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I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Of course the proposals are still heavily focused on internal/ecosystem development but

I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Of course the proposals are still heavily focused on internal/ecosystem development but there's an increasing focus on building platforms for people in developing regions as well. There has generally been a heavy focus on improving connectivity and access to affordable financial services within the African continent however recently there's been slowly growing focus on other regions with large unbanked or under-banked populations. With the amount of money that is allotted via the treasury for the Cardano ecosystem, Catalyst (and eventually proper on-chain governance when it evolves into that) has funding to comfortably run it's 6 week cadence funding rounds indefinitely at a rate of 15 million USD per round once it finished scaling up. As the network grows the scale will likely increase but regardless I think with the focuses the community has (particularly thanks to West Africa Decentralised Alliance) we'll see increasing focus on improving infrastructure and access in developing regions. And while you could argue that many of the solutions proposed have some net positive effect flowing back to the ecosystem, generally the focus has been on connecting people rather than driving traffic to the network. --- Sorry if that got a little long winded. It's a cool project+community and we've been working really hard to avoid the toxic coin maximalist & self-centred behaviour that's become so incredibly common in the space.

kristofferR 5y ago
Thanks for that comment, looks like a really interesting project, I'll read more about it!
iSnow 5y ago
Come on. I wish ADA well, but Charles is one self-centered person and the community has erected a cult around him and is super toxic against other projects. After BTC maxis, ADA has the most religious maximalists I would say.
- trts 5y ago
  As someone who started learning about Cardano recently and has listened to some of Charles' broadcasts on YouTube, I'm not really sure what you're referring to. To me he seems happy to celebrate success in other crypto platforms, has some strong opinions and a libertarian bent, but of course is building Cardano according to his own vision. BTC maximalists are quasi-religious in my experience but Cardano just seems to recognize the inevitable ascension of the blockchain and is building for that future, very similar to Ethereum. Maybe he's full of it; I've encountered other comments criticizing him but none that were deifying.
- jacoblambda 5y ago
  I agree that Charles is self-centred and that there is a cult of personality around him to a certain degree but it really depends on which part of the community you are in as to whether it's "this is an influential person in the space so let's listen" or "our god king is speaking". The Project Catalyst community, the official IOG developer discord, and even the Cardano subreddits (r/Cardano, r/Cardano_ELI5, r/CardanoDevelopers, etc) to a less extent aren't caught up in this cult mentality so much. When Charles says something stupid, innapropriate, or unbecoming, people are not afraid to address it in these spaces. On r/CryptoCurrency or on twitter it's a different story but Twitter is a cesspool (especially for any cryptocurrency) and while we try to call out the zealots on r/CC, it's not particularly easy. In those dedicated Cardano spaces though, there is a marked effort to avoid the cult mentality and redirect that energy towards focusing on actual projects. Very few people (in these communities) have the belief that somehow Cardano is going to be the dominant cryptocurrency or is going to "take over the world" so to speak. There is a strong belief that the project will be successful and a strong ecosystem is forming around it but not that it renders other chains irrelevant or that it must grow at any cost including via the minimisation or attacking of other networks. The general consensus is that it will make a strong showing and settle into a reasonably solid position in the greater financial ecosystem where it'll be intertwined with and coexisting with legacy financial systems and the other major cryptocurrency networks. TLDR: Every topic/space has zealots unfortunately but looking at their core communities I've found Cardano to be generally fairly resistant to this behaviour. It's not a perfect community by any means but out of all the communities I'm involved in, I've seen more people in the Cardano ecosystem go out of their way to walk others away from maximalist behaviour or zealotry than any other community. I've been around for quite a while and I've seen how the different communities have evolved so I like to believe I've gotten a reasonably comprehensive view of the communities but no person can see everything and in the end this is all anecdotal experiences.
yunohn 5y ago
> I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Could you maybe provide some examples of these /real/ problems they want to focus on? No DYOR, since you seem to be actually involved in the project. Providing banking services for under-banked regions is yet again, for the crypto. Avoiding KYC is not a feature; I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporates societal laws, for positive outcomes.
- jacoblambda 5y ago
  Fair request. I'll pull the ones off the top of my head. Catalyst just recently funded a proposal for a decentralised pharmaceuticals project that is initially basing out of Southern(?) African nations (primarily SA atm I believe). Initially I believe it is focused on aggregating the information and technology necessary for some common life saving medications. The end goal is to provide easy access to process knowledge so as to reduce the barriers of entry for local organisations to start (or improve) production of and access to medications. This project is definitely a bit of a long shot and it'll need more funding than what it got so far but provided their regular reporting looks good, odds are they'll be able to come back for additional funding rounds until they can ramp up to a sustainable model. IDK if it'll work but I wish them the best. Another proposal was funded to attempt rolling out food traceability solutions in I think Western Africa to help farmers get easier access to global markets (rather than being stuck selling to a megacorp that then resells for much higher). Additionally, the next funding round has a category dedicated to projects that are focused on micro-finance on the African continent (think Kiva loans) which has the potential to significantly improve the lives of farmers and people starting small businesses. I would go into the other Project Catalyst projects more but Catalyst is still in it's early stages (scaling up is happening but it won't be at 100% until the end of the year) so there aren't a tonne of funded projects overall yet. There were some other projects that didn't get funded but they generally had issues that need to be resolved before they are really even worth discussing. We are still ironing out some of the issues with the whole process so it's been a bit of a bumpy road so far. Also of note is World Mobile. They are in the same space and are rolling out a decentralised ISP network in Tanzania focused on providing at least basic wifi connectivity to rural villages. Of course all of these projects are generally aiming to produce some kind of income at the end of the day but that's not inherently a bad thing as it promotes making the projects sustainable (rather than relying on outside funding). Additionally one of the goals with these projects is to try and jump start or otherwise stimulate the economies they are targetting so approaching from a business approach rather than a purely altruistic approach could potentially yield better results. Also they all generally use cryptocurrency/decentralised tech in some capacity but it's not like the cryptocurrency itself is the focus. The community has a cryptocurrency focus so it's common to see people approach the solutions from that perspective. --- > I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporates societal laws, for positive outcomes. I agree and generally that's been the consensus in the community as well. The overwhelming theme has been to try and be as non-disruptive (in a negative sense) as possible. Progress is slow if it's to be successful in most cases and the last thing you want to do is to cause upset in the local communities. As an anecdote, at least in the Catalyst community all the projects I've seen that are "boots on the ground" type projects have had a strong focus on doing things by the books and not accidentally stepping on any toes along the way. --- I hope that addresses everything. If you have any questions let me know. I'm a bit strapped on time so I may not be on HN for a day or two but I'll eventually be around and I'll respond when I can.

