🌍 This Week in Web3forGood
MCV Anticipatory Action Accelerator Funding Opportunity
gm gm,
We're kicking off the year with an exciting feature from Mercy Corps Ventures, the Anticipatory Action Accelerator (AAA). This initiative aims to support tech-driven solutions to address climate risks in vulnerable communities. If you’re working in Africa, Asia, or other at-risk regions, apply by February 14th for equity-free grants, mentorship, and global exposure. Don’t miss the webinar on January 30th for more info (details below).
Plus, The DAO of DAOs, ReFAI, cCOP, and a TLDR on Celo, a blockchain platform pushing financial inclusion through mobile-first, low-cost solutions (plus more).
Enjoy and let us know if you have a project or idea you’d like us to cover next 💛
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
🔦 Project Spotlight: Project Spotlight: Mercy Corps Ventures Anticipatory Action Accelerator Funding Opportunity
📣 Latest News
🔍 TLDR: Celo
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
🎪 Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And one more thing
🔦 Project Spotlight: Mercy Corps Ventures Anticipatory Action Accelerator Funding Opportunity
This spotlight was written by the Mercy Corps Ventures team. Want to highlight a project that you or someone you know is working on in Web3ForGood? Reply here or send us a DM on X @w3b3forgood.
We’re looking forward to a transformative year for Web3 in humanitarian aid. To kick it off, MCV is thrilled to announce an incredible opportunity for change-makers around the globe!
Applications for the Anticipatory Action Accelerator are open until February 14, 2025!
The Anticipatory Action Accelerator (AAA), launched by Mercy Corps Ventures’ Humanitarian Venture Lab, is a new initiative designed to catalyze cutting-edge, tech-enabled solutions for Anticipatory Action programs in humanitarian aid. The purpose of the AAA is to support humanitarian organization better leverage advanced technologies such as climate data analytics, AI, and crypto payment rails to improve outcomes for climate-vulnerable communities.
What’s on offer? Equity-free grants of up to $100,000 for selected partners piloting Anticipatory Action solutions. Alongside funding, partners gain mentorship, impact measurement advisory, access to partnerships, and global exposure to help scale their impact.
This opportunity is open to humanitarian organizations and tech partners across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, and the Western Balkans. The focus is on fostering scalable innovations that proactively address crises before they occur.
Another highlight? A webinar! Join us on Thursday, January 30th, at 9 am EST/3 pm CET to learn more about the program, its goals, and how you can become a part of this groundbreaking initiative.
Register for the webinar here and start your application here.
📣 Latest News
cCOP is the first decentralized currency tracking the Colombian Peso
Stablecoin Issuer Tether Relocates to Bitcoin-Friendly El Salvador
$EARTH treasury successfully forays into funding clean energy in Colombia
Vitalik Buterin Sells Off 28 Different Meme Coins for Charity Donation
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
Malaysia Weighs Introduction of Crypto, Blockchain Legislation
Texas Senator Charles Schwertner introduces bill to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for the state
Italy’s Largest Banking Group Invests Directly in Cryptos For First Time
South Korea plans to introduce new crypto law in second half of 2025
Hong Kong introduces ‘supervisory incubator’ to guide banks in blockchain adoption
Project Updates
🔍TLDR: Celo
New to Web3? Welcome! TLDR is where we offer a simplified explanation of a term used often in this newsletter or a big topic in the news this week. If there's anything you're curious about, reply and let us know.
What is Celo?: Celo is a blockchain platform designed to make financial tools accessible to anyone with a smartphone, regardless of location or economic status. It focuses on enabling fast, low-cost transactions while prioritizing sustainability through a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. With its mobile-first approach, Celo empowers users to send, receive, and manage money directly from their phones using stablecoins like cUSD (Celo Dollar) or cEUR (Celo Euro), which are pegged to real-world currencies.
Why does it matter: Celo stands out by targeting financial inclusion in regions where traditional banking is limited. It lowers barriers to entry with user-friendly tools, minimal fees, and a focus on sustainability. Additionally, its use of blockchain ensures transparency, security, and decentralization.
TLDR: Celo is a mobile-first blockchain platform making financial services accessible to anyone with a smartphone. It offers low-cost, fast transactions using stablecoins like cUSD, aiming to promote financial inclusion and sustainability worldwide.
