Bridge Atlas - Episode 3: Commons | Yancey Strickler & Trent Van Epps

Transcript

[music] Hey everyone, [music] welcome back to the third episode of the Bridge Atlas series. I'm your host Christine Kim. In this episode, we are going to be discussing Ethereum through the lens of the common. As a quick note to everyone who's joining us in the middle of the Bridge Atlas series, uh please do after listening to this episode, check out the first episode in the series because that is an episode where me and Tim and Timber, we all tee up this series and it'll give you a lot of context for um forthcoming Bridge Atlas episodes. [snorts] But for this episode, I want to now introduce our amazing speakers uh for this discussion

on the commons. They are two summer of protocols alumni. We have first Trent Van Trent Vaneps. Hi Trent. >> Hey, thanks for having me. >> I'm sorry I almost said Trent, but that's because I was reading also your last name when I was like merging them together. But no, it's Trent Man. Hi Trent. Um, and then we also have Yansy Strickler. Hi Yansy. >> Hey, what's up? Um, for some of our listeners, they probably already know you guys because Trent, you did the um, summer protocols talk on software commons and Yansy, you did uh, the one on when the means justify the ends. Um, so hopefully for

our listeners, you you're not like s super new to these people. But in case we have new listeners where it's their first time seeing you guys, I thought it'd be good to start off with a bit of introduction. Um, please just share a little bit of overview of who you are, what you do, and your research on protocols. Um, Trent, do you want to start off? >> Sure. So, um, my background is originally in architecture and design. This is what I went to school for. So, I've always been interested in um systems. Like, at the end of the day, architecture is a it's a bunch of systems coming together. Um and a couple years into that career, I found um Ethereum and instantly was sucked in.

And so, I you know, jumped in uh head first and have done a bunch of different projects over the years. Um I I work full-time in the industry. um currently for the Ethereum Foundation. Um and I spend most of my time on protocol coordination. So this is changes to how the the software works or what it might look like when it's operating on the network. So I help to coordinate you know software releases getting different people involved getting you know stakeholder engagement that whole bucket of activities. And uh the main thing I spend my time on which I'm sure we'll talk about is uh called protocol guild which is this collective funding endowment for core contributors. We fund

about 200 individuals uh people who spend their their days working on Ethereum the the underlying foundational protocols. >> Awesome. Yeah, let's definitely talk about protocol guild in this episode. Um, Yansy, can you share um also about your your background and your your area of focus? >> Yeah. Uh, I'm a my name is Yansy Strickler. I'm a writer and an entrepreneur. My I've had a winding twisting career of making projects that make creative people more powerful. um started with Kickstarter found co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter project called the

creative independent which publishes a daily wisdom every day from an artist uh and more recently working on metal label which is a studio that makes group core projects a platform financial tools uh things in the past on chain as well as uh using fiat rails and uh also working on a project called artist corporations which is to pass laws to create a new corporate structure uh specifically designed for creative people and that that is very much a public goods project that uh is in full swing at the moment.

Um and and also working on a project called the dark forest operating system or defos. This is a new metal label release that'll be private internets for groups of people to have uh shared space, shared money, uh the whole little world they can make together. All of these projects have just sort of things that have come up. There hasn't been a lot of strategic thinking to it. It's just uh acting on things that are interesting and being able to have great collaborators to do it and uh excited to get to talk with you all today.

>> Yeah. Excited for this conversation and thank you guys for sharing a bit of your guys' backgrounds. I feel like similarly both of you like have fallen into kind of what you're doing now. taking things things that may have been perhaps unexpected um but now you guys are here and Yansancy you're focused on the creative commons and Trent you're focused on the Ethereum commons I feel like there's going to be a lot of parallels um to these two types of work um or these two types of industries um Trent can you kick off our discussion please um by maybe framing and defining

what the area or the loai of the Ethereum commons is. >> Sure. Yeah. So, for people who maybe aren't familiar, uh commons are systems for shared production, or at least this is my definition. So, they're you're producing and managing this shared resource over time. Um, a lot of people think about software and maybe they just use it directly like your iPhone, iOS updates or any any kind of software that you interact with. Um, you may not think directly about it as it being a shared resource that's managed over time. Uh, for example, open source software requires a lot of people engaging in it and tradeoffs to be weighed, right?

There's a governance process that goes into this. And Ethereum is um again in my frame it it fits very well into this idea of like a digital commons or a shared resource uh that produces digital goods and um yeah so this is a frame I've leaned on the the past few years and find it really productive to think about it in terms of um you know how should we think about its governance um but also how should we think about the risks to capture Right? Ideally, we have a set of resources that are, you know, the the let's say the surplus value or the utility is distributed to as wide a

public as possible. And when the governance process or these resources start to get captured over time or influenced by um capital actors, this is when you start to lose the magic that that makes these shared resources most um magical. Uh so that yeah that's that's the the general frame. Um and I think well not to not to preempt Yansancy but I think there are a lot of parallels for like um collective governance and uh some of the work we do around like increasing the legibility of what would otherwise be independent um isolated individual actors like you can marshall them together into larger legible forms.

