#32 What does 1 year in Web3 feel like? (Click here to find out...)

Welcome to?Edition #32 of 'This Week in Web3' - an all-in-one source for the most interesting Blockchain, Web3 and Metaverse content on LinkedIn, as curated by me! If you didn't catch these awesome posts, here's a quick recap...

?? What Have I Learned From 1 Year in Midnight ?

?? MILESTONE ALERT! I have now officially spent 1 YEAR at Midnight. Here's what I've learned in 12 months building a Blockchains start-up...

1. Web3 is set on 3x speed - honestly it feels like only 4 months

2. The people around you are EVERYTHING - love your team

3. Hiring is hard, and takes waaaay longer than you think

4. The Web3 talent market is hectic! People leave sooner than you expect

5. The tech is getting more complex - never stop asking questions

6. There's HUGE value in anyone who can make the complex seem simple

7. You do a much wider variety of tasks in a day vs. corporate roles

8. Value organisation and creativity in equal measure

9. Still hire people smarter than you, and give them space to grow

10. Smile and laugh... A dad joke or meme a day keeps the doctor away

Thank you to Eran Barak and Charles Hoskinson for believing in my vision for Midnight and taking a chance on me. Huge love to my fellow leaders, Maurício Magaldi, Kim Tripodo, ?Thomas übermeier?, Marta Szluinska , Fahmi Syed and Benjamin Beckmann, Ph.D.

And much love to the colleagues at Input Output (IOHK) who support us, and the awesome Marketing team we're building at Midnight: Tony Albanese, Jason Schober, Aivaras Navardauskas, Tayla King, Ricky Junday (more joining soon)...

We're only just getting warmed up...

?? 10 Important Lessons for Web3 Marketeers

This week's viral video, while rather silly and funny, reminded me of the challenges of marketing Blockchain technology to the Web3 community. Here's some things I have learned along the way...

"Wen token?"... "Wen airdrop?"... "Can Devs DO SOMETHING?!"

One of the challenge of building in public, and creating open technology, infrastructure and software design for all, is that everyone can (and will) have an opinion on your product, your roadmap, your team, your strategy, your incentives, you UX, your DevX, your marketing (or perceived lack thereof)...

It can feel like you're playing a game of 'Twitter whack-a-mole'... And it can be EXHAUSTING if you let it be.

Web3 communities are used to instant feedback and instant gratification from years of Discord, AMAs, airdrops and proximity to project founders in public. This is not a bad thing, but as marketeers you need to strike a balance between good listening and prioritised action.

My guidance to anyone out there struggling with Web3 marketing:

1. Be confident in your core value proposition

2. Have a clear distinction between token speculators and 'builders'

3. Differentiate communication to different ecosystem segments

4. Remember that Twitter is mostly about irrational venting

5. Learn to identify objective feedback, and engage to learn more

6. DO listen to the haters and competitors - they might be right

7. Give your campaigns and messaging time to seed, but...

8. ...Pivot or follow-up quickly if they don't. Be quick to clarify

9. Build great relationships with your Product and DevRel colleagues

10. Touch grass often. Don't let community comments consume you.

The strongest Web3 communities work in harmony, understand the vision for the project, and SUPPORT its direction and growth by being empowering to help. Find ways to bring the users, builders and funders of your growth into the marketing process. Traditional companies don't have this benefit.

You should never focus your marketing strategy on token price. However, you can't ignore it as a driver for interest and also frustration from the community. Work closely with your team on how and when you talk about tokens.

Check out the video and community comments here.

?? How Much Do HODLers Pay In Crypto Tax Worldwide?

How much tax do you pay on crypto? Like it or not, this affects Blockchain talent, recruiting and can create national competitive advantage...

Would you be happy to pay 46% tax if your investments appreciate?

Are you excited by the idea of being paid in Cryptocurrencies? Are you just a regular investor with a side-bag of Doge or Bitcoin?

Tax is an important matter for anyone, whether you're in Web3 or not. People move country, or state to get a more favourable taxation rate. And the global nomad movement has made talent increasingly more fluid.

Teams need to know that top engineers, programme leaders, product experts and others will not move to a country where the impact on their portfolio comes out worse, even if you pay them a higher salary...

It's also important for Web3 teams to look at their hiring arrangements, so they can play in markets for top talent where people LIVE, not where your company has offices or legal entities.

There's also a significant benefit for countries that provide favourable terms for those with Crypto investments, as those funds will be spent locally, that talent will attract other talent, and will attract others, boosting the local talent pool and economy.?? But beware... Talent can be flighty, and will move if the situation gets worse, or if incentives are taken away...Have you ever moved country because of tax? Or because your bags were better off after relocating?

Shout to Coincub for the analysis (albeit 2023... always check latest details before making any lifechanging decisions!)

Check out the community comments and updates to this chart here.

?? The State of Zero-Knowledge in Q1 2024

200k view later, LinkedIn is clearly interested in Zero-Knowledge tech. Here's everything you need to know (almost)...

The video explainer I posted of Zooko explaining Zero-Knowledge Proofs work has gone more than viral... Which tells me the community is excited to learn more about the next horizon of Web3 and Blockchain development: data protection and privacy.

Zero-Knowledge technology allows us to solve a couple of challenges:

1. Scaling monolithic Blockchain ecosystems (e.g. Ethereum) by using 'rollups' to batch transactions. And more importantly...