kristofferR 5y ago

Thanks for that comment, looks like a really interesting project, I'll read more about it!

iSnow 5y ago

Come on. I wish ADA well, but Charles is one self-centered person and the community has erected a cult around him and is super toxic against other projects. After BTC maxis, ADA has the most religious maximalists I would say.

trts 5y ago
As someone who started learning about Cardano recently and has listened to some of Charles' broadcasts on YouTube, I'm not really sure what you're referring to. To me he seems happy to celebrate success in other crypto platforms, has some strong opinions and a libertarian bent, but of course is building Cardano according to his own vision. BTC maximalists are quasi-religious in my experience but Cardano just seems to recognize the inevitable ascension of the blockchain and is building for that future, very similar to Ethereum. Maybe he's full of it; I've encountered other comments criticizing him but none that were deifying.
jacoblambda 5y ago
I agree that Charles is self-centred and that there is a cult of personality around him to a certain degree but it really depends on which part of the community you are in as to whether it's "this is an influential person in the space so let's listen" or "our god king is speaking". The Project Catalyst community, the official IOG developer discord, and even the Cardano subreddits (r/Cardano, r/Cardano_ELI5, r/CardanoDevelopers, etc) to a less extent aren't caught up in this cult mentality so much. When Charles says something stupid, innapropriate, or unbecoming, people are not afraid to address it in these spaces. On r/CryptoCurrency or on twitter it's a different story but Twitter is a cesspool (especially for any cryptocurrency) and while we try to call out the zealots on r/CC, it's not particularly easy. In those dedicated Cardano spaces though, there is a marked effort to avoid the cult mentality and redirect that energy towards focusing on actual projects. Very few people (in these communities) have the belief that somehow Cardano is going to be the dominant cryptocurrency or is going to "take over the world" so to speak. There is a strong belief that the project will be successful and a strong ecosystem is forming around it but not that it renders other chains irrelevant or that it must grow at any cost including via the minimisation or attacking of other networks. The general consensus is that it will make a strong showing and settle into a reasonably solid position in the greater financial ecosystem where it'll be intertwined with and coexisting with legacy financial systems and the other major cryptocurrency networks. TLDR: Every topic/space has zealots unfortunately but looking at their core communities I've found Cardano to be generally fairly resistant to this behaviour. It's not a perfect community by any means but out of all the communities I'm involved in, I've seen more people in the Cardano ecosystem go out of their way to walk others away from maximalist behaviour or zealotry than any other community. I've been around for quite a while and I've seen how the different communities have evolved so I like to believe I've gotten a reasonably comprehensive view of the communities but no person can see everything and in the end this is all anecdotal experiences.

