PL Updates: Counting down to LabWeek Public Goods, Introducing Bacalhau v1.3.0, Spotlight on Earth Commons & More
Plus: Welcoming Blockcast to the network, the Scaling Web3 Hackathon, and get to know Tom Trowbridge, co-founder of Fluence.
LabWeek Public Goods is Days Away!
Get ready for an invigorating week at LabWeek Public Goods, the decentralized conference championing the cause of public goods funding, sustainability, and decentralized science. This event, happening from April 11-16 in the San Francisco Bay Area, aims to spark deep conversations and foster connections that catalyze genuine progress in public goods development.
Don’t miss out on this chance to be part of shaping the future of public goods. Register now and stay updated by subscribing to the LabWeek Public Goods newsletter and joining our Telegram group. We're excited to welcome you to an event that promises to drive real progress towards sustainability and decentralized science.
Scheduled events so far include:
CodeX FutureLaw, offering a deep dive into the transformative impact of technology on the legal profession, the justice system, and societal regulations.
Berkeley RDI Accelerator Program Demo Day, inviting thought leaders, venture capital, educators and innovators to share insights with the large community at Berkeley and beyond.
DeSci Meetup, a social evening to foster collaboration between leading researchers and the vibrant San Francisco tech community, exploring the intersection of natural sciences and web3.
And many more. Keep an eye on the schedule for newly added events and check out our latest blog post for details. See you there!
⚙️ New Tool Alert: Bacalhau v1.3.0 Release
Shipped: March 2024
What It Is: Bacalhau v1.3.0 represents a significant leap forward in the distributed computing, introducing a suite of advanced features aimed at simplifying complex computational tasks across organizations of all sizes. This new version includes updates such as user access control, local results publishing, and TLS support, alongside experimental features like custom job types for early adopter feedback.
Why It’s a Big Deal: This release addresses some of the core challenges faced by large organizations in implementing distributed systems. The introduction of user access control offers a more secure and scalable solution for managing user permissions, while local results publishing and TLS support enhance the usability and security of distributed computing tasks.
The Big Picture: Bacalhau v1.3.0 is more than just a set of new features. It's a testament to the ongoing evolution of distributed computing technologies. By focusing on ease of use, security, and scalability, Bacalhau is paving the way for broader adoption of distributed computing across various sectors.
📣New Founders Episode
It may not have felt like pioneering at the time, but that’s exactly what CCP Games did in the gaming industry. Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO at CCP Games, takes a look back at what the company’s team achieved and gives us a sneak peek at their next move in his Founder's interview. Watch it here:
📈 Expanding the Network
We're excited to introduce Blockcast to the Protocol Labs ecosystem! Blockcast revolutionizes video streaming by leveraging the scalability of broadcast television through a cutting-edge, datacasting-enabled Content Delivery Network (CDN). This approach ensures ultra-high bitrate and low latency live video and media-on-demand services, even in the most remote areas.
📡 Network Radar
Dive into the whimsical world of Teletubbyland with MetaPals' interactive Desktop NFTs. Offering secure ownership and unique emotional bonds, you can now bring the Teletubbies to life in a multiverse adventure powered by AI and Blockchain on the Tezos platform. Explore here.
Join the Scaling Web3 Hackathon by Encode Club for a chance to innovate on Etherlink, IPC, Shardeum, and Gateway platforms. This four-week hackathon challenges developers to create scalability solutions for the next blockchain evolution wave, offering collaboration, competition, and the potential to impact foundational dApp infrastructure. Learn more here.
Unbanx and Hazy have joined forces to pioneer the first ethical synthetic data cooperative, transforming the landscape of financial transaction data. By leveraging Hazy's advanced generative AI technology, this initiative offers a synthetic dataset that mirrors the value of real financial transactions without compromising individual privacy. Learn more here.
Tableland Studio has officially launched enhancing the ease of managing, deploying, and discovering on-chain datasets. The Studio not only lowers the barrier to entry for developing on Tableland but also highlights active and trending projects, facilitating greater visibility and collaboration within the community. Learn more here.
