Community is the bedrock of society, and Collaboration sustains the effectiveness of communities. The strength of a blockchain community will determine its success and collaboration will largely contribute to how it thrives. Both of them lay the foundation upon which decentralized innovation and solutions will continue to evolve in the Web3 world.

“Increasingly, the success of a blockchain is reliant on the cohesion and interactiveness of its community, which is the face of the ecosystem. Recognizing this, projects are creating whole divisions in their internal structures dedicated to community engagement, showing the value they put on their communities.” - Forkast News

Community and Collaboration are essential Blockchain building blocks business leaders must know how to leverage if they are going to implement Blockchain in their organization. Through community and collaborative tools such as developer contributions, knowledge sharing, blockchain interoperability, off-chains and side-chains, smart contracts, in addition to Blockchain’s decentralized capabilities, organizations can achieve fast organic growth of communities and a sustainable culture of collaboration.

“The very essence of blockchain is decentralization, and a strong community reinforces this principle. By fostering trust through peer-to-peer interactions and transparent governance models, the community becomes the bedrock upon which decentralized applications (DApps) and blockchain projects can flourish. Users are empowered, knowing that the decisions shaping the ecosystem are the result of collective agreement rather than the dictates of a centralized authority.” - TDX Medium

A strong blockchain ecosystem is driven by community initiatives such as forums, groups, and an open network, and it thrives on collaborative efforts such as developer contributions and knowledge sharing. The strength of the blockchain network lies in the collective brainpower and expertise of its members who share ideas and refine perspectives to improve the functioning and efficiency of the network. For example, the success of Ethereum’s smart contract is due to its developer community. The community contributes to protocol updates and upgrades ensuring that the Ethereum network is keeping up with the fast growing landscape of the Web3 world.

One way collaboration is facilitated on the blockchain is through Blockchain interoperability. Blockchain interoperability involves the ability of different blockchain networks to communicate with each other, exchange data, and conduct transactions seamlessly. This integration facilitates the smooth transfer of any type of data or asset from one blockchain network to another through cross-chain messaging protocols. This protocol enables blockchains to read and/or write data from and to other blockchains.

Simply put “Blockchain interoperability refers to the ability of blockchains to communicate with other blockchains.” - Chainlink

Another way collaboration is fostered is through Off-chains and Side-chains. Off-chain refers to transactions or data that take place outside the main blockchain network. It takes the value outside of the blockchain and these transactions are not instantly stored on the blockchain. Certain aspects of the transactions are processed using secondary networks or protocols before the final settlement is published on the blockchain. Off-chain solutions offer improved scalability, faster transaction speeds, and reduced fees. However, they may sacrifice decentralization and security. Note - The direct contrast to off-chain transactions are on-chain transactions. On-chain transactions take place on the blockchain and the status of the transactions are reflected real time.

On the other hand, side-chains are completely separate blockchains that are connected to a main blockchain network via a two-way peg. In this case, the main blockchain is the primary blockchain and the side chain is the secondary blockchain. Side-chains allow for the transfer of assets or data between the main and the side block. This allows for specific functionalities or applications to be built on the side-chain while still benefiting from the security and consensus of the main chain. Side-chains facilitate a more seamless exchange of assets and data between the primary blockchain and the secondary blockchain. Side-chains offer increased flexibility and allows organizations to create customized decentralized applications (dApps), while they still benefit from the security and stability of the primary blockchain. However, they can introduce complexity and exchange challenges between the chains.

Community and collaboration is also fostered in blockchain via Smart Contracts. “A smart contract is a self-executing program that automates the actions required in an agreement or contract.” - Investopedia. They are used to automate the execution of an agreement or a contract and they permit trusted transactions to happen between anonymous parties without the need of an intermediary, in order to produce immediate outcomes. They also automate workflow by triggering the next action when predetermined conditions are met.

African leaders who want to build organizations using Blockchain can leverage this building block to support their organizations growth using off-chain and side-chains solutions, smart contracts, and leveraging the power of the developer community to build a more robust blockchain enabled organization. They can even develop and implement their own chain solutions or train developers in blockchain mining, protocols, and blockchains programming language, solidity.

Tari, an innovative blockchain startup in South Africa runs an open source, digital assets blockchain protocol which operates as a sidechain with Monero. Tari allows its users to operate different dApps in order to transfer their digital assets across the Tari blockchain and it integrates payment solutions across Africa with Monero as the primary blockchain.

A blockchain organization or project cannot be successful without its community. Communities are essential to the adoption, engagement, growth, sustainability of the blockchain ecosystem. Developers, users, and enthusiasts (legal, entrepreneurs, etc) all contribute to the evolution and growth of blockchain ecosystems through sharing, learning and engaging. Although a thriving community and effective collaboration can be achieved with Blockchain and it has many advantages for organizations as identified above, technical expertise and understanding of Blockchain is required to properly implement it. I recommend that African leaders start to educate themselves, train and upskill their current employees and hire experts within the field in order to better position themselves and their organization to reap the benefits of implementing blockchain and to be ready to do business in the Web3.0 world.