In 2023, I moved to Salvador, Bahia, and it was the first time in Brazil that I felt at home outside my original city. I’ll have other opportunities to elaborate on this experience, but today I want to discuss how I was able to witness the spark of a Web3 ecosystem.

Salvador is the capital of Bahia, the city with the largest tropical bay in the world, and officially one of the most creative cities in the world. As it has its complexities, like any other city, it's also one of the world's leading tourist destinations, the largest street carnival, and the city with the largest black population outside Africa.

While the city boasts a thriving tech and innovation scene, going from the creative economy to submarines and quantum science, with at least five large innovation hubs, it is not on the radar of Web3 initiatives coming to Brazil. 

Or at least it wasn’t.
When I recognized that I would spend time in Bahia, I had the idea of organizing an event to gather Web3 nerds in Salvador, I had help from Tata from AimoTech (local startup building educational games) and Jeff Beltrão (Chainlink & Play4Change), and then Salvador Web3Day was born. 

Held at the Mercury Hotel in Pituba, the event brought together over 60+ attendees for a full day of panels, discussions, and networking, featuring speakers from across the Brazilian and international Web3 ecosystems.

Sponsors like Chainlink and Starknet (through the tireless efforts of Jeff Beltrão and Tiago Catarino in promoting web3 opportunities across Brazil) made the event possible. At the same time, representatives from Aurora, NEAR, Polkadot, and Polygon added depth to the discussions.

Organizations such as Blockchain na Escola, BlckTopia, One Percent, DeTrash, AgroforestDAO, Play4Change, UNESCO SOST, Chatafisha, BLKW3B, Muda, GreenPill Brasil, Traditional Dream Factory, Ekonavi,

However, the real turning point came when Donjorge Almeida, a seasoned community builder with deep roots in Salvador's innovation scene, proposed an idea: What if we harnessed this momentum to create a lasting community?

I took it seriously, unaware that Don, an ex-MTV and ex-AMBEV ambassador, was about to revolutionize the city.

Every significant change begins with a small group of people and a crazy idea, and Gira Hub was no exception.

The founding team counted with Alan Silva PhD (who, patiently helped us to make sense of the correlation between Bahia, Salvador, Recôncavo, and Brazil as a whole), Luciana Souza (who supported operations) TataTech (who helped to spread the news of the community across different niches), Mel (who created our initial brand), Rafael Freire (key player on Regenerative Finance in Brazil), Donjorge Almeida (the source and main executor) and me (Marcelo) as well.

As the weeks went on, Donjorge and I took joint responsibility for keeping things moving. He focused on local operations and on-the-ground presence, while I remained engaged with the broader strategy and connections — making sure that people outside of Bahia knew what was emerging here, and that people inside the community had access to those wider conversations.

We had Ben, who joined the ICP Hub Brazil team (his first Web3 job) through an opportunity shared within GiraHub (and today is leading operations at Modular Crypto), bringing more events and opportunities to Salvador. Today, it would take ten more articles like this to describe everyone who joined Gira and contributed to its energy, and that will be done in the future!

Choosing a name for the community took more thought than expected. At first, I worried the word might be too local — too rooted in Bahia’s cultural codes to speak to a broader audience. But it was Mel, Alan, and Tata who reminded me: that’s the point.

In Brazil, we gather in a circle to play the drums for the orixás in Candomblé, to party in a roda de Samba, to train in capoeira, and to pray to Jesus in a church. A gira isn’t just movement — it’s connection. Collective rhythm.

In Gira, we trust. And girando, we move.

This choice — to lead with Bahia’s identity rather than dilute it — proved meaningful later on. At a time when much of Web3 was chasing globalism, GiraHub leaned into localism. Not as resistance, but as a way to say: we’re here, and this place matters.

Thanks to the energy of Bahia and to dendê, the community grew, attracting jobs, getting support for local tech-oriented events, bringing global events to Salvador (and the northeast region of Brazil as a whole), and supporting old and new web3-ventures within and outside Bahia.

Gira was not the first Web3 community in Bahia; our main achievement as a community was to showcase and help to consolidate the Web3 ecosystem of Bahia. Our events were always free and open to everyone. We ensured that the locations were conveniently close to public transportation and that every individual with a project had the opportunity to share it during an open mic session.

