OTNS: Transitioning ReFi DAO to a Coordi-Nation

In this episode we spoke to Monty Merlin Bryant, a co-founder of ReFi DAO and environmentalist to discuss the movement behind ReFi or Regenerative Finance. ICYMI, ReFi DAO had previously started to declare itself a network state but has since learning more about coordi-nations, have shifted course towards our conceptual framework instead. We discuss what that process has been like and how ReFi DAO hopes to use the affordances of crypto to build a non-state force for aligning people and planet.

Check out a previous episode to learn more about our framework for out network state alternative,  coordi-nations.

JOIN THE BLOCKCHAINGOV DISCORD SERVER HERE IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART IN THE CONTINUED OVERTHROW AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE RISE OF COORDI-NATIONS.

Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is a series in collaboration with Blockchaingov where we critique The Network State  by Balaji Srinivasan while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of guests. You can find the first episode of OTNS where we give our initial criticisms and  alternatives here.

Blockchaingov is a 5-year long, transdisciplinary research effort aimed at restoring trust in institutions at the community and global levels, by promoting better on chain and off chain distributed governance practices. Throughout the series, each discussion will include me and a member of Blockchaingov with either a new guest each episode or a discussion between us to tackle various topics from the book.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hi everyone.

Speaker 1: 0:09

You are listening once again to the Blockchain Socialist podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:13

We are continuing our overthrow of the network states and for this episode I think it will be really interesting because I'm going to be speaking to Monty Merlin Bryant Are those all the names who is one of the co-founders of ReFiDAO, which he'll explain to us what ReFiDAO is in a moment.

Speaker 1: 0:34

But I think what's really interesting for us right now is that a ReFiDAO in case you didn't know at one point was kind of embracing this meme of the network state and wanting to become a network state in some of their communications and have recently begun, I think, questioning the network state a bit more and have now, I guess, in the process of moving towards conceptualizing ReFiDAO and its vision and future as more like a coordination in the way that Primavera and I have and others have spoken about the concept, which is very interesting because I think then we're able to speak to a convert, I guess you could say. But so maybe to start off, monty, if you want, could you explain a bit, I mean, who you are, what ReFiDAO is and what was kind of like the vision of the project.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Yeah, sure, I mean first of all, just when I expressed gratitude for being on here. I've been a huge fan of the podcast and it's been hugely inspiring to my thinking and challenging a lot of conceptual models, and the work of BlockchainGarve and Primavera and you bring all these amazing guests on the podcast has been a real inspiration. So very glad to be here and to dive in to this world of ReFiDAO and our kind of emerging ideas and visions and how that's evolved over time. So, yeah, I guess just starting with a little bit about myself might be a good place to start.

Speaker 2: 2:05

And so, yeah, I've grown up in rural south west of the UK and the countryside and come from a family of environmentalists and two older brothers one's a designer, one's working in the circular economy space and my mom's been an environmentalist for 40 years and written multiple, many, many books, and so I've always been discussing these big issues from a very young age and debating things around the dinner table and all of this kind of stuff. And so, yeah, I mean I was always interested in crypto as well, like from an economic and technological kind of futurism point of view, but it never had this environmentalism side of it and, of course, I was really passionate about that and looking at all of the giant problems we face and the kind of terrifying future that we seem to be hurtling towards and that nation states and corporations seem to be failing to address, like not just a little bit, like a lot, and if not actively subverting it and using money and power to actively subvert the change that we so clearly and evidently need. And so there's always been that kind of deep dissatisfaction and, I think, growing actually increasingly, the more I sort of see, and you see, what some of these big companies and government seem to be doing even now. So I guess that's always been brewing. And then, yeah, so crypto never really had this environmental side until this refi space was born. And so back in the day when the whole Klima Dow Toucan protocol exploded and the refi movement was born, I was like this is it, this is where I want to be.

Speaker 1: 3:43

And refi is just for people who don't know is regenerative finance.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Yes, yes. So refi stands for regenerative finance and my kind of exploration for what it is. It's all about how we reimagine, redesign and rebuild our financial and economic systems and coordination mechanisms, even social and cultural stuff as well, but to be in harmony with people on planet. And so, yeah, one of the core ideas I've been thinking about is, in some ways, finance and money is like the single most powerful coordination tool that humans have ever invented. It seems to like coordinate people all over the globe literally every day.

Speaker 2: 4:22

The actions we do seem to be driven by this. You know financial system, and so what if we could actually redesign it so that, instead, of every action you do within this current economy is having a negative impact on people and the planet around you, even if you don't know it directly, like if you look at the supply chains and all of the indirect impacts of just living in this modern world has a negative impact. And so how could we actually redesign those systems? Take away the focus on individual action, of course, elements of that are very important, and there's the kind of social stuff as well, but, like, fundamentally, we really need to redesign our entire economic systems and coordination structures because it's not working and for me, I think, regenerative finance is this amazing, beautiful emergence of different experiments going on. Specifically, the REFI acronym is focused on leveraging the tools of Web 3 and AI and these other advanced technologies MRV, decentralized science, all of these different advanced technologies and then how can we utilize those in pursuit of building this regenerative economy?

