# Web3Privacy Now 2026 updates: Together are we strong by PG Catti de Gasperi // W3PN Rome Meetup 2026

- Channel: [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://streameth.org/ethereum-cypherpunk-congress)
- Date: 2026-06-09
- Duration: 14:01
- Topics: web3, privacy, now, crypto, cryptography, blockchain, data, security, human right, rights, tech, technology, internet, open source, free, freedom, ethereum, hackers, ethics, cypherpunk, dev, developer, dapp, decentralization, bitcoin, computer, surveillance, cyber, peer2peer, p2p, love, solidity, zk, zero knowledge, education, academy, w3pn, Rome, meetup, 2026
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-mMHIU_cLM0I
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMHIU_cLM0I

## Description

Web3Privacy Now Rome Meetup 2026

"Shaping and Defending the Techno-Political Evolution: Cryptography, Open Source, and Public Goods"

​​​Half-day dedicated to fostering solidarity among:
​​​- zk researchers and applied cryptographers
​- open source and human rights advocates
​​​- developers and hacker culture
​​​- internet freedom and grassroots movements
​​​- hacktivists and the general public

## Transcript

Uh every year, I mean, this is the third meetup with WeAreDevelopers now that we are hosting in Rome, our city, and we are very happy to actually host this gathering here in Città dell'altra economia. I always like to remember this because Città dell'altra economia means literally city of the alternative economy, and there are a lot of like squatter places and cultural activities going on in this area here, from artists to dissidents to Kurdistan people, and a lot of things going on. Um and indeed very happy that with Urbe we managed to open this space for developers from all over the world and researchers and just people curious about tech to come and share share a desk or talk with us and exchange knowledge. Um for today, we are going to have six speakers. Uh we dedicate Uh we we decided to dedicate this meetup mostly about cryptography, uh but also activism because of this ZK week happening in Rome. We are also very happy about this initiative and seeing that more and more events are, you know, popping out here in Rome. Um I will ask them to introduce themselves before they start speaking. They will have like lightning talks, 10, 15, 20 minutes max. And I also ask them to uh invite you to be part of the conversation, to have this like exchange. It's not just a frontal blah blah blah, you listen, but it's more like indeed a conversation. Uh we will go till uh 8:00, so 1 hour and a half. I think you can make it, we can make it. I know it's Friday, I know you had it I had another event. Uh but there is some good beers and food uh waiting for us on the Urbe terrace right after where we can continue discussing. Um let me just explain a few words how many of you or never attended WeAreDevelopers now events. please raise your hands. Okay, perfect. I'll spend just a few words about what is Web Privacy Now, why privacy, uh and then how you can actually benefit from our activities and join the movement. Uh why privacy in first place? Um I think the answer of this question is very complicated, but anyone here has at least one. Very simply, privacy is the base layer of any democracy and free society. Without privacy, you cannot have indeed like secure voting or free speech. Uh and privacy is indeed embedded in most of most of the constitutions around the world uh as a human right. But, creating this new digital world, the privacy is actually not protected as we wish and as we did for the physical world. Uh so, this is why privacy. Long story short, it's 40 years there is a lot of people doing a great job into actually bringing more freedoms and uh human rights into the digital space, and this is why and this like side battle or mission has not been achieved yet. And actually, adversaries are getting more and more, how can I say, utopian and scary. So, we really must do something about it. Uh this is why with Web Privacy Now, we've got to meet so many, as I was saying, as also Federico was saying, there is like a lot of different communities and people and perspectives that are trying to advancing freedom online for the last 40 years. The huge problem we noticed that all these communities, all these professions, all these perspectives do not talk with each other. So, the way we like to explain what is our main work is basically to create bridges and vocabularies to allow all these professionals and humans and actions to actually be more impactful together. So, what is Web Privacy Now? It's like an ecosystem around privacy, an ecosystem of people, of organizations that try to advance and protect our digital rights. Uh you probably know some of these logotypes, some of these companies, some of these efforts. Uh we worked with most of all of them. And what we know this is that there is not only this kind of um separation between Web 2 and Web 