🌍 This Week in Web3ForGood

the wrapped edition ✨

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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gm gm,

Welcome to the Web3ForGood 2025 Wrapped edition.

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to zoom out and reflect. Over the past twelve months, we tracked hundreds of stories across money, technology, and impact.

Stablecoins moved from niche experiments to everyday infrastructure; they almost feel boring to talk about now (9 of our 130+ writeups this year were about “Stablecoins,” the only headline we ever repeated more than once). Governments shifted from ignoring crypto to actively legislating it (hello GENIUS Act). Builders and communities around the world used blockchain tools to coordinate, distribute aid, preserve value, and survive uncertainty. At the same time, memecoins, hacks, speculation, and culture wars reminded us that technology without values can just as easily cause harm as it can create good.

The financial, digital, and social rails being built right now will shape who has access, who holds power, and who gets left behind. How we show up now matters.

Earlier this week, we recorded our third annual year in review podcast with Crypto Altruists, where we go deeper on many of these themes. The episode will be released in early January. Stay tuned!

This is our final publication of 2025. Thank you for reading, sharing, and thinking alongside us this year. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

We’ll see you on January 9 🥳🥂🎉

WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)

xx Abeera & Sam

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What’s Inside

• 🎁 Web3ForGood 2025 Wrapped

• 📡 On Our Radar

• 🎪 Events

• ✨ And One More Thing

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🎁 Web3ForGood 2025 Wrapped

This year, we shared 131 writeups about news, trends, and ideas in the blockchain space and they intersect with social impact. Here are the dominant themes and links to some past editions to read more:

🪙 Money Is Changing

We spent the year tracking how money works when it finally starts working for people:

• Are RWAs “the next stablecoin?”

• Stablecoins’ Everyday Revolution: Nairobi & Lagos

• Onchain FX

• A Bitcoin Economy in Kibera

• Cross-border payments

• MoneyGram is unlocking crypto access for the cash economy

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🏛️ Power & Policy

2025 was the year crypto governments stopped ignoring crypto.

• The US Crypto Reserve

• Positive Use Case? Blockchain and Government Transparency

• Bhutan’s Blockchain Experiment

• Stablecoins in the Shadow of Fed Drama

• GDP onchain

• Developer rights & civil liberties

• Wyoming’s stablecoin

• The U.S. passed its *first ever* national crypto law

• $TRUMP and the price of political access

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🤝 Crypto for Real People

We followed crypto where it mattered most: aid, access, and survival.

• Memecoins, National Experiments, and the Future of Crypto in Humanitarian Work

• Crypto Basic Income

• Bitcoin as Freedom Money

• Crypto’s Real Boom: Argentina, Nigeria & the Philippines

• Digital giving thrives in uncertainty

• Blockchain’s real-world revolution in Africa is already here

• Crypto Funds for Earthquake Relief

• Blockchain for Funding Humanitarian Efforts

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🤖 AI, Identity, & the Next Internet

As AI scaled, we asked, “Who sets the rules and who is getting left out?”

• The Better Internet We Can Still Have

• OpenAI’s New Platform & the Case for Crypto Proofs

• Ethereum and the AI Future

• AI rights?

• Blockchain could fix AI’s gender bias

• ZKPs

• If AI Doesn’t Kill Us, It Might Be Great

• Proof-of-Work as Progress

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🎭 Culture, Ethics, & Weird Stuff

Crypto was culture, not just code, and culture had consequences.

• Trump’s Memecoin Launch: What It Means for Crypto and Beyond

• 2026 Will Be The Year of Prediction Markets

• The Pope vs Silicon Valley

• The Power of Story

• Onchain Passport Stamps

• Poop-to-earn

• The freedom to code

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📡 On Our Radar

This year, we shared 150+ projects/organizations/ideas on our radar. Here are some that we’re still thinking about:

• Allo.Capital is a hybrid research org, software studio, and venture fund that is catalyzing a network of hackers, thinkers, and doers, to help fund what matters in the 21st century.

• The Global Blockchain Business Council’s Global Standards Mapping Initiative (GSMI) is the most comprehensive effort to map and analyze the blockchain and digital assets ecosystem.

• Deep Funding rewards open source contributors without them even having to apply for funding, based solely on the usefulness of their contributions.

• 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.

• Art Links is a blockchain based art connection game ft over 140 works of art from the The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection. It’s the MET’s first blockchain initiative.

• The Decentralization Research Center (DRC) is a 501(c)(4) social welfare non-profit that advocates for decentralization as a fundamental characteristic of emerging technologies.

• Self.xyz is a biometric passport which allows you to prove your identity without a counterparty.

• Purpose for Profit is the world’s first on-chain endowment and tokenized credit fund for Environmental Social Governance (ESG) initiatives.

• Open Sustainable Technology is a directory and analysis of the open source ecosystem in the areas of climate change, sustainable energy, biodiversity and natural resources.