>> Yeah. I mean, would you is that a definition that is very is how you might describe what the creative commons is and do you agree that there are like parallels in in these two types of commons? Well, I mean, as I was I was listening to Tren and trying to think, yeah, what are the what are the creative uh and you know, I went to like uh such a bountiful public goods of like colors and notes and you know, chords and music theory and there's like a an incredible foundation that has been is either gifted by the universe or has been

collectively developed by PE. you know, we don't know who made the first G chord or whatever, but like there's somebody, you know, or presumably. Uh, and so all of that is this amazing tapestry that everyone gets to interact with. Um, you know, what we find ourselves in now is that, you know, systems uh and models built on what's existing are turning all of that into uh just another free resource, another public good of like generating creative work on demand. Um, so you know, where where creative comments have always played online has been through rights, has been through copyright, has been through how do you create a sense of control around a work?

um what Creative Commons itself has done to create that and to make uh universal standards that are widely adopted around the web. I mean th those are really hard things to do and are incredibly important because as Trent said, if if we if we put all standard setting uh just on commercial actors, there will be a race to the bottom. Uh there will be attempts to you know you're just going to lose the amount of love and care it takes to do it well because to actually to manage a anything well is like a tremendous act of daily devotion that is incredibly easy to be lazy about and

then it's just a matter of time until things have degraded and once they degrade it's it's often permanent. So like I think that um that is uh those those are hard things to create and come by and um and I'm interested in you know I think the the what's what's wonderful about Ethereum is you know unlike say the APIs of web 2 like the Ethereum the the public domain the the public goods the commons are things that are going to stay around will you know have a resiliency that is independent of a of a single decision maker. Um, and ultimately, you know, those end up those

kinds of things end up being our escape hatches and uh and we need them. You know, we need them and um >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, well, one of the things I think could be a common misconception is that Ethereum kind of like naturally will be able to sustain this commons. Um, but just like the creative commons, I think like there needs to be tools, there's needs to be these like innovations that help sustain the commons. And I know Trent, a lot of your work is around that. Um Yansy, you had mentioned obviously rights like as being one of those ways in which people

are trying to um monetize and s have like certain music or like the creation of these creative goods like uh be sustainable. Um you are focused Yansancy on the tool of also labels. Um, can you talk a little bit more on why you focused on labels as like kind of the powerful or like the the thing that you want to innovate on to keep the creative comments going? Like why why labels as like a focus?

Well, I think that um we're very much, especially creatively, but online, we're in a very uh kind of single player mindset and we're we're encouraged to build our individual following and that is our sense of selfworth. And in the creative world, it's made us um makes you competitive with the people most like you because like your listener should be my listener or and I was trapped in a loop like that and was trying to think about what are structures that would allow me to be aligned with other creative people. You know, sometimes cooperate, not always, but just like have an alignment of if one of us does well, the other does well.

um and thought about the history of indie record labels as a model where you often had someone would choose to put themselves out. They would release their own music and by the act of doing that other people who did things like them would show up and be like can you release me too and suddenly within a year you have a scene and the label serves as both a amplifier of something as well as like an invitation to also become a part of it. Oh, you also do things like this, become a part of it. And there's a shared credibility that builds that just puts a glow on everyone. And that if you look through any cultural movement, like really any cultural movement, it is structures like

these that end up having a huge amount of influence because they just they define they what we would now call a brand, but they define a sound, a scene, an aesthetic that uh helps people understand and helps people like know what else to be into. And but those things have disappeared on the internet. And so I I became interested in how would you redesign that as a web internet native uh structure you know a group of people doing have some shared interest who want to do things together who may or may not want to make money and uh and I found that those were not easy things to do very well and um and so with metal label we've first building

on uh on chain tools and then ended up making uh our own versions of these things using fiat and stripe of making uh group treasuries, creating splits, financial splits on transactions, uh the ability to redirect funds, you know, within your group as you see fit. and just to empower people to have this this set of tools and uh and now we're, you know, we're extending that more into not just a marketplace of selling things, but also into uh how you act together and uh how you make decisions and your your own private dark forest where you where you do stuff. Yeah, I really just felt like that notion of how do people how do people align and do

things together uh was just not not on the radar not on the radar of creative people but was so clearly a different path and I I personally you know I'm now a member of number of groups that do this the dark forest collective hard art uh and it's really fun it's really it's like you know other people share the work with you you get you do things together it's not always on you. You take turns, you know, you have to decide things. Like, it's just it's more interesting. And uh and so I'm just very optimistic that more and more energy is going to go in that direction because it's it's just a great counterpoint to, you know, we're all still going to have our channels and voices. Those things don't go away, but you want to be a part

of something, too. And so I think it's just the sort of the the poly identity life that we all live in, you know, online, offline, and all of our many online selves. You know, how it all lines up. >> Trent, does that resonate with you? like this idea of the label as uh a really kind of like powerful tool of bringing together like individual work I guess to become stronger than like the individual parts like the sum of it being um somehow more sustainable.