Speaker 1: 5:33

So the REFI is really. To me it is a. I mean it's kind of an embrace of high tech to a certain degree for like environmental ends the solar punk, the solar punk vision.

Speaker 2: 5:49

It's like, okay, we have this cyberpunk vision of high tech, low life, where we see it all in all the sci-fi movies, where there's a super advanced technology but it's very dystopian, but actually imagining a future where we can use advanced technologies but for pro-social, pro-environmental outcomes in a way. That's like I guess protopian is another term of like a realistic vision of a positive future. And so I think we can, if we consciously decide to use these technologies not just for extraction and these dystopian kind of things, concepts, but actually, yeah, build the future that we actually all want to see.

Speaker 1: 6:28

Nice. So where does kind of REFIDAO play into this whole thing?

Speaker 2: 6:34

Yeah. So I guess we can go into a little bit of like the history of REFIDAO and its initial kind of emergence and then we can kind of go through the story of how it's evolved since then. So yeah, it initially started John Ellison was working with Toucan Protocol and at the time there was this craziness going on of Toucan created a bridge for carbon credits to come on chain and Klimadal created this crazy Toucan economic incentive mechanism to create the incentives to put that carbon on chain and within launch they were maybe expecting you know, a couple of hundred, ten thousand credits to come on chain and within days millions of credits were coming on chain to the tune of five to ten percent of the entire global voluntary carbon market in a matter of weeks, which was pretty crazy. We're talking like billions of dollars in volume and this is bull market kind of stuff. But at that moment there had been some REFI projects before then but the acronym REFI and the community and the ecosystem hadn't really formed. But there were some awesome projects before then, like Giveth and Regen Network and a few other kind of early pioneers. But at that moment there was this surge of interest in the REFI space and all of these new founders, startups, people coming into this space and uniting around this meme of REFI. And so I think there was a great need for like almost like a container or an ecosystem support, like a home of REFI, to try and bring these people together. So, yeah, initially a few John and a few others kind of started doing this while he was at Toucan and then it became clear that it needed some like leadership and full time kind of stuff. So John ended up leaving Toucan for various reasons and then really throwing himself into refed out full time.

Speaker 2: 8:28

And, yeah, at the early days it was, you know, there was a podcast, there was a blog and one of the key things was these founder circles as well, bringing in all these different startups and founders that were coming in and actually creating a community for people to come together and explore ideas together and find their co-founders and kind of, yeah, create a sense of community in these early days, whenever things was quite hectic, so yeah. So that was, I think, the origins. And then I kind of joined around that time towards the end of founder circles. I was doing my own startup at the time People Power Finance, and I had just done a TED talk on REFI and started doing more and more stuff building for this regenerative finance community and ecosystem. No-transcript yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:12

So then we kind of started having these ideas around. We were looking at Bologee's network state book and I think we're really excited about a couple of the ideas, and I guess one of the key draws was, I explained earlier, this feeling of a deep dissatisfaction with the way that current institutions were dealing with the climate crisis and other network of interconnected crises, and a feeling that we needed to innovate in terms of new structures to address these challenges on a global level, and this model of having a network of local communities that were kind of, you know, interconnected across the globe and dispersed, but actually interconnected with a shared sense of culture and alignment and coordination, and could actually then grow to a size that would actually have significant influence and scale. So if we founded a network state based on the principles of regeneration, what could that mean in terms of how we engage in the geopolitical processes globally? Like we're thinking, okay, maybe we could like join the UN or you know, and actually implement change at these institutions whilst at the same time experimenting with new structures that are kind of different from the current nation state paradigm, and so I think that was always really interesting to us and that's what drew us to this, and it was the first that I was aware of that kind of built, the kind of I guess memes or the concepts behind it.

Speaker 2: 10:47

I mean, obviously there was work before it and this was the kind of only version of that in the crypto space, and so obviously I'm grateful for the, for the new versions coming out, but yeah, so I guess a part of our initial stuff as well is like we also did see some of the problematic sides and like from from the beginning, we we always said like we're not here in direct opposition to other nations, like we're not like trying to buy land and be like not pay taxes and be a complete regulatory haven and like and be like extremely antagonistic and exit based to other, to other states, and but rather our aim was always to okay, how can we form this new nation like structure, but actually then work with these different nations and governments and institutions and to guide them towards this regenerative future by showing that we're doing it on the ground and it's working and we've got this whole system going and and yeah, so that was that was always kind of there, but we didn't really have a, a name or, I guess, container for it.