But before addressing how GiraHub Web3 learned and contributed to the ecosystem in Salvador, it's essential to highlight the regular web3-oriented events that were taking place in the city before Gira: the Web3 Games events hosted in Salvador.

For that, I’d give space to Hirano, from Sura and CEO of Arena CWG, to describe the list of events before Salvador Web3Day and GiraHubWeb3.

Just as the meaning of the word “gira” (to spin or to move) suggests, there have been other people and projects already in motion, organizing essential events that are worth highlighting. Today, it feels like we’re all spinning in the same direction.

"TheBornless" Playtest – This was the first blockchain gaming event hosted by the Arena CWG community—Shoutout to Jonakinho who brought this opportunity to life.

Nouns Gaming Day - Salvador – Salvador was the stage for one of the very first IRL Nouns events in Brazil. I’d even say it laid the groundwork for what would become Nouns House São Paulo. Fun fact: the nearly 2-meter-tall Noogles in SP was originally built right here in Salvador.

Bon Odori 2024 – One of the largest Japanese cultural festivals in Salvador, and the second-biggest public event in the city’s annual calendar, drawing over 80,000 people across three days. In 2024, SURA partnered with Arena CWG, Nave, Steelseries, and SAGA to host a booth where we introduced several Web3 games to the local gaming community.

Avalanche Community Playtest – This was Avalanche’s very first community event in Salvador. Leandro brought the idea of starting a local AVAX hub, which aligned perfectly with the launch of Off The Grid. We invited key figures from the local gaming scene to participate and explore the Web3 universe — a great moment for onboarding new users.

Ronin Global Rally – We can proudly say that Salvador hosted the very first in-person Ronin event in Brazil — and that’s incredible! This global celebration marked the official launch of the Ronin blockchain, with events held worldwide.

The Gira was spinning in Salvador!

Before GiraHub, there were already people laying the foundation for a Web3 presence in Salvador. They weren’t always visible to each other, and often operated in silos — but the work was happening. I started to understand that GiraHub wasn’t introducing something new so much as helping the existing pieces recognize themselves as part of a larger picture.

This early wave of initiatives — what I’ve come to think of as Generation Zero — shaped the conditions for a community to take form. These were some of the first to hold space for experimentation, education, and onboarding in Salvador:

• Play4Change - One of the most efficient and enjoyable impact-driven web3 ventures in Brazil.

• DeTrash - One of the most sophisticated ReFi projects in Brazil, bridging the need for companies to compensate their waste with rewards for recyclers worldwide, from Bahia to the world.

• AimoTech - The first game company experimenting with Web3 to host hackathons for the youth from favelas in Salvador.

• Cripto Connect - Before Salvador's Web3 Day, David and his team were hosting regular meetups to discuss how to increase Bitcoin adoption in the country.

• Avalanche Community - Leandro, Hirano, and their team were organizing Avalanche-centered meetups to spread adoption way before Gira was born.

• Chainlink Português - Led by Jeff Beltrão, the Portuguese-speaking ecosystem of Chainlink, in partnership with Starknet, brought by Thiago Catarino, sponsored Web3Day.

Once GiraHub began to form, something interesting happened. Initiatives from outside Bahia — many of them already well-established in the national Web3 scene — started reaching out to support. There was no master plan for this, no outreach strategy. These connections came through conversations, shared values, and a growing sense that something important was unfolding in Salvador.

These early collaborators didn’t just lend legitimacy — they helped widen the field of possibility for what GiraHub could be. They offered tools, visibility, and in many cases, infrastructure that the local community could adapt to its own needs.

Some of the key supporters in this first wave included:

• Blockchain na Escola – The first Web3 education project tailored specifically for Brazil’s public school system, working within the boundaries of official curricula and legal frameworks.

• ReFaz – A studio focused on ecosystem discovery, regional development, impact capital allocation, and ReFi tooling.

• Play4Change – Although deeply connected to Bahia through its founders, it also brought a national presence and track record of educational programming.

• Ekonavi – The largest agroforestry network operating on-chain in Brazil, linking ecological restoration with blockchain tooling.