>> Yeah. I mean I I think personally I approach it from like a very political or social frame of like there are very clear benefits to why you should do this as a as a defense mechanism you know uh but I I I think there's actually very very practical benefits for example like like we were talking about independent labels the benefit of doing that is that you get a very practical you know payment uh destination for payment you get representation depending on how the label is structured, you get some representation. You get um you know some connection with a booking agency or um marketing or like help help boosting

your brand in a way that you couldn't otherwise do. And these are like very practical considerations like I said even before we start to think about the political or like the social reality of like hey maybe it's nice to be in an environment where you can be inspired by other creatives who are kind of in the same scene as you. um there are very very practical reasons and so yeah coming from my context for protocol guild it there are um very practical outcomes that result when you bind together these 200 individual core contributors for example um all of the sudden there's this legibility that you unlock at a greater scale for example uh we ran this pilot a couple years ago um were able to raise some money and see

how it vested over one year you know just to experiment with with this early version of the mechanism. And then in in the years following, we introduced this thing called the 1% pledge, which is as it sounds, you know, projects commit 1% of their token supply to this group of developers. And when you give something um you know these packages or these shapes where you can uh like I I I always return to the idea of legibility all of these individuals on their own would never be able to go or even as part of like their their company or their their individual team or project.

They're never going to be able to go to a large protocol that's launching and they have a token or some revenue and say, "Hey, you should fund us. look, we we handle this very important niche of the protocol or this specific project. It's like, yeah, that's important, but um what's really powerful is representing yourself as part of this larger hole. And um you know to my uh pleasant surprise every time there are projects who recognize like okay I see the argument you're making like this is 200 people who are doing this key maintenance and stewardship work that wouldn't otherwise be done and the counterfactual is like these contributions or these this um you know

voluntary funding would never happen if we hadn't banded these people together into a larger collective uh hole. Um so yeah the legibility part is really really powerful and then the the practical outcomes is that the practical outcome of that is you end up getting you know funding that is real impact for these people. I'm glad that you are talking a little bit about like the practical benefits of um what a label like structure can do. Um because one of the very just I don't know like operational things that um the protocol guild does uh deals with capital, deals with

pay and and um increasing the um value uh or like having people like donate and having people um put money into what the what these open source software developers are doing. Um, and Yamy, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but even Metal Label, like you said, has uh ways of revenue sharing and splitting between different um creative people in the same label. These are like tools to kind of help manage um capital and hopefully make it easier overall for for people who are involved in working on the commons. Um, I want to talk a little bit and discuss your guys's views on how

capital um, changes the dynamics of a common. Um, Trent, you had talked quite a bit in in your talk, which we'll link to in the show notes of today's episode if people are are interested, about your concerns and and kind of like you you you didn't say like one way or another in that talk whether or not capital really negatively impacts the commons, like makes it more centralized or or kind of like makes it private over time and it it completely collapses or or capital as kind of like a a force for for sustaining it and stewarding it.

Well, um have your views kind of on the way capital changes the dynamics of a common has have has has that changed at all since your talk um that you gave for for summer protocols? >> I mean probably not too much. It the reality is it it depends on the the form the context that it's being distributed in. Um, like as with everything, uh, it depends. Um, so like, uh, if you have a large multinational showing up with a hund00 million, like that's going to be very different. It's going to have very different outcomes or impacts than, um, hund00 million that's exclusively managed by a smart contract. And it's,

you know, peer the peers decide the allocation. Um so it it it does really matter what context or what form it's coming in. Um that being said there is a bit of a paradox right we have I'm writing about the risk of capital and like the importance of the commons but at the end of the day again coming to this practical consideration like people got to pay rent they got to eat like there there needs to be some way to sustain their work and so you can't just we don't live in this um you know idealized society where people who are doing this key work they automatically have support for it. So, it's it's definitely a risk, but it's not something that you can just kind of wave away and say um you know, all versions of this are bad because this is this is

the world we live in and we need to understand these realities. >> Yeah. Yeah. Any any thoughts on that, Yansy, that you want to jump in um on regarding how capital influences um dynamics in the comments? Um, I feel like you have so much experience experimenting with different levers um to manage how capital influences these dynamics like your the artist corporation, your metal label that you were talking about. What what are your views on kind of like um yeah the impact of capital in the comments?