3 in in about like be because all these efforts about restraining surveillance capitalism are indeed very scattered and not only among Web 2 and Web 3, but so within Web 3, all the protocols, all the projects try to build the whole stack rather than col- collaborating with each other. And I think we are losing a lot of potential there. Um and this is what we are trying to do, to put people together to basically make the response to all these like surveillance and big threats that we're facing as a society uh and basically showcasing how you can do this with a smile, with a positive like behavior rather than just reacting and confronting everything is happening because social media is a mess where everyone is just, you know, pointing fingers to each other and saying my solution is better than yours. And this is not winning. Like it's 40 years that from cyberpunks to activists to hackers, it's just a continuous like blaming each other rather than collaborating or at least not enough collaboration. And this is exactly what we're trying to do. So, we started very simply from the founding values of crypto as in cryptography. And I think that this is why we achieved so much in 3 years. It's because actually really putting values at the center of our activity, we actually had a lot of great help from OGs of the sectors, from really different realms, from tech to law people, policy people, uh journalists, authors, friends, allies of any sorts. Um and I was counting the other day, I was indeed actually surprised that we hosted 37 events in in 3 years. Uh in over 18 countries, we had 15,000 people coming at our events in real life because we really feel that gathering in real life is like way different from like any Discord or online experience. Uh what do we do? Uh we have more than 25 active projects at the moment. Let's say to simplify a bit, we do mainly three things like three different vectors. One is like researching a lot and trying to inform the masses just to take more informed decisions. So we do a lot of research uh and papers and mapping privacy in what real beyond what solutions are actually reliable and trustworthy to use. Uh another one is education. Uh we have an online academy which is going pretty well. We have more than 1,000 students enrolled and I was super surprised that actually uh German high school teacher living in Sicily reached out to me on LinkedIn saying, "Hey, I did this course on privacy 101. It's super cool. I want to include this in our program at school." And I was like, "Wow, that that's that's I was not expecting this." So academy is going pretty well. Uh events, uh podcasts, interviews, a lot of different initiatives on on this on this vector. And then activation like to make it practical, we developed for example guidelines for developers that have been embedded in ETH Global, ETH Prague, ETH Rome, a lot of different hackathons that actually showcase what are all the primitives and chains and you know tools that you can use to develop privacy preserving uh tech. Uh as well as install fest at our events, we have like people from open source community that help people to install GrapheneOS or explain Linux or all these kind of things. And then last but not least, activation means also like sitting and all those tables that we feel are crowded and filled with enemies aka policy makers, regulators. Uh but we discovered sitting at those tables that actually there are also there good allies and good human beings doing a great job. Uh and so this is also something very important to us like to advance freedom from very different like angles and perspectives. Practical example of what we do, uh this is an event we put together with our member Protocol Labs, with our partner Protocol Labs, uh, which is basically the project umbrella under which, uh, IPFS, Filecoin, and many other projects arose. And for 3 days we gathered over 100 web leaders. What does it mean? Web 2 and Web 3 together. And we had people from Tor, Internet Archive, uh, researchers from Harvard, Black Sky, uh, we had Blue Sky, uh, European Crypto Initiative, and many others uh, going through 40 thematic sessions, uh, where the agenda of the session itself was basically set by these people that were saying like, "Okay, I have this experience. I feel these are the most like challenging threats we have to face this year." And then we tried to basically put together all the insights and knowledge to actually unify different roadmaps. And out of this event, practical collaboration was born between Tor and Aetherium Foundation, between Internet Archive and Tor, and as well as Logos, uh, and many other meaningful connection and exchanges. Uh, what is happening these days very briefly? Uh, we are running a campaign to fund privacy in Web 3 with Tor. Uh, it will start in May 19. Uh, we are finally publishing this project that we started more than a year ago. Um, this is a book because we love paper and uh, the real