• Rio Cripto Hub – Through their support, we were able to host the first Pizza Day celebration in Bahia, a symbolic event that bridged GiraHub to the national ReFi and DAO space.

• CryptoRastas – A movement that brings together Web3 and reggae culture under the “One Love” philosophy. Their support helped ground the cultural layer of our community.

These connections weren’t extractive or prescriptive. They didn’t arrive with toolkits and agendas. What they offered was presence — the kind that says: we see you, and we’re here if you need us.

Looking back, this first generation of collaborators helped build not just events or deliverables, but a sense of shared narrative. They affirmed that what was growing in Salvador wasn’t peripheral — it was part of something bigger.

As GiraHub’s presence grew, it began to do something that hadn’t been happening before: it pulled outside projects into Bahia, not just for one-off activations, but for real engagement. In some cases, that meant meetups or partnerships. In others, it meant collaborators choosing to stay, build, or redirect their attention to the region.

This wasn’t outreach in the conventional sense. No one was pitching Bahia. What happened instead was that GiraHub created a visible point of entry — a way for national and international projects to connect with local communities on meaningful terms.

The projects that formed this second generation of collaborators include:

• Liga Colaborativa dos Povos – Supported by the European Union and executed in partnership with the Federal University of Recôncavo Baiano, the Liga brought emerging tech into conversations around climate justice and traditional community rights.

• Modular Crypto – One of the most consistent media partners of GiraHub, and now led operationally by someone based in Bahia. Their platform helped document and amplify the movement as it unfolded.

• ICP Hub Brazil – Through its partnership with GiraHub, ICP hosted meetups in Salvador, seeding interest in its ecosystem and expanding participation in decentralized infrastructure.

• ETH LATAM – The largest Ethereum-focused community in Latin America partnered with us for a landmark event in Chapada Diamantina — the first Web3 gathering ever hosted in that region.

• CeLatam – A venture studio powered by the Celo ecosystem, focused on regen-aligned Web3 adoption in Latin America. CeLatam played a key role in supporting events and bootcamps in inner Bahia.

• Rio Cripto Hub

This second generation of partnerships brought diversity — in geography, tooling, philosophy, and culture. But more than that, it brought recognition. It proved that Salvador was part of the map — not as a footnote, but as a node, a must-stop destination.

What sustained GiraHub wasn’t a master plan or institutional funding — it was rhythm. Events became the heartbeat of the community: moments of convergence, experimentation, and visibility. Some were big, others intentionally small. All of them played a role in weaving together a movement that didn’t just speak about Web3, but practiced it.

Below are the key moments that shaped the collective story of GiraHub — not as a centralized organization, but as an ecosystem in motion.

0. Salvador Web3 Day - 20/11/2023 - The event that sparked the idea of create a general (not protocol oriented) web3 community in Salvador.
1. Modular House - 20/04/24 -  Modular House foi um evento pioneiro que celebrou a inovação e a colaboração, revelando um ecossistema vibrante de projetos locais de web3 com parceria com a Modular Crypto.
2. Global Pizza Party - 22/05/24 - Evento global que celebra o pizza day e em parceria com a Pizza Dao
3. CryptoRastas 🇧🇷 Nordeste - 5/07/24 - Evento que misturou música, cultura, educação e NFTE e em Parceria com Cryprorastas
4. Meet-up icp-hub - 22/11/24 - Evento de trocas de experiências em web3 em parceria com o ICP HUB
5. Web3: Criatividade Sem Fronteiras na Nova Era Digital  - Evento no dia mundial da criatividade em parceria com o World Creativity Day.
6.

At some point, it became clear that the story of GiraHub wouldn’t be contained within Salvador. The momentum was already flowing outward — toward the interior, where access to tech and education often remains limited, but where the need and potential for transformation are high.

One of the clearest expressions of this shift was the bootcamp held in Seabra, in the heart of Chapada Diamantina. Co-organized with CeLatam, Blockchain na Escola, Liga Colaborativa dos Povos, and Ekonavi, the event wasn’t just a workshop — it sparked the formation of a local Blockchain Club. That detail matters. It wasn’t a “drop-in” event. It left roots.

