Needless to say, it’s been a disappointing couple of weeks in Web3. As a community, we’ve been challenged with yet another implosion at the hands of a careless, greedy “Crypto God”. Many people’s livelihoods and the livelihoods of countless mission-driven organizations working for good have been devastated because of these actions. I feel the heaviness of this blow to our community and — from the bottom of my heart — I’m sending my sympathy to everyone who has suffered losses because of FTX’s collapse earlier this month.
For weeks since the collapse, friends and family have been checking on me and whether the Bundlr team has been impacted. Thankfully, our treasury was not affected and our team and product remains strong. But in the process of these check-ins, I’ve had some interesting conversations with people who have expressed their confusion as to why I’m in an industry that’s so volatile. While it’s not the first time I’ve had to defend my decision to stay in Web3 to outsiders, it is the first time I’ve really sat back and questioned whether this industry is actually driving towards the mission I so passionately signed up for when I joined it: to shift power from central authorities and put it back in the hands of the people through distributed ownership and equal opportunities.
When I take a step back to think about what’s keeping me in Web3, I think of our community. Which brings me to the incredible couple weeks in Lisbon the Web3 ecosystem had just before the collapse. From ETH Lisbon to Web Summit and Breakpoint, our community came together for countless panels, presentations, meetings and meetups to discuss the magic Web3 is building.
As expected, it was a busy couple weeks for the Bundlr team. We kicked it off with a builder appreciation meetup in partnership with DevDAO then a full day of Arweave ecosystem demos, a Born to Build meetup with KYVE, Axelar, and Massa and, finally, an evening of decentralized infrastructure panel discussions featuring thought leaders from Akord, KYVE, Fuel, Disco, Livepeer, Fleek, Worldcoin and Filmine.
I’d like to thank all our partners and new and old friends who attended our events and made the week as interesting and special as it was. I’d also like to express my gratitude to the other ecosystem teams that executed the events of the week flawlessly. Thank you to the Ethereum Foundation, Solana, Helium as well as many others.
If you’re looking for a boost of morale as to why Web3 is still a community worth investing in, look no further. Here are three kind reminders of why Web3 is still our future.
Ecosystems — especially decentralized ecosystems — can be incredibly powerful when they come together. There were a number of ecosystems present during the conferences in Lisbon: Arweave, Solana, Filecoin, Helium, Etherum foundation, Starknet, to name a few. In these decentralized ecosystems, collaboration is not just a coverup for a zero-sum game of winners and losers (a takeaway we all stand to learn from after the collapse); but, the root of our goals as a community: to move away from division and secrecy towards transparency and empowerment.
It was really meaningful for me to witness ecosystems meeting throughout the week to determine ways to collaborate and become stronger as a whole. I believe having these ecosystem meetups in person is not only key to amplifying the higher goals of Web3, but also to creating a stronger sense of community for our members. At Arweave in Lisbon Demo Day, I worked with Bundlr’s ecosystem peers to identify new ways to better work together on the technical and non-technical side. Not only did I learn so much from these meetings, but I came away with more excitement and a sense of belonging.
As long as we stay committed to our goals of building truly decentralized ecosystems that understand the strength of the whole (versus the few), I’m confident Web3 will make it.
After many conversations over the course of the conferences, it’s become increasingly clear how much decentralized public goods are becoming a reality.
For reference, public goods are commodities or services available to members of society that create positive externalities — such as highways, public education, clean air and public data.
In Web3, communities like Gitcoin are using quadratic funding to not only solve public goods challenges, but also combat negative externalities. This is just one example of why I remain passionate about Web3 because of its potential to solve the inefficiencies of our governments and find solutions to the world’s most pressing issues.
As Web3 public goods become a reality, it’s also becoming clear that we need guidelines for how public goods projects are used and funded. Historically, our community has faced challenges getting public goods sustainably funded as there’s no exit strategy for public goods projects. This is where innovations like hypercerts come in, and their enablement of retroactive public goods funding to incentivize more public goods projects and create a more efficient market.
Furthermore, many projects have created the tools for public goods but are shying away from determining the guidelines and rules of how they should be used. It reminds me of something we discussed during our evening of decentralized data infrastructure conversations: how data unions and DAO can play a bigger role in helping to define public goods; tackling questions like whether data should be considered a public good, how our community should manage privacy, how to build reputation-based systems, what personal data should be private versus public, etc.
In order for Web3 to thrive in the long-term, we need public goods to create rules and rights; and to govern and gain consensus among the community. We also need more qualified individuals to continue building public goods infrastructure — especially now that we have a number of ways to fund and support it.
With Web Summit sandwiched between two major Web3 conferences, Lisbon became a literal convergence of Web2 and Web3. This convergence was reflected at the opening ceremony of Web Summit which included Binance Co-Founder & CEO, Changpeng Zhao, Apple VP of Environmental Initiative, Lisa Jackson, and first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska.
Throughout the week, it was clear how many Web2 players of Big Tech were interested in learning more about Web3 and how it could be used to support their interests. I spoke to many Web2 companies building Web3-focused initiatives. During the week, it was also announced that the Arweave ecosystem would be teaming up with Meta on NFT storage.
With these conversations came some worrisome revelations on how exactly Web2 companies are approaching transforming into Web3. One company I spoke to said their Web3 strategy was to make some of their code open source but to have the majority of it — including users’ data — centralized. I am empathetic to the fact that transforming to Web3 will require a heavy lift from these organizations — to shift their existing centralized business to a decentralized model that puts ownership back in the hands of their users. But, I hope that Web2’s efforts to transform into Web3 are not just a marketing ploy but a genuine commitment to building a sharing economy. At Bundlr, we are putting great effort into determining how we can partner with Web2 companies to help make their transition into Web3 quicker. That being said, I still predict that Web3 will be met with resistance by Web2 players until the change is absolutely necessary.
Overall, with the increasing interest in Web3 from Web2, it’s clear that a future in which Web3 powers the major technological systems of the world isn’t near, it’s here.
The future of Web3 depends on all of us. Even after this profound betrayal of trust in our ecosystem, I still have faith in Web3’s vision. What gives me this faith? The power of our community. If we believe we can build technology that truly empowers all of us to be greater than the sum of our parts, then shared values of collectivism and collaboration must be cherished far more than they’ve been. I look forward to more gatherings and conversations that elevate everyone’s interests rather than the interests of a powerful, selfish few.
About Amelia
Amelia Guertin is the Chief Operating Officer at Bundlr, a data network with a vision to decentralize the world’s data, providing an open, transparent, trustless source of truth to protect humanity and ultimately set them free. Bundlr is optimized for performance, infinite scalability with unlimited storage and composability, allowing users to sign and pay in any of the 14 currencies.
Prior to joining Bundlr, Amelia held roles at Coinbase, Snowflake, Salesforce, and Scotiabank. Her diverse background and ability to synchronize creativity with structure allows her to think out of the box to develop and execute strategies. Whilst her experiences have allowed her to live all over the world, Amélia is proud to have grown up bilingual in Canada.