Speaker 2: 11:48

That was better than the network state at the time.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Sure, yeah, no, I think the well I'm, I'm sympathetic to, and what I think is kind of part of the thesis for Pimavera and I was that, yes, a lot of people are dissatisfied with I mean institutions like states and corporations, their inability to solve clearly major global problems, one of the largest one being climate change, and I think people becoming at this point, you know, after I don't know like at least 50 years of kind of like not much change as far as like how we think about, you know, the integration of our ecological or environmental systems within, like, the economy, that I think a lot of people felt that's okay, nation states aren't working, corporations aren't working, and so then that leaves a space where people are open to new ideas and I think one of our, one of one of my fears at least, was like okay, a lot of people are going to go towards the network state because that's what he has a lot of reach and like influence, so he's going to reach a lot of people to to propose that alternative and, of course, like from for a lot of people who are dissatisfied with that, like that that appeals to them, of course, that it appears as something different and I think I think what we're kind of engaging in with the coordination stuff is almost like a politics through concept creation, that if we can provide different maps than what are kind of being proposed, that are also different than I guess, like, because you know, if people don't like states, people don't like corporations, there's this like and there's like this power vacuum.

Speaker 1: 13:32

I think this conceptual power vacuum that leads people to network states, which is like you know, of course it requires a certain amount of critical analysis. Like it just ends up being a recreation of of kind of what already exists and that's. I can talk about how that relates to the rise of fascism and whatever, but I think like, yeah, what makes me excited is like that you guys have now are looking into our concept and I think that only happened because we have presented it absolutely for sure.

Speaker 3: 14:06

Yeah, no, I found it. I found it interesting that one of the core motivation why, why you are interested to engage into the network state concept is in order to actually engage into international relations, which I think makes a lot of sense, because there is a point in which, if, if existing nation states are not actually taking sufficient intervention with regard to our climate aspect, then you do need to have some kind of international actor that can, that can act on behalf of this. And and it's interesting because it is actually one of the good reasons I will say, why it will make sense to somehow adopt the state infrastructure is because we know that if you are a state, then you are automatically an actor within international relationship and and, at the same time, I think this is an interesting element that we are also trying to explore is well, we do also have it's not only states that are part of international relations. We also have international organizations and, to an extent, is this new creature that we're proposing of like the coordination type of networks of a entity. To which extent? To which extent is it capable to engage into international relations? To which extent does it have to?

Speaker 3: 15:43

In the sense that I think there is also an alternative approach, which is well, in fact, do you do you need an actual actor, that is, an international actor that can dialogue it with existing nation state, or can you actually create interventions through coordination of people that you know collectively decide to do specific actions and collectively decide to interface with their own nation states? And I think probably the answer is we need a little bit of both. I think there is a lot of value in having an international actor that comes into being and is actually promoting or defending specific interest. So it's nice because I think, out of all the people that I've encountered so far, that where are still attracted by the network state idea. This idea of like we need to be a state because we need to engage on an equal footing with other states on international relations, is actually a good argument why the state might be necessary, more so than a different structure.

Speaker 2: 16:57

Yeah, because in some ways it fits within the kind of existing legal and political kind of institutions, institutional structures that are already there and then can provide a new form of voice within that system.

Speaker 3: 17:11

So yeah, you already have a voice, whereas as a coordination, if you don't map into the institutional framework of the state, then you have to prove your word in order to get a voice into the international relations space.

Speaker 2: 17:26

Yes, exactly, so, yeah. So I think one of the ways that we have been looking at it and our kind of strategy and vision kind of going forward is at the moment really focus in on building amazing strong local communities, and the mission that I see of that is to really ignite this regenerative economy by actually implementing some of these amazing REFI solutions on the ground and show what it looks like to actually build localized regenerative economies, at the same time connected up to this global network and a kind of global regenerative economy, and so that's quite like practice-based, it's like planting trees and engaging with the REFI protocols that create the right economic structures for that. But then the evolution of that I see is that once that reaches sufficient size and scale and we can do these massive coordination kind of impact and we can really measure okay, we've, as a nation, we've regenerated this much land, we have this much co-living communities, we have this much positive impact GDP is not a good measure, but this kind of thing then that gets us to the size where actual more traditional institutions are going to start to take notice and be like, oh, you've actually built a regenerative economy and you've used these advanced technologies and these really cool models, and so that, I think, provides an initial kind of route in the door. And then, as a compliment to that, I think, one of the things we could look into developing in the future. We kind of have been brainstorming around this like REFI embassy network potentially, where maybe you start to build like connections with local municipalities or even the national governments and just start having bringing them into the conversation, showing them the regenerative solutions, the regenerative models, and then it starts the conversation for, okay, how can we maybe even change the policy environment or some of our national kind of strategies that actually is more supportive to this emerging regenerative economy? And even borrowing the best political models from around the world to then share them with other nations.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Because, at the same time, we can do a lot of bottom-up, grassroots kind of stuff and we can use the tools of REFI, but there is a lot of like top-down change that needs to happen in order to actually make this stuff really work.

Speaker 2: 19:48

And so policy changes, political changes are like one of the most powerful levers, like if the politicians decided, okay, we're actually going to like enforce that companies have to account for and pay for the negative impacts that they're having on the environment and like pay a fair price for them. That would be all like value, natural capital, for example, like we'll redesign financial systems. We can do that in a bottom-up layer, but it becomes incredibly difficult. If there was that real institutional political engagement, we can make like massive leap forward very quickly. And so, yeah, really my hope is that we can focus on building a really strong interconnected network of local communities and then start to then build more bridges in each of those localities to governments, lawmakers, corporations, institutions, to start to kind of bring more energy and progress. And so that's kind of what I think is that.