>> Well, I mean it can't it can't it can't be over it can't be underestimated, you know. I don't think it could be overestimated. Um, money money controls uh pretty completely. But you know, a a wise person said to me that we're thinking about say a startup that will always runs out before the money does. And I think if you're thinking about like the desire to do it tends to run out before the money. And uh and if I think about open source projects or any project that I'm a part of that's like a group of people uh yes there is often money is like the does it actually happen or is it like the cheap

version or like the great version but like >> Oh are you guys still there? >> I am. >> Okay good. I thought that was me. I think it's still recording me. >> No, I think it's still recording me. Uh, I'll keep going. I'll keep going. Yeah, I know. Mine has a little but like >> when you're in a creative group or working on a project with other people, like money might be this barrier to its existence, but like in reality is is the idea interesting or exciting enough that people are willing to put their time into it? And that that is like the core most important currency on any project.

like will people just do it because it's interesting and it's fun and there's enough social intellectual whatever reward to do it that that is at the heart of anything and then based on that based on the speed of that or the marketing of that or the size of that money becomes involved. Money that is local to that group of people great it can further the group. uh money that is external to that social group that is by necessity looking at it opportunistically that is that's probably going to change how things go and uh it's hard to know these things upfront. Sometimes that

external money is the only money because there isn't a lot of capital within that community and you know then the uneasy tension that exists everywhere exists there too. uh but I think it's like they are they interact and it and it is like that will desire that is the most important thing and you know I think so much about um Nadia Asparova's book working in public about open-source software which is pretty brutal about how much you know how how much people put on to these the people supporting these projects you know how overwhelming it gets with and and how what

like what a thankless task it kind of is to manage to manage a thing in the comments which I have found my few steps through that. Yeah, I I I absolutely see the wisdom and truth in that. Um so you know that's also where money helps but it's all complicated. There's no there's no there's no easy easy simple path here. Exactly. >> Yeah. If I could if I could add to that, I I think one of the things I found from doing this the past few years is like obviously Ethereum started as like this ideological project like we're going to change the world in this very unique way and and that's what's driven a lot of motivation for the past 10 years, right?

This July was the 10-y year anniversary of the project and like that's still the main motivator for many of the people, right? This is they want to do this work because it's values aligned. they see some important impact that it's going to have on the world or people that they care about. Um or you know these these intrinsic motivations that are uh not ever going to be replaced by money. They find it personally challenging. They enjoy the camaraderie of like doing a hard thing. These are uh for sure these take precedence over the funding again.

But again coming back to at the end of the day people got to eat. And so what we want to do with these what I what I would love to do for things like protocol guild is um make it not even a question like yeah there's funding available for you to just keep doing what brought you here in the first place. Like avoid it ever being a point of contention. And then you know there's like some other nuances about how it's governed and how it's allocated. like the goal should not be to introduce more contention around this this pot of money or this this resource that could sustain you, but instead just like um check this box of like you don't have to worry about this funding. It's going to vest over four years. Um there's certain

asurances that we build into the the organization and and at the end of the day the goal is to like just let people do what they're good at and what they're motivated by and and uh just to support them in what they're already doing. And so yeah, I definitely echo some of that that you're saying. I think on another level, crypto and Ethereum in particular being the very first general purpose blockchain, one of the first most popular use cases on Ethereum was ICOs.

To be able to so quickly bootstrap a project um without having to like start up an entity or like >> yeah go go to Kickstarter and like you know have a page and and whatnot. just like create tokens out of thin air and create this community and have some kind of like immediate capital coming your way to to fund whatever it is. And the value is directly tied to how much people people agree with you. You know, your token's not going to have value if you um what you're creating is not something that other people really find value in at all. Um, so in that sense, I always thought of like one of the

primary like primary use cases for crypto or some of the things that it could change the world with was creative people and artists and like helping them like you said trying like not even be a question of like do I do this or do that, but like have these like tools to just be able to do what they love and directly access their their audience. um for open source developers being able to build protocols and software that can so easily have monetary value because you have the power to create like a token.

Um, but Yansancy, going back to one of your talks at Summer of Protocols, you really shared a lot about how in your view and from your experience, the the the use of crypto wasn't quite fully matured yet for creatives. Can you are you is you I want a little bit of an update on this episode. is your view has your views on crypto being the rails for creative work has that changed at all since your your last talk and and like you said there's been like Trent mentioned you know there's been developments and Ethereum has matured over in time at least.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was a piece I wrote and ended up talking about called Climbing Out of the Rabbit Hole when Metal Label, we switched our financial rails over to Stripe and a a custom system we built on top of their APIs and marketplace uh product. Um, you know, I think that, um, you know, the the path of crypto and blockchains is, uh, seems likely to be through stable coins and through being directly integrated through large banks and large retailers and just being a a part of the overall normal economy as being sort of the internet rails behind the scenes. uh and a way to save money on credit card fees and open up a whole

