🌍 This Week in Web3forGood
Pizza Day, HBD Giving Block, GENIUS passes... at what cost?
gm gm,
Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day to all who celebrated yesterday 🍕! On May 22, 2010, someone paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, marking the first-ever real-world Bitcoin transaction. Fast forward 14 years, and Bitcoin is hitting all-time highs again while crypto debates heat up in Washington. Look how far we’ve come.
Also worth celebrating: The Giving Block just turned 7 🎉! Big congrats to one of the original forces behind crypto philanthropy. We love to see values-aligned innovation thrive 🙌.
Speaking of values, this week is full of stories that sit at the intersection of crypto’s OG ideals and its increasingly mainstream reality. The GENIUS Act just passed the Senate 👀, a milestone for U.S. crypto policy, but not everyone’s convinced it’s a win for most of us (read more, below). Plus, Trump’s controversial dinner for $TRUMP coin holders happened last night (Thursday). We’ll dig more into that next week, once we’ve had a chance to digest it all.
If this all makes you want to go deeper and stay grounded in what actually matters, now’s a great time to level up. SheFi Season 14 apps are open now, and if you signup before May 25, you can get some cryptomom swag. (If you’re not into merch, we are; let us refer you 😎).
Stay curious, friends.
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
🎪 Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And one more thing
📣 Latest News
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
Guatemala's Largest Bank Adopts Stablecoin Rails for U.S. Remittance Payments
South Korea to Let Non-Profits, Exchanges Sell Crypto Under New FSC Rules
Hong Kong passes stablecoin bill, one step closer to issuance
Argentina President Shuts Down Libra Crypto Scandal Investigation
Texas House Officially Passes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill
Stablecoin News
Reports & Project Updates
A Comprehensive Policy Framework for U.S. Leadership on Bitcoin - Bitcoin Policy Institute
📚 What We’re Thinking About
⚖️ India’s crypto confusion just hit the Supreme Court
Despite years of debate, India still hasn’t drafted a clear crypto policy, and now top judges are asking why (CoinDesk). Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh slammed the government for failing to regulate a “parallel under-market” that risks destabilizing the economy. Their message? Crypto isn’t going away—so stop ignoring it. The case? A bail plea from a Gujarat resident accused of running a major Bitcoin trade network. The court couldn’t say if he was a conman or a victim, because there’s no framework. India promised a crypto policy by last September. It never came. Officials waited to see if U.S. policy would shift under Trump 2.0. In a region where stablecoins could be lifelines, India’s indecision isn’t just regulatory lag, it’s a missed opportunity.
⚡ Pakistan is going all-in on digital assets
The government just approved the Pakistan Digital Assets Authority (PDAA) to regulate crypto exchanges, wallets, tokenized platforms, stablecoins, and DeFi (Cointelegraph). It’s not just about oversight. The PDAA will tokenize national assets, monetize surplus electricity via Bitcoin mining, and support local startups with the goal of moving from catch-up to leadership in Web3 finance. Backed by Pakistan’s Crypto Council (with ex-Binance CEO CZ as adviser), this marks a major shift. Last year, crypto was off the table. Now? Pakistan ranks #9 globally in crypto adoption with 27M users expected by 2025. It’s a bet on digital infrastructure, exports, and economic resilience.
🌍 Cross-border payments
They’re still quietly one of crypto’s strongest use-cases. In the news this week: Circle is expanding its reach with a new cross-border payments network designed to rival SWIFT (The Defiant). The system is already live in 80 countries and integrates both traditional banks and blockchain infrastructure, allowing institutions to settle directly in USDC. It’s a reminder that while some crypto applications are still finding their footing, cross-border payments remain one of the clearest and most effective use cases. Reducing fees, increasing speed, and bridging financial systems = real utility.
🌱 Regen, realigned
In a space that often rewards flash over substance, Regen Network is doing something refreshingly different: getting focused. Their latest announcements about (1) changing the name of Ecocredit Builder Lab (EBL) to Regen Builder Lab (RBL) and (2) the evolving vision for the $REGEN token show a clear emphasis on intentionality and values-driven development (Regen Network). It’s not about being quiet, it’s about being purposeful. Regen isn’t going anywhere; it’s just doubling down on what it set out to do in the first place. In a year where realignment seems to be the theme across many corners of crypto, this kind of values-first clarity is a breath of fresh air.
⚖️ Is the GENIUS bill progress or a power grab?
The U.S. Senate just passed the GENIUS Act, the furthest any crypto legislation has made it at the federal level (Unchained). It’s a milestone, no doubt; bipartisan support, actual movement on stablecoin rules, and the kind of clarity many in the space (including us) have been asking for. But before we pop the champagne, it’s worth asking: who does this really serve?
Critics argue the bill’s structure could entrench corporate dominance and squeeze out smaller innovators. As Unchained put it, “[the bill] paves the way for a new generation of financial monopolies, rewarding the largest players while sidelining consumer protections and competition.” The framing around safety and stability may be comforting, but the outcome could be more consolidation than decentralization.