Speaker 3: 20:44

I think so. If we try to like use this, it's a very good example in order to like map out the pro and cons, I guess, of coordination and network states. To me it almost like when I hear you speaking. It almost feels like you know, good luck doing that with a network state, in the sense that if what you have to do in order to prove that it is possible to be abiding by some regenerative principle is that you need to obtain your own territory and then you need to like deal with all the infrastructure and pretty much all the political aspects around this, all of a sudden I feel like you might be distracted from what is the real core proposition, which is we have particular skills, we have particular knowledge and insights about how regenerativity can be implemented in various localities and to some extent, there is like the fact of except for the international relations stuff the fact of declaring independence and becoming and using the state infrastructure to do that might almost be like well, first of all, perhaps unnecessary and, most importantly, it's like it's a big burden that you have to do, whereas when I hear you say this, I like it feels to me that, in fact, the power is into figuring out this interconnection that exists between those local communities and their nation states and between those local communities amongst each other.

Speaker 3: 22:24

And it feels to me that, like and I think that's where, like, this question of international relationship is like, perhaps the only way in which a network coordination can actually claim that it has a voice in international relations is also because it has acquired a sufficient large network of interconnected communities that you cannot ignore it anymore.

Speaker 3: 22:49

Like you actually create a coordination where there is, you know, like all the citizens of this coordination take shoes not to interact with companies that do not abide by specific ethical principle.

Speaker 3: 23:04

You know, and all of students is kind of like this large network of boycotts, if you like, but also in a positive sense, right, it's like all the citizens are engaging in this particular practices and so forth, and all of students. You cannot ignore it, because if you ignore it then it's still going to affect you. Right, it's like you just have this like large organization of people that are really all coordinating themselves around specific behaviors, and whether the way in which you speak is from the perspective of a state or whether the way in which you speak is from the perspective of civil society that is organizing itself in order to actually have an impact on the state At some point. I guess it's irrelevant. The important thing is that your voice is being heard, and it's likely that a small network state that no one cares about might actually have less voice than a large coordination that has already intertwine itself also with local territories and an existing institution on the territory.

Speaker 1: 24:12

Yeah, yeah, it's like totally I can't imagine I don't know one of these like Liechtenstein or something like that. Being able to Just because they have a state doesn't mean that they're really able to exert any real influence. I'm going to the world about the on regeneration. I think the, the power that you guys have potentially is just doing the work, mm-hmm, and just like building the community and people who Are choosing to live in and create, you know, circular economies and whatever else. I think there is, of course, the, the state's question comes from kind of Trying to be realistic. You know quote-unquote about politics, but which I can, I can sympathize with, but it I think what from a very said it would be a distraction just because of the amount of Like states creation, the amount of work is such a huge, yeah, that it almost will make everything else that you do irrelevant.

Speaker 2: 25:11

Yes, yeah, oh there. In some ways, I guess one of the interesting parts, I guess, of what, what we really envision as well, is the importance of actually acquiring land and and and sure like being in physical presence. Yeah, and so each of these local communities and acquiring land, regenerating the land, but also even living on the land, starting regenerative co-living, settlements, villages, and.

Speaker 1: 25:39

And then eco villages have been a thing for a long time right and kibbutz is there, whatever you want. Like these type of things have existed for a While and they don't. There is no, I think there is something to say for. Like what if we combined these types of alternative Communities to create a larger entity? Exact, that's interesting, sure? I think thinking of it through the lens of the nation states is just, is a distraction.

Speaker 2: 26:04

It totally. It's a distraction. It's a distraction and it's like it became. It became a sexy meme of like network state, but it's like we're so we're like everyone is so far off from it. You're getting anywhere near that that. It's like, yeah, I mean it's. It's you know, significantly down the road. If we are wildly successful and we were still trying to engage with with nation states incorporation and they were still just Essentially giving us the middle finger and saying we're gonna complete this, continue, then maybe we could consider say okay, well, maybe we need to exit or something I don't know, but like it's not something we need to worry about now and but yeah, that's.

Speaker 3: 26:42

Almost like the exit thing is. It's really dangerous because if you exit then you actually lose also the Capacity to impact that territory that you have just exited. Yeah, you may end up with these like beautiful small island that are highly regenerative and just like escaping from the the collapse of the rest of the world, but in fact it's that to me, does the problem, does my, does my main criticism with the network state is that by Exiting, you're actually giving up on trying to voicing yourself in that particular jurisdiction and especially those countries and those nation states that are not at all abiding by Regenerative principle. This is where you don't want to exit and, on the contrary, you want to enter and you want to voice yourself as strongly as possible against them.

Speaker 1: 27:32

I think that's for kind of the contradiction of a lot of the I mean the network state stuff come it is like a let's exit so that we have a voice to Make our kind of tax-free special economic zones. Really it's a contradiction in his book that I think then allows for people to kind of project which aspect exactly they're they're more interested in.