you know a whole set of things that will happen from there. Um I think artists and creative people will be participants in that system just like any other consumer. Uh I don't think that creator coins uh are something that creative people are interested in. um to create an outright financial value on yourself uh to see to feel yourself and your work as a liquid asset. Uh I think that's a hard thing for a lot of people to wrap their heads around because as a creative person, you know, money is on the other side of the room and you're on this side of the room and you don't go over there and you don't know things about that. like that's those are

different types of people and different universes that you don't want to associate with because you're motivated in such a different way. And so I think a lot of the all of the financial tools that I think you know someone in DeFi finds just like really exciting are deeply alienating to a creative person and makes them think I want nowhere near that uh now there are internet native people there are NFT artists there are people who uh and probably you know people coming up now and like the Robin Hood generation right there is probably going to be a different mindset but I just don't think that that is like a that is really an artistic person you know not to say that isn't always the

case but I think artistic values shy away from things like that and uh and yes that makes it harder to make a living there's many challenges to that but that's that's just part of the reality of being a creative person. >> That is fascinating because now that I think about it also on the Ethereum side, protocol guild was not it wasn't something that like Marius from the GU team or like Peter from the GU team like developed themselves. Like Trent, this was as I understand it was your idea, but it kind of speaks to like these people that are building their the commons. They're not the DeFi experts, the people that are building these tools

to like selfmonetize their work. They're really not like focused on this at all. And it's it's kind of like the other people like like you, Tren, and and you that are are focused on like Yeah. these other >> Yeah. That's >> I mean I always felt like my in in my in my crypto years I I always felt safely within a bubble of other fellow utopian of various stripe nerd you know archetypes you know of which I felt very comfortable and enjoy enjoy the ambition and the optimism you know connect with that very much. Um, however, you know, uh, products, people, we all we're all like

born with our souls. We're all born with some sort of original sin, you know, and for all the things that crypto does, it's its foundation as a as a easily speculatable internet asset is just like it's just always going to be there. And for a lot of things, that's going to make it very powerful. for other things, it's going to make it a a more uneasy marriage and partnership. And not to say what won't happen in the future, but it's it's just such a different value set. And um if it didn't have interesting technical problems, if it didn't enable interesting social outcomes, you know, I don't think Trent or I would be that interested in this.

But maybe a lot of other people still would because it's like soybeans are boring, you know, this is more interesting to, you know, speculate on because that clearly that crowd exists. But uh but yeah, I just think creative people that's just not not how we're wired. >> Trent, has any developer ever who is part of the protocol guild, have they ever been like like token? No. or you know cuz like they don't in terms of they are when they're signed up for the protocol guild they are getting a sense or like they're being exposed whether or not they like it to the more volatile like money driven capital driven aspects of this

industry which is a very thriving part of this industry probably the main part I how has their response been in terms of your interactions with with developers >> yeah yeah I mean I have a lot of thoughts on all this So like I think since the very beginning of the project and like every new wave of the project being Ethereum and like every new wave of use cases you see you know this insane speculation on a new primitive whether it's ICOs or Dows or NFTTS prediction markets like these things naturally lend themselves to speculation and this is what typically ends up being leaned to leaned into the hardest because the people who are engaging in like adopting these early imple

implementations or early versions of these tool sets are just hungry for speculative uh products and that's kind of just the way it is like this first wave. Um, and unfortunately like this is what makes the news and this is what people get exposed to like the worst version of all of this stuff the most exploitative the worst outcomes of scammers and you know whatever people sells his NFT for however many millions of dollars. like these are the things like this hyperfinancialization is what grabs headlines and um ultimately what makes it to people and I think core developers have always had

this kind of trepidation of yeah we believe in the fundamental thing of what we're building but man what we're seeing is not great like do there's always this kind of uneasy relationship with the the core motivation and then what they see people using it for I I mean, um, I guess this applies to any kind of domain where you're releasing work and other people are riffing on it or doing something with it. And you kind of have to accept that there's going to be things that happen that you don't necessarily agree with. I guess the fundamental thing that brings it back full circle is like the core of these ideas, there are really powerful kernels. You know, ICOs are a way to democratize ownership. um NFTTS, there

are tons of models that can make sense. There's probably a version of creator coins that doesn't have the same externalities. Like I've I've used Zoro a few times and after a few uses, I was like, this is a different I have a different relationship with the photos I'm posting on Zora than I do on Instagram, for example. Right? It changes your relationship to the thing. And you know, I love the Zora team and and they've been grinding on this stuff for many years, but like there is a reality of I think there's a core of a lot of these things that maybe on longer time frames we'll start to see uh some of the externalities or some of the trade-offs worked out in different ways and hopefully this leads to more

productive outcomes. But yeah, I can't disagree like the first versions of all this stuff is just like man, it's so bad. And and yeah, and to your point about core devs, um like there is a definite there's a recognition of being proximate to this like hot ball of money all the time. Um it it is a very strange experience especially when you consider that you know for many years including up to now like core devs are very undercompensated. So like not only are you facilitating these this this these crazy markets that are you know you know meme coins and whatever you're also not seeing any ultimate benefit or upside from it. So like is there's probably a

