International Media Nodes Are Creating a Global Bankless Movement | BanklessDAO Weekly Rollup
Catch Up With What Happened This Week in BanklessDAO
Dear Bankless Nation 🏴,
April is here and, in the northern hemisphere, we’re well into the beginning of the spring season. Spring represents a time where life digs in and gets to work, starting to thrive as the world begins to warm. Anticipation for Season 4 is growing, and there are many ideas emerging that will set the DAO up for success.
DeFi options for the BANK token are expanding, giving hodlers further ability to capitalize on their ownership. A new podcast has launched, Bankless Africa is dropping carbon collectible NFTs, and the International Media Nodes project has shared THE blueprint for further growth around the globe.
This week, an investment report focusing on BanklessDAO dropped, providing invaluable insights that will help us guide the DAO forward. Commissioned by bDAO member Matterhorn, the report is very BULLISH. Thanks Matterhorn! Give it a read and soak in all that we have done and will do!
Contributors: theconfusedcoin, AustinFoss, Trewkat, d0wnlore, siddhearta, hirokennelly.eth, Ornella
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🙏 Sponsored by CitaDAO
🗓 Weekly Recap
BanklessDAO Weekly NFT Showcase 🔥
🧑🎨 Artist: Cyoot
🏦 Auction Type: Limited Open Edition, 50 total
💰 Price: 0.025 ETH
“A collection of 50 images inspired by BanklessDAO, its guilds and its members. Collection created in collaboration with BanklessDAO and the NFT Showcase.”
Community Highlights
🧥 MetaFactory Merch
This week's merch drop from the MetaFactory is a hilarious head-turner of a t-shirt. “... we're bringing back the Bank Parodies so you can flex whenever you deposit your fiat or need to go get something notarized (or whatever people do at banks.)” Get on it, as these are only available until April 8. 👀
🚀 The Rug
After six issues, Volume #1 of The Rug is concluding. The final edition is now available to mint for 0.04 ETH. The Rug is a great example of a revenue-generating project for the DAO and its contributors. Thank you to the team for the excellent delivery of Volume #1 and we look forward to reading #2, rumored to be a bit spicier. Considering the headline for this issue, that’s saying something. Stay tuned.
What’s New
🎯 bDAO Investment Report
Stephen Xi has published a tremendously detailed breakdown of BanklessDAO’s past, present, and potential future. Covering everything from our history to our operations, our challenges to our opportunities, this analysis is mandatory reading. While essential for the GSE and Grants Committee, every bDAO member can benefit from reading this well-written report.
📈 New BANK Tokenomics
BANK had a lot of tokenomic utility added this week, starting with the migration of all DAO-owned liquidity to Uniswap v3. Uniswap V3 is open to anyone who wants help to provide liquidity for the BANK token. To help smooth out the Uniswap v3 experience, bDAO has also launched a Gelato G-Uni pool to abstract away the price management to make sure you’re getting the most out of the trading fees.
Having this pool in place unlocked a BANK Rari Fuse pool by providing it with a price oracle, opening up the ability for everyone to borrow stablecoins against BANK, or lend stables out to our community.
✍️ BanklessDAO on Medium
🎸 Degen Blues NFT Project
Degen Blues is a musical NFT project composed and synthesized entirely by code. On-chain Ethereum price data is algorithmically translated into musical notes, with the chord and scale chosen based on the market direction and volatility. Check out our BanklessDAO Twitter for a chance to win one of these special editions. Any L1 or above can enter to win a Degen Blues NFT in the #giveaways channel in the Member Perks section. The contest is open until Tuesday, April 5, at 23:59 UTC.
🎙 New Podcast: Bounty Hunter Launches from the Podcast Hatchery
Bounty Hunter is a podcast about what it’s like to work in Web3 and DAOs. Join us weekly as serial entrepreneur Brandon Nolte interviews community builders, DAO contributors, and the best innovators in Web3. The podcast is launching on April 7 with three episodes (including one with BanklessDAO's own Samanthaj!). A teaser is already live on their website, giving you a taste of what’s to come!
Get Involved
🌳 A New Era for Africa, a New Era for Bankless DAO: Carbon Collectible NFTs Are Bringing Equity and Inclusion to Climate Finance
There is great work happening at Bankless Africa! If you have not yet heard of the Carbon Collectible NFT project, now is a great time to learn more about this initiative. We are looking for more contributors to help develop and execute our marketing and sales program. If you have creative marketing skills and the time to make a difference in the lives of others, then please contact info@ccNFTs.io for more information or join #carbon-collectible-NFTs thread in #workgroups in the Bankless Africa Discord Category.
