😎 Vibe-coded

Happy Friday! I’m SO glad yesterday happened, TBH. 

I really needed something funny on the timeline, and wow, did America’s richest, most powerful chonky bois deliver. I hope couples counseling provides them with some closure.

I know it might have felt like this for some for a while now, but it’s really starting to feel like builder season. There’s a lot of funding getting thrown around for devs who make something cool (as long as you don’t make a game, because crypto gaming is not considered so cool right now. Cue my gamer girl tears).

Specifically, it’s build-your-own-crypto-app szn. And yes, vibe coding is allowed.

And as a quick heads-up: The Google gods are still against us, and we’re sadly being flagged as spam automatically by Gmail’s filters for some readers. If you like this newsletter, send us a reply with your favorite ice cream flavor. 

Summer is coming, after all!

— Kate Irwin

Exclusive: World plots ‘Dev Summer’ with Build 2.0, rewards

World Network — known for its eye-scanning orb that verifies human accounts for its mobile super app — is launching the next phase of its developer incentive campaign.

World Network is managed by World Foundation and also involves corporate entities such as World Assets Limited and World Chain LLC. For-profit blockchain product developer Tools For Humanity is overseeing the development of the World app.

Collectively, World Foundation and TFH are working with crypto events DAO FWB to host their next event for builders, World Build 2.0, in July, according to a release Tools For Humanity shared exclusively with The Drop. Tools For Humanity Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada was one of the first edition’s judges.

The first World Build event ran for five months, from February until May this year. It included an online hackathon followed by an in-person build sprint and ended with a demo day, where builders pitched their apps to VCs and threw their hats in the ring for various grants. The second Build event is expected to have a similar format.

There are a number of different funding opportunities for mini app builders regardless of their participation in World Build. World Foundation is offering a Mini Apps Grants Program and Mini App Retroactive Rewards. 

TFH’s Dev Rewards Pilot has a total of $300,000 to give developers over a three-month period ending June 30. Rewards of $25,000 a week are split across multiple dev teams depending on mini app performance.

The World Foundation is also giving out $1 million worth of its WLD token to developers who’ve already shipped something for the World app and saw over 10,000 verified human users by May 16 as part of a retroactive funding effort. Devs have until June 9 to apply for that one-time WLD token gift.

There are already 300 mini apps so far available within the World mobile app with roughly $12 million in venture capital funding across them, according to data from Tools For Humanity.

The World app uses the World Network blockchain, which is built on Ethereum via the Optimism Superchain. 

Monetization isn't the main focus of the World Foundation or TFH right now. Instead, they’re pushing for platform growth and user adoption. 

The World App has seen over 10 million downloads on Android alone thus far, according to its Google Play Store page. 

Based on data from analytics platform AppFigures, it looks like World App for Android is a lot more popular than its iOS version. The Android version has seen over 5.9 million downloads this year alone, while the iOS version has less than a million downloads in that same period. 

The top countries downloading World’s Android app this year so far the most are, in order, Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Philippines, and Peru. The US is much further down, in the 19th spot. The top countries data for the iOS app paints a similar picture, suggesting it’s a global app that hasn’t quite breached the US market just yet.

This may be because WLD hadn’t been available to US residents previously until a recent change announced April 30.

Last month, World Foundation raised $135 million in funding from a16z and Bain Capital Crypto. The VCs’ investment came in the form of buying WLD tokens.

Permissionless IV is putting real conversations on stage:

🧠 The proliferation of stablecoin models
🧠 Clearing skies: Crypto company building in the US
🧠 Crypto’s UX problem & how to fix it

Shipping code, writing specs, or architecting the next primitive? You’ll want to be in Brooklyn.

📅 June 24–26 | Brooklyn

After ramping up its political influence efforts this past year with more than 40 lobbyists and millions spent, Coinbase continues to push for influence in the Capitol. This week Coinbase Head of Wallet and Base Jesse Pollak went to Washington, D.C. to further promote cryptocurrency.

Do you think the gerontocracy that is Washington, D.C. will jump for joy at the idea of every American creating a price-volatile “content coin” about their latest passing thought? I’m not so sure. 

But further normalizing crypto, and advocating for reasonable rules to actually make crypto spendable IRL without massive tax pains, would be a good first step.

Crypto’s become more political — and more closely tied to politics — than ever before. 

I think all of this crypto-industry lobbying partly came out of a degree of industry-wide desperation. Some products can’t be built (or tokens launched) without understanding the risks. That also means profits can’t be maximized for shareholders. 

Getting clear regulation would answer questions on what the biggest players like Coinbase can — and can’t — do in the US.

• The Solana Foundation is sponsoring the “DevFun World Cup,” a crypto app-building contest. You can vibe code the entire thing with DevFun, and there’s $15,000 up for grabs.

• Elon’s X (RIP Twitter) has apparently struck a deal with Polymarket. The official @X account said Polymarket is now its “official prediction market partner.”

• OKX has released… a short film? “Mild Mild West” is set in the Wild West era, but their message is that crypto is not the Wild West anymore. 

  • They’re screening it next week in NYC. 

  • No apparent relation to the 1999 Banksy art of the same name.

  • FWIW: I do think crypto is still largely the Wild West. For one, the US still doesn’t have clear regulation yet. We also have volatile memecoins, data breaches, hacks, and rugpullers still getting away with their schemes. I’m pretty sure things are still wild ‘round these parts.

• The Solana Foundation is sponsoring the “DevFun World Cup,” a crypto app-building contest. You can vibe code the entire thing with DevFun, and there’s $15,000 up for grabs.

• Elon’s X (RIP Twitter) has apparently struck a deal with Polymarket. The official @X account said Polymarket is now its “official prediction market partner.”

• OKX has released… a short film? “Mild Mild West” is set in the Wild West era, but their message is that crypto is not the Wild West anymore. 

  • They’re screening it next week in NYC. 

  • No apparent relation to the 1999 Banksy art of the same name.

  • FWIW: I do think crypto is still largely the Wild West. For one, the US still doesn’t have clear regulation yet. We also have volatile memecoins, data breaches, hacks, and rugpullers still getting away with their schemes. I’m pretty sure things are still wild ‘round these parts.