2. Send proofs of data instead of sensitive data between parties and apps, to better protect personal information, intellectual property, or commercial activity in a regulatory compliant way (if you're using Midnight)

This report covers all the major developments and statistics around ZK from the first quarter of this year, including:

- Amount of value captured within roll-up transactions ($3.8Bn!)

- Top projects by TVL (e.g. ZKsync , Linea, Polygon Labs , Scroll )

- Average fees for zk transactions

- Popularity of certain domain specific languages (DSLs)

- Major research topics for improving the field of ZK

- New ZK project launches- And interesting explorations like ZK for Bitcoin, and key friction points for ZK tech (bugs, outages, performance, etc.)

If you're interested in learning more about ZK and news from the main projects, this is definitely a worthwhile read. Shout to ZK Validator for pulling this together, and you can read the full report here.

?? Sunday Rant: Why You Should QA Your Cold Messages

First impressions matter. PLEASE proof read stuff before you send…

I get it, we’re all busy and who has the time to QA an important message / post / pull request / web update, etc…

However, first impressions matter. We’ve never been more bombarded with content, and our attention spans are shorter than ever.

You’ve probably got 1-2 lines to hook someone’s attention or connect with them. And if you make a glaring error, typo, or cause offence, chances are you’ll lose that person and never get them back.

I’ve lost count of the number of cold messages I get here on LinkedIn that start:

“Dear Patricia” [Or some alternative that clearly isn’t my name]

I mean at least get the name right! And then when I mention my name is Anthony, and then leave the conversation, I often get the follow-up:

“Is there a reason you didn’t reply to my message about exciting synergies?”

We’ve talked about making the effort to read someone’s profile to see if they have a hiring link… How about going a couple of lines further to find out what the person actually does for a job, rather than:“I see you work in TECHNOLOGY. No way! Me too. We should explore synergies!”

In a world where AI is saving you hours on creating your cold call emails, at least spend 30 seconds to check you’re not going to offend the person you’re writing to (at worst) and might actually have created a compelling outreach (at best).

Get the full rant and community comments here.

They did it! Proud that the Banksters by Lava Games team I have been supporting are now live on Magic Eden . Fun game. Great team...

If you're in the looking for a game that uses Web3 tech, and teaches you the fundamentals of crypto, and that allows you to USE Blockchain tech you should check Banksters out.

Shout to Alex Altgausen ????, Alexandru Carbunariu and team for creating a totally unique concept in gaming that makes use of both NFTs and crypto. Check out and start playing Banksters here.

?? Data Tooling For Web3 Gaming with Anton Umnov from Helika

Web3 gaming is just getting started, but most people think it's just about the protocol or the tokens... But, what about the DATA?

We get a fascinating insight into what game developers need to create decentralised gaming economies... The team at Helika have worked with top studios like Yuga Labs , Proof of Play , Animoca Brands and many more, and have seen the early promise of Web3 gaming fall flat because of one particular challenge: DATA.

Actually, it's more than just data. It's how to design, collect, interpret and act on data; as well as designing a coherent game economy that can work in harmony with a decentralised crypto economy. No mean feat.

In this show we discuss:

- The maturity of the Web3 gaming ecosystem

- What makes Web3 hard for traditional game developers

- The importance of data for Web3 games

- What is different when it comes to decentralised games and digital assets

- Best practices for data management in gaming

- Advice to any company looking to build with Web3 tech

Watch back the LinkedIn Live show here.

?? The Importance of Launchpads for Web3 Games, feat. Eran Elhanani of BullPerks & Alexandru Carbunariu of Banksters

The growth of Web3 gaming is not slowing down - and we give you an insider look at Launchpads: an essential aspect for launching and growing your game...

I'm joined by Eran Elhanani (CEO, BullPerks) and Alex Carbunariu (CEO, Banksters) for a deep dive into the strategies, technologies and insider tips for successfully launching games that include NFTs and Tokens in their design.

In this LinkedIn Live, we discuss:

- The current market for Web3 games

- The ecosystem of exchanges, launchpads, communities and technologies required for creating a successful Web3 game

- Criteria for projects to be launched on BullPerks

- The Banksters experience of launching over the last month

- Innovations and challenges in Web3 UX for gamers

- What more is needed to see wider adoption of Web3 games

Watch back the LinkedIn Live show here.

?? Integrating ALL THE BLOCKCHAINS with Jan-Jaap Jager and Chainstack ????? on the Blockchain Won't Save the World Podcast

Want to meet the man who's trying to integrate ALL the Blockchains? That's no mean feat. Jan-Jaap Jager is transforming Web3 and making it easier for anyone to build Dapps on one or many different chains...

In this show we cover:

- The origins of Chainstack

- The problems with building on Blockchains today

- The importance of BaaS and SaaS for Web3 to scale

- The most exciting or impactful use cases that Chainstack enables

- What it takes to manage a portfolio of 25+ Blockchains

- Advice to anyone looking to build Dapps or Blockchain offerings

My LinkedIn Profile (Go click the ?? icon and turn notifications on!)

Blockchain Won't Save the World Podcast

RightClickSaveTheWorld Podcast with Diego Borgo ??

5-Hour Blockchain Growth Training with Blockchain Training Alliance

30-Min Short Course: Getting a Job in Web3 with LinkedIn Learning

?? And if you're wondering how often I think about Diego Borgo ?? since he left Portugal (temporarily) and started his world tour...