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

In fact, among the many cool groups in Web3, you may typically discover Ukrainian builders who construct cool issues in a crew, and that’s very cool. Nevertheless, we don’t see an enormous variety of Ukrainians growing merchandise that go mainstream. We nonetheless must 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 a variety of work to do on the tradition of constructing startups. Persons are targeted on incomes cash and don’t need to take dangers, categorical no need to construct one thing of their very own, as a result of outsourcing supplies stability. 

My crew 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 among the handiest methods to point out builders that constructing your personal product is superior. It can take time for folks’s mindsets to vary, and for Ukrainians to begin influencing international blockchain growth with their merchandise.

In fact they will. The Web3 market is international, and it doesn’t matter through 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 lifeless easy expertise,’ – Jesse Pollak.

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

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

We’ve got been organising meetups since 2021. We’ve got already held about 25 completely different occasions. We’ve got collaborated with BNB Chain, Scroll, Diia training, and lots of others. You may see all our occasions right here – kyivethereum.com.

Not too long ago, we organised ETHKyiv, which was attended by Vitalik (Buterin) and three different folks of the Ethereum Basis (and lots of different visitors 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 battle.

I imagine that the technique of growing native communities all over the world is the proper 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 group. I alone can do little, however we’re doing the whole lot 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 crew, 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 crew that was concerned within the organisation.

Sadly, it turned out that he controls the ethkyiv.org area and social media, through which our crew 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 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 crew 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 unbelievable quantity of difficulties, however this is able to be a narrative for an hour. There have been a variety of issues with contractors and the quantity of coordination, communication, administration of all the main points, reminiscent of 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 proper factor to do, in my view, and I believe that’s Base is the place we’re going to see a variety of cool improvements in Web3.

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

Nevertheless, I believe 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 the general public locally are right here as effectively. And I believe that’s what makes Ethereum one of the best.

At present, shopper funds are one of many largest points which are a precedence within the business, together with, for instance, Base (I wrote about it right here). I don’t assume that DeFi will substitute centralised banking within the coming years, however I believe that step-by-step, it would grow to be extra handy and fashionable, the variety of customers will develop, and strategically, sooner or later, we could have some hybrid techniques with the power to fully abandon conventional centralised banking if mandatory.

I don’t assume 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 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 best way. 

As for different belongings, I believe that the cryptocurrency market has to grow to be far 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 anyplace, however not the NFTs that everybody has heard about in 2021. NFT is a token normal that will likely be and is already being actively utilized in RWA (Actual World Belongings). They may tokenise the whole lot they will with NFT. From actual property to objects 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 imagine it is vitally vital. So far as I do know, the state of affairs in Ukraine just isn’t 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’ll all the time help 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 believe we should always transfer on this route – I’ve already texted to a number of of my associates on this matter.

Construct one thing that folks want. Construct lifeless 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 side, 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 will likely be a variety of purposes 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 will likely be solved and we can discover killer use circumstances within the business. I believe we are going to see the identical mass adoption within the subsequent 10 years.

I’m eager on the rules of decentralisation, censorship resistance, self-custody, and so on. I wish to take away belief from the place it shouldn’t stay. I wish to take away intermediaries and automate the circumstances in good contracts. I imagine that that is the longer term, and we’re transferring in the proper route on the whole. I like being concerned on this, and I’m grateful for it. 

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