On another front, Gira supported a pioneering event in Cruz das Almas, a city in the Recôncavo Baiano. This time, the focus was on university students — specifically Computer Science graduates from the Federal University of Recôncavo Baiano. The goal wasn’t to pitch Web3 as a trend, but to present it as a toolbox: a set of protocols, frameworks, and ethical considerations that could be used to engage with complex, real-world challenges.

In this case, those challenges were very real. The event, led by Liga Colaborativa dos Povos, looked at how emerging technologies could be used to protect the rights of quilombola and Indigenous communities facing pressure from large-scale “green” energy projects. These conversations weren’t theoretical. They were about land, memory, and survival.

Gira didn’t arrive in these places with solutions. It arrived with a willingness to listen, to share tools, and to help connect people doing important work to broader networks of support.

Bahia is the fifth-largest state in Brazil — and one of the most complex. It's vibrant and rich, but also among the most violent and structurally unequal. While most fintech ventures remain concentrated in Salvador, GiraHub started to ask a different question: what would it take to bring meaningful tech to the places that need it most?

What followed wasn’t the product of a vision, but of collective presence — of people saying yes, again and again, even when the outcomes were unclear.

 What's Next?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Web3 grows with more diversity as far from mainstream as you try to remain. Sometimes, it just needs a circle, a few committed people, and space to move.

GiraHub is Web3 localism in Bahia.
Not because we tried to mimic what worked elsewhere, but because we trusted that what we had here was enough.

On a personal note, I want to give special thanks to a few people:

• Donjorge Almeida, who not only sparked the idea of GiraHub but has been the main force behind its growth and consistency.

• Douglas (DAOglas) from Rio Crypto Hub, who believed in the potential of regional Web3 long before it was a trend, and gave Gira opportunities to show up on a national stage.

• Verber Souza, a friend and partner across different initiatives, for always believing in my crazy ideas — even when they made no sense on paper.

If you’ve read this and thought, “Wow, Marcelo did a lot,” then you may have missed the point. What I did was show up, connect some people, and (now) share the story. The real movement came from the people who chose to keep it spinning, people who you can find in Gira Hub.

"We do what we must, because we can!" - Aperture Science

In 2023, I moved to Salvador, Bahia, and it was the first time in Brazil that I felt at home outside my original city. I’ll have other opportunities to elaborate on this experience, but today I want to discuss how I was able to witness the spark of a Web3 ecosystem.

Salvador is the capital of Bahia, the city with the largest tropical bay in the world, and officially one of the most creative cities in the world. As it has its complexities, like any other city, it's also one of the world's leading tourist destinations, the largest street carnival, and the city with the largest black population outside Africa.

While the city boasts a thriving tech and innovation scene, going from the creative economy to submarines and quantum science, with at least five large innovation hubs, it is not on the radar of Web3 initiatives coming to Brazil. 

Or at least it wasn’t.
When I recognized that I would spend time in Bahia, I had the idea of organizing an event to gather Web3 nerds in Salvador, I had help from Tata from AimoTech (local startup building educational games) and Jeff Beltrão (Chainlink & Play4Change), and then Salvador Web3Day was born. 

Held at the Mercury Hotel in Pituba, the event brought together over 60+ attendees for a full day of panels, discussions, and networking, featuring speakers from across the Brazilian and international Web3 ecosystems.

Sponsors like Chainlink and Starknet (through the tireless efforts of Jeff Beltrão and Tiago Catarino in promoting web3 opportunities across Brazil) made the event possible. At the same time, representatives from Aurora, NEAR, Polkadot, and Polygon added depth to the discussions.

Organizations such as Blockchain na Escola, BlckTopia, One Percent, DeTrash, AgroforestDAO, Play4Change, UNESCO SOST, Chatafisha, BLKW3B, Muda, GreenPill Brasil, Traditional Dream Factory, Ekonavi,

However, the real turning point came when Donjorge Almeida, a seasoned community builder with deep roots in Salvador's innovation scene, proposed an idea: What if we harnessed this momentum to create a lasting community?

I took it seriously, unaware that Don, an ex-MTV and ex-AMBEV ambassador, was about to revolutionize the city.

Every significant change begins with a small group of people and a crazy idea, and Gira Hub was no exception.

