PL Updates - Feb 12
Discover Bluesky's explosive public launch, Lit v0's debut in decentralized key management, and Canza Finance's transformative approach to Africa's financial sector.
⚙️ New Tool Alert: Bluesky's Public Launch
Shipped: February 2024
What It Is: Bluesky, previously in invite-only beta, has opened its doors to the public, witnessing a surge of nearly 800,000 new users. This decentralized, open source social platform is quickly gaining traction, poised to hit 4 million signups, up from 3 million just last week.
Why It’s a Big Deal: Bluesky's rapid user adoption signifies a growing interest in decentralized social platforms. Its open model offers an alternative to centralized giants, attracting users seeking ownership and control over their digital social spaces.
The Big Picture: Bluesky's emergence and its competition with platforms like Mastodon reflect a wider trend towards decentralized social media. This shift represents a movement away from the dominance of major tech companies, offering a glimpse into the future of online communities where users have more control and transparency.
🔑 Decentralized Key Management with Lit v0
Lit Protocol recently launched its new platform, Lit v0, after three years of research and development. The platform empowers developers to craft and manage keys for a wide array of use cases. From user onboarding and private social networks to data marketplaces, on-chain automation, and beyond.
Interested in learning more? Dive into the developer documentation or join the community on Discord, and start shaping the future of the web today.
👋 Meet Canza Finance: Empowering Africa's Financial Future
In our latest blog post on protocol.ai, learn about Canza Finance, a Web3 neobank poised to transform Africa's financial landscape by redefining cross-border payments and financial services. By leveraging DeFi to offer innovative foreign exchange solutions, Canza's Baki exchange platform enables efficient and cost-effective currency swaps, addressing forex liquidity challenges across the continent.
Learn more about Canza Finance's mission and its impact on Africa's financial sector here.
📡 Network Radar
The Filebase team recently published an in-depth guide exploring the integration of IPFS and IPNS, highlighting how these technologies are transforming the landscape of internet data storage and management. Read the full blog post here.
OrbitDB has released version 2.0, embracing full support for Helia, IPFS's latest JavaScript implementation. This update, however, marks the end of backward compatibility with js-ipfs. Learn more about the release here.
Discover the latest developments and future plans for projects across Protocol Labs from January’s Engineering and Research Working Group meeting. Highlights from last month’s call include the release of js-libp2p v1 from the team at libp2p, as well as Bacalhau’s 2024 roadmap, which includes resource management network queues, offline execution for reliability, and enhanced debugging.
The Optimism Collective has allocated 30M OP tokens among 501 ecosystem contributors, including notable projects like libp2p and IPFS during its third Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) round. Learn more about the initiative here.
Swan Chain unveiled its Universal Basic Income (zk-UBI) program, setting a new standard in cloud computing by integrating storage, computing, CDN, and payment solutions for Web3 and AI projects. Learn more here.
EQTY Lab was featured in Semafor about their methods of tracking learning language models as they are built, rather than monitoring output. Read the article here.
In a recent blog post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin extends special thanks to Juan Benet, founder of Protocol Labs, among others, for their feedback and review of his perspective on techno-optimism. Read it here.
⭐Key Event Spotlight
Feb 29: FIL Dev Summit @ETHDenver2024 in Denver, CO
Join us at the FIL Dev Summit during ETHDenver on February 29th, 2024, at The Slate Denver. Whether you're looking to contribute to core protocol discussions, explore decentralized data storage innovations, or connect with like-minded individuals driving the network forward, FIL Dev Summit is your opportunity to be part of the conversations shaping the future of decentralized storage and access.
For more details, to register, or to submit a talk, visit the event page.
📅 PL Events
Bookmark the PL Events page to stay up to date! Here are upcoming highlights:
Jan 8 - Mar 5: Mona's 3D Object Buildathon: Unleash Your Creativity! in Denver, CO
Feb 29 - Mar 3: ETHDenver 2024 in Denver, CO, including these activations:
- Feb 29: Edge City Denver x Protocol Labs
- Feb 29 - Mar 3: Filecoin Booth at ETHDenver, Booth 204 in Devtopia, sponsored by Filecoin Foundation
- Mar 1: Filecoin Orbit Ecosystem Showcase & Happy Hour. Immerse yourself in the Filecoin ecosystem and connect with experts and like-minded community members. Register here.
- Mar 2: PL Meetup @ ETHDenver
- Note: Add your ETH Denver Filecoin events to this calendar.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, CA.
🔦 Spotlight: Lasha Antadze, co-founder of Rarilabs
In this spotlight, we introduce Lasha Antadze, the co-founder of Rarilabs— a company dedicated to advancing Rarimo protocol and solving the issue of identity fragmentation in Web3.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born in the country of Georgia in the early 1990s, just before the Soviet Union collapsed. As a young adult, I moved to London for university, and after graduating moved to Ukraine and then Berlin. This immersion in different cultures amplified my determination to help promote human agency and allow people to live and express themselves freely.
How did you get into Web3?
It all started in Ukraine in 2014 when I joined an international team of anti-corruption reformers. My task was to digitalize the auction system and implement measures to ensure trust and transparency. It was during this period that I read the Ethereum and Bitcoin whitepapers and realized their potential as anti-corruption tools.
I also worked to develop the world's first distributed auction network for state property privatization for over two and a half years. Although we only managed a few pilots auctioning land and municipal property, this technology eventually found commercial applications. I transitioned to the private sector and ultimately led a successful company exit.
What advice would you give to someone joining Web3?
When entering the space, it’s critical to avoid a skeuomorphic approach. Web3 is a fundamentally different dimension of the web. Decentralized ownership challenges the core business models of many pre-existing platforms and services, and as a result many Web3 solutions are incompatible with the traditional internet.
I also advise reading and understanding the Bitcoin whitepaper. This foundational knowledge will make scaling your understanding of the broader Web3 ecosystem much easier.
What challenges or rough edges would you like to see solved in Web3?
I’d love to see the overall user experience improve. In particular, we need to reduce friction for cross-chain transactions and simplify gas fee payments for certain interactions.
There's also a need for the emergence of novel, functional business models at the application layer that don't rely on everyone building their own protocol or token environment.
Lastly, the focus should expand beyond financial use cases, with the identity space likely being the next frontier in Web3 development.
What are your favorite podcasts or books?
Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and his paper: Denationalization of money.
Orientalism by Edward Said and everything about behavioral economics.
Tell us something you like to do for fun.
I can binge watch all the historical documentaries.
📝 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.