Belonging in Web3: Mayeli on Community, Inclusion, and Human‑First Events
@MayeliAmore with Funding the Commons at Berlin Blockchain Week on belonging, public goods, and why Web3 needs more than just devs. It’s a candid, practical guide to inclusive community-building and real-world impact.
Path to crypto: Mayeli’s story speaks to women, LATAM, and LGBTQ+ folks who feel “not technical enough.” Show up, join a DAO, ask Qs, ship at hackathons—and find peers who translate the jargon. Includes her Devcon “first night → hackathon win” story.
Hot takes inside: AI × blockchain (agent era needs human-first UX), DePIN (weather, connectivity—think WeatherXM—where tokens align users + infra), and RWAs (tokenization beyond the hype). How clear design + language unlock actual adoption.
Funding the Commons is evolving → an incubator-style pipeline for public-goods projects—bridging community, builders, and partners. If you’ve ever felt like a “muggle” in crypto, this convo gives you next steps.
Watch & share!
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Lost the cypherpunk plot?
We sat down with Kirill Pimenov (@kirushik) at the Decentralized Media Summit (@DeMediaSummit) during Berlin Blockchain Week to ask: Has crypto been captured by VCs and convenience? “Early adopters weren’t chasing price. They were chasing deeper ideals.”
Bitcoin ≠ private. Kirill breaks down why pseudonymity isn’t privacy—and how that misunderstanding fuels surveillance on transparent chains.
“Tech is political. Cryptography reallocates power with math.” If that’s true, are we comfortable with who benefits from today’s crypto UX defaults?
Messaging ≠ money. Privacy needs differ between comms and payments—and Telegram ≠ private by default. Kirill maps threat models without fanboyism.
Outside the money box: “Not everything is GDP.” Reputation, coordination, and weird experiments deserve ZK tools too—libraries, protests, communities.
Hardware that won’t narc: Kirill demos Kampala—an air-gapped, radio-silent, NFC-powered e-paper wallet with clear-signing goals for EVM.
“Cost of experiments is falling.” Let’s use blockchains for global consensus beyond balances—governance, identity, and coordination (with privacy by design).
Did VCs win—or do we keep blockchain weird?
Jump into the full convo with Kirill Pimenov and tell us where you stand.
Watch & reply:
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Whistleblowers + journalists need credibility and anonymity.
Privacy UX isn’t a nice-to-have—it decides whether ZK lands with real users. At ZK Hack during Berlin Blockchain Week 2025, Dana discusses a ZK whistleblowing app, the UX tradeoffs, and where privacy goes next. 
This prototype enables:
• org attestations via ZK-email
• on-chain, time-stamped signals
• public feed now, private forums on the roadmap
Client-side proving takes ~28–30s today
ZKVerify for verification
Deployed on Arbitrum testnet at the hackathon
Beyond whistleblowing: private credit proofs, institutional transfers, DeFi privacy pools, and agent execution without strategy leakage.
If you’re a journalist, researcher, or grants team contact Dana to collaborate.
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AI x Privacy x Intents
At Funding the Commons during Berlin Blockchain Week, @squirrel sat down with NEAR Protocol’s Shai Perednik + Guille on Shade Agents, Chain Signatures, and private cross-chain UX.
What are “intents”? You state an outcome (e.g., “swap ZEC → NEAR”) and a solver network fulfills it—abstracting bridges, hops, and quotes into one flow. Feels like magic; it’s Pub/Sub + on-chain settlement.
Shade Agents = autonomous, verifiable agents that can hold/control assets across chains by combining TEEs with NEAR’s Chain Signatures. Backbone for private payments + automated swaps.
Follow ZecHub and try CrossPay: install Zashi and click the Pay button to convert into shielded ZEC, then make private cross-chain payments via NEAR Intents.
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