Anyone who has had the opportunity to attend an event dedicated to blockchain development, whether it be a larger conference like Bitconf or a smaller gathering like the HBX and Coinbase pop-up in NYC, knows how exciting it is to be in person with coworkers and peers. Sometimes in the blockchain development space, our closest friends and coworkers can seemingly be nothing more than a small avatar and a pseudonym on Discord or Telegram. When I tell people who don’t work in the Web3 space that most of my coworkers are either wholly anonymous or pseudo-anonymous, I am often posed the question, “How can you even trust them? Isn’t that super sketchy?” and honestly, I trust some of my anonymous coworkers and friends more than I can trust people I have met on the streets. The fantastic part is that this sentiment and mood is ubiquitously replicated in almost all corners of this ecosystem. How can we do that you might ask? The answer is: it takes a Trustless Village backed by a trustless, permissionless economy.
The Trustless Village
What makes Blockchain technology and the community around it so special is its ability to eliminate potentially corruptible agents through smart contracts; all we can do is trust people (and review the smart contracts that we are signing). The beauty of this ecosystem, unlike traditional finance, is that I really don’t have to know anything about you personally to trust you一and quite frankly, I don’t need to. All that matters is the code, work, and contracts for a relationship to be successful in this space, and to me, that is beautiful. I don't believe in this “don't trust anyone” speech. If anything, Blockchain tech has made me even MORE trusting of the communities and people around me working in the space. Even when I see clashes between communities and projects as they communicate and try to figure out what it means to exist within the ecosystem, I think it's all wonderful, even if it’s somewhat uncontrollable and chaotic.
Of course we as a broader community will encounter growing pains and have missteps along the way that sometimes can weaken that trust as a whole community. However, I have noticed that people operating in Web3 are some of the most resilient people. Through all the turbulence, we often come out stronger on the other side.
ShapeShifting into the “Real World”
Over the past couple of years, several Blockchain “thought hubs” have emerged from all parts of the world. From Denver, Colorado, to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, our ShapeShifting community has been there every step of the way, promoting the ideas of mass inclusion and adoption of Web3 technology through permissionless, borderless DeFi.
As much as we love working in a decentralized manner, in-person centralized events allow us to bring this somewhat abstract idea of a Trustless Village truly to life. Not only can we talk about business, partnerships, and integrations, but we can reinforce the ethos and community within our decentralized Trustless Village to people who are new to the space or just experiencing it for the first time.
These in-person events are critical for adding positive momentum toward mass adoption of Blockchain technology and set the standard for how to behave and interact within this space. These events are not organized by smart contracts but by people. This element of human contact and humanity is crucial to scalability and sustainability. After all, we are all human一not just strings of code一we have needs for social interaction and breaks to prevent burnout. Balancing this concept of human interaction and humanity with the strings of immutable code that our Web3 ecosystem is built upon is an arduous task, and events strive to solve the problem by promoting true technological immersions.
It Takes a Village
The best part about this Trustless Global Village, is that it takes a village and a thriving community for it to work. No one person can do everything, and we often find ourselves once again relying on our peers to pick up where we leave off and do what we often cannot. For example, ShapeShift DAO does this by offering community bounties in addition to our open governance process where any person holding a $FOX token can participate.
All Chains, all protocols, all wallets. Share our vision at app.shapeshift.com
Additional Resources
https://medium.com/@ShapeShift.com