Welcome back, Pilgrim. Here’s what’s happened in town since you’ve been away…
Welcome back to the Reformer Newsletter, where we can take a dive into various projects and activities from around web3 and across the Christian community. You have joined this network to contribute to our collective mission of building for Christ’s Kingdom, and we will use this newsletter as a platform to enable that.
Another week, another link in a chain of forced capitulations, derisking, and general silliness. It would be easy to get discouraged at this point. It also might be the best time we’ve seen to begin building. Those with long-term mindsets and and the resilience to weather the current environment. We’re all learning some hard lessons together, but we also are able to see at this point who is interested in the full potential of web3 technology and who was here for a quick deal, or worse.
I’m sure everyone in the space is tired of hearing “Build in the Bear” takes, so let’s not do one of those issues. Let’s talk about the basics. Let’s remind ourselves of what brought us here in the first place; the ideas, use cases, transformative possibilities that we saw in the web3 world. A favorite passage in reminds us this:
Say not, "Why were the former days better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.
Ecclesiastes 7:10-12
(Re)build wisely.
Around Web3
Steven McCaskell (Reformers founder) debuted his new podcast: check out this half-hour episode with Jake Klinvex, Director of Blockchain and Digital Assets at Mastercard. They talk about the centrality of trust, the state of the market and how they feel nonprofits specifically should approach the space.
Web3 Starter Pack: There is a ton of content linked here, lots of fun winding paths to head down.
David Phelps Explains “You Are Here:” If his name is familiar to Reformer readers, that’s because Phelps continues to churn out deeply thought and well-attested work in the theory end of the crypto world. This history lesson is encouraging, discouraging, and enlightening.
Green Eggs and Ham: Look, we joke about how massive some of these longreads are. Consider yourself forewarned. Read time: 90 minutes. Worth it? Oh yes. You don’t have to agree with Allen Farrington and Anders Larsen’s BTC-centric view of the space to value the sheer weight of clarity, careful thought and total refusal to succumb to hype they put on display.
Permissionless Ownership: Eliot Couvat’s excellent Substack drops another packed issue, this one discussing all of the unlocks that come along with the new ways to bend and harness web3 ownership of assets.
Around The Community
@isaachanekamp:
Thought folks here would find this cool. Got to visit this mining site yesterday on Panajachel, Guatemala where locals are encouraged to drop off their used cooking oil here rather than dumping it in the lake as usual. The team here is filtering and using the cooking oil to mine about $5 worth of BTC/day which doesn’t seem like a lot but could go a long way here and who knows how much that could be in the future. This community has been branded as “lake Bitcoin” because of a believer and missionary who came here to help the unbanked adopt Bitcoin and it’s having a massive impact on the community. I personally have only had to pay in fiat twice and the rest of my transactions have been in Bitcoin through the lightning network.
Also check out this branded Bitcoin water taxi that helps locals and tourists get around the lake.
The Reformers is a community of Christ followers who want to continuously explore new tools which can extend the reach of His Kingdom. If you want to lean in and support that mission, check out a Reformers NFT, become a patron of the community, get news and updates to start building with us, and help us run this race with endurance.