It’s been a while since I posted here, so I’ll briefly reintroduce myself.
Gm, I’m Mariquita, a conversion copywriter and content strategist for web3 changemakers.
I am curious about how the new internet and frontier tech are shaping the way we relate to each other and the world around us. And I occasionally write about my findings on Paragraph.
Below are some notes from London Web3 Week, specifically, Stellar’s Meridian Conference in Westminster. If real world use cases in crypto are your jam, and you like hearing directly from the builders who make it happen, this piece might be for you. Read on if you'd like to get into the minds of Stellar Development Foundation Chief of Product, Tomer Weller, and Etherfuse CEO, Dave Taylor.
I’ve also sprinkled in some bite-sized takeaways from the Zebu conference and observations from my side of the internet, down below. If that’s more your flavour, scroll through to the end.
Thanks for joining me! If you have thoughts or feel inspired to spark up conversation about any of these topics, drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you.
Mx
Ps. Thanks to a scholarship from SheFi, I’ll be attending DevCon 7 in Bangkok. I’m super excited to reconnect with friends and meet more awesome people doing incredible things onchain. If that’s you, feel free to DM – would be fabulous to connect with you over some Pad Thai.
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Set against a crisp, autumnal backdrop (with the odd patch of drizzle), Stellar’s 6th flagship annual conference, Meridian, was held in Grade II listed Church House; an architectural and cultural landmark in the heart of Westminster, London. Over three agenda-packed days from October 15th-17th, the event welcomed 700 attendees from diverse disciplines and geographies to (re)connect and share learnings from the frontlines of financial access.
The theme for this year’s Meridian was ‘transformation’; apt given the massive recent upgrade to the protocol layer, with the launch of the Soroban Platform virtual machine and smart contract capabilities, earlier this year.
Conversing over (the, frankly, obscenely delicious) refreshments, and in between sessions, it was clear that some of us were long time Meridian stans. These were the developers and contributors that had witnessed the ecosystem evolve over the years and had the inside scoop on the lore. You could say that, as far as Meridian was concerned, they had ‘got the t-shirt’ (because they literally did. Several of them. And caps to match), and they had now descended on London to continue grounding cross-border collaborations irl.
But some of us, including yours truly, were brand new to the scene – and not even necessarily just to Meridian. Thanks to the generous support of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), and some Boys Club/SheFi magic, community members were offered partial to full sponsorships to attend or early bird prices. For many of us, Meridian 2024 marked our first foray into the Stellar ecosystem at all.
Let me start off by saying, I was not prepared to come away from the conference this Stellarpilled.
Was it...
the delectable globally-inspired menu?
The speaker line-up that featured major names, including Actor, Filmmaker & UN Goodwill Ambassador, Idris Elba?
The UX that blended the irl with the digital on the Meridian custom-made app?
How about the range of session formats, including ‘braindates’, the name given to intimate gatherings for like-minds, which were free to propose or attend?
Or the sumptuous Jubilee gala at Guildhall complete with tours of their iconic private art collection?
I could go on…
Where it came to creating, not just a container for connection and collaborative learning, but also a memorable experience that engaged the senses, Meridian truly delivered.
But what stood out above all is how Stellar has been quietly delivering elsewhere for the past ten years: namely, on its mission to unlock human potential by creating equitable access to the global financial system.
As it stands, the majority of crypto airtime tends to get gobbled up with tales of airdrop farmers, obsession over price action, the proliferation of L2s and block space without the apps to match, and pump.fun memecoins with the longevity of a mayfly (permissionless, offshore casino, anyone?).
Detaching from the hype cycle of 'wen lambo', Stellar is laser focused on the transformation that is already happening on the ground around the world, as well as what is yet to come.
This mission is visible in collaborations with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR) to rapidly distribute bulk payments through Stellar Aid Assist or in the stories of individuals whose lives have been changed – even saved – through disintermediated access to much needed resources.
To dig deeper into what’s going on at Stellar, and what we might expect looking ahead, I caught up with SDF Chief Product Officer, Tomer Weller, and Etherfuse CEO, Dave Taylor. I asked both what ‘transformation’ meant to them; Tomer, from his perspective deep in the weeds at the protocol level, and Dave on how Etherfuse is building on Stellar to help spread value fairly by bringing TradFi assets onchain.
“Stellar has always been focused on the idea of equitable access,” Tomer told me. “And, to begin with, this was mostly around cross border payments. This year, with the launch of Soroban, we've added the ability to program your own financial instruments. So, the idea is to open up innovation for the wider ecosystem.”
In her keynote address, SDF CEO and Executive Director, Denelle Dixon, had talked about the localised solutions that can now emerge directly from within the communities they are designed to serve. Who could be better placed to understand the needs and contexts of a given community, but the builders rooted in them?