Many of the world’s old-growth forest communities are prevented from participating directly in the current large-scale solutions to climate change. This is mainly due to narrow traditional carbon offset parameters which exclude mature forests, instead favouring reforestation projects — known as ‘additional’ forests. The issues are often compounded by the high cost of intermediaries and the transfer of land ownership rights to corporations. As a result, some low-income communities in Africa resort to illegal deforestation and starting bushfires to convert their mature forest into farmland, so they can feed their families.
Carbon Collectible NFTs are designed to right this wrong and provide equal access to forestry revenue.
The idea is simple: help Avatime, a low-income community in the Volta Region of Ghana, to create value while maintaining ownership in the mature natural resources of their land. The current model of corporate resource extraction and depletion just isn’t working for folks in local communities, nor for the planet at large.
We want to change that through Carbon Collectible NFTs: to reward these communities for actions which nurture and protect their precious forest, to remove exclusive and expensive intermediaries who may never even visit the area, and to empower caring citizens from around the globe to contribute in a way that directly supports the community and the planet.
Next steps
Our focus is now on marketing and sales, in collaboration with Polygon Studios. You can help!
If you have creative marketing skills and the time to make a difference in the lives of others, then please contact info@ccNFTs.io for more information or join #carbon-collectible-NFTs in the Bankless Africa Discord Category.
We encourage you to watch and share our short video: Introducing Carbon Collectible NFTs
Check out the longer video too: A New Era for Africa, Carbon Collectible NFTs Project Interview
To join our waitlist or obtain more information about how we use Web3 tools to disrupt the carbon offset industry, visit our website at http://ccNFTs.io.
🧰 Fight Club Education Webinar
The Fight Club Education Webinar Series is hosting a fireside chat: ‘How do VCs add value to their portfolio?’ with some great panelists:
Mark Hauser (F10 Accelerator)
Lior Goldenberg (Head of Platform at Collider.VC)
Carolina Küng (VP Head of Platform & Community at Bessemer Venture Partners)
Kevin Monserrat (DeepTech Seed Capital and Acceleration)
Where: Twitter Spaces hosted by Fight Club VC (event details here)
When: Friday, April 8, 2022 at 11:00 PST (18:00 UTC)
🙏 Sponsor: CitaDAO - Marketplace for Tokenized Real Estate
International Media Nodes Are Creating a Global Bankless Movement
Author: theconfusedcoin
The beauty of crypto is that it knows no borders and its value isn’t defined by geography. This is what makes it a truly global phenomenon. BanklessDAO’s stated mission is to create user-friendly onramps to crypto, which involves communication with people from multiple regions in many different languages. The International Media Nodes (IMN) work to spread the Bankless message effectively to all parts of the world, because the impact is strongest when it’s communicated in the language of each community.
The Birth of the IMN Project
The Translators Guild was originally set up to translate bDAO newsletters and content into different languages. The guild got off to a great start with contributors from many countries volunteering to translate bDAO content. However, the engagement this content received was low. Most people engaging with the content were English speakers and bDAO members and there was no effective way to reach wider audiences without using significant resources.
In order to ensure the translated content was reaching the right people, a plan was hatched to first build an audience within a region and then start circulating content. A proposal was written for the formation of International Media Nodes and how they could, with the support of bDAO, build a community and produce content relevant to their region in their native language.
What Is the IMN Project and Why Is It Important?
The IMN project focuses on creating language or region-specific nodes to spread the Bankless message and educate people about crypto and Web3 in a language native to that region.
Currently, the world’s primary language of communication is English. Only 5% of the world’s population are native English speakers and roughly 15% speak English on some level, yet most crypto innovation occurs in these regions. One of the key reasons for this imbalance is the fantastic content and opportunities available to English speakers. Crypto was founded to be a technology that doesn’t discriminate so we must address this divide.
Argentina, India, Nigeria and Philippines have some of the largest per capita users of crypto but still we barely see any innovation coming from there. There are many reasons, but the language barrier is one of the biggest ones! Due to limited opportunities available in their native languages, people from these countries remain users rather than builders. At BanklessDAO, through the IMN project, we have the opportunity and the platform to spread awareness, create content and build communities in languages understood by the remaining 85% of the world. This is our chance to do it right and focus on diversity and inclusion.
How Do You Start a Node?
The IMN project has made the process of starting a new media node very simple. It involves four basic steps:
Step 1
Explain the core concepts of the Bankless message via a newsletter, blog post, or video which is produced in the native language .
Once this is done, social channels can be set up and ongoing posts promoting the Bankless movement can be written and shared.
Step 2
Each node will elect a champion who serves as the point of contact between bDAO and the node. In order to receive funding from the IMN project, the node has to fulfill certain KPIs. The champion is responsible for updating the progress made towards fulfilling these KPIs on a monthly basis.
The KPIs are based on the amount and quality of content the node produces, increase in followers and subscribers, and some other growth factors. Read the full breakdown of the KPIs here.
