The Agenda revisits previous guests to discuss their progress over the previous year and their plans for 2025

A little over a year and a half has passed since The Agenda podcast first launched, and in each episode, co-hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond

A little over a year and a half has passed since The Agenda podcast first launched, and in each episode, co-hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond ask guests to share how crypto and blockchain are helping to improve the lives of people around the world.

With the podcast approaching the 40-episode mark, it seemed like prime time to revisit previous guests to discuss their progress over the previous year and their plans for 2025.

Artificial intelligence opens a new meta for Web3 projects

WetSpace founder and CEO Allie Rae expressed her optimism on how AI could boost creator revenue and enhance the consumer experience on subscription-based platforms.

When asked whether creator and consumer activity on the platform had risen throughout the 2024 bull market, Rae said that WetSpace is thriving and excited to roll out new incentives and features that are creator-centric.

Generally, these types of incentives siphon income away from mentees and to the mentor and platform, but Rae said the profit-sharing “comes out of what WetSpace is cut, not the creators. So we’re really trying to do that because we want to get creators on the platform.”

Some DAOs closed up shop, while others restructured to find a new purpose

Decentralized autonomous organizations were all the rage from the early days of decentralized finance (DeFi) up to the FTX exchange implosion and they continue to make media headlines in 2024. The DAO raised and spent more than $37 million for Assange’s legal defense.

Not all DAO outcomes have been successful. Many disbanded, ran out of funds, encountered legal difficulties over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s mandate that most cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities issuances or simply fell victim to the bear market’s heavy paw.

LaborDAO founder Larry Williams Jr said:

"We're trying to figure out a way to get LaborDAO to be able to work with other DAOs in a way that makes sense and also trying to figure out how to get LaborDAO to be able to work with DAOs that are interested in onboarding LaborDAO members to help them with their projects."

Williams explained that “within the DAO world, there seems to be a lot of misunderstandings about what it means to be a DAO worker or to be a member of a DAO, right? That those things are not cleanly defined.”

Related: Crypto for good: Why blockchain can bring financial inclusion worldwide

Blockchain-based VPNs continue to scale

While attending Consensus 2024 in Austin, Texas, DeYoung crossed paths again with Harry Halpin, the founder and CEO of Nym. As part of their catch-up conversation, Halpin said that Nym continues to scale as the need for decentralized VPNs grows.

Halpin said:

"We're continuing to scale up Nym and get more users onboarded onto the network. We're also working on some exciting new features, like adding support for more devices and making it easier for users to set up and use Nym."

Community is still the cornerstone of Web3 and blockchain

A majority of guests on The Agenda have expressed their belief that community is the beating heart of every crypto, Web3 and blockchain project. In fact, most of the horror stories about crypto gone wrong first start with core leaders in a project either going against the wishes of the community or sidelining them completely.

Cryptonauts co-founder Nathan Lurng said that their community of YouTube viewers and subscribers remains front of mind when his team brainstorms content topics.

In terms of new social metas for the current crypto market, Lurng said he feels “a lot of retail is tired of buying venture capital's bag.” He gave the example of projects that are valued at over $300 million, giving large pre-listing token allocations to venture investors and then the project and VCs abruptly dump the token on retail investors once it lists on exchanges. Social investing in memecoins has definitely been the new meta for 2024 and Luring said that:

"I think that retail kind of banded together and found a way to make it work for them in a way that they feel like they're able to participate in the market and still have fun with it."

Regarding Cryptonauts’ 2025 goals, Luring said:

"We're hoping to continue growing our community and putting out more content that our viewers will enjoy. We're also planning to launch some new initiatives in 2025, so stay tuned for more updates on that."

To hear more from The Agenda’s catchup conversation with previous guests, listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!

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