(short intro note - we've migrated Touch Grass to Paragraph and are migrating all previous posts, do not despair that nothing is lost!)
These past weeks felt like a month, though in a totally good way. The Lens team flew to Berlin, and we all got to meet IRL which was really nice. afk Berlin was a blast, and many hackers also wandered over to our ETHBerlin matcha bar and screen printing pop-up to learn more about Lens
The real highlight of the week were the talks at afk, our first Lens IRL hang. We took a deliberate approach to include critical voices, artists, privacy advocates, and builders to invite new lenses (pun intended) by which to view our social spaces online.
Here are some of the most thought-provoking quotes from our guests:
“I would love to see some deeper thinking on what social means today. If social networks in the past were claiming to connect people in new ways (while sorting people in the background), what is social today? What do we want to have in a social space?” - Jaya Klara Brekke
“The idea of reputation as a valuable asset is interesting. When you’re able to swap that reputation out it invites the worst behavior. Reputation is the last bastion of ‘can I collaborate with this person?’ The fact that humans exist is because we are good at collaborating. The last buck is reputation. It scares me to think about someone not being responsible for their reputation.” - Billy Rennekamp
“Memecoins have an ephemeral feeling around them, and I doubt the staying power. To build an emotional connection, you don’t go through the door of finance to do that. You speak to someone's morals, build trust — things outside the realm of a chart.” - Sam Hart
Now, we’re back to being heads down, thinking and working with creators while getting the Lens Network ready for zkSync. I’m sure that in a week, we’ll be cherishing the moments spent in Berlin, away from our keyboards for a week, talking about big picture stuff.
Since we’ve been at ETHBerlin, the first section of the newsletter will highlight the projects we found the most fun at the hackathon.
Hot Apps / Hackathon Projects
I’ve been obsessed with 0xppl. It's a geeky social media network for crypto natives that tracks transaction activity so you can copy trade, explore your social graph in an interactive way, and discover new assets. They also have Lens profiles integrated via Hey, which makes it easier to onboard and prevents the cold start problem for a new social app.
CROSS-CHAIN CULTURE LEGOS ON LENS CLIENTS! Orb shipped a bunch of updates, and updated its branding. Cross-chain minting via open actions has been integrated, along with other smallerUX improvements.
Also, OPEN CLUBS ARE COMING TO ORB!!!!!!!!! Soon, anyone on Orb will be able to create new clubs. Stay tuned and save your $Bonsai
zkTwitter: an ETHBerlin-born project that allowed people to connect that weekend via zk-provable data.
Proof of Gamerhood: another ETHBerlin hackathon project that aims to solve the problem with bots on both web2 and web3 apps by playing an AI-unfriendly mini-game
CarnationFM: an anon, privacy-preserving, voice broadcasting network
Culture
Futura Drops upcoming exhibition in Caracas, Venezuela, with Sasha Stiles and Niceaunties
Read
Gremlin’s essay on how to write about art, from her perspective, and of course, her drop with Baggy Industries
Vitalik's essay about L2s as cultural extensions of Ethereum, with Paul Dylan-Ennis and Abdelhamid Bakhta
NEW! Introducing Kay’s corner. Kay is an AI and digital fashion creator from Japan that I admire who has been sharing Lens with her friends, so I asked her to select two pieces of art to feature in every newsletter installment.
Kay’s Corner #1:
Ris’s entry for the Galverse 3D competition was next level. The combination of music and visuals is a great watch. Her image piece is equally excellent.
Cameshow has been sharing their progress of creating a traditional Japanese Castle in 3D for the first time by following tutorials, and it is now complete! Watching it come together has been very satisfying.
⭐️HOT NEW LENS USERS⭐️
Till next time! :)
