đ This Week in Web3ForGood
the future is here
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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If you donât do anything else this week, please check out the latest Crypto Altruists podcast. Itâs an excellent take on the current state of crypto for good and a call to action on what to do next (more on all of this, below).
What else? Donât get discouraged. Keep building. The future is coming fast/here now (read up on Moltbook, below), and we need your expertise, values, and passion now more than ever.
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
xx Abeera & Sam
P.S. New Funding the Commons date just announced!
Whatâs Inside
đ What Weâre Thinking About
đŁ Latest News
đ Watch & Listen
đ Opportunities & Calls to Act
đŞ Events
đĄ On Our Radar
⨠And One More Thing
đ What Weâre Thinking About
đ§ Democracy, Authoritarianism, and the Future of Crypto
Again, if you donât listen to anything else this week, please listen to this awesome solo episode from Drew at Crypto Altruists where he stands up and says the quiet part outloud. Itâs what so many of us have been thinking/feeling, and itâs so well articulated here. Here are some of my favorite quotes that I pulled.
First, framing the problem:
âWeâre watching a slide toward authoritarism and corproate control globally, and in many ways technology is being used and weaponized to really acceletete that, and thats including crypto being captured co-opted and assocaited with forces that really stand up against everything I got into this space for. The uncomfortable truth is that crypto has become associated with the far right and corporate capture not because of the technology but because of who has been loudest, who has been funded, and who has shaped the narrative.â
(Donât worry, itâs not an episode of doom and gloom. Itâs one about hope. Yes, it is!)
On his belief in blockchain tech as a tool for supporting democracy, transparency, community ownership, and human dignity:
âAfter speaking with hundreds and hundreds of folks who are building in this space and telling their stories, this is not naive, it is happening. [âŚ] Weâre at a point right now where these things really are happening. These tools are being used in this way to build a better world, but those stories are being drowned out. Weâre at a fork in the road where blockchain will either become another tool for authoritarianism, surveillance, corporate capture and extraction, a tool used by billionaires to grow their wealth and further inequities at the expense of others, or it can be infrastructure for democracy, community ownership, and human resilience. That choice is not inevitable. It is ours to make and right now we are losing that narrative.â
On what to do next:
âWe need to keep that north star of what crypto means to us in our head.â
âEvery design choice is a political choice. Itâs important that we choose wisely, build for democracy, for community, and for resiliency. The world needs it.â
âTo the skeptics, especially the progressive ones, I get it. the association with the far right, the scams, the environmental critiques, they are real. But writing off the entire technology means ceding it to the worst actors. The question is not whether blockchain will exist, itâs who will shape it and for what purpose.â
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Again, again, please listen to the whole thing! The quotes I added here are only highlights. In between, Drew lists SO many project examples and offers commitments that all of us can make moving forward.
As Drew says, âThe answer is not to abandon the space; itâs to fight for what it could be. After all, the tools themselves are neutral. What matters is who builds them, for whom, and for what values.â Letâs go.
đŚ Moltbook (yes, us too)
If youâve already read a gazillion takes on Moltbook and are sick of it, weâre sorry. For those of you who still have questions, we have the TLDR on whatâs going on (can we talk about how this whole thing seemingly came out of nowhere and now everyone is talking about it?).
Ok, letâs go. The easiest way to understand Moltbook is that itâs a social network built mostly for autonomous AI agents rather than people. These agents can read posts, reply, form groups, and interact with one another without a human directing each step. Humans can watch, but really itâs software talking to software. The strange, playful, unsettling energy comes from seeing coordination emerge where no person is clearly in charge.
The infrastructure underneath Moltbook is an open framework called OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot and Moltbot) that lets developers create agents able to move across platforms, carry memory, and take action on their own. That design is familiar to anyone who has followed crypto. Blockchains were built to let strangers coordinate without central control. Agent frameworks are now trying to do something similar. The overlap becomes more prominent as parts of the Ethereum community work on standards that let autonomous agents carry persistent onchain identity and reputation across applications. Recent updates such as ERC-8004 allow an agent to hold credentials, build a verifiable history of behavior, receive payments, and interact with smart contracts directly through its own wallet rather than through a human intermediary. Software that can prove who it is, what it has done, and what it is trusted to do begins to look less like a tool and more like a participant.
Whatâs happening is feeling less like a quirky internet experiment and more like âthe future is here now!â moment. The pieces are still messy, which makes it easy to brush this all off as hyperbole, but donât forget, the same was once true for early crypto forums, DAOs, and online creator communities that later reshaped real systems.
