*Below is our keynote at Ethereum Denver 2022, announcing Harmony’s Blue Metaverse and committing to funding ten thousands DAOs and scholars on zero-knowledge proofs.

💙 Good morning, everyone. We are here today to announce a blue metaverse – Harmony Metaverse! To think about how to build a future together with so many different communities, we got 8 Bored Apes, all BLUE!

Today, we come here and ask: What can we do in Denver? How can we think about all of the future games? We say, let’s use cross-chain NFTs and our bridge that you can put your assets, your apes, and your new NFT profiles into many different places in life... Let's marry technology with culture!

And... Let's do a digital festival together and put all of our assets for timeshare with the community - fractionalized ownership. We are committed to putting all of our apes and assets to share with our ecosystem partners. These apes belong to you, and we'll always hold on to them so that we can think about what we can do together over the long run.

Let me give you a few ideas today...

We did many creative briefs and branding exercises to come up with this profile. One that you would want to be a part of your life.  What games will you design to use this asset? Well, we are having fun with apes and bananas! We have been thinking about profiles and galleries. When you enter different parts of the metaverse, how do you show up with your digital identity?

How will we look and what kinds of and how many identities will you are associated with. They will be in galleries, games and festivals that represent you in the future.

BUT, you know our favorite showcase, right?

Today we are announcing our partner who will be using apes, as heros, profiles, and game assets: DeFi Kingdom! It is not just our favorite, but the top game on blockchain . It’s actually number one in blockchain game volume! We are here to think about what it would look like as part of the portal to the blue metaverse.

What kinds of gameplays, profiles, and heroes do you want? With apes, and hopefully many of the future NFTs, you own the full copyright license and derived work to create together.

But there’s so much more that we can do. We are top 10 in number of wallets on blockchain to onboard users, top 6 in developer growth and 70% of the industry’s GameFi volume with games in our ecosystem.

Network growth is super critical, and we designed this network to be scalable and secure. Not just in terms of stakes, but in terms of how many people care about it. And we openly commit to giving resources through grants to all the developers coming in, bringing more people and developers for the future. The $300 million grant is all for you.

We have formed many DAOs out of these grants, with 35 of them and $40 million already. Over 110 governors are using multi-signature wallets to understand the critical governance systems that will sustain this development.

We have so many apps, games and showcases coming, but where are we going next? Looking towards 2026, we published our four-year plan. We know bridges are critical, and we know our big launch this year will be the blue metaverse because that’s where hundreds of millions of users will come in — where culture meets technology in every part of our lives. We also know that building a scalable blockchain through zero-knowledge proofs is what we will commit fully to.

Toward zkEVM and light clients, we need to start today but we will have magical uses in the coming years. Where are we going next? This network started with us, the team and with the community, but it’s all going to be DAOs.

So, we committed to only two metrics. We want to bring in hundreds of thousands of scholars into the space. They’ve already started building. You can see so many scholars in Denver wearing blue t-shirts. We have done it in San Francisco, Lisbon, and we’ll keep doing it until we bring in millions of people to build with us. Ten thousand DAOs, that’s how committed we are to it. Not only will we put all of our treasury and governance into these 10,000 DAOs, but also we know DAO is the right structure to sustain our future. The community fully owns what they build and the direction that they are going.

We already have more than 160 grantees building this ecosystem. We literally gave out $40 million grants in less than 6 months. We really believe that, if we believe in something, let’s go fully into it. Don’t hold back. This is our future — we are the pioneers! If you believe in something, show up and just go fully into it. With DAOs or ZK, that’s how strong our commitment is.

The 10,000 DAOs seem silly. People laugh at us and ask how many we have so far. We only know where are going. We will fully commit to this 10,000 DAOs initiative. Partners are already come in because they know that we want to help them fully on what they want to build. For our Africa DAO, we committed $2 million. They just started within weeks, hosting events, talks, education series, and helping give out our grants, because they know that they have a full continent that they will support and build a future with. Our H.E.R. DAO is bringing women scholars and developers. Our Blu3 DAO is helping everyone think about their financial metamorphism.