• DIMO is a universal car app that makes your car smarter. Get real-time insights, access a growing ecosystem of apps, and earn weekly rewards—all while keeping your driving data private and secure.

• Billions.Network offers a non-biometric ID verification platform, using zero-knowledge proofs for privacy and security.

• Etheruemlocalism.xyz bridges digital innovation with real-world impact through community-driven initiatives, enabling resilient and sustainable local economies powered by blockchain and peer-to-peer technologies. Tools and mechanisms like quadratic funding, local stablecoins, and decentralized governance and finance expand Ethereum’s utility beyond digital spaces to create tangible local impacts.

• Filecoin ProPGF prototype is a pioneering on-chain funding program designed to support the development of public goods within the Filecoin ecosystem. This new initiative builds on the success of RetroPGF and aims to create a more transparent, decentralized, and community-driven approach to funding critical projects.

• The Human Rights Foundation’s (HRF) Financial Freedom Report is a weekly newsletter that focuses on the role money and banking play in the civil liberties and human rights struggles of those living under authoritarian regimes, highlight how new monetary inventions like Bitcoin can help secure more personal freedom for people even in the darkest dictatorship; showcase real use cases from around the world, and feature new tools and applications that can protect financial freedom.

• Fairclouds is a project designed to bring financial and ethical support to the Indigenous Communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc in the North of Argentina in the fight against lithium extraction on their ancestral lands. Fairclouds brings to life the economic model we call partial common ownership in support of this cause.

• Cashu.me is a free and open-source Bitcoin wallet that uses ecash to keep your funds secure and private. It’s helping Cubans achieve financial freedom, in spite of daily blackouts and internet outages.

• All 22 grantees from the latest round of latest round Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund. 800 million satoshis will be allocated to the projects, which support open-source development, educational initiatives, mining decentralization, and privacy tools for human rights advocates living under authoritarian regimes across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The grants also further promote decentralized events and communications, ensuring dissidents can connect, communicate, organize, and transact without censorship.

• Chorus.Community is a new social app designed for people who operate under surveillance or censorship. Developed on permissionless technologies like Bitcoin and Nostr, Chorus allows users to share updates, send voice notes, organize groups, and raise funds, all without needing an email, phone number, or approval from any central authority.

• Azos is a stablecoin for the regenerative economy. $AZUSD is over-collateralized by climate-finance assets (RWAs) that have a real market value.

• The Global Bitcoin Adoption Index (GBAI) will be the most in-depth study yet on how and why people turn to Bitcoin to escape financial repression. The early results are profound: by the GBAI’s surveys, hundreds of millions of people either use or have used Bitcoin and stablecoins, with a clear increase in usage in countries suffering under authoritarian governments.

• Empowa is on a mission to build a decentralized financing platform for affordable housing in Africa.

• Wayst is leveraging Celo’s mobile-first blockchain to create verifiable recycling action systems that reward sustainable behavior with crypto incentives while building transparent environmental impact infrastructure.

• Full-Stack Alignment from the Meaning Alignment Institute is a vision of a society where institutions are aligned with what truly matters to us and a collaborative research program offering concrete pathways to achieve it.

• Chatafisha Blockchain is a hybrid blockchain carbon credit platform. With Chatafisha, waste collectors use blockchain to boost their income and clean their city.waste collectors using blockchain to boost their income and clean their city.

• WaterLAB is an open source water generation using decentralized desalination.

• Olas is an open protocol for sharing, interrogating and aggregating information.

• Etherisc is a decentralized insurance protocol to collectively build insurance products that are fair and accessible.

• The Innovation Game (TIG) redefines the frontier of computational research by transforming proof-of-work into a global engine for open, autonomous innovation.

• Bitsave Protocol is an innovative onchain savings protocol committed to helping individuals and communities build sustainable wealth using blockchain technology.

• The 30 creators chosen for Octant’s Epoch 9 from 450+ applications.

• BikeID - Bicycle Identification Number us secure global bike registration platform driven by RFID and Blockchain. It is similar to VIN for vehicles, but offering much more possibilities and advantages for manufacturers, retailers and cyclists.

• The Bitcoin Babies Program is designed to support mothers with newborns throughout their first year of life. The program’s comprehensive support system addresses the unique needs of new mothers, offering financial empowerment through Bitcoin and educational courses to enhance skills and knowledge.

• Use Case is a new print magazine about what crypto enables around the world.

• Tando helps anyone easily spend Bitcoin anywhere in Kenya.

• Filosign provides trustless document signing for the modern web.

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🎪 Events

Plan ahead and add these big ones to your new calendars:

• ETHBoulder is happening February 13-15 in Boulder, Colorado.

• ETHDenver is happening February 17-21 in Denver.

• EthereumCC is happening March 30 - April 2 in Cannes, France.

• RightsCon 2026 is happening May 5-8 in Zambia.

• The Oslo Freedom Forum is happening June 1-3 in Oslo, Norway.

• Devcon 2026 is happening in Q4 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 December 22.

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✨ And One More Thing