Building Web3 culture in Ukraine: Rostyslav Bortman’s mission

Sensible contracts. In 2016, my professor on the college got here to me and supplied 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 utterly 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 a great basis that may go mainstream and have a direct affect 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. Nonetheless, we don’t see a large 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 biggest hackathon in Ukraine, I can say that we nonetheless have a variety of work to do on the tradition of constructing startups. Individuals 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 likely one of the simplest methods to point out builders that constructing your personal product is superior. It is going to take time for individuals’s mindsets to vary, and for Ukrainians to start out influencing world blockchain growth with their merchandise.

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

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

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

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

Just lately, we organised ETHKyiv, which was attended by Vitalik (Buterin) and three different individuals 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 struggle.

I imagine that the technique of growing native communities around the globe is the suitable one, as a result of solely native leaders, not the worldwide Basis, can have the best affect on individuals from particular nations.

The position and affect relies upon not on me, however on the group. I alone can do little, however we’re doing all the things 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 truth, 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, wherein 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 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 affect 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 primary mission is to onboard Ukrainian builders to Ethereum. As for conferences, I can’t reply as a result of my primary 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 small print, 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 affect 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 client apps, which is the suitable 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 arduous for me to consider that. There are such a lot of new and attention-grabbing issues occurring in Ethereum every single day that I merely don’t have sufficient time to observe different ecosystems. 

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

Presently, client funds are one of many greatest points which might be a precedence within the business, together with, for instance, Base (I wrote about it here). I don’t assume that DeFi will change centralised banking within the coming years, however I believe that step-by-step, it should develop into extra handy and standard, the variety of customers will develop, and strategically, sooner or later, we may have some hybrid techniques with the flexibility to utterly abandon conventional centralised banking if essential.

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 Alternate Fee – creator’s be aware) 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 way in which. 

As for different belongings, I believe that the cryptocurrency market has to develop into far more mature first, as a result of now all these memecoins and belongings with no which 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 might be and is already being actively utilized in RWA (Actual World Belongings). They’ll tokenise all the things they’ll 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, client apps (together with fee apps), cross-chain interoperability, GameFi.

I imagine it is extremely necessary. So far as I do know, the scenario in Ukraine will not be excellent. 

I would love to see us transfer quicker and have extra enthusiasm. If anybody desires to run Solidity programs, bear in mind that we are going to all the time 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 believe we should always transfer on this course – I’ve already texted to a number of of my buddies on this subject.

Construct one thing that individuals want. Construct lifeless easy experiences. Create functions that individuals use, that’s all. They (plenty – creator’s be aware) will come to you. Sometime, freedom of speech will develop into an important side, what is going on on the earth now. So I believe that the demand for decentralisation, safety, and censorship resistance will develop.

It is a very troublesome query. I believe there might be a variety of functions that may go mainstream and customers won’t even know that they’re Web3-based. I believe that in this time, the principle UX issues might 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 long run, and we’re shifting in the suitable course generally. I like being concerned on this, and I’m grateful for it. 

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