Web3 Impact No. 3
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Web3 Impact - A briefing about leveraging Web3 for positive social and environmental impact.
We are grateful for all who attended the Web3 Impact Summit in Austin, Texas last week. After so many virtual events and Zoom gatherings, it was great to spend time together in person, to meet and engage with incredible builders and speakers, and to create a space to build and belong at the intersection of Web3 and impact. We are particularly grateful to Kila Englebrook and Unfinished for making this event possible. Check out the photographs here.
It’s no coincidence that some of the most successful companies were launched during economic downturns. A bear market can force savvy leaders and entrepreneurs to be more in tune with market conditions, customer needs, and the metrics and activities that drive long-term value. There’s simply less margin for error, so everyone is forced to get smarter.
This bear market might end up being a healthy maturing season for the Web3 space, which could lead to long-term benefits. It might separate signals from noise and temper unreasonable expectations in a space known for sweeping claims of techno-optimism. The resilience needed for the best startups, protocols and DAOs to endure will translate into credibility for blockchain-based technology that is simply harder to earn when everything is booming.
As the saying goes, “It’s not that good soldiers become veterans, it’s that lucky soldiers become veterans, and veterans are good soldiers.” Survival drives success more than success drives survival, and the Web3 startups and leaders that survive this bear market will have done so because they’re driving real, enduring value.
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GreenPilled
If you were at the Web3 Impact Summit, you know that one of the highlights was the conversation with Kevin Owocki. This week, I (Kyle) sat down with him to dive deeper. In our conversation, you’ll learn: (1) What the Green Pill is and why you should take it. (2) How quadratic funding works. (3) Why Kevin’s vision for the future is that we all are earning income from Impact DAOs. (4) Advice for Web3 founders. If you watch all the way to the end, you’ll learn about his $10 million mountain bike. YouTube (21 minutes)
How Web3 Might Reimagine Cities
Cities are metaphors for the digital communities that Web3 seeks to enable and cultivate. Blockchain technology has the potential not only to impact existing cities; it can also create new ones by no longer defining them by their geographic borders and through their digital communities—powered and governed by tokens owned by people all over the world. There are numerous projects exploring how to reimagine cities like CityCoins, DAOs that airdrop tokens to a city’s residents or NFT sales that fund local projects like public art, as well as more transparent systems for procurement and government payments. People committed to the future of physical and digital cities can leverage the blockchain to either use their voice to improve their existing cities or to seek methods of creating new digital cities from scratch. Zora Zine (11 minutes)
Encoding Human Rights into the Blockchain
How might we encode human rights into the blockchain? Blockchains have the potential to create a new layer of global social contracts, in which human peers, more than territorial governments, are the protagonists. As blockchain technology develops, they have the potential to be neutral on human rights and encode it. Currently, some blockchains are tools for bypassing what modest protections the world order already has, but they could also fill in where the international system has failed. Their smart contracts can enforce commitments that do not depend on any national legal regime. Noema Magazine (13 minutes)
Project Spotlight
Regen Network’s infrastructure originates digital carbon assets in the Interchain economy, unlocking Web3 regenerative finance. They have created CarbonPlus Credits, which remove carbon and restore natural grassland ecosystems. They incentivize ranchers to shift to managed grazing, which can sequester 16.4–26 CO2e (Gt) by 2050, as well as increase animal welfare and soil health. Regen Network (6 minutes)
Web3 Impact
Web3 Impact is a briefing about leveraging Web3 for positive social and environmental impact by Banks Benitez and Kyle Westaway. Photo by Tracey Isles.
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