July Edition of the Crypto Altruists Newsletter

Crypto Altruists

Crypto Altruists

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July Edition of the Crypto Altruists Newsletter

👋Hello, Crypto Altruists!

If you care about community ownership (and if you're reading this, you probably do!), you may have been watching the Ethereum ecosystem this month.

It's renegotiating where power lives, and it's doing it in public.

The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit that has stewarded Ethereum's development since the beginning, cut 20% of its staff and 40% of its budget in June.

From what we can tell, the EF is shrinking on purpose. It's narrowing its focus to core values like censorship resistance and privacy, and it wants to be one of many stewards of Ethereum, rather than its center.

The people who believed in the work it left behind are building independent homes for it. Nine senior people have departed since January, and some launched new organizations within days of leaving: Ethlabs for protocol research, Ethereum Institutional for banks and governments.

ENS is pulling in the opposite direction. ENS runs Ethereum's naming system (it's what turns a long wallet address into a readable name like yourname.eth), and it's governed by a DAO, a community of token holders who vote on decisions.

A proposal to move operations and treasury strategy from the DAO to the ENS Foundation set off weeks of conflict. Then, founder Nick Johnson used roughly half the active voting supply to veto the renewal of the DAO's own Security Council.

Five years of token voting produced delegate fatigue, low turnout, and a system where one wallet can override everyone else.

One institution is giving power away. Another is taking it back. Both in the same month, and both asking the question this whole space was built on: who can be trusted to hold power, and how much? 👀

No answers yet, but we're watching closely. And here are the other things we've been paying attention to this month. 👇

Remember last month when we said we were cooking up something with GoodDollar? Well, here it is. 🍳

This month, we launched Building for Good with G$, a new podcast series exploring the people, projects, and communities powering the GoodDollar ecosystem.

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GoodDollar has distributed its G$ token to about a million people around the world, and it's now evolving from a universal basic income protocol into a full economy, where G$ circulates through builders, communities, and public goods rather than just being handed out.

Episode 1 is live now. Drew sits down with the GoodDollar and Flow State teams to dig into the GoodBuilders program and its streaming funding model, where money flows to builders continuously instead of arriving as a one-time grant.

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More episodes are on the way. If you're curious how a token becomes an economy, this series is for you. 💚

Listen to Episode 1

💡 Impact spotlight

Standing With Those Delivering Life-Saving Care in Ukraine

As you may know from previous updates, over the last 6 months we've been working alongside an incredible team at the Alliance for Public Health (APH), one of the largest NGOs in Ukraine. They provide essential HIV/AIDS and other public health services, and run a network of mobile clinics that bring lifesaving care to people who would otherwise go without.

Lately, the news out of Ukraine has been devastating: near-nightly strikes, many of them hitting civilian infrastructure. In one recent case, an attack destroyed a Red Cross warehouse along with 320,000 humanitarian relief items and pieces of equipment.

With the situation growing more dire, we asked our friends at APH to share a few words about what they're facing on the ground, and how you can support their work through crypto and fiat donations.

As Russian missiles and drones tear through Ukrainian cities night after night, killing civilians and destroying the infrastructure whole communities depend on, the human cost runs far deeper than the headlines. Behind every strike are people: families displaced, veterans trying to rebuild their lives, communities cut off from basic care. The Alliance for Public Health (APH), one of Ukraine's largest NGOs with 25 years of frontline experience, is there when it matters most.

Since December 2022, APH's mobile clinics have reached over 500 remote frontline locations across five oblasts, often providing the only source of care for the people who live there. For veterans and civilians disabled by the war, APH's HAB Centre in Lviv, which is Ukraine's first inclusive habilitation facility, has helped more than 800 veterans regain their independence. The Touchpoint program gives Ukrainians who lost their sight in combat a path back to mobility, digital literacy, and dignity.

The need is urgent, and Ukraine's health system cannot wait. Your support can mean the difference between isolation and recovery, between a preventable death and a life saved.

Support APH today and help sustain lifesaving care for Ukrainian families and veterans. Every contribution matters and right now, donations made through Endaoment are eligible for matching funds through their Universal Impact Pool, so your impact goes even further.

💚 Donate now through Endaoment
🌍 Donate now through GlobalGiving

Ecosystem developments 🚀

Crypto Altruists content & updates 💚

Insightful resources 📖

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We recommend Web3forgood, a Friday newsletter spotlighting projects, insights, and people using web3 to drive real-world impact.
  • Ethereum Basics for Governments and Institutions: A non-technical primer from the Ethereum Foundation to help policymakers and institutional leaders understand how Ethereum works, how it's governed, and what sets it apart as neutral public infrastructure.
  • AI Systems as Digital Public Goods: A new UN University report on why so few AI systems truly qualify as digital public goods, and what needs to change in standards, accountability, financing, and equity to get there.
  • Why Ethereum Is Built to Be Used: A quick visual breakdown from growthepie on what makes Ethereum ready for everyday use. 👇

🌟 Project highlight: Ma Earth

If there's one question at the heart of what we care about, it's this: Can web3 get resources to the people doing good work on the ground? Ma Earth is one of the best answers we've seen lately.

Ma Earth is a collective funding platform for community-led regeneration. They connect land stewards, from regenerative farmers to forest conservationists to watershed restorers, with funding that would otherwise never reach them.

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Less than 1% of environmental philanthropy makes it to local communities directly. Ma Earth is trying to change that.

Right now, they're running Round 3, their biggest funding round yet: $1 million in matching funds for 150+ projects across 60+ countries, selected from over 800 applications. Donations are open through July 21.

The matching works through quadratic funding. The more individual supporters a project has, the more it receives from the pool, regardless of donation size. A $10 gift can unlock $30 to $50 in matching funds, and the platform takes zero fees.

One detail we appreciate: Ma Earth's first two rounds ran fully on crypto, and it was rough. The team spent hours walking farmers in Cameroon through wallets, seed phrases, and gas fees, and the most requested feature was simply credit cards.

So for Round 3, they built their own platform that accepts them. Behind the scenes, it still uses web3 infrastructure. Together with Hypercerts, they built an open data layer where each project's records, endorsements, and impact reports are owned by the project itself and can even travel to other funding platforms.

Definitely one to watch, and to support if you can. 🌱💸

Explore Ma Earth

💡 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. 🤝

🙏
If you appreciate our work and want to keep getting updates on Web3 and positive impact, please consider supporting us.

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See you in the next edition! 💚

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