🌍 This Week in Web3forGood
touching grass
gm gm,
In our very online/onchain world, it can feel like a big deal to step away for a minute, but that’s exactly what we did last week, and… it was so nice. We still have a few more weeks left of summer (in the northern hemisphere). Go outside. Touch grass. Read this newsletter from the beach. Thank us later.
We <3 you.
Some things that we’re tracking right now: GG21 ended this week, and we’re staying tuned for the results. More rounds, coming soon. Mento Labs Stablecoin Summer is going strong. Airdrop Episode 1 wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, and Episode 2 is coming soon. Funding the Commons Tokyo was a big success (no surprises there); next stop: Argentina.
What’s on your radar? What should be on ours?
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
🔍 TLDR: Ethereum Name Service (ENS)
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
🚀 Opportunities
🎪 Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And one more thing
📣 Latest News
One Hope of Colorado Becomes the First-Ever to Tokenize a Church
Announcing FIL-RetroPGF-2: Continuing to Fund Filecoin Public Goods
IMF proposes energy taxes for crypto miners, data centres to curb carbon emissions
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
Binance restarts services in India after seven-month regulatory halt
Launch of $PUSO, the Philippines’ first community-led stablecoin
Nigeria’s SEC to Licence Crypto Exchanges as Adoption Surges
Ghana’s central bank reveals draft guidelines for crypto exchanges
Project Updates
🔍TLDR: Ethereum Name Service (ENS)
New to Web3? Welcome! TLDR is where we offer a simplifed explanation of a term used often in this newsletter. If there's anything you're curious about, reply and let us know.
Imagine if, instead of using long, complicated crypto addresses, you could use a simple name like “yourname.eth.” That’s the idea behind the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). ENS replaces complex cryptocurrency addresses with easy-to-remember names, making blockchain interactions more user-friendly. Similar to how you use "google.com" instead of an IP address, ENS lets you use a name instead of a long address for sending crypto, accessing decentralized websites, or interacting with smart contracts.
When you register an ENS name like “yourname.eth,” it’s stored on the Ethereum blockchain, giving you full ownership and control. You can link this name to multiple addresses across different blockchains, websites, or even social profiles. ENS enhances your online identity in the decentralized world and supports various blockchain resources.
You can register or trade ENS names, which can become valuable, just like domain names on the internet. Examples include replacing your Ethereum wallet address with “yourname.eth” or hosting a decentralized website using your ENS name.
TLDR: The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) replaces long crypto addresses with simple, memorable names like “yourname.eth,” making blockchain interactions easier. It’s decentralized, giving you control and ownership, and can link to multiple blockchain resources.
📚 What We’re Thinking About
👤 India’s Department of Economic Affairs’ consultation paper is expected to be a watershed moment for crypto regulation in the country, potentially setting the stage for future legislation. (Cointelegraph)
💰 Nearly half of all corporate election spending in 2024 cycles comes from crypto companies. Think-tank Public Citizen found that crypto companies have contributed $119 million to crypto-friendly super PACs this election cycle. (CoinDesk)
🧠 Kevin Owocki, founder of Gitcoin, shares his vision for a future where open-source software developers are fairly compensated for their contributions, addressing the imbalance between the immense value they create and the lack of financial support they receive. (Building Web3)
📒 Public AI: A new approach to public AI investment. (The Public AI Network)
📱 Balaji’s Network State becomes a reality in Singapore. It’s a 3-month long pop-up city in Singapore with four goals: learn, burn, earn, and fun. (The Defiant)
🎮 HaloFi is gamifying savings to create better financial health. (Mento Labs)
🔨 The pressing issue of plastic waste in Nigeria presents significant environmental and health impacts. Web3 and regenerative finance are turning these challenges into an opportunity for sustainable growth. (ReFi DAO)
🔗 Regulating Decentralized Systems: Evidence from Sanctions on Tornado Cash. (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
💥 Uniswap: An Ethereum Story (Short Film). (Ethereum Stories)
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
Crypto Altruism Podcast - Episode 167 - The Hashgraph Association - Building a Decentralized Digital Future with Hedera
Crypto Altruism Podcast - Episode 168 - Scaling Localism with Web3 and Hyper Local DAOs
Green Pill Season 4 - Episode 31 - S4 Wrap Up
Bridged Podcast - Episode 80 - Markus, Mento Labs
🚀 Opportunities
Apply: Uniswap is hiring a Senior Policy Associate.
