There’s no shortage of technology projects in the web3 world. The space, however, lacks platforms and places to celebrate the effect this alternative tech is having on the fringes of society. Artist and community lover, Anjali Young, has taken it upon herself to rectify this with a seven-part documentary that’s both a historical record and a love letter to web3.

Young co-founded Collab.Land so users could access no-code tooling that would allow for a token in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) to be used to provide access on forums such as Discord. In the process, Collab.Land unintentionally created token-gated access. 

“We gave communities the ability to make sure every member had the asset, then if they sold or transferred that NFT, they got kicked out,” Young said to me recently. “No one was doing it at the time. Collab.Land started in the spring of 2020. As of March 2023, we have over 49,000 communities using Collab.Land,” Young said. 

Token gating is now a fundamental primitive to crypto. Some of the biggest crypto communities rely on Collab.Land to grant token-gated access to exclusive content and chats, including World of Women, Pudgy Penguins, Axie Infinity, and Friends With Benefits. While there are natural benefits to restricting access to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) such as Friends With Benefits, Young and her team soon learned that token gating applied to other areas such as investment groups. It also created a new use case for NFTs. 

“We gave a purpose to the tokens that in the past was dependent on the bull and bear market,” she said. “Now, token holders could come together and connect in their shared interests.” 

Read more: Collab.Land Founder James Young On Being the ‘Water Pipes’ of the Web3 World

When you have access to thousands of communities, you see a different side to the hyper financialized mainstream crypto narrative. Young has gleaned insights into millions of lives across the world that’ve been positively transformed through the creative applications of blockchain technology. With Collab.Land, she knew she had struck a cultural chord, and wanted to document it.  

“We wanted to create a historical artifact of this time that future generations will be able to watch and enjoy,” she said. “This is the birth of the Internet having its own money and everyone around the world sharing this global database with equal access. A new type of relationship between humans is forming that we haven’t had before.” 

She’s also hoping to elevate the collective crypto narrative from ‘scammy, casino, privileged’ SBF vibes to one that’s beautiful and inspiring, giving a platform to everyday people changing their lives for the better. 

To bring the documentary to screens, Young hired the award-winning filmmaker and former founder of VICE’s Motherboard Thobey Campion. Her brief? “It has to be beautiful. Really beautiful,” Young told Campion. 

The hardest part was handpicking seven projects out of the nearly 50,000 communities that use Collab.Land. Each episode is presented as a stripped down “day in the life” story of each individual. The seven episodes feature Rug Radio, PizzaDAO, MNTGE, Spankchain, AOK1VERSE, Aslan Ruby, and ThankYouX. 

All episodes tell the story of how web3 is changing the world, from the vantage point of different individuals and their respective industries. 

SpankChain, for example, whose episode will be released April 18, advocates for sex workers, many of whom find themselves unbanked for providing a service. SpankChain uses blockchain technology to allow models – who have been historically oppressed by the mainstream financial system – to accept crypto payments.  

“Each of the seven communities in the series are aligning incentives to solve real-world problems,” Young said. “They’re attacking an issue and actively trying to solve it, using the blockchain as a way to come together.”

“We want every viewer to be inspired by these stories and use it as a point of reflection about the problems they see in their daily lives that could benefit from blockchain and community spirit,” she said. 

While every conference hums with conversations about what will bring millions of new users into web3, maybe the answer isn’t solving the wallet problem or big brands jumping in. Maybe it’s the human beings, not the tech, after all. 

“As my husband says, come for the casino and stay for the revolution,” Young said. The sexiness of the casino might pique the curiosity, but it’s the community and sense of belonging that give us purpose.