Repost of an article from Medium written and posted by me at the beginning of 2023 from the gorgeous city named Baku

A story of friends about Filecoin, force, fear and faith (written and edited by a human)

“May the Force be with us all, and may we be at peace in our temple, in a place open to thoughts and speeches, a realm of mutual respect, a state of common noble purpose; let us take our places together, no one is superior to the other, and let us work together in this assembly, free from selfishness and jealousy and other evil”

Web3Jedis High Council

Introduction

Lately, one true BUIDLer and our brother-in-arms, Nadnit from Lighthouse.storage has tweeted a very interesting fact, that has led me to some very important conclusions. I believe they will help me enlighten my path and I felt a need to share them with you, my dear reader. The Tweet was saying, that already in 1997 a computer had outplayed a human in chess, it was the updated version of Deep Blue, which defeated Kasparov. This year in 2023 there are Russian and Chinese players competing in the Chess World Championship and somehow people still prefer to see two imperfect humans competing to take the prize. This little story has made me stop and look inside myself once again. I was so obsessed with efficiency, running the race, trying to validate our project, and looking for market fit and funding, that I lost the human connection with some of the most important people in my life, with my closest brother and sisters in arms, people I respect and love and people who love and respect me. No matter how hard we try and which highest heights we will achieve, we will always find ourselves in the same Hamster Wheel trying to turn it faster and faster (at least a bit faster, than your closest hamster competitors). What is it all for, if it is not about us, people? On the 1st of April 2023, I felt myself a fool, because I realized, that in this race for a moment I had lost focus on the most important I have, the people around me. Nevertheless, at the same time, I felt grateful to the universe to be able to feel and to realize it, even though it is pretty painful each time to process things deep inside being self-critical enough (btw. It only works if you are being truly honest with yourself).

Twitter link

The Return of Web3Jedis

I have been building IT startups for over 10 years and since 2016 I have been obsessed with the idea of a new decentralized Web. I wasn’t just looking at the industry from aside, I was actively building crypto projects and communities for years, but still couldn’t explain myself why is everything functioning in such a strange way as if we were living in a world of crooked mirrors. Scammers get rich, lies are easier to sell and people are stuck in the old rituals and most of them keep on pretending in front of each other. I felt such a strong need to systemize my understanding of the Web3 world to be able to get free from FOMO, FUD, etc. to be able to build with full dedication not being worried about my path and the noble purpose of it. This is how the Open-heart Web3 philosophy was born. Later, after the war in Ukraine had started, I welcomed our fleeing Ukranian and Russian colleagues and friends in Istanbul in our office in a modern coworking space. One of them, Dan Kaizer, co-founder of Azuro Protocol became my dear friend and got a special place in my heart because together with him just in fun talks, we systemized my visions about the Web3 industry, which became the foundation of our Web3Jedis DAO and CodeX. We have combined different sci-fi fandoms to explain the rules of the game and here is what we have got.

There is Force. The Force is a metaphysical and ubiquitous power in Web3 to build projects and create communities and teams, that impact the future of the world. There are Force-sensitive Homo Sapiens on the planet with a different level of Force power and skills

  • Web3Jedis true BUIDLers, they don’t abuse the force, but seek balance and try to use it to create value and help those in need
  • Siths abuse the force. More money for money, more force for the force. Scammers and everyone else who choose the dark side.
  • Witchers/Mandalorians are mercenaries and sell their services to both sides. They despise both Jedis and Siths. Professionals without souls.
  • Muggles don’t know about magic and don’t feel the force. Most of them are not even trying to learn and feel more, they prefer or abused to stay in the primitive mode.

The first Holocron NFT, which is the access token into the High Council of DAO Web3Jedis was minted in June on Web3Jedis.xyz. In July 2022, I, Ilya Orlov found the metaverse.filecoin.io which made me take a closer look at Filecoin and FVM. In July I put together the concept of an interoperable marketplace for Metaverse with NFTs with encrypted unlockable files (Mirror link). In August 2022 Dr.Stefan Meyer (co-founder of Ambrosus) decided to support us with an Angel investment of $55k and we started to build. In September I went to Singapore to visit the Filecoin Summit and we entered the FVM Early Builders program. I was lucky to meet Juan Bennett and other amazing people from the ecosystem of Protocol Labs. This is when it became clear, that these are people I want to be moving together. These are 100% right people to achieve the noble purpose I was writing above. In February 2023 on the FVM Space Warp hackathon, we decided to pivot the concept and this is how the EFT Protocol (Encrypted FileToken) and Filemarket.xyz were born.

Wanted to say a huge thanks to Juan Benet for bringing such amazing and kind people together! The whole Filecoin and Protocol Labs team, guys, you are awesome and definitely you are following the light. Filemarket and Web3Jedis are tiny for now, but we are on the same path, cause the middle way is the way!

To be continued…