🌍 This Week in Web3ForGood
future signals
Web3forGood is a weekly publication that celebrates and critically analyzes how emerging web3 technology could be used to make the world a better place.
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This week brought a set of stories that feel meaningful for where the ecosystem is heading. Stablecoin-powered basic income pilots are now being tested inside major cities. Prediction markets are moving into mainstream media and consumer wallets. Practical use cases are starting to take shape in ways that reveal how web3 rails might function within real social systems rather than just adjacent to them.
Watching these ideas mature is fascinating. The work is becoming less about proving that new technology exists and more about understanding what it enables, who it serves, and what responsibilities come with scale. As 2025 starts to wrap up, the theme seems to be a shift from experimentation to integration. The stories below offer a glimpse of what that looks like in practice.
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
P.S. There will be no newsletter next week; we’re traveling. See you ‘December 19 🫶
What’s Inside
📚 What We’re Thinking About
📣 Latest News
🔈 Watch & Listen
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
🎪 Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And One More Thing
📚 What We’re Thinking About
💸 Crypto Basic Income
New York City is running a guaranteed income pilot for 160 adults that delivers all support through stablecoins. Participants receive $12,000 in USDC, with an $8,000 lump sum and five monthly $800 payments. The program is funded by a Coinbase donation to GiveDirectly and aims to test whether digital cash can make social support more flexible and accessible.
What makes this interesting is the mix of unconditional aid and crypto rails. Stablecoins move quickly, cost less to distribute, and give recipients immediate control over their money. The structure also reflects something researchers already know. Larger upfront payments can create real mobility by helping people clear big financial hurdles, not just cover monthly costs.
The pilot is small, but the implications are bigger. It gives us an early look at how digital money could strengthen public programs and reduce friction for people who experience the most financial constraints and shows how web3 tech can be used beyond speculation to expand economic dignity.
🔮 2026 Will Be The Year of Prediction Markets
Prediction markets suddenly feel like they are stepping up into the center of the public conversation. CNN announced a partnership with Kalshi to integrate prediction data directly into its reporting. Myriad Markets became the first native prediction market inside Trust Wallet, which reaches more than 200 million users. This is the kind of mainstreaming that stablecoins went through over the last year, and it signals something important. Prediction markets are no longer a fringe experiment or a crypto-only curiosity. They are being treated as inputs for how people interpret reality.
This shift brings real opportunities and real tension. Prediction markets can surface collective intelligence quickly. They create a way for people to express expectations about the future that is more dynamic than a poll and more grounded than a guess. They also raise uncomfortable questions. A recent story about civilians in conflict zones using Polymarket odds as a survival tool captured this perfectly. Some families are literally watching market prices to decide whether to flee or shelter. The same markets invite global participants to bet on those outcomes. This is both deeply human and deeply unsettling.
The mainstreaming of prediction markets, we think, is likely to define 2026. The tools are getting easier to access. The interfaces are moving inside the platforms people already use. The cultural conversation is shifting from “What is this for” to “How should this be used,” and the social impact space cannot ignore that. Prediction markets can produce better signals in moments when good information is scarce. They can also create new ethical dilemmas about who holds risk, who feels the consequences, and who profits from volatility.
We are entering a moment where the design choices matter more than the novelty. Prediction markets could become a civic tool that sharpens decision making or they could drift into spectacle. The difference will come down to governance, incentive design, and whether builders treat these systems as public-facing infrastructure rather than entertainment. The stablecoin year showed us that adoption alone does not guarantee positive outcomes. In 2026 the question becomes whether prediction markets can mature into something that improves collective understanding rather than distorts it.
