Building Web3 culture in Ukraine: Rostyslav Bortman’s mission

Good contracts. In 2016, my professor on the college got here to me and provided me a subject for my thesis – ‘Good contracts on Ethereum’ or one thing like that. I agreed. Since then, I couldn’t tear myself away from Solidity and Ethereum – I used to be fully taken by the ideas of decentralisation and the absence of intermediaries.

At starters, there are alternative ways to contribute: to construct a profound product with a superb basis that may go mainstream and have a direct influence on the event of Web3, or to be a developer in a group that builds the way forward for Web3, or to contribute to open-source communities.

After all, among the many cool groups in Web3, you possibly can typically discover Ukrainian builders who construct cool issues in a group, and that’s very cool. Nonetheless, we don’t see an enormous variety of Ukrainians growing merchandise that go mainstream. We nonetheless have to work on this.

I feel that the Ukrainian Web3 neighborhood is simply beginning to develop. Because the organiser of the biggest hackathon in Ukraine, I can say that we nonetheless have quite a lot of work to do on the tradition of constructing startups. Persons are centered on incomes cash and don’t wish to take dangers, specific no want to construct one thing of their very own, as a result of outsourcing gives stability. 

My group and I intend to alter this – to construct a tradition of hackathons within the nation, as a result of I’m satisfied that this is among the handiest methods to indicate builders that constructing your personal product is superior. It is going to take time for folks’s mindsets to alter, and for Ukrainians to begin influencing international blockchain growth with their merchandise.

After all they will. The Web3 market is international, and it doesn’t matter by which nation it’s constructed. To begin with, the product use case, UX, is vital. Anybody who makes a cool product that folks want can compete on this market. 

‘Construct one thing folks want. Construct a useless easy expertise,’ – Jesse Pollak.

International Ledger. I additionally like Trustee Plus – it’s easy, handy, and solves the issue of shopper funds. HackenProof.

It is usually vital to notice that the idea of success is totally different for many individuals, so I’m solely talking in regards to the ones I personally like.

We now have been organising meetups since 2021. We now have already held about 25 totally different occasions. We now have collaborated with BNB Chain, Scroll, Diia schooling, and lots of others. You may see all our occasions right here – kyivethereum.com.

Lately, we organised ETHKyiv, which was attended by Vitalik (Buterin) and three different folks of the Ethereum Basis (and lots of different company of assorted cool Web3 protocols). We managed to get such giants as EtherFi, Scroll, Intmax, Zero1, Circles, The Graph Builders Dao, and others as sponsors. Additionally, 123 hackers visited the situation offline and took half within the hackathon.

We raised $8000 for the FPV-drones for the Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF). And all this regardless of the warfare.

I consider that the technique of growing native communities world wide is the precise one, as a result of solely native leaders, not the worldwide Basis, can have the best influence on folks from particular international locations.

The function and affect relies upon not on me, however on the neighborhood. I alone can do little, however we’re doing every little thing in our energy to create beneficial situations for the event of the Ethereum neighborhood in Ukraine – collect cool founders, visionaries, and leaders.

Let’s begin with the unhappy stuff. I’m the one and solely organiser of ETHKyiv 2024 (with my Kyiv Ethereum group, in fact). Sergiy Sevidov was formally a co-organiser, however, actually, he didn’t fulfil his duties and didn’t take any half within the organisation of this occasion. Due to this fact, calling him one of many organisers could be unfair to the group that was concerned within the organisation.

Sadly, it turned out that he controls the ethkyiv.org area and social media, by which our group made completely all publications associated to the ETHKyiv hackathon. He refuses to surrender the social media and the area (though he has nothing to do with Ethereum in Ukraine and did nothing to develop it, his solely purpose is to make use of the ETHKyiv title), as a result of he desires to carry a few of his personal occasions there and declare ETHKyiv 2024 as his personal to promote it to sponsors and companions. My group and I’ve already turned this web page and created new social media.

Now, to reply your query:

I consider that hackathons have a direct influence on the event of Ethereum in Ukraine, as a result of I feel that builders are the principle asset of the ecosystem. That’s the reason our essential mission is to onboard Ukrainian builders to Ethereum. As for conferences, I can’t reply as a result of my essential focus is on builders.