Meanwhile, institutions are circling. Circle is reportedly exploring a $5 billion IPO and talking to Ripple and Coinbase about a potential sale (CryptoSlate, Fortune). So yes, stablecoins are going mainstream, but as policy and big corporate money flood in, we’re still asking the same question: can crypto scale without losing its soul? Or are we rebuilding the old financial system on new rails?
At its best, crypto promises a freer, more open financial future, and that future depends on more than legislation; it depends on values. The challenge now is making sure that in our rush for legitimacy, we don’t hand over the keys to the very gatekeepers we were trying to escape from.
Plus:
💸 Case Study: How WisdomTree makes tokenized assets mainstream. (Stellar)
🌐 How Public Goods Can Capture Value: “The reason public goods don’t currently capture value has nothing to do with their excludability. The real reason is that there is no proper Coordination Structure that allows public goods to capture value. Once you have such a Coordination Structure these goods would be able to capture value too.” (Abundance)
🌾 Blockchain Pilot Boosts Colombian Farmers’ Incomes: “Ripple Impact, in collaboration with Colombian agri-tech firm WËIA and global impact investor Mercy Corps Ventures, has launched an ambitious blockchain-based pilot aimed at enhancing financial inclusion and increasing the earnings of smallholder farmers in Colombia. This initiative, rolled out under Ripple’s Unlocking Opportunity program, uses the XRP Ledger (XRPL) to bring traceability and transparency to the country’s agricultural supply chains.” (CoinTrust)
💭 Jack Dorsey argues that renaming 'sats' (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) could make Bitcoin more approachable for newcomers in the crypto world. (CryptoSlate)
🤝 What money will the world trust next? (The Breakdown)
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
Crypto Altruists Podcast - Episode 204 - Haraka - From Social Capital to Financial Freedom with Crypto-Powered Microfinance
The Giving Block This Week in Crypto Philanthropy - Episode 48 - World Food Program USA
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
Funding: Octant Epoch 8 funding applications are open. Octant is a novel platform for experiments in participatory public goods funding, centered on Golem's native ERC-20 token, GLM.
Learn: The DeSciWorld Fellowship is a year-long fellowship meant to supplement a pre-existing project aligned with our inaugural theme of Opening Knowledge– Emergent Epistemologies and New Ways of Knowing Together. This year, they are actively looking for those working at the edges and in-betweens of knowledge creation to help imagine what the future of DeSci might look like – from how communities form and operate, to how tools may be adapted and used across different fields and disciplines.
Learn: SheFi Season 14 begins this summer and applications are already open. Scholarships available.
🎪 Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
Celo Governance Call #69 is happening May 29th. 🆕
Regen Network Monthly Community Call is happening June 5. 🆕
IRL
Local-First Conf is happening May 26-28 in Berlin.
The Human Rights Foundation will host the Freedom Tech track at the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum on May 28 in Oslo, Norway. 🆕
Stablecon is happening May 29 in NYC.
ETHGlobal Prague is happening May 30 - June 1 in Prague.
Responsible Tech DC is happening June 4 in Washington DC.
Global Blockchain Business Council Blockchain Central DC 2025 is happening June 11-13 in Washington D.C.
Funding the Commons: Berlin Forum 2025 is happening June 10 in Berlin.
Collaborative Finance Gathering is happening June 16-20 at The Commons Hub in Austria.
2025 Bitcoin Policy Summit is happening June 25 in Washington DC.
Impact Evaluator Research Retreat is happening June 26-July 10 in Iceland.
Ethereum Community Conference is happening June 30 - July 3 in Cannes.
ETHSafari 2025 is happening September 7-14 in Nairobi.
Progress Conference 2025 is happening October 16-19 in Berkeley.
Devconnect 2025 is happening November 17-22 in Argentina.
Recurring
Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved on June 22 and share on X to @HighlyArtistic with the hashtag #MonthlyEarthDay.
Hosting an event that you’d like to see listed? Reply here or send us a DM.
📡 On Our Radar
obUSD is a yield-sharing stablecoin for grantees of the Optimism Collective; Breadchain recreated the Breadchain Crowdstaking app for the Optimism Builders Grants program.
LAVA is an early-stage fund backing exceptional founders who are building foundational Web3 infrastructure for Africa’s economy.
ETHRNSM is a movement to expand Ethereum’s cultural dominance.
KOI (Knowledge Infrastructure for Collective Intelligence) is a powerful framework for organizing, tracking, and aligning knowledge across the Regen ecosystem. KOI is built to support transparent governance, deepen our collective sensemaking capacity, and help manage the complexity of ecological coordination at scale.
ChapSmart allows anyone to send money to Tanzania using Bitcoin.
✨ And One Two More Thing(s)
Keep up with the constant updates in US legislative and regulatory policy related to blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets with the US Crypto Policy Tracker from Latham & Watkins.
An infographic about DeSpace (decentralized space) from Crypto Altruists.