🌍 This Week in Web3forGood
TLDR: Octant
gm gm,
Think crypto doesn’t have a real world impact? (Or know someone who thinks this way)? Watch this. TL;DW: Atlantis DAO saw the Indian water crisis, so they built a system that rewards collecting, testing + distributing clean water for 45k people. 75% reported better access to clean water. That’s a big real world impact.
Web3 tech *can* be used to facilitate the best humanity has to offer, and as Alicia Maule, CEO and co-founder of Givepact, wrote for Salon this week, over the next four years, using this tech to “mobilize for the causes you care about is even more crucial.”
Let’s go.
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
🔍 TLDR: Octant
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
🎪 Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And one more thing
📣 Latest News
Gitcoin teams up with Filecoin for an experimental add-on to the latest RetroPGF
Ripple and Mercy Corps Ventures Expand Partnership to Equip Emerging Market Entrepreneurs
Filecoin is named one of Fast Company's 2024 Next Big Things in Tech
Announcing the Filecoin NV24 Tuk Tuk Upgrade: Enhancing Filecoin's Efficiency
Fonbnk and Mento Labs Partner, Connecting Cash-Based Economies to DeFi with Mento Stablecoins
Stablecoin Supply Hits Record $174.7 Billion, Boosting Crypto Liquidity to All-Time High
Laptop Used to Trace Bitcoin Stolen From Bitfinex Headed to Smithsonian
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
South Korea’s Democratic Party pushes to implement 20% crypto tax in 2025
Polish presidential candidate pledges support for strategic Bitcoin reserve
Gemini Launches in France as Country’s Trust in Crypto Increases
Brazil advances CBDC technology with new cross-chain pilot using Chainlink’s CCIP
Cryptocurrency clarified to be personal property in China, remains barred for businesses
El Salvador Is Getting Its First Tokenized U.S. Treasuries Offering
Project Updates
🔍TLDR: Octant
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 Octant: Octant is a platform for participatory public goods funding, using Golem's native ERC-20 token, GLM. Developed by the Golem Foundation, it explores engagement in funding public goods through recurring funding rounds, rewarding participants with ETH.
How it works:
The Golem Foundation stakes 100,000 ETH, allocating staking rewards to fund Octant's reward pool every 90 days.
Rewards are split into User Rewards (for participants) and Matched Rewards (to amplify public goods donations).
Users lock a minimum of 100 GLM in Octant to become eligible for User Rewards, calculated based on a time-weighted average of locked GLM.
Rewards can be claimed or donated to curated public goods projects, with donations magnified through matched funding.
Why does it matter: Octant combines blockchain incentives and community governance to fund impactful public goods while rewarding users for participation.
TLDR: Octant uses GLM token staking and ETH rewards to fund public goods projects, rewarding participants for locking tokens and empowering them to donate to curated causes.
*P.S. Octant is running two different funding rounds right now. Learn more about elligibilty and apply.
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🕊 Bitcoin’s record rally: A turning point for funding justice and equality. (Salon)
🫶 How Community-Centric Grants Drive Growth: Lessons from Sei’s Grants Campaign. (Gitcoin)
🪄 Prediction Markets Meet Public Goods: a New Approach to RetroPGF. (Gitcoin)
🔗 During Devcon2024, Celo cLab’s CEO shared practical insights on what other L1s can learn from Celo's transition to an L2 on Ethereum. (@Upright)
🦓 We took an ETHSafari to see how crypto is working out in Africa. (Cointelegraph Magazine)
🌆 Build network societies, not network states: Balaji Srinivasan's vision of Network States has influenced Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and the New Right movement. However, he fails to grasp that networks are more a worldview than a technology—a view that runs contrary to the simplistic logic of exit he finds invigorating. (Combinations)
🧑⚖️ California rules governance participants are liable for Lido DAO's actions. The ruling suggests ordinary DAO members could be liable for the actions of a web3 project. (The Defiant)
🔮 Application-specific blockchain oracles can help Web3 projects connect to the world. (Cointelegraph)
💻 Highlights from Celo Europe’s MiCAR workshop. (Mento Labs)
🌱 Reflections on the Second ReFi Podcast S4 Miniseries: Exploring Real-World Impact. (ReFi DAO)
🪙 Bitcoin has a larger market cap than the top 3 banks in the world, combined. (@Watcher.Guru)
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
Crypto Altruism Trailblazers of Octant - Episode 1 - Building a Sustainable Web3 Public Goods Funding Ecosystem with Octant
The Giving Block - Episode 26- This Week in Crypto Philanthropy Podcast.
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
Apply: Ethereum Foundation is hiring an EcoDev Research Fellow.
Contribute: Giveth Project Verifiers contribute to creating a transparent and decentralized system for supporting public goods projects. Join a weekly AMA session to learn more.
Funding: Octant has two different funding rounds happening now: The Community Fund and Epoch 6 funding round.
Funding: Crypto For Good Fund IV supports startups and organizations operating in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, and Western Balkans, who apply Web3 and blockchain technology to build impactful solutions for underserved populations.
Learn: SheFi empowers professional women to master Web3 in 8 weeks. Each session is a combination of live instruction, hands-on tech demos, and career support, all aimed at accelerating careers in Web3. Applications for Season 13 are now open.
Learn: Celo Bootcamp: From Basics to NFT Marketplace Mastery by Celo Africa DAO is an interactive and hands-on event designed to take you from blockchain basics to becoming a pro in building decentralized applications (DApps). Over four weeks, you’ll embark on an exciting journey to learn, create, and launch your very own NFT marketplace on the Celo blockchain.
Speak: ETHDenver Speaker Applications are open.
Nominate: Global Blockchain Business Council Ambassadors act as trusted advisors to GBBC’s leadership and members, providing invaluable guidance and assistance on how to engage with diverse global communities. Nominations for the 2025 cohort are now open.
🎪 Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
Climate Coordination Network X Spaces happen weekly, every Thursday.
IRL
The Ethical Tech Summit is happening TODAY November 22 in NYC. 🆕
Boston Institutional Digital Assets Forum 2024 is happening December 3 in Boston.
Oasis Oncahin is happening January 30 - February 2 in Nassau, Bahamas.
ETHDenver is happening February 23 - March 2 in Denver.
Recurring
*TODAY* 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 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
Roam is the world's premier autonomous news desk. Created by the readers, and managed by editor-in-chief A.I. Roaming.
Pump Science combines DeSci with memecoins, allowing users to launch and test “longevity experiments” of drugs and chemical compounds, which creates new fundraising mechanisms for drug developers.
Genesis Digital Assets repurposes stranded gas to fuel Bitcoin mining.
Futarchy by Gitcoin uses prediction markets to crowdsource insights on which projects the community believes will succeed. Traders "bet" on outcomes for proposals, helping badgeholders make better funding decisions.
✨ And One More Thing
