PLN Updates - Aug 28
LabWeek23 details, Rarimo's new Proof-of-Humanity aggregator, Anytype's $13.4 million funding round, the first metaverse short film festival by Mona & much more!
⚙️ New Tool Alert: Rarimo Launches First Web3 Proof-Of-Humanity Aggregator
Shipped: August 2023
What It Is: In the latest showdown of Man vs Machine, Rarimo has taken a step towards countering bots by aggregating four of the biggest identity providers in the space: Worldcoin, Unstoppable Domains, Gitcoin Passport, and Civic, into the world’s first Proof-of-Humanity (POH) plugin for dApps.
Why It’s a Big Deal: Amid the rising tide of AI generated art, music and (sketchy) legal advice, this plugin helps distinguish content created by humans and combat misinformation. Powered by zero-knowledge proofs, it offers users privacy and authentication with just a few clicks.
The Big Picture: Proof-of-Humanity forms an early blueprint for the traceability, anonymity, and security provided by blockchain technology that can counteract the challenges of AI. Hands up if you’re also ready to stop identifying traffic lights in photos online to prove you’re human.
—> Read details in this blog post
🇹🇷 LabWeek23 Updates: Plan Your Trip
Lab Week is back! Get ready for a packed program that will cover ZK Proofs, decentralized storage, AI and blockchain, compute over data, decentralized identity, cryptoeconomics, DeSci, and much more.
Where: Istanbul, Turkey near Swissotel Bosphorus Hotel, alongside Devconnect
When: November 13-17, 2023
What: Decentralized conference for builders, innovators, technology leaders and members of the Protocol Labs Network to gather, collaborate and drive breakthroughs in computing
—> Visit our website to see the event schedule and read our blog post for details!
🎥 Watch the Lab Day Replay
We host virtual Lab Days for the Protocol Labs Network on the third Wednesday of every month. This month featured Lightning Talks from:
Hypercert, presented by Holke Brammer, on the latest developments around hypercerts and the kind of future they can enable.
Molecule, presented by Jesse Hudson, on the challenges of the current IP system and new crypto-based primitives that enable decentralization.
We also host in-person Lab Day events in more than a dozen cities around the world. Reach out to spaceport-admin@protocol.ai to be added to individual calendar invites. We hope to see you at a live event soon!
📡 Network Radar
Anytype, a knowledge management tool that serves as a private hub for personal data, raised $13.4 million from a group of investors including Protocol Labs. Read about their plans to extend the product’s capabilities and improve UX design here.
Introducing Fund Ring: a Web3 fundraising primitive brought to you by Fission. It is designed to support Filecoin and IPFS-connected open source projects with maintenance, security, and feature updates with regular funding. Details here.
Early adopters interested in nascent crypto projects can join Powerloom as they initiate Phase 1 of the Powerloom Incentivized Testnet on Coinlist. Read about it in this blog post and join here.
CryptoEconLab hosted University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Brett Falk to present his research on "Using on-chain voting for information aggregation." Catch the replay here.
Hedgey, focused on building options markets on DeFi with open source code, SDKs and developer documentation, has just introduced a key upgrade. Meet Hedgey V2 Smart Contracts: a gas-efficient, feature-complete set of tools to launch and manage on chain orgs. Details in this blog post.
Audit Wizard, an all-in-one platform for auditing smart contracts, is officially in beta! Use it to scan for vulnerabilities, leverage AI for security insights, generate audit reports, and more. Try it out for free here.
Check out the “app of the month,” an insightful fireside chat with Outercore, and more in the August 2023 Filecoin & IPFS Round Up.
🔦 Spotlight: Martin Metz, founder of Cycle
A designer and passionate environmentalist, Martin Metz runs the design collective Cycle, which helps PL Network teams create visual brands. Learn how Martin helped build a boat out of thousands of plastic bottles, got interviewed by Oprah, and eventually waded into Web3 in this inspiring Q&A.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
First and foremost, I am a designer and environmentalist. That intersection is where I found my passion. I discovered this in 2010 on a project called The Plastiki Expedition. The founder wanted to build a 20-foot catamaran out of 12,000 plastic bottles and sail it across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Sydney. It was a groundbreaking way of using adventure and design to engage with people around a complex issue like plastic pollution.
