Web3 Is Being Used to Preserve History Threatened by Wars

From Timbuktu to Ukraine, blockchain technology is playing a role in preserving significant artifacts.

“With this system, people will solve the storage solutions problem,” Theresa Kennedy, founder of Black History DAO, told CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” on Friday.

Kennedy, a self-proclaimed crypto anthropologist, said that with Web3, people will be able to access and contribute to the information that is added on a blockchain.

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The Black History DAO, which is curated by members of its community, seeks to address the problem of preserving ancient African text, a similar problem literary critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. tried to address years ago, Kennedy said. That project fell short of preserving the Timbuktu manuscripts, after Islamist rebels took control in 2013 and destroyed many of documents. Some, however, were saved and now live online.

Still, “a lot of money was put towards that,” Kennedy said. “However, there was no permanent storage solution. And the project ultimately failed.”

Her group is trying to to disperse preservation efforts. “Instead of having one entity holding custody or getting to it, per se, we are creating a system to solve the problem of lack of place," she said.

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During the same interview on "First Mover," Ukrainian crypto entrepreneur Michael Chobanian spoke of his efforts to preserve Ukraine’s history following the invasion by Russia. Blockchain technology is being used to preserve 3D models of “the buildings, sculptures and cultural heritage” in Ukraine that are being destroyed, he said, as his platform is trying to find ways to map, store and transfer data onto the cloud in order to tokenize them.