There was an unimaginable quantity of difficulties, however this might be a narrative for an hour. There have been quite a lot of issues with contractors and the quantity of coordination, communication, administration of all the main points, similar to on Taikai community and elsewhere, involvement of sponsors, hackers, judges and audio system, and media publications. This story deserves a separate publication.

Base has an excellent influence on Web3 as a result of they’re growing a tradition of builders round them and selling the message that constructing is cool. They’re centered on growing shopper apps, which is the precise factor to do, in my view, and I feel that’s Base is the place we’re going to see quite a lot of cool improvements in Web3.

I’m an ETH Maxi, so it’s arduous for me to consider that. There are such a lot of new and attention-grabbing issues occurring in Ethereum day-after-day that I merely don’t have sufficient time to observe different ecosystems. 

Nonetheless, I feel that different blockchains are prone to take some market share, however Ethereum will stay the undisputed chief. For me, Ethereum’s rules are nearer to my coronary heart. That’s why I’m right here, and most people locally are right here as effectively. And I feel that’s what makes Ethereum the perfect.

At the moment, shopper funds are one of many largest points which can be a precedence within the business, together with, for instance, Base (I wrote about it right here). I don’t suppose that DeFi will exchange centralised banking within the coming years, however I feel that step-by-step, it is going to grow to be extra handy and common, the variety of customers will develop, and strategically, sooner or later, we may have some hybrid programs with the power to fully abandon conventional centralised banking if crucial.

I don’t suppose we’ll see a Solana ETF within the close to future. There are goal causes for this. 

Firstly, the SEC (US Securities and Trade Fee – creator’s observe) considers Solana a safety. Secondly, the funds personal 12% of SOL (or extra, I don’t know the precise determine, however it’s a vital drawback). Thirdly, if we discuss in regards to the basic path to ETFs (as was the case with BTC and ETH), Solana nonetheless wants 2-3 years to go all the way in which. 

As for different belongings, I feel that the cryptocurrency market has to grow to be rather more mature first, as a result of now all these memecoins and belongings with no which means and billions of {dollars} in capitalisation look very unusual.

NFTs aren’t going wherever, however not the NFTs that everybody has heard about in 2021. NFT is a token commonplace that shall be and is already being actively utilized in RWA (Actual World Property). They’ll tokenise every little thing they will with NFT. From actual property to gadgets in digital worlds and video games. I do not know what’s going to occur to NFT monkeys.

Account abstraction, SocialFi, decentralised messengers, shopper apps (together with fee apps), cross-chain interoperability, GameFi.

I consider it is extremely vital. So far as I do know, the state of affairs in Ukraine isn’t excellent. 

I would like to see us transfer sooner and have extra enthusiasm. If anybody desires to run Solidity programs, bear in mind that we’ll at all times assist you. Come, let’s discuss. 

I like the instance of Argentina – they’ve built-in Ethereum and Solidity into the varsity curriculum in Buenos Aires. I feel we should always transfer on this route – I’ve already texted to a number of of my mates on this matter.

Construct one thing that folks want. Construct useless easy experiences. Create purposes that folks use, that’s all. They (lots – creator’s observe) will come to you. Sometime, freedom of speech will grow to be an important facet, what is occurring on the earth now. So I feel that the demand for decentralisation, safety, and censorship resistance will develop.

It is a very troublesome query. I feel there shall be quite a lot of purposes that may go mainstream and customers won’t even know that they’re Web3-based. I feel that in this time, the principle UX issues shall be solved and we can discover killer use circumstances within the business. I feel we’ll see the identical mass adoption within the subsequent 10 years.

I’m eager on the rules of decentralisation, censorship resistance, self-custody, and many others. I wish to take away belief from the place it shouldn’t stay. I wish to take away intermediaries and automate the situations in sensible contracts. I consider that that is the long run, and we’re transferring in the precise route typically. I like being concerned on this, and I’m grateful for it. 

Persons are additionally motivating. Such a focus of extremely sensible, open-minded folks may be very incentive.