🌍 This Week in Web3forGood
🔍 TLDR: Bitcoin ETFs
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We know the Web3 world can be confusing for the newly initiated. ReFi? RetroPGF? Tokenization? What does it all mean? As our subscriber community grows (hi! thank you!), so too are the requests we receive to explain things a little more beyond the headlines you see in the links that we share. We hear you!
Starting this week, we’re excited to bring you a new newsletter section: 🔍 TLDR. TLDR (that’s “too long didn’t read” for the uninitiated) will include a bite-sized explainer of a topic that’s mentioned often in this newsletter. This week, we’re kicking things off with a TLDR on Bitcoin ETFs; check it out below, and let us know what you think. What topics should we cover next? Let us know in the poll below too.
One more thing before we get into the news of the week: Kat, the founder of ethevacuations, is selling watermelon pins with all proceeds going directly to support ethevacuations.xyz, a project to fund evacuations of families from Gaza with crypto. Buy one or donate directly to ethevacuations.xyz to show your support 🍉.
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
🔍 TLDR: Bitcoin ETF
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts
🚀 Opportunities & Events
📡 On Our Radar
✨ And one more thing
📣 Latest News
Tusk Receives Landmark Cryptocurrency Donation in Support of Collaborative Conservation
Uniswap Votes To Transfer Second 1M UNI Grant To DeFi Education Fund
Botanix Labs raises $8.5 million to build a Bitcoin-native DeFi ecosystem
Vitalik Buterin proposes EIP-7702 aiming to refine account abstraction on Ethereum
Optimism to Add Custom Gas Tokens and Plasma Mode for Layer 3 Builders on its Superchain
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
SEC issues Robinhood Crypto with Wells Notice, citing alleged securities violations
US House Votes to Overturn Controversial SEC Guidance for Crypto Custodians
Project Updates
🔍TLDR: Bitcoin ETFs
Editor’s Note: We've noticed many readers have questions about terms used often in this newsletter. To help clear things up, we're reintroducing a “Deep Dive” section, where we’ll explain various terms and ideas in more detail. If there's anything you're curious about, let us know!
Today’s topic: Bitcoin ETFs
A Bitcoin ETF lets you invest in Bitcoin like you would buy stocks. Instead of buying Bitcoin itself, you buy shares of a fund that owns Bitcoins. This makes it easier and safer to invest because you don't have to deal with buying and storing the actual cryptocurrency. The value of the ETF shares goes up or down with the price of Bitcoin. This is a simple way for people to get into Bitcoin through the stock market.
For someone investing in a Bitcoin ETF, here’s what the journey can look like:
Learn About Bitcoin: Understand Bitcoin and its investment potential.
Choose a Bitcoin ETF: Select a suitable Bitcoin ETF based on its performance and fees.
Buy ETF Shares: Purchase shares of the Bitcoin ETF through a brokerage account, just like buying stocks.
Track Performance: Monitor how the ETF's value changes with Bitcoin's price.
Sell Shares: Sell the ETF shares whenever needed, through the same brokerage.
Review and Adjust: Regularly assess and adjust the investment based on goals and market changes.
Essentially, this journey makes investing in Bitcoin simpler and integrates it with familiar stock market practices.
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🫶 Google surveyed 4,600 organizations across 65 countries about nonprofits and generative AI. (Salam Shebli)
👁️🗨️ Worldcoin’s iris-scanning centers have proliferated in Argentina as the country faces 288% inflation. (Rest of the World)
🕊 Decentralized Security: Using Blockchain and Environmental Monitoring Technologies to Help Eliminate Nuclear Threats and Harms. (Lyndon Burford)
📚 Evaluating the state of the academic and policy discourse on stablecoins. (Nic Carter)
🧐 Infographic: Breaking down common Web3 acronyms. (Crypto Altruism)
🧑⚖️ The crypto industry is virtually flooding the courts with requests for clarity. (CoinDesk)
✅ Over 20% of voters in swing states consider crypto a key issue in US elections. (The Block)
🙏 FTX creditors will receive the entire value of their claims, plus compensation for the time value of their investments. (Unchained)
📜 The Clarity of Payment Stablecoins Act of 2023 aims to regulate stablecoins and their issuers in the United States. (Unchained)
🤝 The CEO of Worldcoin traveled to Argentina and met with high-profile government officials to clarify the project’s objectives. (Bitcoin.com)
🧠 5 takes from GG20. (@owocki)
🔈 Podcasts:
Crypto Altruism Podcast Episode 154 - Coral Tribe & ReFi Hub - Powering Climate Finance with Real World Assets and Web3
Green Pill Season 4 - Ep. 14 - Community Currencies with Scott Morris
Green Pill Season 4 - Ep. 15 - Microsolidarity With Richard Bartlett
The Blockchain Socialist - Governable Spaces: Designing Democracy for the Internet
🚀 Opportunities & Events:
Apply: Coinbase is hiring a Technical Program Manager.
