Web3 Summit

@PolkadotAgent @gavofyork That's the beauty of conversation. They would be super dull if we agreed all the time!

@Web3summit Had a great long chat with @gavofyork there, we haven't agreed on everything, but it was definitely very enlightening.

Two days of building hard and thinking hard deserved a proper ending. Web3 Summit knows when to push and when to let go. The closing night at Funkhaus was the latter. See you next year.

What do you build when nobody tells you what to build? At Playground . dot, the answer was: a Proof of Delay app conceived on a delayed train. A cargo-ship DAO. A cypherpunk manifesto. A donation page for cats and dogs. Give people the tools, remove the guardrails, and step back. What emerges is always more interesting than anything you could have planned.

What happens when you give space and freedom for the collective unconscious to express itself? A canvas. A piece of wood to carve. An ambient setting to just be. Everyone at Web3 Summit was a co-creator. We provided the space. People brought the ideas and the energy

Recent developments in the UK around VPNs are a stark warning that while intentions might look good, underlying problems can still persist if platforms hold the power. The UK is right not to ban VPNs because privacy and security tools should not become collateral damage in the effort to protect children online. However, putting the responsibility back onto social platforms does not resolve the underlying problem. It asks the same companies that built systems around behavioral profiling, persuasive design, and centralized control to: 👀identify users, 🔞infer their age, 🔏detect attempts to preserve privacy, 🤼and decide who may participate. This might seem a bit obvious, but: You do not reduce platform power by giving platforms more power. Safety measures should be built into open infrastructure: ◼️Proof of eligibility without revealing identity ◼️User-held credentials rather than platform-owned profiles ◼️Selective disclosure rather than repeated document or biometric checks ◼️Rules that can be inspected and independently verified ◼️Privacy tools that do not automatically make users suspicious Protecting children matters, and so does ensuring that protection does not become the foundation for a more surveilled and permissioned web.

The best thing about Playground . dot at @Web3Summit was not the deployments. It was watching people help each other debug. Explain their ideas to strangers. Fork someone else's work and make it their own. Less technology. More people.

Surveillance is creeping into everyday life. Even in Berlin, police are pushing for broader camera powers, and new surveillance laws are being rushed through. So I built 𝐤𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐢 (dot com): a walk/bike route planner that avoids cameras, fully offline on your device!

🚨Yanis Varoufakis on blockchain, the digital euro and being a class traitor I spoke to @yanisvaroufakis, economist and former Greek finance minister, at @Web3summit in Berlin on June 18th, about why he thinks blockchain is one of the few tools that can pull power away from Big Tech and the banks. Truly a privilege that I had the chance to speak with him on such a stage. Full Episode ⬇️

At the Web3Summit last month, 900 people used a closed, event-only network. They paid for food and drinks, published .dot domains, deployed apps, and proved their humanity. Most never knew it was @Polkadot and that the network was wound down when the event ended. The Polkadot Products Devnet is what comes next. The same stack. Public. Permanent. Open to any developer who wants to build on it. The experiment worked. Now it is your turn.

With so many amazing pictures, it's hard to choose our favorites. But we tried. Here's one last look at Web3 Summit 2026.

You came, you got involved, and you were the first to see. Now, it's time for others to join the fun 💪

Over the coming weeks, we'll explore the hidden economics behind today's internet, beginning with one simple question: If online services are free... ...where does the money come from? Read The Hidden Price of Free 👇 web3.foundation/insights/

Before the doors opened... There were cables to untangle. Stages to build. Coffee to make. Mic checks to run. Signs to hang. A hundred tiny problems to solve. None of it makes the program. But all of it makes the Summit. Here's to everyone working behind the scenes.

Some of the best conversations never happened on stage. They happened in the corridors. By the river. Over coffee. Between sessions. One of the things that makes Web3 Summit special is how accessible the speakers are. The people shaping tomorrow's ideas are also the ones stopping to answer questions, continuing debates, and sharing a laugh along the way.

The Chat Control debate isn't really about one piece of legislation; it's about a much bigger question: Who controls our private communications? Today, most messaging depends on companies operating central services. Tomorrow, it doesn't have to. Privacy can't just be promised. It has to be built into the architecture.

One of our fav talks, @KarimJDDA, didn't just deliver a presentation. He etched into history.

@TBSocialist It seems Elon didn't appreciate the title! The stats compared to other content kinda prove it.

What do you think about the @TBSocialist's Collective K-Hole theory?

Open source has never been just about code. It's about people helping people. Throughout Web3 Summit, Playground became a place where experienced builders sat alongside complete newcomers, ideas were shared freely, and every successful deployment was another reminder that collaboration is still our greatest tool.

Every time we click "Accept", we make a trade. Not with money, but with our data, our attention, and, increasingly, our autonomy. The internet's most successful business model isn't really free, and it's fair to say we all pay for it in ways that are difficult to see. This clip explores one of the ideas behind the Web3 Foundation whitepaper, The Hidden Price of Free, and why it's time to rethink what "free" really costs.