Dear Open Community,
It’s been a little longer since our last update—our March letter feels like it was just yesterday, but here we are with our first quarterly edition. As the Open ecosystem continues to grow, we wanted to take a step back and share a broader snapshot of progress, ideas, and community stories.
Q2 brought plenty of milestones, new faces, and inspiring moments that keep us excited about what’s ahead.
Below, you’ll find some highlights and ways to stay connected as we keep building together.
Highlights
- Our COO Kate joined Monad’s flagship pitch fest at Hong Kong Web3 Festival, backing next-gen builders, sharing bold ideas, and repping Molandak in style. Shoutout to our ecosystem projects NadSmith, NadKeeper, and MonarchBot for showcasing agentic infra on Monad the way it should be.
- We connected with builders, partners, and friends at TOKEN2049 Dubai, swapping ideas, sharing updates, and laying the groundwork for what’s next.
- We completed the Q2 2025 Community Survey, where we invited everyone to share ideas and feedback to help shape the next chapter of The Open Network. Thanks to all who took the time to participate—your input means a lot.
- We are connecting verifiable decentralized AI and science to Arbitrum. With faster transactions and scalable compute, Arbitrum is the ideal environment for what we’re building: an open, onchain ecosystem where AI and DeSci can thrive.
- Open Initiative Grant Milestones – it’s great to see our recipients making real progress this quarter:
- Fungi, one of the first teams backed by the Open Initiative Grant, achieved their milestone success. Their yield automation DeFi agent, MushyAgent, reached over $100K in assets under management just 17 days after launch.
- We’re excited to see @EthereumPhone, an Open Initiative Grant recipient, gaining traction. ethOS is building a crypto-native mobile OS where wallets, apps, and access are seamlessly integrated into the hardware.
- We’re excited to see @interfacedapp, another Open Initiative Grant recipient, making progress on their crypto-native social trading app. Interface is building a mobile companion for Ethereum where users can follow wallets, swap with comments, copy-trade friends, and discover tokens together in a familiar social feed experience.
Open Initiative Podcast
This quarter, we connected with founders, creators, and innovators to share their journeys and ideas. We came away with fresh perspectives and plenty of inspiration you won’t want to miss:
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Decentralizing Trust: How Nillion is Redefining Secure Computation
In this episode, we delve into the evolving world of AI and privacy with Lukas, the ecosystem lead of Nillion. Lukas shares his journey from Austria to the UK and eventually into the crypto space, discussing the rise of personalized AI applications and their potential impact on our daily lives.
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Decentralizing Execution: How Axal is Revolutionizing Autonomous Agents
We sit down with Ash, the founder of Axal, to discuss building a competitive network of verifiable agents and the challenges of creating real-world use cases. Discover how Axal aims to revolutionize task automation and create a decentralized digital future.
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Owning Intelligence: How Pond Is Building the Model Layer of Crypto
Jake, the Chief Product Officer of Pond, shares insights on shifting toward model and agent ownership, the importance of developer tooling, and the vision to empower anyone to build impactful AI apps.
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Does AI Need Blockchain? Terrence on the Innovation Journey of SuperNET and the Narra Layer (中文特辑)
This special Chinese-language episode features Terrence, the founder of SuperNET and Narra Layer, discussing how they combine AI and blockchain to create the next generation of decentralized applications.
Community Spotlight: Stories, Art & Creativity
Our community continues to inspire with art, writing, and creative expression celebrating the Open Network, big thanks to everyone for sharing your vision and talent. Together, we’re shaping the future of open, verifiable technology:
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0xquickk (@0xquickk) published a detailed deep dive into OpenAgent, exploring how it empowers builders to launch intelligent, verifiable AI agents in the Sentient ecosystem—and why trustless, auditable compute will be essential for DeFi, DeSci, and beyond.
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Perpetual (@perpz_apt) shared an in-depth overview of Open’s mission, highlighting the merger of RSS3, RSSHub, the Open Information Initiative, and other modules into a unified commitment to an open and scalable web..
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zeno.moon (@zenodab) posted multiple thoughtful threads exploring how OpenVM and the Open DeSci Platform empower builders to create decentralized, verifiable AI—from tackling centralized control to rewarding contributions through the OVM point system.
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Juliajust (@julia_just_) highlighted recent milestones, from our demo agent on Sentient’s Chat Agent Hub to ecosystem growth at ETH San Francisco and the Hong Kong Web3 Festival.
Join the Open Movement
Whether you’re building an app, protocol, infrastructure, or tool, if your work drives the web toward openness and empowers people to own their data, the Open Initiative Grant is here to support you.
We back independent builders who believe the internet should be an open, interconnected space—not a series of walled gardens. From community platforms to innovative developer tools, any project that helps push open data and user ownership forward matters.
Until Next Time…
Thank you for reading and for being part of this journey.
Every project and idea shared over the past quarter shows what’s possible when we build together. We believe that even the smallest spark—a conversation, a prototype, a bold idea—can ignite something much bigger. A single spark can start a prairie fire.
We’re excited for what’s ahead and grateful to have you with us.
With you in the open,
Zoe and the Open team
