Between Risk and Hope: ETH Cali and the Colombian Ethereum Community

Original Title: "Between Risk and Hope: ETH Cali and the Colombian Ethereum Community"

Original Source: ShanhaiWoo Mountain & Sea Pavilion

Cali City, the salsa dance capital of Colombia, is also the birthplace and hometown of ETH Cali. Here lies a comprehensive offshore industrial and service park called Zonamerica, where an innovative ecosystem, an active community of entrepreneurs, and tax benefits for resident companies have attracted ETH Cali to establish its presence. In addition to the office area, the Universidad del Valle (Valle University) and Universidad ICESI (ICESI University), located within five kilometers of Zonamerica, have also become important hubs for ETH Cali to hold events and connect with student communities.

Growth Trajectory of the Colombian Ethereum Community

William Martinez, who prefers to call himself a core member rather than a founder, tells us about the current development status of the Ethereum community in Colombia. The Ethereum Colombian community has adopted a geographically and locally based organizational structure, forming an Ethereum local community network consisting of multiple nodes such as ETH Medellin, ETH Bogota, ETH Caribe, ETH Eje Cafetero, ETH Arauca, and ETH Cali.

Among them, both ETH Arauca and ETH Cali were established after Devcon VI in Bogota in October 2022. Unfortunately, Emerson David Silva, the community leader of ETH Arauca, was tragically killed last year while promoting Ethereum in a high-risk area. Currently, the active Colombian Ethereum community mainly includes ETH Bogotá, ETH Medellín, and ETH Cali.

ETH Arauca Community Leader Emerson David Silva

Like other Ethereum communities in Colombia, ETH Cali aims to promote Ethereum adoption in the local community. William stated that Cali City has a strong pool of technical talent, but they know very little about Web3. Therefore, ETH Cali focuses on education, developer meetups, and practical activities such as integrating Web3 frameworks and tools into cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence, attempting to open a window to a new technological paradigm for local tech talent.

"The story of Emerson and ETH Arauca is heartbreaking," William said, "but it has also strengthened our resolve to continue building the developer community."

ETH Cali Wallet: An Open-Source Wallet for Real-World Use Cases

A tech-driven approach has always been the hallmark of the ETH Cali community development, reflected not only in numerous tech-related activities but also in the team members who have collectively participated in building the community. Today, the community consists of 9 core members and 6 contributors, almost all of whom have a deep developer background.

At Devconnect's ETH Latam Hub, we met Cristobal Valencia, a core community developer. He is working on a new ReFi project: ReFiUP. According to Cristobal, ReFiUP aims to create an on-chain protocol, ReFi Universe Protocol, that coordinates global efforts to clean the Earth. Users can earn tokens and verifiable certificates by collecting various types of waste, while companies can reduce their carbon footprint by purchasing these certificates. The entire process involves AI agents to verify user work and uses zero-knowledge proof technology to protect user privacy data.

The inspiration for ReFiUP came from an offline event supported by ETH Cali. In June of this year, ETH Cali partnered with the local environmental organization Lapapaya to provide technical and logistical support for a small marathon event held in Cali. During the race, participants could earn tokens and NFT certificates as rewards based on the amount of garbage they collected. The event collected over 150 kilograms of recyclable waste, and more than 60 participants successfully claimed their on-chain rewards through the ETH Cali Wallet.

"Our goal is to engage community members and new users, allowing them to explore the possibilities of cryptocurrency through this open-source wallet designed for real-world use cases," William explained. The ETH Cali Wallet is built on the Privy account system, supports email registration, introduces zkPassport.id as an anti-whale mechanism, and implements gas sponsorship transactions through account abstraction. ETH Cali has open-sourced the codebase of this wallet, enabling other developers to focus on building application logic without having to redevelop user authentication or anti-whale mechanisms.

From Events to Impact: ETH Cali's 2026 Roadmap

Looking back at the past three years, ETH Cali has held over 40 offline meetups, attracting over 100 Web2 developers to join, and growing its Web3 membership from 5 people to over 250. At the same time, the community has supported over 10 local Web3 projects, established partnerships with 5 universities, and gradually engaged in dialogues with senior leadership, government agencies, and key institutions to help them understand this technology through practice.

"We focus on real builders, not hype." Looking to the future, William listed specific goals for ETH Cali by 2026:

• Establish an ETH Cali center or hacker space for the local tech community as a long-term space for developer interaction and collaboration.

• Partner with universities such as ICESI, USB Cali, Universidad Santiago de Cali to drive research focused on cryptography, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.

• Cultivate over 100 Web2 developers to transition to Web3 through structured projects like Speed Run Ethereum, Cyfrin Updraft.

• Collaborate with the Ethereum Foundation Secretariat to transform a university DeFi course into a free, open Web3 learning project for local developers and the community.

• Build and operate their own RPC infrastructure to provide stable and reliable technical support for the local ecosystem.

• Explore new technologies including robotics to create a more practical learning and experimental environment.

• Strengthen cooperation with Ethereum communities in Cluj, Prague, Naples, Rome, India, and China to make Cali an active node in the global Ethereum network.

These goals are not merely about numbers or scale expansion but revolve around the question of "how to make technology truly effective." For ETH Cali, the culmination of community development is not the events themselves but whether the technology can address broader real-world needs.

The Next Inflection Point for Ethereum: Real Products and Services

In William's view, the Latin American region faces some structural challenges such as cross-border payments, global currency access, currency devaluation risks, and limited participation in the global tech community, where Ethereum technology can provide real value.

He believes that the next stage of breakthrough will come from shifting the focus from speculation to truly global products and services. With improving Internet access, mature data infrastructure, and widespread use of artificial intelligence tools, Latin America is poised to accelerate its pace of innovation and play a more important role in open-source technologies and global collaboration.

“The end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027 might be an appropriate time window,” William suggested. “We may hold a flash city event, bringing together local builders, institutions, governments, entrepreneurs, developers, and researchers to collectively envision the next phase of Cali's development through open collaboration.”

Conclusion

Technological advancement has never been a straight upward line but more like a spiral ascent. The Colombian Ethereum community, represented by ETH Cali, is no different: despite setbacks and ups and downs, it has continued to build strength, continuously spreading core Web3 values such as collaboration, permissionless innovation, and open-source culture to more people.

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