January Edition of the Crypto Altruists Newsletter

👋Hello, Crypto Altruists!

Happy 2026! At the beginning of each year, we like to take a moment to pause and look at where the space is coming from and where it's heading. Based on that, we've identified our 10 web3 impact trends for this year.

The general theme we're seeing is that there'll be less invention and much more integration: blockchain tools finding their way into organizations that already have trust, users, and real mandates. To us, this suggests that web3 is now fit to address real gaps, not just reinvent systems that were already functioning.

To go deeper, check out our full analysis. We'd love to hear what you think & look forward to seeing which of these trends hold up over the year & generate real impact. 💚

10 Web3 & Crypto for Good Trends to Watch in 2026

Explore the 10 key Web3 for good trends shaping 2026. From stablecoins as impact rails and institutional adoption to AI-assisted evaluation, public goods funding, climate MRV, and compliance-by-design, this guide breaks down how Web3 is becoming practical infrastructure for social and environmental impact.

And now, let's dive into our reflections from the past month. 👇

🌱 Featured: We're participating in Epoch 10!

After an incredible experience in Epoch 9, we were genuinely surprised (and proud) to be selected for Epoch 10, this time among "the best of the best" across Octant’s journey.

Epoch 10 brings together 24 teams building core Ethereum infrastructure, security, and public-good tooling, and we're certainly in great company with giants such as Protocol Guild, Tor Project, Solidity, and others also taking part. Needless to say, we are experiencing some serious Imposter Syndrome, and are so honored to be at the table! 💚

Over the past few years, we’ve focused on making Ethereum easier to understand and easier to use for people working on social and environmental challenges. Most of our work has been about sharing clear information, building useful resources, and supporting nonprofits and impact teams who are navigating this space for the first time. With support from Epoch 10, we'll keep expanding the Ethereum for Good Hub and improving onboarding for the impact economy.

If you’re holding GLM, the allocation window is open until Jan 20, and we’d be grateful to earn a portion of your allocation to help grow the movement! 🌱

💡 December impact spotlight

Ecosystem developments 🚀

• Stellar powers the world’s first onchain UBI rollout: The Marshall Islands is distributing universal basic income via a digital sovereign bond, sending funds straight to citizens’ mobile wallets.
• Save the Children launches first Bitcoin Fund: Partnering with Fortris, the organization will hold Bitcoin donations long-term and pilot crypto-based cash aid to execute faster and more transparently.
• GainForest examines community-led environmental certificates: GainForest’s review of its Bumicerts pilot highlights the limits of traditional impact certification and points toward lighter, community-driven ways to link local nature work with funding.
• MiniPay tops 12M wallets as everyday stablecoin use grows: Q4 growth was driven by virtual USD and EUR accounts, local payment rails, and rising use of stablecoins for salaries, remittances, and daily spending across emerging markets.
• Gitcoin Localism Fund shares early results from first funding rounds: Monty Bryant published an initial progress report outlining $275k mobilized for place-based grants, early allocations across local programs and meetups, and lessons from running locally led funding on Ethereum.
• Giveth publishes 2025 community recap: The year-end update reports over 395,000 donations and $1.41M directed to public goods.
• VIA and Stellar deliver cashless aid in Haiti: A six-month pilot will distribute over $200,000 in USDC to 325 mothers through smartphone-based, offline-capable cash assistance, reducing the risks and friction of cash aid delivery.
• Filecoin launches Constellation program to overhaul governance: The Filecoin Foundation unveiled a phased governance overhaul, including new onchain voting tools and a proposed veFIL model that gives long-term token holders more say over public goods funding.
• Hypercerts plans 2026 pilots linking impact data and funding: The foundation outlines how its open architecture will be used in practice, starting with real-world projects that connect documented impact to funding flows.
• Binance Charity allocates $245,000 for Sumatra flood relief: The donation combines emergency funding for the Indonesian Red Cross with direct crypto aid to affected families to speed up disaster response.
• Octant introduces StreamVote to support sustainable Ethereum development: Backed by 25ETH in seed funding from Octant, this ongoing experiment integrates Octant Vaults with a modular voting system to provide sustainable, community-driven funding for Ethereum's most impactful projects
• The Giving Block reaches $300M in crypto donations: Hot off Giving Season 2025, leading crypto philanthropy platform The Giving Block announced that they had passed $300M raised since the platforms launch in 2018.