mix of of emotions and takeaways that core devs have from this myself included right? Yeah, I to to to to bring back um one of the things that you said Yansy in your prior talk. Um ends matter, not the means. And yes, it takes iteration. Yes, Ethereum is still an evolving technology. Um, but are is the end of Ethereum and is is the ends parallel and like is it matching the

means and are there ways in which Ethereum development um are [clears throat] there ways that there are like certain code changes or certain like applications or tools that could align Ethereum more with its ends? Um, I think that would be also a good topic of discussion. Um, because like you said, Trent, there's um really cool interesting projects like Zora happening. Um, I think a lot of the scaling benefits are uh helping with the fee volatility on Ethereum. Um, but there might be others that I'm curious to know your guys's thoughts on of what are some like tools or parameters or features that you think would align

Ethereum more to its ends, more to the end that it's it's working towards. >> I don't know if I know what the ends of Ethereum are. I mean, I feel like I feel like uh um if I just take the default like what what does what is what does the default history of history say? I think it would say that uh blockchains will succeed as a replacement level technology for internetbased money which will increasingly be almost all of money. Um, however, I would expect that all of the

existing power players, maybe with the exception of credit card companies, will stay the same and that the notion of it being a revolution and all these other things, the most the things that most excited people like me, I don't know if any of those things will come to pass. Uh, but it will be a very successful new layer of the internet that will make a lot of people very rich. um and we'll have all sorts of other secondary things but I think in general uh will not replace the system but just be a replacement within the system um feels like to me the the path um but you know the things that it is uh I mean Zora yeah probably the best example of

put really smart people and empower them with interesting tools and what sort of things can they make and you know lots of great expressions and experiences of how you can uh release and appreciate work through them. Um but I yeah I don't know I mean I I don't know what part of the crypto dreams were meant to still be holding out or like what you know is it is it just network state and that people can secede from the United States so that they don't you know have to pay taxes and they can have their own passport. I mean I that for a sizable portion of people I think that is the goal like will that possibly I think it'll be terrible I think that'll be terrible for the world the creation of

private crypto states but like yeah what is what is what is the outcome I don't know you know >> yeah I can so I'll give the yeah the optimistic push back right I I don't think I'd be working on this and hundreds of other people would be working on it if it was if it were kind of that bleak of an outcome and I think One of the things I can I can push back on is um we are starting to see real world effects of like so obviously um financialization like like I said earlier this is the hypers speculation this is what presents first as like the affordance or the the main outcome that people are exposed to just because it's so insane and it makes a good story and

a lot of people get rich or you know a small subset get rich and this is what's reported on but I I think what is the real unlock and what we've seen is you know Dows right we the first examples of Dows were the very first one crashed and burned I was actually a member of the DAO in 2016 and I didn't really understand what was going on but it was all very exciting and um it's going to take such a long time for us to not only make ones that don't break technically but also work in like a political and a social sense and this is I think the real unlock for cryptocurrencies it's not moving token from one address to another or facilitating value transfer.

It's the governance of this value um among mutually distrusting or trusting parties that's really going to be the huge unlock. And so I you mentioned something about the artist corporation that I would love to hear a little bit more on. But um one thing I can point to is like we are starting to see real world uh you know this has been going on for many years at this point but the experimentation with um DAO first or like onchain first organizations for example Wyoming recently passed some legislation related to this. there's many uh jurisdictions around the world that are starting to think about like okay what are these new things that don't exist so much in the the

traditional uh realm of law and LLC and nonprofit and what are they how are they different how can we start to think about them and I think this is you know a bright shining light in the distance that I'm thinking about long term um but yeah so I'd be curious to hear that and yeah one other thought is like uh Protocol Guild itself is right this this nonprofit-minded organization. We do have a legal entity, but in the US, we found it hard to actually um in talking with some lawyers and different organizations, they're like, "It might be hard based on everything we know, it might actually be hard for you to get 501c3 status because um there are

certain restrictions that the the government places, right? They I understand they want to have rigor. They want to have a high bar for who they award this status to, but it's not as easy. Um, and we could probably have a whole long other conversation around like how legislation, different kinds of legislation make co-oplike structures easier or harder. And I think in the US it's been hard more common for it to be harder than easier. Um, and so it's interesting to see these new um, you know, forwardinking jurisdictions or or states within the US start to explore what are these new things. Um but yeah, I would love for one day Protocol Guild to have um traditional analog organizations that map to this onchain

organization within the US. So, right, we can we can accept uh tax deductible benefits, but we're not there yet. And hopefully sometime in the future that this kind of stuff really is is motivating for me long term. >> Yeah. Yeah. And do you want to respond to any of that? >> Yeah, sure. I mean, I think uh >> you're an artist for corporation. >> Yeah. I'll just share a couple things. Like I think um I'm very I'm I'm super like I I think what the corporation was to the 20th century, the social structure that really defined a lot of the world. That's what uh online native groups are to the 21st century. You

know, a dark forest, a group chat. I don't think they need crypto to do that. You know, there's lots of ways to have a treasury and money. Like the dark forest product will allow you to have a crypto treasury or just a fiat treasury. You can choose what you know what you want to have. Um but like that that form, yeah, extremely powerful uh will continue to shape the world. You know, that's how wars are being planned in the White House. That's how new leaders are being elected in Southeast Asia. Like it is a it is a force that is Yeah. is going to keep continuing. Oh. Oh, group chats. I thought you meant through your product. I was like, whoa.