Achievement of each KPI unlocks a monetary reward. The idea is to incentivise the node to produce content that helps kick-start its journey, and to enable the node to become self-sufficient in the future by assisting them with sponsorship opportunities and grants.
Step 3
Once social media channels are set up and the node has gained a few followers and subscribers, engagement with the community is essential. Content promoting the Bankless ideals and simplifying concepts like the metaverse, ETH as ultrasound money, and NFTs should be published regularly. Relevant newsletters published by BanklessDAO can be translated into native languages.
Step 4
Once a regular stream of content and a decent subscriber base is built, the node can focus on developing content specific to their region. Area-specific content can be curated to make the channel a hub where locals go for accurate information. The content should always align to the Bankless mission and values. In order to further expand reach and strength, the node can apply to become an official Bankless Media Node with the aid of a Forum post.
Bankless Africa conducting a Twitter space to discuss Web3 growth specific to Africa.
Bankless Brasil, Bankless Africa and Bankless Sweden are some nodes that have seen tremendous growth and success.
How Are the Nodes Run?
Nodes run independently and have the freedom to produce content relevant to their region as long as it's aligned with the Bankless values. New member onboarding procedures, contributor selection, role holder remuneration and bounties are also left to the node's discretion. The IMN project works as a guide to the node and advises them on ways it can grow community and develop content.
Bankless Hindi, a node of Bankless South Asia, publishes their own version of the Weekly Rollup.
Are IMNs SubDAOs?
Initially, the IMN project created nodes for around 14 languages. The nodes were given autonomy on deciding who the contributors were and what content they could produce as long as it was aligned to the Bankless message. As the nodes materialized, the members realized that the audience they were engaging with wanted a space to hang out, exchange ideas, or just talk about crypto. To have such interactions within the already chaotic bDAO Discord was impossible.
This led to the transformation of some nodes into subDAOs. Bankless South Asia (SA) was one such node. Initially started as a node focussing only on the Hindi language, members soon realised that within countries speaking Hindi (India, Pakistan) there are multiple other languages like Marathi, Urdu and Malayalam spoken as well. To involve these communities as well, Bankless Hindi transformed into a subDAO: BanklessSA, under which multiple language nodes, specific to that region were started.
They then created their own Discord servers and started building a community outside of bDAO. This worked wonders for the growth of each node as they started onboarding people in their own language. The newly inducted subDAO members are introduced to bDAO and some have become regular contributors in bDAO.
It is not compulsory for all nodes to function as subDAOs. They can initially start as nodes and then progress to the subDAO structure once the node sees some growth and traction.
Who Can Participate?
The opportunity to start a node is available to everybody. The only prerequisite is that you should speak the language native to the IMN you want to start!
Long-term Vision of the IMN Project
The IMN project has grown substantially. At the moment there are 16 fully functional IMNs publishing content in numerous languages. Some of these nodes have become subDAOs and are producing their own newsletters, podcasts, and are engaging with local crypto influencers, further establishing the BanklessDAO brand. The goal for the project is to create multiple nodes that can go on and become subDAOs with over one hundred active contributors consistently producing content and spreading the Bankless message.
Another goal is to provide this service to other DAOs who are looking to increase their presence in multiple regions. DAOs are now approaching the IMN project to set up similar nodes for them so their products can also have a wide reach. The ultimate vision for the project is to become an incubator for multilingual subDAOs across the crypto space.
How Can Members of bDAO Help?
Translating is only one facet of building a node. Managing and engaging communities is something most projects struggle with. The IMN is looking for contributors with experience in this space who can guide the various nodes on how to manage their communities. Imagine all the guilds that bDAO has today; multilingual replicas of all these guilds can be built in each of these subDAOs to serve the subDAO as well as other crypto projects relevant to the local market!
Apart from that, if you speak a language for which a node hasn’t been created and you feel that you can effectively produce content in that language or if you see a language node has already been created and want to contribute to that node, reach out to @jengajojo. He will guide you on how to get started.
The IMN Project meets on Thursdays at 12.00 pm UTC, so hop into their meetings to learn what’s going on and see if there are ways in which you can contribute to spreading the Bankless message to infinity and beyond!
🎣 Phishing School
Authors: d0wnlore and the InfoSec Team
All About Backups
March 31, 2022 was World Backup Day, a special occasion I just discovered in the past week. Whether you look upon such days as just vehicles for corporations to shill their products, or beneficial ways of attracting attention to an important topic, I want to build upon that momentum to share some ideas about backups this week.
Having backups of things important to you will help preserve some continuity in your life if you lose access to the originals.
Two is One, One is None
If there is anything you should take away from this week’s Phishing School, it is the following mantra: Two is One, One is None.
In terms of the risk of loss, just having the thing itself is equivalent to not having it at all. Having two copies (the original and one backup) of something that is important to you should be the bare minimum.