We showed this video on a billboard at our pop-up party in Times Square. Just a few of us showed up in the cold winter at Times Square. But we believed that there is a bigger story than just NFT at NYC. We came together with a few people who wanted to write a book and also created a community. That’s how it got started and now we’ve published the book.

AND, we are also announcing today that Harmony will commit $1 million to this Blu3 DAO. They’re doing incredible work at this event. They really want to bring in the best people. I personally met with each of them to hear their real story and their struggles. We call it metamorphosis — the change within.

Change is constant, but that’s too passive a way to put it. Change is inevitable! But that’s just the destiny. That’s just the state of the world that’s so detached and passive, far beyond our control. We think that CHANGE is invincible. It’s really in your hands. We all come from different paths and struggles. With this Blu3 DAO, we think there is a bigger story to tell, more than technology. It’s about how each of us is connected through metamorphosis.

Change is invincible. If you put it in your hands, open your heart then there are many things that we can do it together.

Radical — Social — Change! This is a video that got everyone fired up. Our community believes that the future is more than just an idea of a blockchain or a few bridges. It’s about creating wealth in harmony; with yourself, with your families, with your community, and with the values you believe in. We are doing so much all throughout these events now because meeting the people that believe in this mission touches so much of our hearts. And we have so much to do together.

And here’s what happened in San Francisco. The best wallet I must say. We are all waiting for it. That’s the portal to the blue metaverse. The best wallet that you can ask your family to try and anyone to onboard. Not only will you love all the features, but you’ll also love the design and user experience. That’s where it counts. That’s where the next 100 million users going to come in.

We also started with this new design. As you look at it, what’s special about it is not just a refresh of our brand, but the fact that we are doing it with the Design DAO to let the community decide. Finally, I don’t need to look at the fonts and pixels and approve each pixel. It’s going to be beautiful, and we think that the message to the world must be told visually, with entertainment, and with the story that they can understand. And here’s the new design on our website that you can go through.

Also merchandise! People love our blue. You can see so many people in blue here! Many of us really believe that we just want to hug each other and to wear that which really represents our identity.

That’s why we are very serious in putting down three words that you can think of. Zero knowledge proof is making data structures and states very succinct – so they can scale. Think about the product, where the pain is now, that it couldn’t scale. ZK will solve all of this in the coming years. You guys know about privacy and how to think about coin mixers. The last one is fairness.

Where does randomness come in when you need to have a lottery; when you need to do voting. All these products we list out very clearly are ones that we think this year and next year will have the right product market-fit. Come take our $100,000 launch grant, so that when you build this product there are already millions of users waiting for you. It’s not just an idea, there will be millions of users coming into the ZK space.

Imagine if you can figure out anonymous authentication. It’s not just for Web3. Every product out there, instead of working with Google or Apple ID, should work with anonymous authentication. The ZK DAO also runs ZK university courses. We think it will be best to start with the assignment with the help with our TAs. We have already finished with a series where 200 people signed up.

We want you to sign up at Denver! The next series will be even better, as we will be talking about bridges, light clients, data availability so that we can study together with you. This is the frontier that we are learning at the same time as you.

Today, we are also launching Blu3 DAO, for Blue to Fly — butterfly! The metamorphsis is an analogy of our struggle in the world. So many of us go through struggles, whether our own personal struggle, or with families, finances, and communities together. That’s why we launched this new DAO, called Blu3 DAO to bring the community together to go beyond Harmony, beyond a few ideas, to know that there’s so much love to share around.

But how did it start? We are finally going to be signing many books here today. The author is here, and so many women scholars came here today because of the book, because of this idea. Let me tell you how we started.

I can’t show you the full video, so you have to watch it yourself. It’s on harmony.one/blue, and this is where the blue metaverse comes in!

We had the Deadmau5 party a few days ago, let’s do one more party on Sunday. It’s the closing party and we are co-hosting it. Come, have fun, because that’s where we bond together.

Thank You!

– Stephen Tse