With Soroban, that embodied perspective is free to translate into a flourishing of bespoke DEXs, lending/borrowing markets, and super custom smart wallets, among other DeFi ecosystem components.
Accompanying this shift, Tomer anticipates transformation in the broadening, and subsequent adoption, of existing use cases. “There are a lot of products in the ecosystem that have a strong signal for product market fit,” he explains. “Something that we want to see more of is wallets like decaf, beans or the Franklin Templeton Benji app, that people are already using like checking accounts, also venturing out to savings account style wallets.”
Stellar has always been focused on the idea of equitable access. This year, with the launch of Soroban, we've added the ability to program your own financial instruments. So, the idea is to open up innovation for the wider ecosystem - Tomer Weller, SDF
One protocol that is turning this vision into a reality is Mexico-based, Etherfuse. “Our tokens are essentially the closest thing to a savings or checking account as you can get,” CEO, Dave Taylor, tells me as we take in the afternoon air on the balcony of Church House.
For Dave, the past couple of years spent eliminating regulatory and non-technical blocks has positioned Etherfuse as a unique player in the space. The idea beneath it all, he tells me, is to “put the world's currencies onchain and provide collateral-as-a-service to anyone in the world.” He continues, “That’s a transformation we hope to bring to the blockchain.”
Unlike most payments apps on blockchain, Etherfuse’s revenue model doesn’t involve charging users fees. Instead, it takes the yield-bearing assets that underlie stablecoins, and shares the upside with users, simultaneously unlocking an additional revenue stream for developers.
“We'll use Mexican CETES as an example,” Dave gestures, “We share 9% yield with you. So just like it would if you put money in a checking or savings account, it increases in value according to the yield. The difference is there's no banking risk because none of your assets are actually in a bank. They're in a brokerage in bonds, which for a country to default is pretty crazy.”
Etherfuse’s story originated two and a half years ago, when Dave spotted an opportunity to bring legacy financial tools, like bonds, onchain as Real World Assets (RWAs). The inspiration and the drive behind the protocol, he explains, is twofold; “It’s about bridging what we felt are the world's most successful interface to building nations, building wealth and building savings, and democratizing access to it.”
What makes Etherfuse unique though, among other factors, is its diversification beyond US Treasuries.
For Dave, this is central to Etherfuse’s mission to dismantle the grip on resources that has historically been concentrated in the Capitals of the Global North. The CEO breaks down how the protocol works to achieve this, “If you think about the stablecoins now, they pretty much support US corporations and the United States,” he says. “Well, if I'm in Nigeria and I'm creating all this value through commerce in Nigeria, I should have something that improves my community and my network,”
The solution? “I can expose Nigerian bonds so that you can create a Nigerian stablecoin and you earn revenues from those yields. The value that’s generated, as more people use the stablecoin, is then no longer flowing out of the context that’s creating it. It’s staying within the network.”
It’s about bridging what we felt are the world's most successful interface to building nations, building wealth and building savings, and democratizing access to it - Dave Taylor, Etherfuse
From Mexican CETES to UK Gilts, US Treasuries, and the Brazilian and EU bonds that in the pipeline, Etherfuse’s offerings may not appeal to the yield-chasing degen who seeks to exit the system. But at the heart of its vision is the global majority that has been marginalised from the traditional financial system, who lacks the convenience of easy on and off ramps, and wants access to products that prioritise stability.
From SDF’s perspective, Etherfuse's ethos made it a match for the ecosystem. The protocol is now due to launch on Stellar in Q1 of 2025. As Tomer shared with me, “A lot of these use case wallets that we're seeing growing in the ecosystem, like Vibrant, decaf, Beans, and Etherfuse, they're really targeting the non-crypto native folks. It’s about trying to grow the pie rather than get more share of the same pie, which is a lot of what is going on in the crypto ecosystem.”
For a network that has been around for longer than Ethereum, Stellar may not have occupied crypto Twitter mindshare in the same way as some of the more dominant names in web3. But by laying the groundwork for developers around the world to build on Soroban, and through collaborations with the likes of Moneygram, Stripe, and even the Banco Central do Brasil, big moves are being made.
I asked Tomer what’s next for SDF. His response? They’re cooking. “We're helping product launch and grow in the ecosystem because just attracting developers is not enough.” Backing up his claim is a suite of funding streams from the Community Fund that has distributed in excess of USD$26 million worth of XLM to over 400 projects since its inception to the newer Kickstart and Build Awards or marketing grants of up to USD$100k in USDC or XLM.
The creation of an audit bank for SDF-launched projects, as well as recent shifts towards a more collaborative timeline and roadmap, all point towards the thoughtfulness with which the ecosystem is being built out.