Accelerate: The Quadratic Accelerator is a collaborative entity under Giveth building the q/acc protocol based on the research of Commons Stack.
Earn: Mento unlocked 1M $cUSD rewards for MiniPay users.
Contribute: Africa Web3 Impact Report is a collaboration between PositiveBlockchain, Africa Blockchain Institute, and BC100+ that is seeking contributions to write a report, highlighting key initiatives and projects per country.
Hack: The Mento Innovate: cKES Hackathon 2024 encourages the development of innovative applications using the Celo Kenya Shilling (cKES), a stablecoin pegged to the Kenyan Shilling. This event is a strategic initiative by Mento Labs to boost the adoption of cKES and demonstrate its utility in driving financial inclusion and economic growth in Kenya.
Share: Boys Club is looking for the best thinker in DeSci for an event/pod interview. Specific areas of expertise ideally include fertility and reproductive health.
🎪 Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
Global Blockchain Business Council’s Blockchain Central at UNGA will have a virtual program for the event on September 23.
IRL
Mento Foundation cKES Workshop is happening August 24 in Nairobi. 🆕
Korea Blockchain Week is happening September 1-7 in Seoul.
REBOOT: THE NEW REALITY is happening September 4-5 in San Francisco.
Gray Area Festival is happening September 12-15 in San Francisco. 🆕
SheFi Summit Singapore (Web3 & AI) is happening September 17 in Singapore.
Stablecoin Summit 2024 is happening September 20 in Singapore. 🆕
Global Blockchain Business Council is co-hosting the Sustainability Summit alongside Microsoft and Blockchain x Climate (BxC) as part of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), UN Foundation Global Goals partner and NY Climate Week events on September 24 in NYC. 🆕
ETHMilan is happening September 26-27. 🆕
Funding the Commons and Earth Commons are hosting a month-long Public Goods x Climate Builder Residency this October in Chiang Mai.
The Global DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) Summit is happening October 1-3 in Cairo, Egypt. 🆕
Network Society Camp is happening October 11-14 in Austin, Texas.
The SolarPunk Summit is happening October 17-21 in Kingsbury, Texas.
FIL Dev Summit 5 is happening November 6-8 in Bangkok. 🆕
LabWeek Web3 is happening November 7-13 in Bangkok.
FIL Bangkok: DePIN Meets AI is happening November 11 in Bangkok.
Recurring
Upcoming X spaces focusing on using Web3 for positive impact in the real world (+ recordings), curated by @civilmonkey.
Climate Coordination Network X Spaces happen weekly, every Thursday.
Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved on September 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
AlloBookGPT: Chat with an LLM that has read the onchain capital allocation book.
MetaMask Card lets users spend crypto anywhere Mastercard is accepted. This pilot is available to a limited group of users in the EU and UK only.
FIL-B is a new public goods DX team for on-chain projects on Filecoin.
Global Layer One (GL1) is a collaborative project between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), international policymakers, and financial institutions, that aims to develop a multi-purpose shared ledger infrastructure based on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The project focuses on enhancing cross-border payments and the settlement of capital market instruments by providing an open, standards-based platform for financial institutions.
Crypto for Harris is a grassroots network of crypto advocates organizing, fundraising, and developing a nuanced crypto-policy approach for the Harris For President campaign.
✨ And one more thing
CryptoAltruism created a guide for how to lock GLM tokens on Octant and start earning rewards and supporting public goods projects.