The founding team counted with Alan Silva PhD (who, patiently helped us to make sense of the correlation between Bahia, Salvador, Recôncavo, and Brazil as a whole), Luciana Souza (who supported operations) TataTech (who helped to spread the news of the community across different niches), Mel (who created our initial brand), Rafael Freire (key player on Regenerative Finance in Brazil), Donjorge Almeida (the source and main executor) and me (Marcelo) as well.

As the weeks went on, Donjorge and I took joint responsibility for keeping things moving. He focused on local operations and on-the-ground presence, while I remained engaged with the broader strategy and connections — making sure that people outside of Bahia knew what was emerging here, and that people inside the community had access to those wider conversations.

We had Ben, who joined the ICP Hub Brazil team (his first Web3 job) through an opportunity shared within GiraHub (and today is leading operations at Modular Crypto), bringing more events and opportunities to Salvador. Today, it would take ten more articles like this to describe everyone who joined Gira and contributed to its energy, and that will be done in the future!

Choosing a name for the community took more thought than expected. At first, I worried the word might be too local — too rooted in Bahia’s cultural codes to speak to a broader audience. But it was Mel, Alan, and Tata who reminded me: that’s the point.

In Brazil, we gather in a circle to play the drums for the orixás in Candomblé, to party in a roda de Samba, to train in capoeira, and to pray to Jesus in a church. A gira isn’t just movement — it’s connection. Collective rhythm.

In Gira, we trust. And girando, we move.

This choice — to lead with Bahia’s identity rather than dilute it — proved meaningful later on. At a time when much of Web3 was chasing globalism, GiraHub leaned into localism. Not as resistance, but as a way to say: we’re here, and this place matters.

Thanks to the energy of Bahia and to dendê, the community grew, attracting jobs, getting support for local tech-oriented events, bringing global events to Salvador (and the northeast region of Brazil as a whole), and supporting old and new web3-ventures within and outside Bahia.

Gira was not the first Web3 community in Bahia; our main achievement as a community was to showcase and help to consolidate the Web3 ecosystem of Bahia. Our events were always free and open to everyone. We ensured that the locations were conveniently close to public transportation and that every individual with a project had the opportunity to share it during an open mic session.

But before addressing how GiraHub Web3 learned and contributed to the ecosystem in Salvador, it's essential to highlight the regular web3-oriented events that were taking place in the city before Gira: the Web3 Games events hosted in Salvador.

For that, I’d give space to Hirano, from Sura and CEO of Arena CWG, to describe the list of events before Salvador Web3Day and GiraHubWeb3.

Just as the meaning of the word “gira” (to spin or to move) suggests, there have been other people and projects already in motion, organizing essential events that are worth highlighting. Today, it feels like we’re all spinning in the same direction.

"TheBornless" Playtest – This was the first blockchain gaming event hosted by the Arena CWG community—Shoutout to Jonakinho who brought this opportunity to life.

Nouns Gaming Day - Salvador – Salvador was the stage for one of the very first IRL Nouns events in Brazil. I’d even say it laid the groundwork for what would become Nouns House São Paulo. Fun fact: the nearly 2-meter-tall Noogles in SP was originally built right here in Salvador.

Bon Odori 2024 – One of the largest Japanese cultural festivals in Salvador, and the second-biggest public event in the city’s annual calendar, drawing over 80,000 people across three days. In 2024, SURA partnered with Arena CWG, Nave, Steelseries, and SAGA to host a booth where we introduced several Web3 games to the local gaming community.

Avalanche Community Playtest – This was Avalanche’s very first community event in Salvador. Leandro brought the idea of starting a local AVAX hub, which aligned perfectly with the launch of Off The Grid. We invited key figures from the local gaming scene to participate and explore the Web3 universe — a great moment for onboarding new users.

Ronin Global Rally – We can proudly say that Salvador hosted the very first in-person Ronin event in Brazil — and that’s incredible! This global celebration marked the official launch of the Ronin blockchain, with events held worldwide.

The Gira was spinning in Salvador!

Before GiraHub, there were already people laying the foundation for a Web3 presence in Salvador. They weren’t always visible to each other, and often operated in silos — but the work was happening. I started to understand that GiraHub wasn’t introducing something new so much as helping the existing pieces recognize themselves as part of a larger picture.