>> Yeah. Yeah. No, through dark for Yeah. Yeah. Through dark forest and group chats. Yeah. Yeah. But but that is that is the that is Keith's infrastructure social structure of the 21st century. Um and yeah, with artist corporations, um I run a a a label, the Dark Forest Collective, and we were clearing six figures worth of book sales through a thing that we've made together. All of it flowing through the metal label system of 30% going to our shared treasury to fund new work, 70% being split equally between all the authors and just getting a passive royalty when each book was sold. Sold a few thousand books that way. And uh wanted to create a legal structure, you know, default his

LLC but was dissatisfied with some of the things we could do with that. And I I had experience watching how public benefit corporations became law. And Kickstarter became one of the first PBC's while I was the CEO. and uh began working on a project a year and a half ago with a team of lawyers to make a new corporate form called an artist corporation or an ACRP that is a variant of an LLC that has a creative purpose pass through income can also fractionalize into shares and equity uh can pull together with other AC cororps to get uh access to health care better benefits and when you create an AC corp you're asked uh is there any IP or work do you want to register or hold in here.

Uh so it has explicit IP ownership as a part of how it's structured and it can scale from an individual sole proprietor studio to a collective a co-op. A co-op could absolutely use an AC cororp and just have custom articles of incorporation that lay that out. And so we're working to pass laws. We've started a artist corporation foundation nonprofit, applied for our 501c3 status. Haven't gotten it yet. Uh, but it's a a separate nonprofit that will work to pass laws that will educate people on how to operate and be financially astute at, you know, managing your creative project. Um, and create a universe where people can meet each other, tap, you know, become a part of each other's

projects, build things together. Um, but it's really trying to make, you know, we'll we'll end up having a web form that's like uh almost a drop-own menu to choose what type of governance structure you're going to have, but just really try to empower people to have active governance to approach their work as uh, you know, they're thinking about the P&L of what they're spending and they were able to see that they're building value. Um, so yeah, so it's a it's a it's an interesting project. It's going to be a it's going to take a long time for all of these things to to come to pass, but I think I think we're optimistic that we'll have a first law in the books within the next two years and uh maybe even next year. We'll see.

>> Very cool. >> One note of additional optimism that I would like to throw into our discussion and that is this question around what is the end of Ethereum. I really really think that Ethereum people have different views on that and Ethereum in its current form is so malleable in the sense that so much of it is still being developed and evolved that the voices in the community that are using Ethereum to not really change power structures but just change it up a little bit maybe on the face value and

make a ton of money off of it. They obviously have a large say in what Ethereum is becoming now, but so do the voices of creatives or perhaps other stakeholders in the ecosystem that have a different vision of what Ethereum like they have the power to change some of the means and the features of this protocol to reach that end or to make Ethereum that end. Um but that time is limited and I think Ethereum right now is very it's barreling towards a future where it's going to be oified largely. I I don't think any technology can be oified fully but um that in this time I think it's

really critical that the voices of like who people what people want Ethereum to be the Ethereum commons to be like now is the time that people decide and yeah if the corporates win out like Ethereum will become a corporate chain but there's this period where I think it's cool it's like this decentralized project that so many different stakeholders are in where we need Yeah, there's like a battle happening in my view. Um, and so I I feel like there's still hope in in what the end of Ethereum could become.

>> Yeah. I mean, to to your question earlier about um like what's the one feature that could make this easier for creatives or artists and and unfortunately there's no single feature that's going to just check the box of be good for artists or creatives. Um ultimately it's like these high level things of uh scale make make it super cheap to use without compromising on the things that make it unique. So um it's permissionless. Anyone can access it. Anybody can run infrastructure um with a reasonable level computer and bandwidth connection. like these are the things that we need to maintain while also accomplishing these scaling and

censorship resistant um aims or like high level goals that we want to do. So um yeah, maybe it's a I don't have like there's no silver bullet for any of this stuff, but it's just pushing towards um making it accessible to as many people as possible. And amidst all of the, you know, uh, super speculation and and nonsense meme coins, there's going to be kernels of projects that are going to take take time to bear fruit, and these will be the the most interesting outcomes. Um, maybe that maybe that did or did not answer what you're getting at, which is like the end of Ethereum, but um, I I'm very optimistic about that and and I think as I'm as I'm rambling,