Having additional backups can also help. But like all topics we have discussed so far, you need to strike a balance between convenience and security and apply the right solution to meet your specific goals.
Backups Are More Than Copying Files
The younger you are, the more likely you are to think of backups as copies of other files on your electronic devices or online services, such as your digital music collection, photo albums, and chat history. If you are older you may have made backups of important physical media, such as converting your music CDs into MP3s, scanning physical photos for your digital photo albums, or making physical copies of letters you received.
Many things across the digital and physical landscapes can and should be backed up. Let’s start with things you are likely to use in your crypto/DAO life:
Recovery/seed phrases, with the HUGE caveat that these should not be backed up digitally if your private keys were generated by a hardware wallet. In those cases, a popular method is imprinting those phrases on a durable material, such as steel, and storing them in a secure location.
Access to your online services that use multi/two-factor authentication (MFA/2FA). Did you store the backup/recovery codes the online service gave you to use in case you can’t generate a MFA code? Do you have a dependable backup of your MFA secret keys so you can restore them on another device if you lose your main one?
Can you depend on the online services you use, such as Google Drive or Dropbox, not to lock you out of your important files if their bot/fraud detection algorithms misfire? Or if you completely wipe important data from these services by accident, it will often be on you to have had backups of the data and not the service provider.
Finally, here are some things that you should have a backup for that may not intuitively come to mind.
Cables: can you trust your one and only video/charging/data-transfer cable to consistently work, year after year?
Chat history: depending on your threat model, you may not want to preserve any history of your chats with others, while others may want to keep backups for sentimental reasons.
Keys and keycards: don’t necessarily make copies of these physically, as that may blur the lines of legality for some situations. But do have a backup plan in case you lose these, such as someone you can reach out to that is allowed to have copies of these and can let you into places when needed.
Take these ideas and use them to identify areas in your own life where you are missing backups.
🏛 Governance
Proposals in Discussion
📱 SubDAO Projects: Experimental Model
Long-term projects are hard, and take time to develop revenue and find product-market fit (e.g. AWS and many others). As subDAOs continue to develop throughout the DAO, some of the challenges subDAOs have are operations within and alignment with BanklessDAO, and long-term funding. This proposal is an attempt to solve all three challenges by creating an additional funding path that allows continued work and operational independence while also creating value accrual and alignment with the DAO.
🎨 Bankless.se ArtxTech NFT Event Partnership
Together with the students of Stockholm’s School of Economics (SSE), Bankless.se hosted ART x TECH - Future of Art. The three-day event started with lectures but ended in a Grand Finalé at the brilliant Fotografiska Museum 1 with the launch of Sweden’s first ever NFT exhibition, both live and in the metaverse. The event was a massive success, and it’s now considered one of the best live crypto events ever held in Sweden. In this proposal, the Swedish IMN is seeking retroactive funding for co-hosting the Art x Tech NFT Event.
✅ Season 4 Community Vote
Feedback on the Season 4 Community Vote is live until April 5, giving you the chance to weigh in on seventeen polls! Some standouts are membership thresholds, whether or not the above-mentioned Gelato G-Uni tokens can be used towards your membership, Season 4’s duration, Coordinape rounds, and the hourly compensation rate.
In addition to the Community Vote, please pay attention to the relevant Season 4 dates:
Season 4 Spec on the Forum for April 7-8
Budget submissions by: April 19
Spec on Snapshot: April 21
Season 4 Distribution + Announcement + Twitter Spaces: April 28
💰 Treasury Stake ETH for rETH
In more tokenomics news, this proposal is aimed at creating low-risk staking income. According to the proposal, “We currently have 34.45 ETH in our treasury that could be passively generating low-risk yield via securing the ETH PoS network using Rocket Pool’s protocol.” This proposal calls for bDAO to stake 10 ETH with Rocket Pool.
💳 Bankless Card [DRAFT 1]
Want to earn some extra BANK? The BanklessCard is being pitched as a “debit card for DAO contributors, built by DAO contributors. Unlike cards from Coinbase and Crypto.com, fees earned from using BanklessCard go back to the community. It’s the first step a crypto newbie can take to going Bankless, or the first time a DAO veteran can seamlessly spend their ETH while supporting their favorite DAO.”
✅ Action Items
✍️ Take a survey on Web3 governance.
📖 Action: Participate in the Community Vote by April 5th.
🏃♀️ Catch up: Review this week's Community Call notes or listen to the recording.
🙏 Thanks to Our Sponsor
CitaDAO
CitaDAO is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, allowing real estate to be tokenized on chain. The ERC-20 tokens will be composable with other DeFi applications and primitives that operate within the Ethereum protocol, creating an ecosystem for real estate in the DeFi ecosystem.
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