Speaker 2: 27:54

Yeah, I guess. I guess one of the ways you could look at it, though, is like, okay, say you're in a locality that is being incredibly and and destructive to the environment. Their political system is corrupt and broken, and so, like voice Maybe isn't even gonna be that effective, because they're gonna literally shoot you for for expressing your voice, and but I guess this again doesn't really, if it's that dangerous, it doesn't really solve things, because if you start acquiring, trying to acquire land and build a utopian, regenerative society, they're not gonna like that either.

Speaker 3: 28:25

So, yeah, but the reason that you have little voice in those places is because you are a small community that Is not being really given much credit, where, if all of Sudan is not just, you're not just a small little community, you're actually a large archipelago of many communities.

Speaker 3: 28:47

And Not only that, but also, if these archipelago Starts sharing resources together the new model of resources that you will not have a single community and especially if the archipelago starts engaging in collective action, then you are actually very strong because it's a lot of people that are supporting your cause, because you know this, this is part of the general agenda of this, of this coordination. So I think the problem today is that, because there is this Fragmentation and these like very high, you know, isolation of those of those communities event that they all share exactly the same societal vision, uh, then you end up having a lot of weak communities that are struggling and and then, and then strong states that don't care about those weak communities, the. The only way to change the the condition is not for those weak communities to escape and to create like an autonomous place is for those communities to connect and and interconnect and actually become stronger in that way and expand their capacities.

Speaker 1: 29:56

Hi everyone. If you're enjoying this episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and join the crypto leftist communities on discord or reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you're enjoying the episode or find the content to make important, you can pitch into my efforts, starting at three dolls a month on patreoncom slash the blockchain socialist. Help me out and join the nearly 100 other patrons that contribute financially, which really helps, since making this stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode and access to bonus content like q&a episodes. You can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer and I'll give my thoughts in roughly 20 minutes.

Speaker 1: 30:30

The current bonus episodes have so far explored plenty of topics, including how co-ops and dolls relate, whether there is a socialist blockchain or a view of previous crypto events I've been to, and recently a video reaction to an episode of the d program. Of course, I'll still be making free contents like this episode to help spread the message that blockchain doesn't need to be used to further and change capitalist exploitation if we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you. I hope you'll consider helping out.

Speaker 2: 30:59

Absolutely. I just feel so aligned exactly with that Um. Like for a long time I've been thinking, you know, these kind of hippie alternative movements of you know you mentioned eco villages of like, living in this very regenerative way, um, or maybe movements of alternative economics, and you know, for so long They've been kind of like isolated pockets of people around the globe that are thinking about these ideas or maybe they're actually living them and not having a negative impact, but they're At the same time, scaling, struggling to actually have a positive impact really all over the world, because they're not like a connected force that can actually Connect with all over the globe and actually have like a tangible Um impact, because it's not, it's not, it's not coordinated. And so that's what's really excited me, I guess, about the you know awesome technology that we have Now.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Um is it enables us to create these new structures that can connect all of these previously quite isolated and Um unconnected communities, connect us all together, and what kind of collective action, potential and power to affect change does that now create? And and yeah, I mean if we, if we look at over the entire globe and the entire movement of people who are wanting to build this regenerative Future, with lots of different expressions of that and lots of different parts of that. But how do we bring all of that together and then Um really exert massive change as fast as possible? I think is is usually exciting and, yeah, let's see if we can do it.

Speaker 3: 32:32

How is the refi now trying to achieve that?

Speaker 2: 32:36

Yeah, absolutely so. We started with um essentially building like um framework for starting to form local, autonomous refi communities across the globe. We call them local nodes, um, and essentially what they are is um. We specifically focused on founders Looking for founders, because we wanted these to be self-sustainable kind of organizations and communities and people with experience building these kind of um difficult um, you know, start-ups are hard kind of thing um, but yeah, so the the the vision is that the Um they bring together a community, start meeting regularly, holding events and forming that, those bonds, and then actually turning it into an organization that can implement these refi solutions and Stuff on the ground.

Speaker 2: 33:30

Because in so, so often in the web three and the refi space we stay in this kind of conceptual discussion. You know web three bubble Um, but actually we need these communities on the ground who are actually implementing the solutions, with real people, uh, real problems being addressed, um and so that that's the kind of uh Vision and yeah, so far we have about uh 27 roughly um local nodes of varying size and capacity, um and yeah, really focusing on how we can build and support those communities, essentially um as autonomous entities, uh, but at the same time interconnected with the culture, this, the values um, the kind of social layer um and ultimately, economic uh coordination as well, uh, of the entire global network Um. And so, yeah, really, really interested in how we do create more interweaving and interdependence and, um, you know, mutualization of resources to make sure it's actually financially sustainable to build the kind of club goods, I guess, or network goods, um for the entire network Um. And yeah, so you know, my job as part of the refi dow global nodes Um is, yeah, to build um, well, media, podcasts, blogs, content, toolkits, guides to help support the nodes, as well as software, meetups. You know, fundraising Um, so we've been uh raising Roughly 25k each quarter, first time from our own treasury and and now in partnership with sello Um to um get funding to these local nodes so they can start their activities.