This early wave of initiatives — what I’ve come to think of as Generation Zero — shaped the conditions for a community to take form. These were some of the first to hold space for experimentation, education, and onboarding in Salvador:

• Play4Change - One of the most efficient and enjoyable impact-driven web3 ventures in Brazil.

• DeTrash - One of the most sophisticated ReFi projects in Brazil, bridging the need for companies to compensate their waste with rewards for recyclers worldwide, from Bahia to the world.

• AimoTech - The first game company experimenting with Web3 to host hackathons for the youth from favelas in Salvador.

• Cripto Connect - Before Salvador's Web3 Day, David and his team were hosting regular meetups to discuss how to increase Bitcoin adoption in the country.

• Avalanche Community - Leandro, Hirano, and their team were organizing Avalanche-centered meetups to spread adoption way before Gira was born.

• Chainlink Português - Led by Jeff Beltrão, the Portuguese-speaking ecosystem of Chainlink, in partnership with Starknet, brought by Thiago Catarino, sponsored Web3Day.

Once GiraHub began to form, something interesting happened. Initiatives from outside Bahia — many of them already well-established in the national Web3 scene — started reaching out to support. There was no master plan for this, no outreach strategy. These connections came through conversations, shared values, and a growing sense that something important was unfolding in Salvador.

These early collaborators didn’t just lend legitimacy — they helped widen the field of possibility for what GiraHub could be. They offered tools, visibility, and in many cases, infrastructure that the local community could adapt to its own needs.

Some of the key supporters in this first wave included:

• Blockchain na Escola – The first Web3 education project tailored specifically for Brazil’s public school system, working within the boundaries of official curricula and legal frameworks.

• ReFaz – A studio focused on ecosystem discovery, regional development, impact capital allocation, and ReFi tooling.

• Play4Change – Although deeply connected to Bahia through its founders, it also brought a national presence and track record of educational programming.

• Ekonavi – The largest agroforestry network operating on-chain in Brazil, linking ecological restoration with blockchain tooling.

• Rio Cripto Hub – Through their support, we were able to host the first Pizza Day celebration in Bahia, a symbolic event that bridged GiraHub to the national ReFi and DAO space.

• CryptoRastas – A movement that brings together Web3 and reggae culture under the “One Love” philosophy. Their support helped ground the cultural layer of our community.

These connections weren’t extractive or prescriptive. They didn’t arrive with toolkits and agendas. What they offered was presence — the kind that says: we see you, and we’re here if you need us.

Looking back, this first generation of collaborators helped build not just events or deliverables, but a sense of shared narrative. They affirmed that what was growing in Salvador wasn’t peripheral — it was part of something bigger.

As GiraHub’s presence grew, it began to do something that hadn’t been happening before: it pulled outside projects into Bahia, not just for one-off activations, but for real engagement. In some cases, that meant meetups or partnerships. In others, it meant collaborators choosing to stay, build, or redirect their attention to the region.

This wasn’t outreach in the conventional sense. No one was pitching Bahia. What happened instead was that GiraHub created a visible point of entry — a way for national and international projects to connect with local communities on meaningful terms.

The projects that formed this second generation of collaborators include:

• Liga Colaborativa dos Povos – Supported by the European Union and executed in partnership with the Federal University of Recôncavo Baiano, the Liga brought emerging tech into conversations around climate justice and traditional community rights.

• Modular Crypto – One of the most consistent media partners of GiraHub, and now led operationally by someone based in Bahia. Their platform helped document and amplify the movement as it unfolded.

• ICP Hub Brazil – Through its partnership with GiraHub, ICP hosted meetups in Salvador, seeding interest in its ecosystem and expanding participation in decentralized infrastructure.

• ETH LATAM – The largest Ethereum-focused community in Latin America partnered with us for a landmark event in Chapada Diamantina — the first Web3 gathering ever hosted in that region.

• CeLatam – A venture studio powered by the Celo ecosystem, focused on regen-aligned Web3 adoption in Latin America. CeLatam played a key role in supporting events and bootcamps in inner Bahia.

