Keep BUIDLing

Note: Next week’s update will be sent on Wednesday, 5/26 instead of on the usual Tuesday schedule.

The last week was a wild one even for the high standards of cryptoland in 2021. Dog tokens. Elon. A sizable crypto market pull-back. 

But when a friend texted me asking how any of this affects the Geo Web project, the answer was simple: it doesn’t. 

The news is interesting, and there are always lessons to be learned (especially on the social/psychology/community front), but the noise hasn’t changed what we’re building or how we’re going about doing it in the slightest. 

The Geo Web is something that we have deep conviction about. We’re building for the long term based on deeply held values for public good and egalitarian opportunity. Short-term sentiment doesn’t factor in.

HODL is the term many crypto traders and investors use as a rallying cry for not selling (“hold”) in the face of negative news/dip/bear market (or ever really). BUIDL is the more useful (IMO) derivative rallying cry to keep building useful things despite the noise.

I’d like to think we’re good adherents to the BUIDL mentality. We’re not going to take shortcuts because of high highs or give up because of low lows. We don’t have impatient investors to appease or profit targets to hit. We’ve set it up that way to avoid bad incentives and stay focused on the mission. 

I don’t think we’re all that unique in the Ethereum ecosystem either. There are many that share our outlook. So while the market will move up, the market will move down, there will be outrage, and there will be fear, many projects will just keep BUIDLing. Our bet is those projects will be the ones to realize the world changing potential of the space.

On to the updates…

Technical

• We updated the Cadastre to use Ceramic v1 and the latest IDX & 3ID Connect tooling (https://github.com/Geo-Web-Project/cadastre/pull/39).This is a big step toward our mainnet! The v1 upgrade helps stabilize our content anchoring solution and will help make p2p content publishing seamless on the Geo Web. We’ve been excited about the possibilities with Ceramic (and 3Box Labs) for quite a while, so it’s awesome to see it coming together.
• We integrated WebXR into the Geo Web Spatial Browser (https://github.com/Geo-Web-Project/browser/pull/11). We’re getting close!
• The new (as in previously didn’t exist) Geo Web Docs site is growing quickly. If you’re new to the Geo Web or want to point someone to the one stop shop for onboarding, this is the place. Work on developer-focused documentation is underway. We’re excited to expand the onramp for users and contributors interested in the Geo Web.

Community

• Vitalik donated a whole bunch of money (nominally well over $1B) to charities and public goods last week (including to the multisig of Gitcoin which is near and dear to our hearts). Oh yeah… most of it came in the form of “dog” tokens. It’s a crazy story with too much to unpack here and now. If you’re a regular reader here, you’ll find it fascinating to take a deeper dive. The full story touches on unabashed speculation, public goods, legitimacy, community, and governance—basically all of crypto in one story arc. Links for further reading: Gitcoin community discussion about how to handle the donation & Vitalik’s follow-up mic drop.

On Deck

• Outdoor testing and code clean-up of the Spatial Browser
• Production authentication and performance enhancements for the Textile Hub & Buckets integration to the Cadastre (media content pinning/storage)
• Archiving Buckets automatically to Filecoin for backup
• More developer docs