yunohn 5y ago

> I'd recommend looking at Project Catalyst out of the Cardano ecosystem. Could you maybe provide some examples of these /real/ problems they want to focus on? No DYOR, since you seem to be actually involved in the project. Providing banking services for under-banked regions is yet again, for the crypto. Avoiding KYC is not a feature; I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporates societal laws, for positive outcomes.

jacoblambda 5y ago
Fair request. I'll pull the ones off the top of my head. Catalyst just recently funded a proposal for a decentralised pharmaceuticals project that is initially basing out of Southern(?) African nations (primarily SA atm I believe). Initially I believe it is focused on aggregating the information and technology necessary for some common life saving medications. The end goal is to provide easy access to process knowledge so as to reduce the barriers of entry for local organisations to start (or improve) production of and access to medications. This project is definitely a bit of a long shot and it'll need more funding than what it got so far but provided their regular reporting looks good, odds are they'll be able to come back for additional funding rounds until they can ramp up to a sustainable model. IDK if it'll work but I wish them the best. Another proposal was funded to attempt rolling out food traceability solutions in I think Western Africa to help farmers get easier access to global markets (rather than being stuck selling to a megacorp that then resells for much higher). Additionally, the next funding round has a category dedicated to projects that are focused on micro-finance on the African continent (think Kiva loans) which has the potential to significantly improve the lives of farmers and people starting small businesses. I would go into the other Project Catalyst projects more but Catalyst is still in it's early stages (scaling up is happening but it won't be at 100% until the end of the year) so there aren't a tonne of funded projects overall yet. There were some other projects that didn't get funded but they generally had issues that need to be resolved before they are really even worth discussing. We are still ironing out some of the issues with the whole process so it's been a bit of a bumpy road so far. Also of note is World Mobile. They are in the same space and are rolling out a decentralised ISP network in Tanzania focused on providing at least basic wifi connectivity to rural villages. Of course all of these projects are generally aiming to produce some kind of income at the end of the day but that's not inherently a bad thing as it promotes making the projects sustainable (rather than relying on outside funding). Additionally one of the goals with these projects is to try and jump start or otherwise stimulate the economies they are targetting so approaching from a business approach rather than a purely altruistic approach could potentially yield better results. Also they all generally use cryptocurrency/decentralised tech in some capacity but it's not like the cryptocurrency itself is the focus. The community has a cryptocurrency focus so it's common to see people approach the solutions from that perspective. --- > I would argue that developing countries need robust infrastructure that incorporates societal laws, for positive outcomes. I agree and generally that's been the consensus in the community as well. The overwhelming theme has been to try and be as non-disruptive (in a negative sense) as possible. Progress is slow if it's to be successful in most cases and the last thing you want to do is to cause upset in the local communities. As an anecdote, at least in the Catalyst community all the projects I've seen that are "boots on the ground" type projects have had a strong focus on doing things by the books and not accidentally stepping on any toes along the way. --- I hope that addresses everything. If you have any questions let me know. I'm a bit strapped on time so I may not be on HN for a day or two but I'll eventually be around and I'll respond when I can.