Speaker 2: 35:11

And and yeah, so we've been running these quarterly quadratic funding rounds and and so, yeah, so that that that's, I guess, some of the stuff we've been doing to build our network of local communities, our, our gas regen or refi coordination, but um, yeah, curious to hear any thoughts on that. But also then can talk about um, this evolved idea that I've been getting excited about recently of a kind of Regen coordination, like a coordination of coordinations, I guess, with refi dow Um, but also the? Um kind of most the closest um other communities like green pearl regens, unite, um, that are also doing similar things and have their own local chapters. Like how could we um become a coordination with each other as well? Um? So yeah, that that's where I'm at, but um curious to hear any thoughts.

Speaker 3: 36:01

Yeah, so I just just just before we get out, like I'm a bit Confused maybe, or I would like more information about like. So when, like right now, you're like I'm trying to understand. Like what does the what is the whole of the Dow as in like the blockchain now in this, like so, because I Love the way in the sky, like you, it's just about like creating those different notes and like Finding ways to connect them with one another. But like, what is the? What is the blockchain infrastructure whole in all that?

Speaker 2: 36:35

yeah, absolutely so. So far we haven't launched a token and we haven't Done like an on-chain formalized governance system, and I think the reason for that is one looking at a lot of the other dolls and thinking that's not really what we want to replicate. And you know there's a lot of Experiments. You know one token, one vote systems or I mean you know Everyone knows the state of dows at the moment in terms of you know the conflict that emerges, the difficulties in coordination, in governance and and and. So we have definitely not been in a rush to launch a token and On-chain voting mechanisms. That seems to have kind of self-destructed many organizations and, at the same time, that is what we want, we want to build towards a version of that that is going to be productive and work and and. So, in terms of the on-chain stuff that we'll explore is and we're looking at okay, could each local community have, or local node have, its own in Be it's own impact now? So I'm here in Berlin at the moment Refi Berlin community could have its own token and organizational structure, same as refi Lisbon, refi Costa Rica, all across the globe, and then could we also have a global refi token. That was, and I guess Part of that global refi token could be like a collection. We could swap that with all of the local communities across the globe. The local communities themselves could swap their tokens with other Local communities that they are mostly more closely connected with, and suddenly we're interweaving the economic incentives and of these of these local communities, and so that's one angle I'm really interested in, and and the other angle is is the actual kind of impact, impact measurement, reporting and verification. And so if we're saying that, okay, we want to support this decentralized, autonomous network of Local communities, well, how do we actually allocate resources to a community on the other side of the globe that we're not connected, you know we're not physically there, saying, you know, how do we mitigate against free riders and bad actors, and and so I think that's where some of the awesome mechanisms that being developed in web 3, such as quadratic funding, hyper certs and these kind of technologies, can help us to really Coordinate the network.

Speaker 2: 39:00

Of course, there's a hell of a lot of social coordination and cultural connection as well, and we've really started with the social and cultural there, really focused on building strong foundations there, and now are kind of inviting everyone in to say, okay, how can we co-create this more formalized kind of scalable Governance and organizational structure and in this way? So, yeah, rather than doing the typical Dow, which is start instantly with tokens and spending all your time trying to manage and design for that and not actually doing the thing, we've instead said, okay, well, let's, let's focus on the social layer, let's focus on impact, let's focus on building the community, experimenting and and this kind of side of things. And now I think we're really ready to Build this next generation structure. And yeah, I've been having good, good conversations with some of the folks at Salo Luke from Collectivo and various others and really looking to kind of, yeah, co-create this, this next evolution.

Speaker 3: 40:02

Okay, cool, yeah, so it's. So it's a river down, but it doesn't. The doubt is not there yet, does not mean yeah it's an interesting question.

Speaker 2: 40:10

Actually, I think there's a lot of this. A lot of people ask this question, but if we think about like a Dow a decentralized autonomous organization, essentially being a network of decentralized autonomous communities, to me feels very much like it being a Dow. Like the refi Lisbon node, the refi Costa Rica node is a totally autonomous kind of community itself, but we're all interconnected in the shared culture and alignment and and so that feels like a Dow to me. And but even though we don't have the kind of more typical token and token voting system and but, that feels like to me a bit of a narrow conception of what a Dow is. And but at the same time, yeah, we do have this global node Right that is then making, just helping to make decisions on behalf of the network, and so of course, that needs forms of participatory Governance and involvement so that it's not like a centralized local node. That's kind of yeah, you know, making, just making decisions in a but in isolated bubble.

Speaker 2: 41:12

And so actually, what we've been leaning in for this like version 1.5 before we go to this really more advanced, complex, on-chain governance structure and organizational structure is leaning into you know, I started the refi Dow forum, leaning into principles of Sociocracy and consent based governance, making sure that we're actually Any key decisions, any of the key stakeholders, we're inviting them in to have that conversation, and it's kind of like a Is it safe enough to try, good enough for now, kind of thing, so that we're actually making sure that the voice and yeah is being heard throughout the network and we're kind of engaging in that way and but then yeah, evolving that into a more formalized Structure is certainly the mission, but you know, that's a that's a very difficult thing to do, right and so, really, looking to know, and I think I think you're starting in the right order.

