A rundown of resources: news, guides, and events
A week's compilation of resources to help you on your crypto/web3/NFT journey
Between the long pieces that spotlight a person or dive deep into a topic, I also want to share some news and resources.
Is there something in particular you’re looking for? Do you have an oddly specific question? Leave a comment or reply to the newsletter from your inbox!
Let’s dig in:
Events and Education
🦋 Lavinia Osborne, founder of Women in Blockchain Talks, is hosting an Intro to Crypto workshop on 24 January
Lavinia is the reason I had the confidence to set up my first wallet. If you’re in Europe and you want to set aside a day to get into crypto, I highly recommend signing up! I also suggest checking out the community if you want to learn more about WiBT.
💰 Lucija Matic is onboarding women into crypto investing in a 5-week course (deadline to register: 14 January)
I met Lucija in the Crypto Cheetahs group, which I found via Des Femmes. She’s such a gem, not just as a community founder, but as a human who wants women to achieve financial freedom for themselves.
Even if you feel like you have a firm grasp of crypto 101, Lucija can help you get to the confident, advanced levels of knowledge so that you can invest within your risk appetite.
🤖 Female Founders Fund is hosting a panel discussion about web3 on February 1.
With all the hype around web3, DAOs, and NFTs, there aren’t a lot of “spaces,” chats, or webinars I want to attend. But Female Founders Fund puts out great content, and I trust this will be a good talk.
A major selling point: they have resource guides at the bottom of the event page so that you can familiarize yourself with terminology and basic concepts.
I registered, but forgot it was at 5pm EST, not CET, so…maybe I’ll see you there?
🏃🏼♀️ DLT TALENTS is launching a blockchain leadership program for women (application deadline: 13 March)
Blockchain is more than crypto. It can be implemented in sectors like real estate (deeds/titles), logistics (supply chain tracking), and gaming (characters and equipment). If you’re less interested in crypto, but even a smidge curious about blockchain, this program is for you.
It’s free, but they’re only accepting 100 women into the 18-week program.
Jobs and Communities
👍🏼 Metis, a layer 2 solution for Ethereum, is looking for a marketing and media relations manager. Metis aims to give developers, DAOs, artists, and businesses a safe, secure, and affordable method of building on Ethereum.
📣 A head’s up: there’s a huge demand for marketing skills at web3, crypto, and NFT companies. If you want to level up your skills as a freelance writer on these topics, I’ve just launched a community where I share resources to help writers in this space, including:
contract templates
video walkthroughs of good (and bad) proposals
tools to get started
even more information about crypto and web3
The community isn’t open to the public yet - I’m only allowing a few people in to test it out and give me feedback. So if you want to join, let me know! You can leave a comment or hit reply to the email if you’re subscribed. And if you’re not subscribed…
Guides and Resources
📚 Gaby Goldberg put together an extremely comprehensive web3 reading guide. There’s so much in here that I’ve barely made a dent in it! She also has a web3 job board if you’re ready to jump down the rabbit hole.
🌟 Odyssey put together these fantastic bullet point guides to web3. If you just want something to skim during your bathroom break, you could easily get through every guide in a day or two.
News I Find Interesting
This week I learned about Goldfinch, which is a crypto-lending platform that doesn't require crypto as collateral. (The news was that they received funding from a16z, which I find less interesting.)
Goldfinch allows customers to take out loans without putting up crypto collateral. Currently, most people who can afford to put up collateral for a loan are crypto hodlers who need cash fast, but don’t want to sell their crypto assets.
Hodl means to hold onto an asset, with hopes that the value goes up.
But their target audience isn’t tech bros in the US. They work with borrowers in emerging, growing markets such as Mexico, Nigeria, and Vietnam. And it’s not necessarily Goldfinch that issues the loan - any approved lender can give a loan to any approved borrower.
I definitely need to dive into it more, but to me, this is the unlocked potential of crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi).
In essence, DeFi attempts to make financial transactions faster and more direct by removing the middleman. For example, instead of waiting 2-3 days for the bank to transfer your money to your landlord, a DeFi protocol allows you to send it almost immediately. (Check out the Odyssey resource for a beter explanation!)
It’s not supposed to be a place where rich people park their money and get richer. People should use it to lift each other out of poverty and give each other a fighting chance at financial security and sovereignty.
That’s all from me this time! I’d love to know what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you want to know more about.
And if you know someone who is skeptically curious like yourself, feel free to share: