Ep. 42 Web3 Onboarding and UX Done Differently w. Ben Kurrek @ Keypom

Resources
Blog Post 'Nearcon: the Post Protocol Era' - https://thecryptospace.substack.com/p/nearcon-the-post-protocol-era-is
Nearcon 2023 Panel: DAOs and Collective Intelligence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2PpoZW47g&t=14431s
The Big V Value Thesis - https://x.com/DrNickA/status/1749062167188349052?s=20

'Why? The purpose of the Universe' by Dr Phillip Todd 

Factory DAO - https://www.factorydao.org

Follow on Socials
Dr. Nick - https://twitter.com/DrNickA
Factory DAO - https://twitter.com/FactDAO

AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

On this podcast we sit down with Boris Polania, from NEAR DevHub.

Some of the topics we cover are:
- Boris background: challenges as an entrepreneur and frustrating with the political class in Venezuela
- Complexity Science and DAOs
- DevHub role and initiatives to growing the NEAR ecosystem
- and more!

Resources - 
DevHub Home Base on BOS - https://near.social/devhub.near/widget/app

Follow on Social
Boris - https://twitter.com/HackBoing
NEAR DevHub - https://twitter.com/NEARDevHub

AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Jonathan and Edward are co-founders at Meteor Wallet, one of the main and rapidly growing wallet in NEAR ecosystem. Prior to founding Meteor, Jonathan joined Edward in NEAR Tinker Union, a rich NFT community focused on the technology, innovation and product.

Resources
Meteor Wallet Website - https://meteorwallet.app/
NEAR Tinker Union (NTU) Website (Stake) - https://tinkerunion.com/stake/
Buy NTU - https://www.tradeport.xyz/near/collection/tinkerunion_nft.enleap.near

Follow on Socials
Edward Twitter - https://twitter.com/r3ktdegen
Jonathan Twitter - https://twitter.com/web3hedge

Meteor Twitter - https://twitter.com/MeteorWallet
NEAR Tinker Union (NTU) - https://twitter.com/NearTinkerUnion

Bonus Special Episode: Cross-posting the first episode of the DevHub Unplugged Podcast, a new series produced by DevHub

Link to Original Podcast: https://youtu.be/Ke5c3GS5-KU

Subscrite to DevHub Unplugged:

DevHub Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@NEARDevHub
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/24Ns7EaHzEhMl8OQqrkomg
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/devhub-unplugged/id1720735707?uo=4
Google Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2Rldmh1Yi11bnBsdWdnZWQ=

Follow on Socials

DevHub - https://twitter.com/NEARDevHub
Vlad - https://twitter.com/Freol
Boris - https://twitter.com/HackBoing

Peter (CEO) and Jasper (CTO) are co-founders at SEDA Protocol, a base layer focused on interoperability. You may know them from Flux, their prior First Party Oracle protocol - Flux. On this pod, we waste no time and we go DEEP into the future of decentralised infrastructure and what would be required for mass adoption. The promise? Chain abstraction. ALPHA WARNING

Some of the things we cover include:
* Defining key terms such as blockchains (multiple), oracles and bridges using tons of useful and playful analogies.
* Challenges and shortcomings of the current oracles. Kingmakers or bottlenecks? Perhaps both
* SEDA's evolution: from a fancier cart and buggy to becoming a Ferrari. Rethinking interconnectivity and data availability
* Novel ways to monetise data: mind-melting Oracle Extractable Value [Alpha Warning]
* Other protocol features: how anyone can become a data provider, how to setup your own relay, how to launch products as modules, and more!
* Data. Chain abstraction. Rust. Rrrrrrrr
* and much more.

Resources
SEDA Website - https://www.seda.xyz/
Modular Blockchain Thesis (AltVMs)- https://x.com/jasperflux/status/1730193805507223654?s=20

Layer Zero - https://layerzero.network/

Follow on Socials

SEDA X - https://twitter.com/sedaprotocol
Peter X - https://twitter.com/realpeterjm
Jasper X - https://twitter.com/jasperflux 

David Weinstein is the current Chief of Staff at NEAR Foundation. 

Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation with David:

* David Background - from great intellectual input at a large financial firm to optimise tiny credit card margins to working at LinkedIn, Circle, and now NEAR Foundation
* Road to Self-Actualisation: where do classic philosophy meets modern day problems?
* Classical philosophy meets AI: what would Marcus Aurelius say?
* Death and Rebirth: the cycles of growth. 
* Hero's journey: the hero must come back home to share what he has learned. Illia as the hero coming back to NF? What has he learned as he returns home?
* And A LOT more

Resources 
NEAR AI Medium - https://medium.com/near-ai
Collective Intelligence Panel NEARCON 2023 - https://youtu.be/Cj2PpoZW47g

Follow on Social Media 
David - https://twitter.com/dw_stein

Wide ranging conversation with Peter, co-founder at NEARWEEK, the OG newsletter of the NEAR ecosystem.

Some of the topics we cover on this conversation include:

* How high levels of trust in government in Denmark have shaped the web3 landscape there.
* Role of adversity in hustle and ambition
* Getting things done
* NEAR ecosystem: evolution, challenges and opportunities.
* Branding
* and more!

Subscribe to NEARWEEK and claim weekly free cover NFT: https://subscribe.nearweek.com

Resources
Heroes Bounty Platform by NEARWEEK - https://www.heroes.build 
Illia new NEAR Foundation CEO - https://near.org/blog/enter-the-black-dragon-near-co-founder-joins-the-near-foundation-as-ceo

Follow on Social Media
NEARWEEK -https://twitter.com/NEARWEEK
Heroes - https://twitter.com/heroes_build
Peter - https://twitter.com/quadron3stat3

Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear

Erica Kang is the founder of KryptoSeoul,  a leading community building team in South Korea made up of professional communicators, marketers, and analysts.

Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation include:

* Origins of KryptoSeoul: transitioning from Korean Corporate world to crypto.
* Importance of Brand and Reputation: how to identify and filter out bad actors while building trust
* Korean Culture: what is meant for innovation, challenges for global cooperation and governance
* Barrier to Mass Adoption: lessons learned from 7 years collaborating with many ecosystems and projects
* Empire Building: expanding from South Korea into the rest of Asia and the world!
* Not Everything Can or Should Be Decentralised: the need for a strong vision and ability to execute efficiently
* and more!

Resources 
Asia Buidl - https://www.buidl.asia
@kryptoseoulofficial - http://kryptoseoul.com
ETH Seoul - https://2023.ethseoul.org/ 
Women in Web3 Change Makers Interview - https://youtu.be/SnqfeX4viRk

Follow on socials:

Erica - https://twitter.com/ekang426
KryptoSeoul - https://twitter.com/KryptoSeoul
KryptoPlanet - https://twitter.com/ericaplanet
BuidlAsia - https://twitter.com/buidl_asia
ETH Seoul - https://twitter.com/eth_seoul_

AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Kendall Cole is the founder and CEO at Proximity Labs, also known over time as the 'Defi Arm' of NEAR Ecosystem. 

On this wide ranging conversation with Kendall, you can actually hear the energy and the tone in the room change as time goes on. As we keep hitting him with quirky jokes, and asking genuine questions from every angle, Kendall finally starts to open up and share some top tier insights and alpha. Some of the topics discussed include:

• Unconventional Origins of NEAR Protocol. Unlike other web3 ecosystems, NEAR was birthed by a rare cohort of 'outsiders': big tech type, competitive programmers, and other giga brains. This has led to everything being reimagined and built from the ground up, which has presented some early challenges around implementation and communication: but could it be the secret for long term success?
• Origins and Evolution of Proximity: spanning across three stages we see Kendall's team solving the 'deep application layer', recruiting and enabling external teams to build on NEAR, and now putting al pieces in place to kickstart the BOS flywheel
• Beyond BOS as we know it. As Kendall touches on BOS, we finally get a glimpse of where this is all going. We aren't just the sidekick, a simple front-end. With the addition of remote accounts (coming soon) NEAR will be able to provide a unified user experience being a core access point to smoothly transact on any blockchain [Mind-melt alert!]
• NEAR Data Availability - we geek out on how L2s (optimistic rollups) work on Ethereum, the challenge of storing State, some of the emerging Data Availability solutions such as Celestia and Mantle. Then Kendall explains how NEAR has very cheap state which, inadvertently, is the best solution at the moment for all these L2s...
• MORE

Resources
Blockchain Operating System (BOS) - https://www.proximity.dev/BOS
Ignas Defi Interviews - The Endgame for NEAR Protocol, interview w. Kendall: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-endgame-for-near-protocol-an
Startup Chile - https://startupchile.org/en/

Coindesk - How AI, web3, and Humans can work together to solve global, complex problems https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/08/01/how-ai-web3-and-humans-can-work-together-to-solve-complex-global-problems/
Laura Shin Podcast w. Illia - When AI and Blockchain Meet, How Can Each Technology Benefit? https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/unchained/id1123922160?i=1000620761192

The Knowledge Project w. Shreyas Doshi: Better Teams, Better Products https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-knowledge-project-with-shane-parrish/id990149481?i=1000626771622

Modular Blockchains & Data Availability
Celestia - https://celestia.org/
Mantle - https://www.mantle.xyz/
Eigen Layer Data Availability (DA) - https://x.com/eigenlayer/status/1706349539169538241?s=20 

Follow on Social

Kendall - https://twitter.com/kendaIIc
Proximity Labs - https://twitter.com/proximityfi

AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Riqi is the co-founder of Paras, Arkana and Akoma and one of the five NEAR Community Treasury Trustees. This podcast was recorded in person, at the Paras HQ in Jakarta on September 4, 2023.

This is a wide ranging, wholesome, at time hilarious conversation where you can see Riqi and AVB become best friends in real time while talking about:

* The Origins of Paras: to elevate NFTs beyond digital art.
* The Origins of Akoma and why they had to rebrand from Paras Comics
* Growing Akoma into 100s thousands of users in Indonesia. Considerations when looking for a web3 ecosystem to deploy to transition that project.
* Best selling comics art on Akoma - local ghost stories! And plans for regional expansion.
* Insights on growing and scaling an organisation internationally from Indonesia - easier to hire engineers than marketing or BD?
* Paras approach to hiring and training engineers - bearish on fully remote.
* State of web3 - community, growth, challenges & opportunities.
* Introduction to Arkana: membership and rewards platform with 100s of thousands of users.
* Quirky business ideas - thinking outside of the box on fun, engaging consumer applications that can have mass appeal.
* Best explanation of technical concepts ('explain it to me like I'm six') such as Zero Balance accounts, Meta Transactions, and other NEAR Protocol primitives.
* And more...!

Resources 
Paras - OG Marketplace on NEAR: https://paras.id
Arkana - https://arkana.gg
Akoma - https://akoma.xyz

Follow on Socials
Riqi - https://twitter.com/hdriqi
Paras - https://twitter.com/ParasHQ
Arkana - https://twitter.com/ArkanaHQ
Akoma - https://twitter.com/AkomaLabs

AVB - https://twitter.com/avbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Wuipod is also available on all major podcasting platforms for streaming.