Building Web3 culture in Ukraine: Rostyslav Bortman’s mission

Sensible contracts. In 2016, my professor on the college got here to me and provided me a subject for my thesis – ‘Sensible 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 alternative 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 possibly can typically discover Ukrainian builders who construct cool issues in a crew, and that’s very cool. Nevertheless, we don’t see a large variety of Ukrainians growing merchandise that go mainstream. We nonetheless must work on this.

I feel 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 quite a lot of work to do on the tradition of constructing startups. Persons are centered on incomes cash and don’t wish to take dangers, specific 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 without doubt one of the handiest methods to indicate 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 international blockchain improvement with their merchandise.

In fact they’ll. The Web3 market is international, and it doesn’t matter during which nation it’s constructed. To start with, the product use case, UX, is vital. Anybody who makes a cool product that individuals want can compete on this market. 

‘Construct one thing individuals want. Construct a useless easy expertise,’ – Jesse Pollak.

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

It’s also 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 plenty of others. You possibly can see all our occasions right here – kyivethereum.com.

Lately, we organised ETHKyiv, which was attended by Vitalik (Buterin) and three different individuals of the Ethereum Basis (and plenty 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 consider that the technique of growing native communities around the globe is the best 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 every part 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, in actual fact, 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 crew that was concerned within the organisation.

Sadly, it turned out that he controls the ethkyiv.org area and social media, during 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 objective is to make use of the ETHKyiv title), as a result of he needs 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 consider that hackathons have a direct influence on the event of Ethereum in Ukraine, as a result of I feel that builders are the primary asset of the ecosystem. That’s the reason our most important mission is to onboard Ukrainian builders to Ethereum. As for conferences, I can’t reply as a result of my most important focus is on builders.

There was an unbelievable quantity of difficulties, however this may be a narrative for an hour. There have been quite a lot of issues with contractors and the quantity of coordination, communication, administration of all the main points, resembling 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 centered on growing shopper apps, which is the best factor to do, in my view, and I feel that’s Base is the place we’re going to see quite a lot 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 occurring in Ethereum each day that I merely don’t have sufficient time to comply with different ecosystems. 

Nevertheless, I feel that different blockchains are more likely 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 most people locally are right here as nicely. And I feel that’s what makes Ethereum the most effective.

At the moment, shopper funds are one of many largest points which can be a precedence within the trade, 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 feel that step-by-step, it’ll change into extra handy and widespread, the variety of customers will develop, and strategically, sooner or later, we may have some hybrid techniques with the power to fully abandon conventional centralised banking if crucial.

I don’t assume we’ll see a Solana ETF within the close to future. There are goal causes for this. 

Firstly, the SEC (US Securities and Change Fee – writer’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 important 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 property, I feel that the cryptocurrency market has to change into rather more mature first, as a result of now all these memecoins and property 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 normal that might be and is already being actively utilized in RWA (Actual World Property). They may tokenise every part 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 fee apps), cross-chain interoperability, GameFi.

I consider it is rather vital. So far as I do know, the state of affairs in Ukraine is just not excellent. 

I would like to see us transfer sooner and have extra enthusiasm. If anybody needs to run Solidity programs, keep in mind that we’ll at all times help you. Come, let’s discuss. 

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

Construct one thing that individuals want. Construct useless easy experiences. Create purposes that individuals use, that’s all. They (lots – writer’s observe) will come to you. Sometime, freedom of speech will change into an important facet, taking a look at what is occurring on the planet now. So I feel that the demand for decentralisation, safety, and censorship resistance will develop.

It is a very tough query. I feel there might be quite a lot of purposes that may go mainstream and customers is not going to even know that they’re Web3-based. I feel that in this time, the primary UX issues might be solved and we will discover killer use circumstances within the trade. I feel we’ll see the identical mass adoption within the subsequent 10 years.

I’m eager on the rules of decentralisation, censorship resistance, self-custody, and so forth. 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 consider that that is the long run, and we’re transferring in the best course on the whole. I like being concerned on this, and I’m grateful for it. 

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