more thoughts are coming. So the there's this whole tension between like um you know Ethereum has this pure core it's this software project that's open source and has this set of values and over time this competitive pressure or pressure from the outside on the the margins of the comments are going to become more and more intense. Um and it's a question of whether these values can maintain for the long term heading into like this oification period when it stops changing. So there's a there's an interesting dynamic of how the community thinks about and engages with capital interests or commercial interests to what degree they can shape the the protocol and the specific

features that it has and like the the goals that we aim towards that I think will take a long time to play out. But um I think fortunately we do still have like a very strong core of these values motivated people who are interested in making something worthwhile and not just you know the back end for uh JP Morgan or something. Well, >> I felt uh I felt, you know, I felt encouraged during the uh ETH FUD period, you know, of last year, whenever that was.

>> It's such a it's it's uh that's a great that's a great signal. Um because I think like uh if I think from the outside, what do I wish? I wish I wish for this to be uh infrastructure that's like uh provably trustworthy, >> you know, a and and like you just kind of want it to be a rock that like doesn't change too much, does what it's supposed to do, you know, very clear. Like I I I'm inclined to want like a more conservative versus activist governance of like make the big things incredibly strong and like very well

done and >> ask whether you should do other whether you should build into areas that don't touch. You know, I think that if you're just thinking long term, and I think it's the only way that Ethereum should be thinking, and I think that the whole project has been blessed with great long-term thinking from the beginning. Uh it just has to be this dependable infrastructure that is uh has a different time scale, you know, has more of a tree trunk time scale because otherwise because it's all the all all the interval deviations are like where all the problems are and uh and it's and it's just constant temptation

to get into them. Um and but I think if you know if ETH does that and just hold you know hold strong hold strong to even things that seem from a market perspective unpopular but say there is real conviction of like you know what we've seen this before and this is not going to turn out well and maybe some of those take 10 years to play out you know but I think ultimately to match what my sense of the vision is you know I think Uh, I think uh, yeah, I want it to be something that's immune to that and that really has its own logic, path, point of view that it feels very confident in. And um, there aren't a lot

of projects on the web that do that, but I I think it's it's it's it's really important uh, that some do and you know, Ethereum feels feels like one of them. >> Yeah. The one of the funny criticisms is the meme from Dune where they, you know, our plans are measured in centuries and like, you know, they're they're roasting us for being too slow to make certain decisions or keep up with this competing protocol. But I do think there is a there is an unironic celebration of this long-term view of, you know, we want this thing to be here long after we're gone or at least up until like whatever infrastructure is going to replace it.

Maybe some AI quantum construction like >> yeah, there's no permanent. We're all we're all it's all it's all going to dissolve somewhere at some point. But until yeah until [laughter] we get there our I think we do have this this long-term view of like you know that we we take this very seriously and um consider it a charge or a mission that this is infrastructure that millions of people around the world hopefully billions one day are going to look to as you know the same way that they treat the internet of like this is a part of my life it's important it hopefully brings you good things and valuable interaction And um you can you can trust it to

constantly operate in a particular way. And so yeah, like you know, we talk about Ethereum as a commons and that the natural commons provide this very wonderful parallel of like um they're close to the earth, but they are shaped by the humans that are that are near to it and find some productive output from it. And so I I think like Ethereum in some ways is we want it to be this like natural software, ecological software that persists despite the perturbations of commerce and um you know conflict that are happening and erupting all around it. It's this it's this layer that you know you can depend on um

that's built and maintained by humans who care about it. Um yeah, >> I think that's a perfect um note to end off our discussion together. Um ambitious is what I would say. [laughter] >> But >> it's I think there was a lot of of clarity too on what the heck um the Ethereum Commons is and is building towards. So, thank you so much Yansy and Trent for discussing the Ethereum Commons with me together on this episode of Bridge Atlas. Um, and thank you everyone to who to everyone who is

listening to this episode. Um, wherever you're listening to it to it. Um, before we wrap up the episode, um, I want to just share three important housekeeping items for everyone that's listening. The first is if you like the episode and like the series as a whole, uh please give the episode a thumbs up and subscribe to the YouTube Summer of Protocols channel. If you want to learn more about anything that was discussed on this episode, um Yansy's work, Trent's work, um please be sure to check out the show notes of today's episode.

You're going to see all the links to where you can find out more about um everything we talked about and about protocol studies. And third, last but not least, if you're interested um after all of that to just get engaged and start discussing these topics with us and the summer of protocols community, please hop in to the summer of protocols discord. Um so yes, thank you again Yansy and Trent for the conversation. >> Thank you. >> Have a great weekend >> and thank you to everyone who is listening. We'll talk to you all again in the next episode of Bridge Atlas. Bye everyone.

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