The good, the bad, the surprising and what people are most looking forward to in 2023. Hear it straight from some of the best builders and smartest minds in the web3 world.

It’s not easy believing in crypto.

Of any recent year 2022 has proved this out more than any other. Bitches. It’s been hard.

Belief is a funny word for a media company to use that’s dedicated to reporting the truth and exposing the best and worst of the emerging web3 world. The recurring and enduring shitshow that is crypto makes belief a key, however. If we didn’t keep imploding and losing such staggering amounts of money, we wouldn’t need to be summoning the ineffable now would we?

There is no other place in the world I’d rather be, though, and I know everyone at DeCential feels the same. We’re incredibly grateful to be telling the stories of the amazing people who are building web3 and pushing the bounds of what digital assets can embody. This bear market has come with the added misery of one gut punch after another, so it seems quite dark ahead. But when you write about people for a living you hear a lot of stories. And the stories we hear — and tell — at DeCential are all about the resilience and bravery of the people making this tech. They’re not quitters. They’re weird and smart and ambitious and twisted in the best way but they don’t let prices or persistent naysayers limit what they can accomplish.

With that spirit we come to the year end web3 rewind. We reached out to many of our favorite interview subjects to ask them four simple questions:

              The best thing to happen in crypto in 2022

              The worst thing to happen in crypto in 2022

              The most surprising thing to happen in crypto in 2022

              What you’re most looking forward to in 2023.

Hear from Griff Green and Amanda Cassatt and David Lavecky and Mark de Clive-Lowe and a bunch more, in their own words in the videos below. This story was reported by Matthew Leising, Miriam Feiler and MacEagon Voyce.

Thank you for reading DeCential and supporting us. Happy holidays and here’s to a bright 2023.

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Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer, Coinshares

Meltem is a force of nature in crypto and thank God for that. She was the first guest I had on my DeCent People podcast and always has a smart and not obvious take on whatever’s is happening.

Griff Green, co-founder, Giveth

I referred to Griff in my book Out of the Ether as the mayor of Ethereum. That was around 2016 and I think the ecosystem is so much larger now that a mayor isn’t practical. But Griff is a great example of the type of people I mentioned earlier. He’s smart and ambitious but also works his ass off trying to bring charitable giving to the blockchain. We wrote abut Griff here and he was on DeCent People too.

David Lavecky, CEO and Co-Founder, Canvas

Along with his brother Daniel, David Lavecky runs CANVAS, which offers its users ways to invest, trade and transfer defi tokens and cryptocurrency without paying transaction fees. He spoke with Miriam Felier for a a story we published in October.

Amanda Cassatt, co-founder Serotonin

Amanda has been around Ethereum from the very beginning, first at ConsenSys and now with her marketing and NFT studio Serotonin. She’s forgotten more than most people know in the industry and was a wonderful guest on DeCent People this year.

Anthony Sessano, author of the Daily Gwei newsletter

Anthony is so integral to the Ethereum world that people were pegging price movements from whether he woke up bearish or bullish. And if you know Anthony, you know he’s like 99.99 percent bullish. He was a really fun interview on DeCent People.

Cholo Maputol, CEO and Founder, Play it Forward DAO

Along with some high school friends, with whom he had grown up playing World of Warcraft, Counter Strike and StarCraft, Cholo started Play It Forward DAO, . They were all still active in gaming but had separately created their own guilds, or teams of gamers who can compete for shared prize money. After he realized an economy of scale could be achieved by teaming up, the idea for Play It Forward DAO (PIF DAO) was born. Check out or coverage of PIF DAO here.

Mark de Clive-Lowe, electronic jazz pioneer and pianist

Earlier this year, the LA-based artist purchased the rights to seven of his albums from two labels as part of his $BUYBACK campaign. At the same time, he transformed his own imprint Mashibeats into a community-operated DAO. He’s one of the many musicians we’ve covered this year who are using blockchain and web3 to remake their careers in much more friendly terms.

Jeff Dorman, Chief Investment Officer, Arca

You will sometimes hear about crypto that there are “no adults in the room.” Jeff is here to put that nonsense to rest. He has a sober but well-informed and enthusiastic understanding of what digital assets can become in the broad economy. Jeff shared his market analysis with us in October and was on DeCent People in May.

Henry Wang, Founder and CEO, SmartMesh

Henry’s vision is to eliminate barriers to access by building a truly inclusive and globally accessible Internet. It is the culmination of his long held philosophy that he terms “One World One Web.”

Lex Sokolin, chief economist, ConsenSys

Lex came to the U.S. from Russia when he was 10 years old and has long been drawn to innovations that push financial technology. He was at Lehman Brothers when it failed at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, which taught him deep lessons about the ephemerality of institutions. While it took him some time to grasp crypto, he's all in now and is leading efforts at ConsenSys that focus on token economics, DAO strategy and treasury management. He was a great guest on DeCent People.

Illia Pashkov, Founder, Altar Metaverse

Earlier this year, Illia, a U.S.-based Ukrainian tech entrepreneur, managed to secure a car with gas for his mother to escape Ukraine after Russian forces invaded. Illia founded Altar Metaverse, a cross-metaverse hub with a non-fungible token marketplace and had a meticulous plan to get his mom out of the country ahead of the Russian soldiers.  

Mark Monfort, Co-Founder, NotCentralised

Earlier this year, Monfort helped create the Australian Defi Association (ADA), an effort to mobilize the web3 ecosystem around the pillars of education, inclusivity and collaboration. Monfort built a career in finance, data analytics and technology, while his partner Arturoo Rodriguez is a data scientist and engineer.

Jamil Dhanani, Founder, Gamma

Founded about a year ago, Jamil created Gamma to allow users to find, list, and sell NFTs, but it’s not on a smart contract blockchain like Ethereum or Solana, it’s on Bitcoin. It also offers a no-code platform to launch NFT collections as well as a social platform.

Evelina Lye, Co-Founder, Untam3d

Untam3d started as a Facebook group for women to learn about cryptocurrencies and NFTs but quickly blossomed into a group of more than 1,000 members. In May, we wrote about Evelina’s mission to make sure web3 isn’t just “Silicon Valley boys’ playground.”