For people working in social impact, the takeaway question should be not whether Moltbook itself lasts, but what happens when participation in digital economies is no longer limited to humans alone? Systems of trust, ownership, and coordination are being redesigned in real time, and paying attention early has always been how meaningful influence begins.
đ§ Vitalik has spoken
In case youâre new here, Vitalik Buterin is the co-founder of Ethereum. Heâs also one of the few voices in the space who consistently speaks up to ask âwhat are we even doing this for?â When he speaks, people listen, and he shared two ideas this week addressing some of cryptoâs biggest open questions.
The first was about Layer 2 networks (L2s), the smaller blockchains that were designed to handle most everyday activity while Ethereum quietly secured everything underneath. Vitalik suggested that reality is drifting from that clean story. Fees on Ethereum itself have fallen, some L2s are more closed than expected, and the boundary between the main chain and its extensions is getting blurry. What began as a technical scaling plan is starting to look like a deeper conversation about openness, coordination, and whether growth slowly recreates the same gatekeepers crypto once tried to avoid. Cami at The Defiant had a great summary and critique of Vitalikâs take (âVitalik says L2s that want to remain under the Ethereum umbrella must decentralize. But if Ethereum actually wants that outcome, it needs to make decentralization the economically dominant pathâ). Read the whole thing here, but first, one more quote:
âIf Ethereum actually wants a particular outcome, namely, deeply decentralized execution environments that preserve Ethereumâs role as the worldâs neutral financial settlement layer, then norms alone are not enough. Incentives matter â weâre in crypto, this should be front and center. Vitalikâs solution is mostly social. Stop blessing everything as Ethereum. Let L2s exist along a spectrum. Make âvibes match substance.â This leaves open a question: What actually pushes teams to decentralize, beyond reputational pressure? Right now, the economic incentives often point the other way.â
The second idea focused on creator coins. Instead of speculative fan tokens tied to internet popularity, Vitalik imagined ecosystems where communities collectively decide which creators deserve attention and support with prediction mechanisms that reward thoughtful judgment over hype. The idea would be to create a creative economy shaped more by shared values than trading volume, though itâs not without critics.
Both ideas link back to a recurring theme in his thinking: infrastructure and incentives should do more than just expand capacity or reward popularity. They should help communities self-organize around real value, whether thatâs trustworthy scaling infrastructure or content that deserves attention. The conversation mirrors debates outside crypto about governance design, incentive structures, and how to temper speculative dynamics with meaningful participation.
Plus:
đśď¸ What in the world is a neo-cypherpunk?: âWhile the power of the original cypherpunk movement lay in part in its uncompromising stance, by the end of the day, I had come to understand neo-cypherpunkism as a mantra that values the middle ground. From Soleimaniâs protected lake to Buterinâs nod at market economics, both had shown that the development of new privacy tools come with trade-offs. And while crypto grapples with its image problem, these choices have the potential to make privacy accessible beyond the walls of an underground clubâwith a higher chance of converting the masses.â (Project Glitch)
đ Cryptofinancial imaginaries: how neoliberal theories are materialized in the technical principles of cryptocurrencies: âTo situate the political positions of cryptocurrenciesâ original imaginaries we conduct a historical analysis of online discussions and technical documents of Cypherpunks, Crypto-anarchists and Extropians between the 1980s and 2000s. To explain how neoliberal principles are encoded and reproduced by particular technologies, we analyze Bitcoin and Ethereum documentation and we conduct a technical analysis of these two cryptocurrenciesâ affordances.â (Journal of Cultural Economy)
đ´ When war destroys the internet economy: âMany of Digikalaâs services, especially those dependent on artificial intelligence, have remained out of operation since the internet blackout began on January 8. The Amazon-like company, which offers free, same-day delivery of consumer goods, was once among the Middle Eastâs largest e-commerce companies, with around 750,000 unique visitors a day and an estimated valuation of $150 million.â (Rest of the World)
đŁ Latest News
Super important update for Octant users: Octant is migrating from Octant v1 (current Octant app) to Octant v2. To continue participating in our epochs and funding rounds after this, you will need to migrate. Actions required.
Spanish Red Cross Taps Ethereum to Protect Privacy of Aid Recipients
OpenSats has sent $32,434,939 worth of bitcoin to 371 open source contributors in 40+ countries
OpenAI Wants To Create Biometric Social Network To Kill Xâs Bot Problem
Fidelityâs stablecoin FIDD goes live for retail and institutional investors
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
Reports and Project Updates
đ Watch & Listen
Crypto Altruists - Episode 237 - What Are We Building For? Democracy, Authoritarianism, and the Future of Crypto
Green Pill Podcast - Network Nations Episode 14 - Networked Diasporas: The Case of SeeDAO with Helena Rong
đ Opportunities & Calls to Act
Apply: The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is hiring an Operations Team Member.