Speaker 3: 42:04

It's just like I, I think the name down, I guess, has been Either diluted or Expanded a lot, but no, in some way like if we, if we map it back to the, to the various steps, to our little recipes for coordination, I will say that, like you know, so one is build or join a community of kinship. I think that's what that's what the various local nodes Are about, is like finding those kind of people that are interested in a particular vision towards regenerativity. Second is like identified Author-related or resonating communities, which I think is exactly this, is like let's, let's recognize that all those local communities have some kind of kinship amongst each other and let's, let's map them out and let's, let's start interacting with one another. Number three is encouraging those community to support each other, which I think you're also doing, which is great, and we should maximize this. Number four, I guess, is an interesting way, like I'm not sure the extent to which it's there, but it's like. Number four is like creating a collective identity by naming it into existence, which may be refined out.

Speaker 3: 43:27

Is that name? That is just a way of saying we are a collective of Collectives and we want to start acting as one higher, higher archipelago of things as opposed to as individual actors. And I think, I think, maybe that's that's. That's that's where you stand. And then I think, I think, in my view, number five and six and seven, but especially number five, I think, is the state change, which is when you need to actually start pooling resources in commons and managing them collectively. That's where governance comes in, because until then it's just bilateral or multilateral interactions. Once you start to pool resources together, first of all you need a place to pool them together, which might actually require the instantiation of a doubt in the technological sense of that, and governance around that right. And it feels like the change, the shift from four to five might be the very important shift in which you're starting to enter the more official coordination, the coordination type of things, as opposed to just being a collective or a collective of collectives.

Speaker 2: 44:49

Yes, totally. I think that's definitely the stage that we're at now in terms of step five. I'm working out what those structures look like. It's definitely my mission at the moment, and so I'm having lots of conversations with lots of people to map out what that structure looks like and how to make it kind of effective.

Speaker 2: 45:11

Yes, I guess it's an interesting one of you always have that tension, I guess, with building a coordination between it's the free rider stuff that you mentioned a lot, I guess, about someone can come in, benefit from all of the various forms of resources that that network has built up, and what's their incentive to just go okay, well, why do I run my business through this node?

Speaker 2: 45:38

That is essentially I don't want to call it a tax, but you're mutualizing resources, so maybe 5% of the revenues of that node comes back to the global node that then is collectively governed to then steward the public goods or common goods of that network that help the whole network to thrive. But at the same time, you have to make sure that one, the network itself, is providing enough value for the nodes to want to do that, which is, I think, a healthy dynamic. But also, at the same time, you can imagine nodes that might say, okay, well, I could just do this activity here and not account for those revenues or not distribute back. So I think, yeah, it's an interesting thought experiment for how to create a network that is really thriving in that sense and has those kind of values of wanting to do that. And yeah, that's where I think a lot of your concepts of the interconnections and interdependence come in.

Speaker 3: 46:35

So you know, I've been having brainstorming around that for a while but yeah, yeah, and I will say that, like, once you start pulling resources together, you know that you're somehow entering into the same boat, but at the same time, just pulling resources together doesn't necessarily prevent you from actually free riding quite to the opposite, right. Because especially if you're like you're a small community, you don't have many resources, but now you can take from the collective pool and that's where, like, a good governance structure becomes really important, right? And I will be very wary of people just starting to pull resources together before I'm thinking about what is the alignment, which is what happened mostly with DAOs today. Let's just put a lot of money in this DAO. We don't really know if we're ever in a line.

Speaker 2: 47:32

We've got a multi-seg and we'll launch a token Done.

Speaker 3: 47:36

Exactly so. No, I think it's really nice to actually go through this kind of like step-by-step approach, but I do think that there is a point in which, if all that happens is just creating those nice little interaction, it might not be enough. It might not be enough to really create this impact and for creating this entity that then can speak on behalf of, because then you're just a collective of small actors, as opposed to becoming an actual single actor, that is, a collective actor based on the aggregation of all those collectives, right?

Speaker 2: 48:19

And how do you see it becoming more of a kind of collective actor? Yeah, what would that look like?

Speaker 3: 48:27

Well, I think pulling resources together is the first step, so that these collective actors have resources under its own name, and figuring out what is the initial governance to make sure that it works, while starting this intertwining. Ideally, the intertwining should start as soon as possible.

Speaker 2: 48:49

Oh yeah, I mean, we're definitely doing that for sure.

Speaker 3: 48:53

We are already all intertwined because we are all dependent on the same planet. But some people don't recognize these as interdependence. Right, it's like no, but I can just go to New Zealand, so I'm not intertwined. So, yeah, I think it's like to me like the more. It's kind of like they almost have to go in parallel. Right, because the more you start pulling resources, the more the governance challenge become challenging and therefore the more interweaving you have and maybe it's my hypothesis I would love for a refined out to be like the guinea pig on this experiment. Great, but it feels to me that the moment in which you really manage to create proper interdependencies I will argue that all of students the governance becomes less of a challenge.

