Written by: CHUNZHEN
"Finite games are played to win, while infinite games are played to continue the game." Inspired by American scholar James P. Carse, Aya Miyaguchi, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, proposed the vision of Ethereum as an 'infinite garden.' Ethereum is not just a technology but a diverse garden composed of individuals and organizations. The Ethereum Foundation acts as a gardener in this garden, nurturing and promoting production without controlling it. People build and grow in this open and infinite garden, allowing it to thrive organically.
During the 4-day Devcon SEA (Devcon 7) journey, I witnessed the concretization of Ethereum's 'infinite garden' vision.
When we talk about public goods,
During Devcon, I mainly interviewed some representative public goods projects, including Gitcoin, Protocol Guild, Octant, etc. Unfortunately, I did not find the Optimism team. Below is a summary of the viewpoints:
Gitcoin co-founder Kevin Owocki talked about how technologies like account abstraction make Web3 more similar to Web2 products in terms of user experience, which is something Gitcoin lacks. Gitcoin is fundamentally still a platform for Web3 developers, assuming that everyone has a wallet and knows how to trade. However, to provide solutions for non-blockchain use cases, user experience is a problem that must be addressed.
Previously, Gitcoin launched an experimental Layer2 Public Goods Network, aimed at using matching funds for building and funding public goods, which ceased operation in June this year. Regarding the reason for PGN's closure, Owocki stated that PGN was a good attempt, but its adoption during actual operation was still too low. No one was really using it, so the project's closure was inevitable. However, he personally supports PGN's concept and welcomes any teams wanting to restart or fork the project.
As a relatively mysterious entity, Protocol Guild was also interviewed by Devcon, and one of its members, Cheeky, shared several interesting points:
1) Regarding the diversity of Protocol Guild members, there are only a few Asian members (about 2) and female members (about 6), which is not just an issue unique to the Ethereum ecosystem. Protocol Guild will continue to pay attention to and help more women enter the ecosystem;
2) Protocol Guild does not have a marketing team and simply asks Layer2 for tokens (but most of the time they are directly rejected by Layer2). In the first quarter of next year, Protocol Guild will strengthen brand building, ideally allowing projects to donate directly without needing to communicate with team members;
3) The essence of Protocol Guild is to provide funding for Layer2 to keep excellent developers building on Layer1. It may sound paradoxical, but Cheeky stated that Ethereum still has a long way to go, and Ethereum Layer2 inherits Ethereum's security. First, we need to build Ethereum well, only then can other Layer2s develop significantly. This is a relatively understandable perspective, so I hope that all Layer2s can contribute in the future;
4) Regarding the issue of legitimacy, is there a possibility that Protocol Guild could grow into another EF, where project parties donate tokens as a way to express loyalty (legitimacy)? It can be heard that Protocol Guild has such ambitions, but they haven't figured out exactly how to do it yet. Lastly, Protocol Guild welcomes any contributions, even if it's a Memecoin donation token used for PR purposes, they are happy to see it.
Octant, as an emerging public goods fundraising platform, uses the returns from the 100,000 ETH staked by the Golem Foundation as a source of funding for public goods. Its PR director, Wlodek Gogloza, stated that Octant is a sustainable funding platform, with the Golem Foundation acting as a Solo Staker staking its ETH and using part of the returns to fund public goods (not necessarily limited to Web3 public goods). At the same time, for security reasons, Octant will not consider liquid staking solutions, even though this could bring higher returns.
I noticed that during the recently completed Epoch 5 funding round by Octant, major funders like Protocol Guild and Revoke still occupy the top of the funding leaderboard. This raises the question of whether this is a downside of quadratic funding, as people tend to donate money to these 'popular, leading' projects. Wlodek mentioned that large projects like Protocol Guild have a much greater demand for funding compared to some independent projects run by single-digit developers, while the needs of smaller projects at the bottom of the list may only be to host an offline event. Of course, there is indeed a 'popularity contest' here, which is a problem worth considering and addressing.
Wlodek also mentioned an interesting phenomenon: although many funding programs are currently adopting quadratic funding, the original quadratic funding paper's matching pool was not fixed; it would increase or decrease based on the actual donations from donors. In reality, however, the matching pools used in quadratic funding are predetermined, which may cause the final donation situation not to truly reflect public opinion. Therefore, Octant is considering adopting a more primitive quadratic funding formula, which does not pre-determine the size of the matching pool.
Local projects in Thailand
Local projects in Thailand have low visibility, and I only encountered a few local Thai projects at side events. Firstly, there are some local Thai Meme/GameFi/metaverse communities on MemeWonder, but they are small in scale. Surprisingly, the TokenUnlocks tool I frequently use for token unlock tracking is a purely Thai local team, which has now officially upgraded to Tokenomist, incorporating more on-chain and analytical elements. Other projects include the wallet application Rubie, which focuses on converting USDC to digital Thai baht (DTHB) for QR code payments, and the cross-chain communication protocol Analog. My impression of Thailand's Web3 projects is that they are still in a stage of rough growth, but the builders, funding, and atmosphere needed for development are already in place, making it a new emerging market worth paying attention to.
The closing ceremony coincided with the Thai Lantern Festival, and the venue was decorated with lanterns.
Ultimately, my biggest impression from Devcon is that Ethereum is an open and inclusive ecosystem. Here, people from any background can find topics to engage in and connect with like-minded individuals to build something new. The Ethereum Foundation truly plays the role of a gardener, with a less prominent presence, but you can always find them when needed. However, as such a large ecosystem, Ethereum also faces objective resistance to change, especially when multiple interests are involved. Overall, Ethereum may not be an ecosystem that rewards the brave, but truly valuable things will eventually pay off.