Before Plastiki, nobody really knew about the toxic plastic soup that was covering huge areas of our oceans. We all felt an enormous sadness and urgency around it. The boat was built, and the founder along with five other sailors made it to Sydney. Our crew received global coverage in almost every major media outlet, including an interview on Oprah. It proved we had a formula to get attention and change the narrative. After that experience, I wanted to contribute my design energy to people who were trying to do things better for the benefit of others.
In the Web3 and crypto space, there are a lot of young visionaries with powerful ideas and technology. When it comes to the environment, I like the point of view that it’s actually humanity that needs saving, because the earth and nature will regenerate with or without us. If we’re not trying to optimize our human systems, it’s at our own peril. Web3 may be the origin for the next generation of systems and tools that can help us create a more sustainable future.
Design has the critical role of making those new technologies accessible and engaging. Using Plastiki as an example, the right visual impact draws people in and opens them up to exploring deeper, more complicated ideas. That’s where Cycle comes in. Using good design principles, we want to help projects reach their full potential to benefit humanity.
How did you get into Web3?
My partner was working with Protocol Labs. I loved the mission and vision behind the company, and Juan Benet was an inspiring leader who showed genuine passion for what he was trying to achieve. It was all very compelling. I heard there was a desire to make visual design resources more accessible to the ecosystem of startups in PL’s Network. An opportunity came up to spin off PL’s internal design team into a separate agency that could focus on helping those companies. A lot of emerging technology in that space had really exciting applications, so I took on the challenge.
What advice would you give to someone joining Web3?
Take the time to find what you’re passionate about, that aligns with your values. Spend time framing your problem by doing your research and finding areas for innovation where innovation is most needed. Technology is moving fast, so be adaptable and use emerging tools to your advantage.
What challenges or rough edges would you like to see solved in Web3?
Design and communication need to be valued more. To be successful at scale you have to appeal to those inside and outside of the community. They need to know who you are, what you do, and why it matters. That has to happen at the right level. In the beginning it’s not as important, but later on it’s crucial.
What are your favorite podcasts or books?
Hard Fork by The New York Times and the Design Better Podcast.
Tell us something you like to do for fun.
I live on Kauai and longboard as much as possible. I also love snorkeling and exploring reef ecosystems.
🗓 Key Event: Mona Shorts Fest
Calling all storytellers! Mona Shorts Fest is the first metaverse short film festival dedicated to films shot in-world at 3D world-building platform Mona. The films will be independently judged by eight critical voices across film, VFX, art, gaming and culture, including representatives from Netflix, Warner Brothers and former Unity execs. Mark your calendar:
$3,000 in cash prizes for winning shorts in Comedy, Sci-fi, Anime, and experimental (any genre)
Deadline to submit is September 20, 2023 11:59AM ET
Mona Shorts Fest: September 26-29, 2023
Check out details here.
📱 PLN Events
🚀 Bookmark the PLN Events Page for the most up to date events in the community. Sign up for these events coming up in the next few months:
FIL Jakarta, hosted by MetaPals, Jakarta, Indonesia, September 2 (Register here)
FIL Seoul, hosted by Secured Finance, Seoul, Korea, September 6-7 (Register here)
Funding the Commons, Berlin, Germany, September 8-9 (Apply to speak here)
FIL Dev Summit Singapore, September 12-14 (Buy tickets here)
Lab Day, virtual event, September 20 at 9am PST/4pm UTC
FIL Dev Summit Iceland, September 25-27 (Buy tickets here)
💡Learn
Interested in zero-knowledge proofs? Ingonyama just created a comprehensive repo on all things ZK called Ingopedia. Designed for both beginners curious about how ZK proofs allow two entities to prove a statement without revealing information, to researchers interested in the mathematical computations.
—> Check it out here
🍿 Fun Corner
Read a good book or listened to an insightful podcast recently? Let us know.
📚 New Pick: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Recommended By: Yan Michalevsky, co-founder, Cryptosat
What It’s About: In a homage to 1984, this young adult novel features a 17-year-old hacker who introduces his friends to cryptography and saves his hometown from a terrorist attack.
📝 Tips?
Have a suggestion for the next PLN Updates newsletter? We’d love to hear from you! Contact Sara Hamdan at sara.hamdan@protocol.ai.
Unfortunately, a bunch of the links in the "Network Radar" section did not work for me on Chrome or Brave. I received an error that there were too many redirects. I cleared my cookies and the error persisted.