Ethereum may not be an ecosystem that rewards the brave, but truly valuable things will eventually pay off.

Written by: CHUNZHEN

"Finite games are played to win; infinite games are played to continue the play." Inspired by American scholar James P. Carse, Aya Miyaguchi, the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, proposed the vision of Ethereum as an "infinite garden." Ethereum is not just a technology; it is a diverse garden composed of individuals and organizations. The Ethereum Foundation acts as the gardener in this garden, nurturing and promoting production without controlling it, allowing people to build and grow in an open and infinite garden, leading to organic prosperity.

During the 4-day Devcon SEA (Devcon 7) journey, I witnessed the embodiment of the Ethereum "infinite garden" vision.

When We Talk About Public Goods

During Devcon, I primarily interviewed some representative public goods projects, including Gitcoin, Protocol Guild, and Octant. Unfortunately, I could not find the Optimism team. Here are the summarized viewpoints:

Gitcoin co-founder Kevin Owocki discussed how technologies like account abstraction bring Web3 products closer to the user experience of Web2, which is something Gitcoin lacks. Gitcoin is essentially a platform built for Web3 developers, assuming that everyone has a wallet and knows how to trade. However, if solutions are to be provided for non-blockchain use cases, user experience is a critical issue that must be addressed.

Previously, Gitcoin launched an experimental Layer2 Public Goods Network aimed at using sorting fees to build and fund public goods, but PGN ceased operations this June. Regarding the reasons for PGN's closure, Owocki stated that while PGN was a good attempt, the adoption rate during its actual operation was too low. No one was really using it, so the project's closure was inevitable. However, he personally supports the idea of PGN and welcomes any teams that want to restart or fork the project.

As a relatively mysterious entity, Protocol Guild was also represented at this Devcon, and I interviewed one of its members, Cheeky, who shared several interesting points:

1) Regarding the diversity of Protocol Guild members, there are only a few Asians (about 2) and women (about 6), but this is not just an issue unique to the Ethereum ecosystem. Protocol Guild will continue to focus on and help more women enter the ecosystem;

2) Protocol Guild does not have a marketing team; they simply and directly ask 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 having projects donate directly without needing to communicate with team members;

3) The essence of Protocol Guild is to provide funding from Layer2 to keep excellent developers building on Layer1. This may sound paradoxical, but Cheeky stated that Ethereum still has a long way to go, and Ethereum Layer2 inherits Ethereum's security. First, Ethereum needs to be built well, so that other Layer2 can develop significantly. This is a relatively understandable viewpoint, and it is hoped that all Layer2 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 form of loyalty (legitimacy)? It is clear that Protocol Guild has such ambitions, but they have not yet figured out how to do it. Ultimately, Protocol Guild welcomes all, even donations of Memecoin tokens for PR purposes.

Octant, as an emerging public goods fundraising platform, uses the earnings 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 staking its ETH as a Solo Staker and using part of the returns to fund public goods (not necessarily public goods in the Web3 industry). At the same time, considering security, Octant will not consider liquid staking solutions, even though this may bring higher returns.

I noticed that in the recently completed Epoch 5 funding round, Protocol Guild, Revoke, and other "funding giants" still occupied the top of the funding leaderboard. This raised questions about whether this is a downside of secondary financing, as people tend to donate funds to these "popular, top-tier" projects. Wlodek stated that large projects like Protocol Guild have a much greater demand for funding than some independent projects with only a few developers, while the needs of smaller projects at the bottom of the list may only be to hold 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 now adopting secondary financing, the original secondary financing papers did not have a fixed matching pool; it would increase or decrease based on the actual donations from donors. However, the matching pools used in reality are predetermined, which may lead to the final donation situation not truly reflecting public opinion. Therefore, Octant is considering adopting a more original secondary financing formula, which does not pre-determine the size of the matching pool.

Local Projects in Thailand

Local projects in Thailand have a low presence, and I only encountered a few Thai local projects at side events. Firstly, there are some Thai local Meme/GameFi/metaverse communities on MemeWonder, but they are all small in scale. Unexpectedly, the token unlock tool I frequently use, TokenUnlocks, 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 electronic 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 wild growth, but the builders, funding, and atmosphere needed for development are already in place, making it an emerging market worth paying attention to.

The closing ceremony coincided with Thailand's Loy Krathong Festival, and the venue was decorated with water lanterns.

Finally, my biggest impression from Devcon is that Ethereum is an open and inclusive ecosystem. Here, anyone from any background can find topics to engage with and meet like-minded individuals to build something new. The Ethereum Foundation truly fulfills the role of a gardener, with a less prominent presence, but you can always find them when needed. However, at the same time, as such a large ecosystem, Ethereum 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.

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