world and the physical objects and we basically asked to some thought leaders in the human rights, privacy tech, freedom tech to express their take about privacy from their angle. And so we have uh, policy maker from the European Commission. We have a researcher from Harvard, Primavera De Filippi. We have Audrey Tang, former digital minister of Taiwan, and Glen Weyl behind Radical Exchange. Naomi Brockwell, amazing influencer. David Chaum, one of the OG cypherpunk that actually developed a lot of primitives that are nowadays largely used for developing cryptography and blockchain. Uh, Um, we have different essays in this book. And the nice thing is that this is aimed to be a series. So this is just the first volume and every year we will collect more and more takes and the whole scope of this work is to basically speak to the masses. So we are really we really curated this contribution saying, "Please talk to the average person, not to your niche, you know, tech pal." Uh, we will print this month and we will be out this with this work in uh summit. We will host a big event in Berlin this June. And you can find this book there or as a PDF free online. Uh, another nice thing we're putting together with Radical Exchange uh Logos and uh Plurality Institute and Hubs Network is to basically host uh from 10 to 20, the number has still to be defined, uh meetups all over the world in the same time. Uh, basically curating the agenda of the meetup itself, helping people to come together and discuss what are the most pressing challenges that they're facing as a local community. And then the results of all these discussions will be presented at the New Cyberpunk Summit in Berlin. Uh, here we go. New Cyberpunk Summit in Berlin, 14th of June. We are gathering 1,500 people. We have speakers from, as I was saying, very different realms. Um, and then we have the congress in Mumbai in November next to Devcon or Devconnect. I never remember what uh of the two it is. Um, and again, at our events we are I'm very happy that we're managing to expand way beyond Web 3 and tech. So we'll have also like human rights lawyers, we will have authors that actually help to bring this kind of narrative or cultural uh explanation as what is happening. We have anthropologists, we have people from European Commission, policy makers, uh researchers, etc., etc. Uh, I really like to underline this because we were talking with Nicola the other day, uh my friend and co-founder, and basically we realized that actually we organize everything we do is for free, always, but we never say this. While it's very important because actually I don't think that people are used to go to crypto events without even a ticket and just walk in and enjoy the thing. Um which makes actually being financially sustainable tricky and tough, but it's a good work, I think. So, how can you join the movement? Uh first thing, help yourself because actually we will succeed when society will succeed. So, help yourself into building better tools, get informed more about how to use internet in a more human and freedom respecting your freedom way. Try new tools, stick with more people. Uh this is the first. Then, connect us, meaning like introduce us to people that you feel could be on stage because they have something nice to say and to tell to people or just in general if you feel that there is someone that would be interested in working with us and collaborating, please just let's connect. Uh work with us. I mean, uh we are a non-profit. We don't We don't provide these kind of competitive salaries uh like as in crypto, but still I think, for example, compared to average Italian salary, yes, you can thrive. So, uh if you actually are committed for freedom and for these things and you're interested in actually looking for a job or whatever, let's talk. We need a lot of different like job titles and positions and skills. And uh last but not least, donate. Consider to donate something to give something back. We will start to say this at our events because indeed we give t-shirts for free, events for free, everything is for free, but we pay everything. And to fundraise as a non-profit is hard as I can tell you, especially in bear markets. Uh so, consider to give something back. It will help for sure. Uh you will find everything on this website. We just designed the new website a bit more clear than the one we had before, so you can find all our events, all information, our research, academy, etc., etc. on this website. Um for the meetups, we usually don't have a precise order of speakers, so I would just welcome on stage whoever of the speakers feels more like tunes or ready or just want to take a stage. Otherwise, I know who to come who to call. So, yes, fantastic. We'll start with Sterling. Again, thanks for coming. It's Friday afternoon and it's nice to see you all here and I hope we will have nice time together also during the aperitivo and exchanging a lot of things.