• Rio Cripto Hub

This second generation of partnerships brought diversity — in geography, tooling, philosophy, and culture. But more than that, it brought recognition. It proved that Salvador was part of the map — not as a footnote, but as a node, a must-stop destination.

What sustained GiraHub wasn’t a master plan or institutional funding — it was rhythm. Events became the heartbeat of the community: moments of convergence, experimentation, and visibility. Some were big, others intentionally small. All of them played a role in weaving together a movement that didn’t just speak about Web3, but practiced it.

Below are the key moments that shaped the collective story of GiraHub — not as a centralized organization, but as an ecosystem in motion.

0. Salvador Web3 Day - 20/11/2023 - The event that sparked the idea of create a general (not protocol oriented) web3 community in Salvador.
1. Modular House - 20/04/24 -  Modular House foi um evento pioneiro que celebrou a inovação e a colaboração, revelando um ecossistema vibrante de projetos locais de web3 com parceria com a Modular Crypto.
2. Global Pizza Party - 22/05/24 - Evento global que celebra o pizza day e em parceria com a Pizza Dao
3. CryptoRastas 🇧🇷 Nordeste - 5/07/24 - Evento que misturou música, cultura, educação e NFTE e em Parceria com Cryprorastas
4. Meet-up icp-hub - 22/11/24 - Evento de trocas de experiências em web3 em parceria com o ICP HUB
5. Web3: Criatividade Sem Fronteiras na Nova Era Digital  - Evento no dia mundial da criatividade em parceria com o World Creativity Day.
6.

At some point, it became clear that the story of GiraHub wouldn’t be contained within Salvador. The momentum was already flowing outward — toward the interior, where access to tech and education often remains limited, but where the need and potential for transformation are high.

One of the clearest expressions of this shift was the bootcamp held in Seabra, in the heart of Chapada Diamantina. Co-organized with CeLatam, Blockchain na Escola, Liga Colaborativa dos Povos, and Ekonavi, the event wasn’t just a workshop — it sparked the formation of a local Blockchain Club. That detail matters. It wasn’t a “drop-in” event. It left roots.

On another front, Gira supported a pioneering event in Cruz das Almas, a city in the Recôncavo Baiano. This time, the focus was on university students — specifically Computer Science graduates from the Federal University of Recôncavo Baiano. The goal wasn’t to pitch Web3 as a trend, but to present it as a toolbox: a set of protocols, frameworks, and ethical considerations that could be used to engage with complex, real-world challenges.

In this case, those challenges were very real. The event, led by Liga Colaborativa dos Povos, looked at how emerging technologies could be used to protect the rights of quilombola and Indigenous communities facing pressure from large-scale “green” energy projects. These conversations weren’t theoretical. They were about land, memory, and survival.

Gira didn’t arrive in these places with solutions. It arrived with a willingness to listen, to share tools, and to help connect people doing important work to broader networks of support.

Bahia is the fifth-largest state in Brazil — and one of the most complex. It's vibrant and rich, but also among the most violent and structurally unequal. While most fintech ventures remain concentrated in Salvador, GiraHub started to ask a different question: what would it take to bring meaningful tech to the places that need it most?

What followed wasn’t the product of a vision, but of collective presence — of people saying yes, again and again, even when the outcomes were unclear.

 What's Next?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Web3 grows with more diversity as far from mainstream as you try to remain. Sometimes, it just needs a circle, a few committed people, and space to move.

GiraHub is Web3 localism in Bahia.
Not because we tried to mimic what worked elsewhere, but because we trusted that what we had here was enough.

On a personal note, I want to give special thanks to a few people:

• Donjorge Almeida, who not only sparked the idea of GiraHub but has been the main force behind its growth and consistency.

• Douglas (DAOglas) from Rio Crypto Hub, who believed in the potential of regional Web3 long before it was a trend, and gave Gira opportunities to show up on a national stage.

• Verber Souza, a friend and partner across different initiatives, for always believing in my crazy ideas — even when they made no sense on paper.

If you’ve read this and thought, “Wow, Marcelo did a lot,” then you may have missed the point. What I did was show up, connect some people, and (now) share the story. The real movement came from the people who chose to keep it spinning, people who you can find in Gira Hub.

"We do what we must, because we can!" - Aperture Science