City of Austin officials and local business leaders are rolling out a number of initiatives aimed at making Central Texas a leader in emerging technologies such as cryptocurrency, Web3 and the blockchain.
As South by Southwest returns to Austin in person this week, Mayor Steve Adler said the city issed two draft resolutions this week focused on encouraging growth in the cryptocurrency sector and Web3 technologies and addressing city government’s role in that growth. The resolutions are expected to go before the Austin City Council on March 24.
Joined by local business and tech leaders during a Thursday evening event, Adler said Austin is a forward-looking city and is the type of place where innovation happens fast, noting the region’s high concentration of talent from universities, businesses and accelerators.
“There’s something really special and magical about this city,” Adler said. “It’s reflected in the amount of tech talent that we all see coming to Austin.”
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Adler said the decentralized nature of the blockchain, Web3 and cryptocurrency can open up the potential for people of diverse backgrounds to take part.
“The neat thing about this technology is it’s decentralized and it has the capacity and the potential to be available to everybody,” Adler said. “In too many of the tech fields, it is too male and too white. We have the chance at the beginning stages of new technologies, new platforms, new protocols, new internet to do it right.”
Austin City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly said there are many possible municipal uses for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, such as allowing residents to pay property taxes or service fees using cryptocurrencies. She said she plans to bring a resolution forward to the City Council to direct the city manager to explore these uses.
“My vision is that we are a city that leads in innovation and encourages and embraces these new technologies while providing the possible benefits of cryptocurrency and blockchain to our city’s residents, the financial health of our city government, the provision of city services and the residents of the city that we serve,” Kelly said.
Local business leaders also announced multiple initiatives related to Web3, cryptocurrency and blockchain. Definitions of Web3 differ, but generally it’s considered to be the next iteration of the World Wide Web, which will be built on blockchain technology and decentralized. Companies developing related technology might include applications such as blockchain technology, NFTs or cryptocurrency.
Capital Factory, an Austin-based accelerator and incubator, announced a partnership with the Stax Foundation, one of the cryptocurrency protocols. The two committed $500,000 dollars each for a multi-year program to cultivate and encourage more of these types of emerging technology companies in Austin. Protocols are components of blockchain technology that let information be shared across cryptocurrency networks securely.
Capital Factory CEO Joshua Baer said the funding will primarily be used for investment challenges, where companies can compete for $100,000 grants, geared toward companies developing on the Stax protocols and other protocols.
“The idea is not picking one winner, one protocol, one startup, but really trying to create an environment that cultivates lots of winners, lots of people coming here, lots of entrepreneurs, lots of connections, and really helps to make Austin a place where people come to try new things come to innovate and come to build and grow,” Baer said.
Baer said Austin already has blockchain success stories, including blockchain investment fund Multicoin Capital.
“We’ve got a really successful playbook we put together around cultivating that type of community,” Baer said.
Preston James, CEO of Austin-based accelerator DivInc, a nonprofit that focuses on startups run by women and people of color, said as the city embraces Web3 and its innovation economy, it’s important to create opportunities for underrepresented communities.
“We need our corporate partners to lean in with us, create and recognize this new opportunity for Austin to create that economy equitably so that we are no longer known as the most economically segregated city,” James said. “We want to be the No.1 most diverse, most inclusive city and we have the ingredients, the partners to be able to take it there.”
DivInc plans a Web3 accelerator that is expected to debut in late August, with applications open in early June.
“We’re really looking forward to taking this community to the next level and creating equity opportunities for all. Let Austin be the example for other cities to follow,” James said.
Brad Spies, managing director of the Consensus Festival, a cryptocurrency and blockchain festival, announced that the event would be moving from New York to Austin this year. It is scheduled for June 9-12,
The festival is expected to bring together top developers, creators, investors, policymakers, artists and academics across a wide array of projects and platforms.
“In moving this event to Austin from New York, we are taking this framework to its next logical step with a decentralized festival footprint across downtown Austin and dedicated venues for DAOs and NFTS, the metaverse and talent recruitment,” Spies said.