The Techstars Web3 2024 Class features a group of 12 startups including PL team FileMarket. This cohort, each funded up to $120,000, represents a mix of industries and solutions, showcasing the potential of blockchain technology. Learn more here.
Don't miss Deian Stefan's insightful take on the complex risks of slashing in restaking and how CubeSigner offers a groundbreaking solution with secure key management and a robust anti-slashing policy. Read about it here.
🔦 Spotlight: Tom Trowbridge, co-founder of Fluence
In this spotlight, we learn more about the journey of Tom Trowbridge, co-founder of Fluence. With extensive experience in traditional finance and a dynamic career in Web3, Tom brings a unique perspective to the blockchain world, driven by his commitment to decentralization and innovation.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am a co-founder of Fluence, and have been in crypto full-time since 2017. I am American, born in New York City, live in Amsterdam and have three kids. I am passionate about building a decentralized world which I think is our only hope to avoid the dominance of just a few tech giants and, by extension, governments.
I started my career in traditional finance in banking and then investing in telecom and technology companies. I helped build businesses in a few big companies like Goldman Sachs, but always wanted to be more entrepreneurial and was thrilled I found the path to do that in web3. The experience I received in TradFi, however, has been really helpful in giving me the tools, experience, and relationships to be effective.
How did you get into web3?
In 2017 I joined Mance Harmon and Dr. Lemon Baird as President to help found Hedera (HBAR), the L1 public ledger based on the Hashgraph consensus algorithm developed by Dr. Baird. I helped take it from a whitepaper to a launched network with $124 million raised, a governing council including IBM, DT, LG, Google, Hitachi, Nomura and many others. I have been full time in this space ever since and haven’t looked back.
What advice would you give to someone joining web3?
You can make a real difference in the world if web3 is successful, but you need to be passionate about this mission because it isn’t easy. When we are in a bull market, it might seem easy, but we have a very long way to go and there are going to be technical issues, adoption challenges, political opposition, corporate barriers and regulatory hurdles and market volatility. So, buckle up and be committed for the long haul.
What challenges or rough edges would you like to see solved in web3?
Adoption is key. Without it being easy to use, it won’t happen. That is why I like DePIN as the adoption use case that can really scale. Combining crypto with real world assets in a way that saves money and allows broad communities to earn crypto is the fastest way to onboard the next millions of users.
What are your favorite podcasts or books?
The foundational book everyone in crypto should read is the Bitcoin Standard because it is Bitcoin that launched this entire industry and understanding it in the context of historic monetary systems is really important. I also liked The Master Switch by Tim Wu which highlights the power and risk of regulation.
Tell us something you like to do for fun.
I have been a snowboarder since the late 1980s and even though I don’t get to do it much with the workload these days, it remains a big passion. My preferred set up is hard boots on an alpine carving board which is a bit of a surprise to people on the first day of group outings, but I also use soft boots for all mountain riding and powder days.
⭐ Key Event Spotlight: Funding the Commons
Join us at the 8th Funding the Commons conference on April 13-14, 2024, at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California, for a two-day event dedicated to exploring the future of public goods funding. Expect a blend of inspirational talks, workshops, and networking opportunities, featuring leading voices like Brian Behlendorf (Linux Foundation), Dr. Dawn Song (Berkeley RDI) Kevin Owocki (Gitcoin), Juan Benet (Protocol Labs) and more.
A ticket to this event also provides access to the Earth Commons conference, focusing on climate action funding models.
If you want to keep the conversation going after LabWeek Public Goods is over, be sure to check out SF Climate Week, taking place April 21-27 for a deep dive into sustainable fashion, design and much more!
📅 PL Events
Bookmark the PL Events page to stay up to date! Here are upcoming highlights:
Apr 5 - 8: FIL Hong Kong hosted by NDLabs alongside Hong Kong Web3 Festival in Hong Kong.
Apr 13-14: Funding the Commons in San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
Apr 13-14: Earth Commons in San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
Apr 21-27: SF Climate Week in San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
📝 Tips?
Have a suggestion for the next PL Updates newsletter? We’d love to hear from you! Contact Sara Hamdan at sara.hamdan@protocol.ai.