Crypto Altruists content & updates 💚

• 🎙️ Crypto Altruists Episode 230: Bioregional Reforestation: Djimo Serodio (Silvi) and Jon Ruth (Climate Coordination Network) discuss how onchain funding and decentralized MRV are changing how reforestation is funded and verified.
• 🎙️ Crypto Altruists Episode 231: Ripple Impact: Eric van Miltenburg shares how Ripple is using stablecoins and blockchain infrastructure to turn a $25M RLUSD commitment into $1B+ in long-term impact across philanthropy, finance, and sustainability.
• 🎙️ Crypto Altruists Episode 232: Bread Cooperative: Joshua Dávila unpacks how Bread Coop is using community currencies, cooperative governance, and “solidarity primitives” to build worker-owned financial infrastructure beyond speculation.
• 🎙️ Crypto Altruists Episode 234 - Geo and The Graph: Legendary crypto builder Yaniv Tal (Co-Founder of The Graph) joins to explore how Geo is building a new, community-governed knowledge layer for the web.
• 📊 Octant v1 vs v2 infographic: A quick look at how Octant has evolved from a staking-rewards experiment into a mature Ethereum-native system for funding public goods
• 📝 Crypto Altruists 2025 Impact at a Glance: A one-pager showing how we spent 2025 building clearer stories, stronger partnerships, and more practical pathways for Web3 to create real social and environmental impact.

Insightful resources 📖

• Octant releases Web3 Grant Impact Handbook: In partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation, the handbook serves as a guide for funders and organizations navigating web3's complex, and often fragmented funding landscape.
• Ethereum’s 10 defining moments of 2025: Obol’s recap of Ethereum’s biggest milestones in 2025, spanning protocol upgrades, institutional adoption, staking, L2 scaling, stablecoins, and tokenization.
• Akshit from Epoch Protocol shares lessons from a $20k wallet hack: Helping a friend with a code review let malware slip onto his device and drain his hot wallets, a reminder that social engineering is still one of web3’s weakest points.
• Can crypto’s retroactive funding save the world’s forests?: Forbes explores whether retroactive public-goods funding from Ethereum ecosystems could reward real forest outcomes, not just conservation promises.
• Celo 2025 Year in Review: In his end-of-year letter, “While Crypto Talked, Celo Delivered,” Celo Co-Founder René Reinsberg reflects on Celo’s biggest milestones of 2025, including welcoming 5.2M+ new users, the rapid growth of MiniPay, and much more.

🌟 Project highlight: Web3ForGood

Kicking off the new year, we're excited to spotlight the Web3ForGood newsletter, a weekly Substack that has become a reliable signal for how web3 is shaping social and environmental impact work. 🌍

Launched four years ago, Web3ForGood offers a concise read on how emerging web3 tools are influencing areas like humanitarian finance, decentralized media, identity, governance, environmental stewardship, and digital infrastructure. Each edition (landing every Friday) looks at what web3 is enabling, where it’s falling short, and how shifts in the stack are translating into real institutional and community-level outcomes.

We wrapped up 2025 with our third annual Year in Review episode on the podcast with Sam and Abeera. The conversation included lots of zooming out, a few “oh wow” moments, and honest curiosity about where web3 is heading next.

We hope you enjoy the episode, and if Web3ForGood isn’t already in your inbox, it’s a pretty great Friday habit to pick up. 👇

💡 Bring web3 into your nonprofit's mission

Crypto Altruists works with nonprofits, foundations, and impact teams that want to understand if blockchain is useful for their work. We help with things like crypto donations, transparency tools, and practical web3 experiments.

Our consulting and workshops are hands on, clear, and tailored to your reality. Book a call if you want to explore what makes sense for your work. 🤝

📬 Stay connected

Subscribe to get Crypto Altruists content delivered directly to your inbox every month. If you'd like to share any feedback or ideas, you can always reach us at partnerships@cryptoaltruists.com & via the social media platforms below!

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See you in the next edition! 💚