Speaker 3: 49:50

And I think that's the biggest piece, because it's more about if we have family. We might have to argue about what's the best way to operate, but we will never argue about should you get as much as we get right? It's like we are a family. We all are in the same boat together. There is no argument about that, and one of the challenges that comes with collective governance today is, like a large percentage, about how do we redistribute, rather than what's the best way to maximize the collective benefit of all.

Speaker 3: 50:29

And those are interesting governance challenges, because of course there is many ways to do it and people might disagree on what's the best part. But at least we get rid of those weird governance question of like how do we prevent people from defecting right? And let's get like this whole crazy mechanism so that everyone has to cooperate and if they don't want to, let's actually change the pay off structure so that cooperation is the dominant strategy to begin with, so we don't have to govern around it. The governance is the cooperation is the default, and then let's figure out how do we do the best cooperation. But let's not try to create a governance structure just to ensure cooperation. Love that.

Speaker 3: 51:13

Because that's networked, there will always be defect.

Speaker 2: 51:15

Love that and curious to hear, like if you've identified any kind of core mechanisms that you're really excited about to do that. For a bit of context, I think we're really focusing on the social layer first and just like getting making sure we actually know, like each other and forming social bonds and relationships, and visiting the local nodes and we're doing an annual meeting or a refi week at traditional dream factories, the regenerative village in Portugal, bringing people together so that we're actually forming these relationships and a real sense of community and interweaving there. There's some other mechanisms that I'm curious if you have any.

Speaker 3: 51:55

Yeah, I think, like especially in the blockchain space, has a lot of.

Speaker 3: 51:58

When we talk about interweaving, often time the usual responses like, yeah, let's just exchange tokens, which sure, that's great because all of you are economically interdependent.

Speaker 3: 52:11

But especially when we're talking about those local communities and actually communities of people and so forth, I think like one of the most fascinating strategies of interweaving is actually exchange of people. It's like all of students I cannot tell whether I'm part of this community or the other community. I'm actually part of both of those communities at the same time, because I've spent half of my time in one place, half in the other, and it doesn't even make sense for me to say I am part of the collective A as opposed to the collective B and therefore I need to have this higher entity to say I'm part of this collective, of collective. And I think, especially in the blockchain environment, because it's all about like digital interaction, like we don't, we never think about, like how in an organization, actually the DNA of the organization, more so than the token, is actually the people. And the best interweaving you can do is by actually like exchanging people around.

Speaker 2: 53:18

Totally agree, totally agree. And the beautiful thing about community, I guess, is it's like it's not zero sum, like being part of one community doesn't prevent you from being part of another. And so, like I feel deeply called and aligned with ReFiDal but also love all the work that's going on in GreenPill Network and Regen's Unite, feel very aligned and a part of those communities and spend a lot of time in Lisbon, so part of the Lisbon node and setting up a London node and yeah, I think that's a really exciting kind of point as well about how we kind of interweave the social there.

Speaker 3: 53:50

And I think that's where, like you know, the coordination, the nation side of coordination, is like how do we actually create this sense of nationhood around? And in some ways, like, as long as I'm defining myself as part of one small community, I will be part of this small community, and it's only when I start feeling part of this larger nation that then I become a legion to the nation as such and therefore, if I have another community that is part of the same nation that is in need, of course I will support because it is also my community, and that's why I think this collective identity concept is extremely important in order for people to be able to recognize themselves as being part of a larger whole and therefore of being eager to support and interweave with people that are from separate local community but still part of the same nation. Of the coordination.

Speaker 2: 54:54

Totally.

Speaker 3: 54:55

Totally.

Speaker 1: 54:56

Yeah, I think the real tokens that we want to moon are people Love that I know. Primavera, you said you had to at 12.15. Yeah, I had to wait like 15 minutes To go. Yeah, maybe we can end it there. It was really great chatting with you, monty. I appreciated you being honest and sober about your journey with Rifaidao and kind of your conversion. Can I call it a conversion? Yeah, absolutely, you're converted. Nice Success. Blockchangove 1. Bellagy 0.

Speaker 2: 55:42

Well, yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I've really enjoyed this conversation and, yeah, very happy to be the guinea pig, I guess, but hopefully we can be the guinea pig that survives and is successful, and building this regenerative economy is what I'm really passionate about. So, yeah, we'd love to continue the conversation with both of yourselves. You've been, like I said at the beginning, great inspiration and so, yeah, just really grateful to be a part of this new, exciting coordination movement. It really feels like something that's going to become a model that a lot more communities starting to adopt. You know, having a really strong online community but meeting in person and forming these local communities, and so, yeah, very excited to see that whole space emerge and build more bridges with other aligned communities so that we can really scale our collective action and collective impact potential to try and make as much change as we can in the short time frame that we have.

Speaker 1: 56:44

And I appreciate you engaging with our work and, yeah, taking it seriously.

Speaker 2: 56:49

Awesome. Thanks a lot for having me, thanks.

Speaker 3: 56:52

Thank you.