Contribute: All Tech Is Human is holding an all-day workshop on Thursday, March 26th in Manhattan on building an inter-party trust framework for AI. The workshop will lead to the publication of a workshop summary report, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive framework of inter-party trust. The workshop summary report will include takeaways and steps for implementation. This is a curated workshop for 50 individuals, which will be a mix of industry (mid/senior level), academics, and more.
Publish: Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies (JEET) is accepting submissions for Vol. 36 No. 1 (2026): JanuaryâJune 2026. JEET is commitment to open-access, interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of ethics, philosophy, policy, and emerging technologies. Submit your manuscript before June 30, 2026 and be part of this ongoing issue.
Speak: EthCC welcomes a diverse range of content focused on Ethereum and its ecosystem. From technical deep-dives to discussions on governance and social impact, we curate talks, workshops and some unique formats that push the boundaries of blockchain technology and its applications.
Fellowship: The Ethereum Foundation is launching a fellowship-style grant program to support Ethereum-related academic work led by current PhD students. Selected Fellows will receive $24,000 USD over one year, intended as a supplement to their existing stipend, with 7-8 Fellowships awarded in total. Proposals are due 23:59 AoE April 1st, 2026.
Fellowship: The OâShaughnessy Fellowships is a one year program for researchers, builders and creatives advancing civilization.
Pitch: Kernel is the flagship print magazine of Reboot, a publication and community reimagining techno-optimism for a better collective future.
The theme of Issue 6 is FEED. In this issue, weâre exploring all the ways that consumption shapes our relationship to technology; what we feed upon, how it feeds upon us, and all the strange metabolic interactions in between. Pitches are due February 20.
đŞ Events
đ= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
Crypto Fundraising 101: Digital Gold with The Giving Block is happening February 18, March 18, and April 15. đ
Beyond the Hype: Making Sense of Generative AIâs Rapid Evolution is happening February 19. đ
IRL
ETHBoulder is happening February 13-15 in Boulder, Colorado.
ETHDenver is happening February 17-21 in Denver.
The International Association for Safe & Ethical AI (IASEAI)âs second annual conference (IASEAIĘź26) is happening February 24-26 in Paris. đ
Funding the Commons SF: Intelligence at the Frontier is happening March 14 in San Francisco. đ
Stable Summit is happening in March 27-28 in Cannes, France.
The Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC 9) is happening March 30 - April 2 in Cannes, France.
Horizons in Ethics & Emerging Technologies (HEET 2026) is happening April 16 in Torino, Piemonte, Italy. đ
RightsCon 2026 is happening May 5-8 in Zambia.
Bitdeer X ACJR Awards are happening May 7 in Miami Beach. đ
Edge Esmeralda is happening May 30 - June 27 in Healdsburg, California.
The Oslo Freedom Forum is happening June 1-3 in Oslo, Norway.
ETHConf is happening June 8-10 in NYC.
DWeb Camp is happening July 8â12 somewhere outside of Berlin, Germany (exact location TBD).
Valley of the Commons is happening August 24 - September 20 in the Austrian Alps.
Boston Blockchain Week is happening September 8-10 in Quincy, MA. đ
Devcon 8 is happening November 3-6 in Mumbai, India.
Recurring
Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved next on February 22.
đĄ On Our Radar
Relay Funder is a crowdfunding platform (with quadratic funding) for refugees and displaced communities. It offers a simple way for refugee and displaced community leaders to fund the campaigns they know will workâbacked by supporters worldwide and amplified by a Sponsor-seeded Match Fund. (Check out this beautifully documented usecase).
The Nouns Africa Fund for IRL Education & Ecosystem Building supports projects emerging from Africaâs growing Nouns ecosystemâspanning education, community building, public goods, and onchain culture.
BikeID is a secure global bike registration platform driven by NFC RFID and Cardano blockchain.
The US Chamber of Connection is a civic institution dedicated to building and sustaining the core infrastructure needed to address the greatest issue facing society todayâour lack of connection.
BitZed is a new Bitcoin app in Zambia that connects Bitcoin to mobile money services like Airtel, MTN, and Zamtel. The app allows users to buy bitcoin with mobile money and convert bitcoin back into mobile money using the Lightning Network, an application layer for fast and low-cost bitcoin payments.
⨠And One More Thing
404 Media published a zine about the surveillance tactics used by ICE, and the ways people are resisting this technology. Download it here.