☎ ENS Public Goods – Weekly Meeting: 12pm ET/5pm UTC, Thursday – Term 6

🏛️ Public Goods Meetings
69

1. Welcome ALL :sparkles:

  • Welcome to the weekly goods of public goods goodness!

2. Jam corner with the PG band aka @Sov

  • With Rage Against the Machine against the ETH haters! :metal:

3. Miscellaneous ENS updates of general interest

4. Fadhil joins with updates on Africa research

  • Research and Insights
  • Fadil received a grant from ENS to do research and support African builders
  • Went to Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, and plans to go to Ghana and Nigeria

Regulatory space

  • Engaging with regulators across African markets, including central banks, capital markets authorities, and parliaments
  • In Kenya, there’s a massive drive in web3 blockchain adoption
  • Kenya is taking the lead with the Virtual Assets Service Providers bill.
    • Similar bills are in progress in Rwanda and Ghana
    • These bills focus on centralized products like exchanges and custodial service providers, requiring licensing
  • They are exploring tokenization, stablecoins, and custodial solutions
  • Monthly workshops are held with regulators

Web3 Clubs

  • https://x.com/Web3Clubs
  • Ochi is a co-founder at Web3 clubs, which started in the early 2000s.
  • Web3Clubs runs a builder hub in East Africa with a physical presence in Nairobi.
  • They received a 50k grant from Near Protocol to build decentralized apps.
  • They’ve run cohorts on Solidity, Cairo, StarkNet, and L2s, and are now pivoting to a founder’s cohort.
  • Built the biggest Web3 community in the region, primarily developer and founder-focused.

5. Arno from the European Decentralisation Institute joins with info

  • Arno Laven is the founder of the European Decentralization Institute.
    • Think tank advocating for decentralization as a strategic foundation for Europe
  • The core statement is: “There is no digital sovereignty without decentralization.”
  • This will be discussed with policymakers and industry leaders around late September/early October in Brussels
  • A concern is that only approved issuers (qualified trust service providers) can issue verifiable credentials within the EUDI wallet.
  • These providers, like banks and universities, need approval, which introduces a level of centralization.
  • Citizen-controlled identities are still dependent on US/China platforms (Android/iOS).
  • Switzerland has an interesting privacy-preserving solution, but faced challenges with government-issued credentials.
  • Research will be done by a team that includes people with backgrounds in philosophy, policy, economics, sociology, and tech
  • Full Presentation: ENS - Digital Identity - Google Slides
  • Resources:

6. Aleph Hackathon presentation

  • Casimiento is a movement bringing Argentina onchain, focusing on startups and regulatory aspects.
  • They’ve passed a regulation allowing tokenization solutions.
  • Working on a V2 with the government and building a special economic zone in Argentina.
  • Joining the Onchain Festival, kicking off on August 25th.
  • Aim to host the biggest hackathon in Latam, requiring bounties and builders.
  • Plan to accelerate 15-25 startups per vertical, leading to a startup World Cup at DevConnect.
  • They want ENS to support the creation of subdomains for all participating builders to get on-chain metrics.

7. Open floor for all questions, proposals and other presentations etc

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