📚 What We’re Thinking About
✨ The DAO of DAOs. (@owocki)
🧠Nudges and the Insights for Consumer Crypto. (Will Le)
🏅 How digital collectibles are shaping athlete legacies. (CoinDesk)
🚀 60% of crypto investors are young, educated and invest under $10K. (Cointelegraph)
Bitcoin’s adoption is outpacing the transformative technologies of the past, including the internet and mobile phones, according to a recent report. (CryptoSlate)
🌱 Regenerative AI is an emerging concept that expands upon the traditional definitions of artificial intelligence, emphasizing sustainability, positive environmental impact, and the integration of ecological principles into AI development and application. (0xe9be)
🤖 Is ReFAI the future? (CARBON Copy)
👤 New York Attorney General Letitia James is the first regulator to serve unidentified scammers a lawsuit via an airdropped NFT. (The Block)
🌐 The ‘DPG State of the Community’ report seeks to provide a holistic overview of the current state of community-building efforts across digital public goods, offering insights into both organization and developer perspectives. (Code for GovTech)
🔗 The State of Cross-Chain Interoperability In 2024 report covers the market landscape, current trends, and challenges of blockchain interoperability while making predictions about how cross-chain communication will evolve in 2025 and beyond. (The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol)
🍎 From chalkboards to chatbots: Transforming learning in Nigeria, one prompt at a time. (World Bank Blogs)
📒 A case study on ImpactScope’s Decentralized Impact Outcomes Marketplace. (World Economic Forum)
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
Crypto Altruism Podcast - Episode 187 - Earthstream - Giving Nature a Voice with Bioacoustics, Blockchain, & Artificial Intelligence
Green Pill - Season 7, Episode 11 - From DAOs To Denver
Green Pill - Season 7, Episode 10 - From Cells to DAOs: Boris Dyakov’s Journey in Science and Blockchain W/ Boris
NPR’s Planet Money - The habitat banker
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
Apply: Protocol Guild is hiring a Designer.
Apply: DWeb is hiring a Social Media and Community Manager.
Apply: The Arbitrum Foundation is hiring for five new marketing roles.
Create: Sei has partnered with Gitcoin to launch a Video Creator round - the latest round funded by it’s $10M Creator Fund.
Compete: The Mento Audit Competition calls for the community to dive into the smart contracts, showcase skills, and hunt for bugs.
Build: The Celo SF Builder Residency is a six-week program to work w/ Celo's founders & cutting-edge teams shaping the future of the ecosystem.
Hack: Friends with Benefits and World, with support from Alchemy and Blockchain Capital, have teamed up to create World Build Hackathon: a program to assemble the best creative entrepreneurs in web3 to build breakthrough applications for World App's 22M users.
Fellowship: The Governable Space-Makers Fellowship will support a team of three fellows to collaborate on the extension of a digital artifact—in this case a piece of digital art [2]—that re-imagines the possibilities of governance in online life—including artistic, technical, and ethnographic approaches.
Speak: ETHDenver has released its final call for 2025 speakers.
Donate: The Giving Block’s LA Wildfires Fundraiser Match has been extended to January 31st.
Fund: Glo Dollar x Optimism Builders round supports projects on Optimism that have integrated or hold Glo Dollar (USDGLO), a stablecoin that donates 100% of its profits to fund public goods. Its donations support initiatives like Optimism Retro Funding, Gitcoin, Giveth, the Protocol Guild, climate action, efforts to fight extreme poverty, and more.
Fund: The Loving on Public Goods QF Round by Giveth kicks off Jan 28 with a 100,000 $USDGLO matching pool—their biggest ever.
🎪 Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
@civilmonkey’s Curated X Spaces focus on using Web3 for positive impact in the real world (+ recordings).
Climate Coordination Network X Spaces happen weekly, every Thursday.
The Power of Generative Leadership (a free, 1 hour workshop) is happening TODAY.🆕
IRL
The Global Blockchain Business Council 8th Annual Blockchain Central is happening January 20-23 in Davos.
ETHiopia in happening January 21 - February 21 in Addis Ababa.
$REGEN Ethical Capital Formation is happening January 21 in NYC. 🆕
How To DAO Book Launch is happening January 22 in San Francisco. 🆕
Genesis Experience is happening January 24 in Brussels. 🆕
Oasis Oncahin is happening January 30 - February 2 in Nassau, Bahamas.
Africa Tech Summit is happening February 12-13 in Nairobi. 🆕
ETHDenver is happening February 23 - March 2 in Denver.
SheFi Summit is happening February 26 in Denver.
Schelling Point is happening February 27 in Denver.
Ethereum San Francisco Week 2025 is happening March 10-16 across San Francisco. 🆕
FIL Dev Summit 6 is happening May 12-13 in Toronto. 🆕
Recurring
Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved next on January 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
The EASIER Data Initiative develops decentralized cyberinfrastructure for efficiently, accessibly, and sustainably onloading, analyzing, and extracting large amounts of geospatial data.
Leather is a popular and trusted Bitcoin wallet that gives users access to decentralized applications built on Bitcoin.
Portrait allows anyone to create, host, and interact with micro-websites—called Portraits—easily and securely on any device, helping you share meaningful experiences and build deeper, authentic connections with the people you care about.
The Decentralized Storage Alliance (DSA) is a professional organization launched in October 2022 by a community of companies who imagine a better path to storing data through decentralized storage solutions. Joined by global leaders in software, hardware, and solution providers, the DSA leads the path to developing architecture for enterprise decentralized storage experiences.
Pretium Finance seamlessly integrates cryptocurrencies into the economic value chain.
✨ And One More Thing
