scientific community").
a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. ("the sense of community that organized religion can provide").
The first definition implies a vertical group of potentially disconnected individuals, who happen to share a common characteristic, for example, living in the same neighborhood or owning the same NFT. The latter presupposes a sense of shared values that horizontally cuts across verticals to facilitate taking action towards the achievement of shared goals.
In the Web3 world, most projects believe they can and will change the world; it’s common to speak about the values of the communities being built and the shared vision for the future. Horizontal, cross-industry impact is the goal. In reality, though, most projects remain stuck in the siloed version of community, where individuals simply share a vertical space without much in common, as we observed this week at some NFT.NYC events. It’s early. Everyone is learning as they go.
Even still, our biggest takeaway from NYC this week? In Web3, if the goal is to create lasting positive impact, we need more horizontal communities -- horizontal communities that cut across projects, uniting individuals in the common goal of making the world better.
How do we achieve this? Here are some of our insights & ideas from this week:
Continue Reading…
🕊 Tweet of the Week
📣 Latest News
Polygon Reaches First Sustainability Milestone by Achieving Network Carbon Neutrality
Solana launches web3-focused smartphone Saga to improve crypto-mobile relations
📚 What We’re Thinking About
Gitcoins GR14 round closed yesterday and it’s been so exciting to follow the updates, contribute, see the overall good will around the projects - a deep dive into quadratic funding is comign soon (Gitcoin).
The Giving Block released the Rise of NFT Fundraising report that provides the complete roadmap on NFT fundraising, philanthropy, and how to do it successfully (Giving Block).
Axie Infinity was once the poster-child for a booming crypto-gaming industry. Some players in low- and middle-income countries earned so much playing that they gave up their jobs to invest more time into the game. In the Philippines, where the game was particularly popular, some players reported making as much as $2,000 a month. In this #longread, Journalists at Rest of World explore Axie’s rise and fall – and where the company and its players go from here (Rest of the World).
What would a digital country for Africans and the diaspora look like? Balaji Srinivasan, a high-profile figure in the crypto space and the ex-CTO of Coinbase, believes The Network State would give millions of people a fresh societal and financial start free of historical constraints that this current world presents (TechCrunch).
The response to crypto’s crash in Latin America is mixed. Cryptocurrency offers a unique value proposition for the region, which has long been plagued by unstable economies and closed capital markets. As a result, crypto entrepreneurs and enthusiasts accustomed to volatility or exclusion have a more optimistic view of the crash than speculators in the US (Rest of the World).
Politicians are using NFTs to fund their campaigns (NFT Now).
Infographic: 5 ways DAOs will revolutionize social impact (Crypto Altruism).
Funding dissidents and the oppressed; Rapid philanthropic fundraising; Documenting potential war crimes; An expanding pool of charity funds: chess master Garry Kasparov argues for cryptocurrency's value beyond markets (U.S. News)le global financial system. (Thomsons Reuters Foundation).
Impact Certificates—what they are, why they’re important, and what our society might look like if they work out (Podcast - Green Pill).
🚀 Opportunities
Apply: The Giving Block is hiring an NFT Partnerships Associate (Remote).
Apply: We3 has partnered with vetted hiring partners for their summer season. If you're actively looking to transition to another role within the next 1-3 months, apply for the We3 Summer Cohort to be matched.
Hack: TezAsia Hackathon is a month-long hackathon organised by Tezos India and Tezos APAC with the goal of promoting and making Tezos blockchain more accessible to the general public. This Hackathon will help developers from various colleges and universities to learn and build in the Tezos Blockchain, as well as introduce them to the Tezos ecosystem.
Subscribe: This newsletter spotlights #WomenInNFTs doing amazing things in the metaverse every Sunday.
Attend: Funding the Commons, a 2-day in-person summit (June 24-25) for individuals and organizations building new models of sustainable public goods funding and value alignment in open source networks.
📡 On Our Radar
GOODART DAO will empow the next generation of thinkers, activists, and builders around the world while tackling issues such as mental health, economic inequality, racism, tech poverty, and climate. For their initial membership token, the group has partnered with The CityKids Foundation and Keith Haring to offer the artist’s iconic 1986 Liberty Torch art as an NFT. Anyone who completes the permit registration and a #SpeakonLiberty survey has the opportunity to receive one.
Untamed Elephants is in the history books as the first-ever mission-driven NFT project, dedicated to saving African and Asian elephants. The organization donates 1/3rd of all royalties every month to lead international elephant rescue mission trips.
CycloTurtles is a socially responsible project that supports marine conservation in the Great Barrier Reef by partnering with beyond coral and collaborating with other Green Chip NFT projects.
Outside.io is an outdoor community on a mission to promote wellness, diversity, and sustainability in the outdoors, while building an NFT Marketplace dedicated to the outdoors.
Hope Endures brings Haiti’s past and future together through the minting of art pieces from six Haitian artists into NFTs. Proceeds from Hope Endures will support the rebuilding of two schools in southern Haiti.
Lobby3 is a Web3 community designed to give the people a stronger voice in Washington, DC, to build a more prosperous economic future together.
Nothing contained in this newsletter should be construed as financial or investment advice. This newsletter is for informational educational purposes only.