Plus:
🔄 Address ‘Affordability’ By Spreading AI Wealth Around: “Sharing the abundant wealth of an AI economy that is socially generated through the use of our data is so sensible a concept that it would, in time, become as normal and accepted a condition of doing business as paying into Social Security and Medicare.“ (Noema)
🎁 Ethereum Devs Push ZK ‘Secret Santa’ System Toward Deployment: “The idea aims to recreate the anonymous gift-exchange game on Ethereum, where participants are randomly matched without anyone learning who is sending to whom. Doing that on a transparent blockchain, however, requires solving several long-standing issues around randomness, privacy and Sybil-resistance.“ (CoinDesk)
🏦 Stablecoins were built to replace banks but on course to becoming one: “The challenge is not regulation; it’s design. To uphold the promise of stablecoins while adhering to regulatory demands, developers and policymakers should embed compliance in the protocol layer, maintain composability across jurisdictions, and preserve non-custodial access.“ (CryptoSlate)
📣 Latest News
Blockchain-Based Microloans Are Coming to Farmers in São Paulo
Jamaica’s First Native Bitcoin App Is Helping With Hurricane Relief
Ethereum Activates Fusaka Upgrade, Aiming to Cut Node Costs, Speed Layer-2 Settlements
Vanguard caves on crypto to retain clients as rivals win flows — opens $9.3T platform to crypto ETFs
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
UK Passes Digital Assets Bill Recognizing Crypto as Property
China’s central bank reaffirms crypto ban, flags stablecoin risks following multi-agency meeting
Morocco Moves to Regulate Digital Assets with a New Draft Law
Reports and Project Updates
🔈 Watch & Listen
Crypto Altruists - Episode 229 - hum.community - From Charity to Shared Agency: Participatory Funding and the Future of Local Impact
Crypto Altruists - Episode 228 - Beyond the Crypto Hype - 8 Real World Stories of How Blockchain is Driving Global Impact
Green Pill - VDAO Episode 3 - Designing Antifragile Systems Regeneration, Nature & Decentralization with Rob Avis
Green Pill - Network Nations Episode 6 - Regen: Toward a Network Nation Identity, Commons & Collective Agency
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society - How to be the Superintelligence You’ve Been Waiting For
RadicalxChange - The Future of Digital Democracy: Learning with Ukraine
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
Hack: The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is sponsoring Hack4Freedom, the first AI-focused hackathon designed and driven by human rights advocates from countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. Hosted by Bitcoin Park from January 17-18 in downtown Austin, Texas, the hackathon will unite global human rights defenders from HRF’s network with top open-source AI developers to push the boundaries of freedom technology.
Speak: ETHDenver speaker applications (wave 3) are open through December 13.
🎪 Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
Source public demo call is happening December 11. 🆕
Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Financial Freedom Webinar is happening December 15-17.
Funding the Commons’ Public Goods Town Hall #10: Looking Back at PGF in 2025 is happening December 17. 🆕
IRL
NFT.MIAMI @ BitBasel Miami Art Week is happening December 5 in Miami.
Vision Weekend USA 2025 is happening December 5-7 in San Francisco.
All Tech Is Human’s Responsible Tech Mixer is happening December 8 in NYC.
ACJR’s Crypto Winter Mixer is happening December 9 in NYC.
Holiday Mixer with Seattle Stand W Crypto Highlighting Small Biz’s is happening December 9 in Seattle.
ETHDenver is happening February 17-21 in Denver.
RightsCon 2026 is happening May 5-8 in Zambia. 🆕
The Oslo Freedom Forum is happening June 1-3 in Oslo, Norway.
ETHBoulder is coming in 2026…
Recurring
Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved next on December 22.
📡 On Our Radar
PlanetDAO brings together global individuals to co-own and revive Japan’s hidden assets.
CeloHT is a hub that empowers communities, promotes financial inclusion, and supports climate-positive blockchain adoption in Haiti.
Flash was born from a simple yet powerful vision: to connect the Caribbean through accessible, affordable Bitcoin solutions. In a region where traditional financial services can be expensive and restrictive, Flash is building a more inclusive financial ecosystem that empowers individuals and businesses alike.
✨ And One More Thing
