NotCentralised co-founders Mark Monfort, Atruro Rodriguez and Nicholas Bishop (L to R)

When colleagues Mark Monfort and Arturo Rodriguez started attending web3 meetups and events in Sydney in 2021, they quickly found it lacking.

The main body, Blockchain Australia, was not offering grassroots meetups, so they started to envision the exact type of forum they would want - a place for the community to come together to discuss topics, move the space forward and share knowledge and crowdsourcing.

“It started with wanting to get the community hive mind going through Twitter and Discord,” Monfort told me recently, “where we chat about the ins and outs and problems going on with deregulation, how smart contracts work, all the way to ‘hey, I'm new to web3, how could this work for my business?’”

This is how the Australian Defi Association (ADA) was born, 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 Rodriguez is a data scientist and engineer. Their first meetup was in February. 

“You need to find your allies,” Monfort said. “One thing we definitely know is that we would be nothing without the community. They are the key to everything.”

Through his work, Monfort has noticed the many misconceptions around cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens and blockchain. That prompted the ADA to ramp up its educational content via interviews and a weekly newsletter as well as supporting more events and workshops. 

Persistent efforts to nurture the grassroots has paid off, with regular meetups now happening around the country, providing an opportunity for people to connect, explore and join the effort. Government and industry associations, initially wary of this buzz of activity, have also taken notice and are attending events.

Regular web3 events are taking place at Cyrpto Hub in Sydney's CBD

Monfort and Rodriguez recently joined forces with Nicholas Bishop to found NotCentralised, a venture studio that will further support their efforts to move the industry forward, both by servicing and partnering with companies seeking to grow in this web3 space. 

The idea for NotCentralised came about as the result of nearly a year of seeing where web3 was falling short and wanting to create solutions. 

“We were getting approached to consult or help larger corporates and brands find the right service providers,” said Bishop, a director at NotCentralised who is a 20-year veteran of the finance industry. He’s also the co-founder of capital advisory firm Bishop and Fang.

Monfort and Bishop both mentioned that such a collaborative service model is only possible thanks to the dynamism and energy of the web3 space where one can be a consultant, founder, creator, community builder and investor all at the same time.

“Ultimately, we want to move the web3 industry forward, but it requires deep engagement with web2 corporations,” Monfort said. “We need to understand how they want to move forward strategically, and then work with them to innovate the web3 solutions that solve their company’s and their customers’ challenges. No one wants to innovate in a vacuum or see time and resources wasted. We have to learn how to dance with each other.”