Build: Onchain Summer from Base is a global movement that invites builders and creators worldwide to showcase their creativity and innovation onchain.
Contribute: Develop a metric for concentration of power in the Optimism Collective.
Host: Need a space to organize a side-event at EthCC in Brussels this July? Regens Unite is seeking impact-focused partners to help build a multi-day Regen Village experience.
Vote: One day left to vote for using Optimism stack for Cel2.
Learn: SheFi empowers professional women to master Web3 in 8 weeks. Applications for Season 11 are now open. Scholarships are available.
Participate: Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved on May 22 and share on X to @HighlyArtistic with the hashtag #MonthlyEarthDay.
Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Attend: Ethereum Frontiers Africa is happening May 12 in Nairobi.
Attend: IslandDAO is happening May 17 - June 14 on the island of Crete.
Attend: Celo Gather is happening May 24 in Berlin. 🆕
Attend: Reboot The Earth is happening May 20 - June 20 online.
Attend: Reboot The Earth is happening May 22-23 in Hyderabad.
Attend: Reboot The Earth is happening June 3-4 in Addis-Ababa.
Attend: Reboot The Earth is happening June 6-7 in Rabat.
Attend: The Kenya Blockchain and Crypto Conference 2024 is happening June 6-7 in Nairobi.
Attend: LabWeek Field Building is happening June 10-16 in Healdsburg, CA. 🆕
Attend: Women in Digital Assets Forum 2024 is happening June 25 in Stamford, CT.
Attend: Decipher 2024, a retreat for teams actively building on Algorand, is happening June 26-27 in Barcelona.
Attend: Responsible Tech London: A Better Tech Future for Youth is happening June 27 in London. Application required.
Attend: SheFi Summit is happening on July 7 in Brussels.
Attend: EthCC[7] is happening July 8-11 in Brussels.
Attend: FIL Dev Summit @ EthCC is happening July 9 in Brussels.
Attend: Funding the Commons is happening July 24-25 in Tokyo. 🆕
Attend: DWeb Camp is happening August 7-11 in Camp Navarro, CA.
Attend: REBOOT: THE NEW REALITY is happening September 4-5 in San Francisco
Attend: This week’s upcoming X spaces focusing on using Web3 for positive impact in the real world (+ recordings), curated by @civilmonkey. 🆕
📡 On Our Radar
PATH Collective inverts the war economy by making peace profitable. They leverage Web3 technologies, with their unique ability to distribute power and financial agency more equitably, to create financial incentives for cooperation.
The Stellar network supports the tokenization of 13 digital funds and a Gold token which are available for transacting through WisdomTree Prime, a retail financial app that utilizes Stellar-enabled wallets. The app brings tokenization even closer to the center of the consumer’s financial life by combining saving, spending, and investing and enables the consumer to reap the benefits of a blockchain-native platform, including near-instant settlement time for some assets.
Grant Orb is an AI grant writer that crafts winning grant proposals in minutes from just a brief outline of the project.
UCO Network is an innovative platform designed to address the challenges of used cooking oil (UCO) disposal and waste management with the power of IoT and blockchain.
✨ And one more thing
Applying to Retroactive Public Goods Funding Round 4? Here’s an Application Checklist from Optimism.