How mainstream adoption of crypto primitives helped us distribute $30K to businesses in need
A Boulder Idea for Quadratic Funding
It was early April, 2020, and the world was simultaneously feeling very large and very small here in Boulder. Though we were “flattening the curve” and learning to live with the myriad changes associated with a global pandemic, it was quickly becoming clear that small businesses — the businesses that make home feel like home — were just at the beginning of what will be a very long road to recovery.
Here in Boulder, Colorado, where many of our downtown businesses depend on a healthy tourist season coupled with onslaught of college kids (and their parents) in the spring and fall seasons, it became clear rather quickly that the impact COVID-19 would have would be felt for many months to come. It seemed almost a foregone conclusion that our vibrant, local downtown Boulder would evolve into a dystopian, shuttered walking mall with only the occasional chain restaurant that could afford the steep downtown rent. …
“I don’t know who I am anymore” I said to my friend over lunch in late 2019. I was still on maternity leave from ConsenSys after having my first child in the fall, and was grappling with the idea of going back to work full time. My friend, a kickass leader in the crypto space, looked me dead in the eye and said: “you’re the same person you’ve always been.”
Tears welled in my eyes because I felt she wasn’t hearing me; everything had changed now that I was a mother. Four months into the most volatile (in the best way) experience of my entire life, I wasn’t sure I knew myself anymore. We agreed to disagree and I chalked my emotional reaction up to postpartum hormones and fatigue. I’m sure she did, too. But, after heading back to work in the first days of 2020, I felt this lingering sensation of being identity-less, both at work and in life. My efforts to rediscover myself through reading, soul-searching, meditation, and externalization of thoughts with close friends were largely fruitless, and I grew frustrated with my growing anxiety around my professional purpose. …
How the future of work and globalization are changing hackathons.
Hackathons have become ubiquitous with innovation. Corporations organized 40% more hackathons in 2018 than in 2016. Hackathons designed for non-programmers have slowly gained adoption. Heck, some people have become professional hackathon competitors and travel across the world to compete for prizes.
Hackathons will continue to grow. But how? Unsurprisingly, the evolution of hackathons will likely mirror open source software development. Hackathons will start to utilize the growing megatrends of remote work and globalization. Suddenly, the dynamic of hackathons shifts. Hackathons become scalable. …
Fresh off the success of our first Labs Relay, our team at Consensys kicked off the month of June hungry to inspire the next wave of innovators to start building on Ethereum. Together with our partners at Gitcoin, we developed the idea for the Beyond Blockchain hackathon, beginning Monday, June 24th.
Reinventing Finance
An Intro to ConsenSys Labs Relays
After spending a year as a Design Strategist and Researcher in the crypto space, I became frustrated by the constant tug of war between incremental infrastructure development that’s needed to make the space function and the grandiose, aspirational problem space that inspired many of us to join the Web3 revolution in the first place.
Working as a consultant to project after project, and team after team, I found myself asking the same questions trying to maximize the impact of the people gravitating toward this kind of work:
What would happen if, instead of asking people to do the best, most meaningful work of their lives amidst the distractions of their “day jobs,” we could incentivize them to innovate when and where they’re inspired to do so? …
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