The same can be said of how protocols, like Etherfuse, are being nurtured through funding and tailored support. “There's this obsession in the ecosystem on increasing block space,” Tomer notes. “My hot take is that there's more than enough block space. It's growing and it's getting cheaper and faster and all of that is great, but what are we filling these things with?” He added, “For SDF, it's about bringing through meaningful products and helping them grow.” – a clear indication that Stellar's take on transformation extends beyond the tech to the very fabric of its ecosystem, and impact in the real world.
On Zebu’s Alpha stage on Thursday 10th, speakers at the ‘Standing Up for Tech’ session debated the role of education in onboarding new users into web3.
While most speakers were focused on what kind of approach to education might be most effective – making sure that you’re hitting the right people or adapting messaging for more localised contexts – tech OG, Alan Boyd, posited that education will become a natural but secondary process to adoption once web3 finds its ‘killer app’; you know, the one that will make people’s lives significantly better or easier.
Alan drew on comparisons with the evolution of television, which became commercially available in 1929 but didn’t see mainstream adoption until the broadcasting of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in the 1950s. In a similar way, the former Microsoft Product guru and (super) early AI investor, places blockchain firmly within the ‘pre-acceptance’ phase.
On the same stage, a couple of hours earlier, Dr. Nick Almond had argued that, by “levelling up actual existing communities” through access to shared funds and governance tools, we may have already found web3’s killer app: The DAO.
According to the FactoryDAO CEO, not only are DAOs “highly adjacent” to how people already connect and collaborate, but they could have an ever more important role to play in establishing trust in an internet increasingly overrun with AI agents.
What do you think? Have we landed on web3's killer app yet or will it comes from leftfield, in the form of something we haven’t been able to dream up yet?
Marketing received a decent amount of coverage at Zebu (love to see it), with plenty of insight, practical takeaways, and spicy takes shared. Marketer and copywriter, Dayana Aleksandrova, was on point during her panel ‘From Idea to Impact: Scaling Web3 Brands’ when she said, “for the love of ETH, stop calling yourself a web3 ‘project’.”
Perception is important, and so, if, as an industry, we want to instil confidence, longevity, stability and scalability, we should own that in how we speak about our companies, businesses or brands. Preach, girl!
From the serious to the satirical, the role of memes was discussed in some depth on the Alpha stage’s closing panel, ‘The State of Crypto Marketing’. Recommended reading comes from Hype Partner’s X space AMA and accompanying thread on ‘Meme Marketing and Being Funny’.
Cookie3 CMO, Krystyna Kozac-Kornacka, shared a framework she had learned from the AMA and adapted for her team: Anytime a trending meme format or narrative is identified in the wild, it gets shared within a dedicated slack channel. The team is then given 30 minutes to riff off the submission. The slogan deemed the strongest gets posted.
Finally – on a completely different note – murmurings on the increasingly important role of localisation in content and UX, made me think about something that crossed my FYP from almost 10,000km away, in La Paz, Bolivia.
Bolivia Tok’s viralisation of a 2000s Huayño-Cumbia track, ‘Amor x Internet’ (Love on the Internet) provides a glimpse into the feedback loop between culture and technology. Originally released in 2010, the indigenous-inspired chicha ballad, sung in high-pitch tones by traditionally-dressed cholitas, blends the Andean melody of the traditional charango with the syncopated beats of Yamaha synthesizer keyboards.
The Huayño-Cumbia genre, sitting at the intersection of indigenous culture with modern electronics and themes, represents the capacity of Quechua and Aymara communities to put a twist on ancestral influences and, as a form of resistance to the homogenising tendencies of globalisation, reassert cultural identity.
Recalling a time when, for the majority of Bolivians, internet access was restricted to the opening hours and fixed locations of specially designated kiosks, ‘Amor x Internet’ was brought back into mass consciousness for the smart phone generation when La Paz-based fashion influencer and Vogue model, Haniel Dueri, used the audio in a Tik Tok video.
Besides exploding as a viral trend on the clock app, the song made it onto several national television programmes, and became the anthem for a gathering of La Paz’s most high profile influencers at a Sopocachi antro (the kind of bar where you may want to play it easy on the homemade gin).
Building on some of the points from Hype Partner’s Meme Marketing AMA, the takeaway is that top performing content emerges from deep within a shared context. By avoiding trying to speak to ‘everyone’ (and ending up speaking to no-one), creators can instil that magical feeling of being seen and identification that is the foundation of spreadable content.
That's what I have for you for now. A huge thank you if you've read this far. How was this as a come back after some months away? Did I do OK? What kind of angles, topics or formats would you like to see more of? I'd love to know!
If you like what you've read, consider collecting this piece. And if, like me, you also enjoy nerding out about all things culture x web3 x copywriting x content, OR you're a mission-aligned web3 brand looking to build community through user journeys and storytelling, feel free to follow up at mariquita@web3writer.net. I'd love to chat!
Gn 🎃
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