Building Web3 culture in Ukraine: Rostyslav Bortman’s mission

Good contracts. In 2016, my professor on the college got here to me and supplied 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 other ways to contribute: to construct a profound product with an excellent basis that may go mainstream and have a direct influence on the event of Web3, or to be a developer in a workforce that builds the way forward for Web3, or to contribute to open-source communities.

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

I believe that the Ukrainian Web3 group is simply beginning to develop. Because the organiser of the most important hackathon in Ukraine, I can say that we nonetheless have lots of work to do on the tradition of constructing startups. Individuals are targeted on incomes cash and don’t wish to take dangers, categorical no want to construct one thing of their very own, as a result of outsourcing offers stability. 

My workforce and I intend to vary this – to construct a tradition of hackathons within the nation, as a result of I’m satisfied that this is likely one of the handiest methods to point out builders that constructing your personal product is superior. It would take time for individuals’s mindsets to vary, and for Ukrainians to start out influencing world blockchain improvement with their merchandise.

After all they’ll. The Web3 market is world, and it doesn’t matter wherein nation it’s constructed. To start with, the product use case, UX, is necessary. Anybody who makes a cool product that individuals want can compete on this market. 

‘Construct one thing individuals want. Construct a lifeless 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 necessary to notice that the idea of success is totally different for many individuals, so I’m solely talking concerning the ones I personally like.

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

Not too long ago, we organised ETHKyiv, which was attended by Vitalik (Buterin) and three different individuals of the Ethereum Basis (and lots of different friends of varied 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 placement 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 conflict.

I imagine that the technique of growing native communities around the globe is the fitting one, as a result of solely native leaders, not the worldwide Basis, can have the best influence on individuals from particular nations.

The function and affect relies upon not on me, however on the group. I alone can do little, however we’re doing all the pieces in our energy to create beneficial circumstances for the event of the Ethereum group 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 workforce, in fact). Sergiy Sevidov was formally a co-organiser, however, in reality, 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 can be unfair to the workforce that was concerned within the organisation.

Sadly, it turned out that he controls the ethkyiv.org area and social media, wherein our workforce 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 objective is to make use of the ETHKyiv identify), 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 workforce and I’ve already turned this web page and created new social media.

Now, to reply your query:

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

There was an unimaginable quantity of difficulties, however this might be a narrative for an hour. There have been lots of issues with contractors and the quantity of coordination, communication, administration of all the small print, comparable 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 targeted on growing shopper apps, which is the fitting factor to do, for my part, and I believe that’s Base is the place we’re going to see lots of cool improvements in Web3.

I’m an ETH Maxi, so it’s exhausting for me to consider that. There are such a lot of new and fascinating issues taking place in Ethereum daily that I merely don’t have sufficient time to observe different ecosystems. 

Nevertheless, I believe that different blockchains are more likely to take some market share, however Ethereum will stay the undisputed chief. For me, Ethereum’s ideas are nearer to my coronary heart. That’s why I’m right here, and most people locally are right here as nicely. And I believe that’s what makes Ethereum one of the best.

Presently, shopper funds are one of many largest points which are a precedence within the business, together with, for instance, Base (I wrote about it here). I don’t suppose that DeFi will substitute centralised banking within the coming years, however I believe that step-by-step, it is going to turn out to be extra handy and fashionable, the variety of customers will develop, and strategically, sooner or later, we may have some hybrid methods with the flexibility to fully abandon conventional centralised banking if mandatory.

I don’t suppose we are going to 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 be aware) considers Solana a safety. Secondly, the funds personal 12% of SOL (or extra, I don’t know the precise determine, however it’s a important drawback). Thirdly, if we speak concerning the traditional path to ETFs (as was the case with BTC and ETH), Solana nonetheless wants 2-3 years to go all the best way. 

As for different belongings, I believe that the cryptocurrency market has to turn out to be way more mature first, as a result of now all these memecoins and belongings with no that 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 might be and is already being actively utilized in RWA (Actual World Property). They’ll tokenise all the pieces they’ll with NFT. From actual property to gadgets in digital worlds and video games. I don’t know what’s going to occur to NFT monkeys.

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

I imagine it is rather necessary. So far as I do know, the state of affairs in Ukraine is just not superb. 

I would like to see us transfer quicker and have extra enthusiasm. If anybody desires to run Solidity programs, bear in mind that we are going to all the time help you. Come, let’s speak. 

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

Construct one thing that individuals want. Construct lifeless easy experiences. Create functions that individuals use, that’s all. They (plenty – creator’s be aware) will come to you. Sometime, freedom of speech will turn out to be a vital side, taking a look at what is going on on the planet now. So I believe that the demand for decentralisation, safety, and censorship resistance will develop.

This can be a very tough query. I believe there might be lots of functions that may go mainstream and customers is not going to even know that they’re Web3-based. I believe that in this time, the principle UX issues might be solved and we will discover killer use instances within the business. I believe we are going to see the identical mass adoption within the subsequent 10 years.

I’m eager on the ideas of decentralisation, censorship resistance, self-custody, and many others. I prefer to take away belief from the place it shouldn’t stay. I prefer to take away intermediaries and automate the circumstances in sensible contracts. I imagine that that is the longer term, and we’re shifting in the fitting route usually. I like being concerned on this, and I’m grateful for it. 

Individuals are additionally motivating. Such a focus of extremely sensible, open-minded individuals could be very incentive.