Network Nations Ep:6 Regen: Toward a Network Nation Identity, Commons & Collective Agency

Transcript

I've been sort of imagining this idea of a Dow of Dows, which is sort of like a meta structure wherein different Dows sort of like specialize and do one thing, but then there's like a meta structure on top of them. How do we know the state and like the well-being of [music] nature or the living world um in such a way that's credible and durable that can inform economics, policy, law. If you're literally socially entangled with the people that you're living with on the ground and especially as we head towards a quite scary potential civilization collapse type moment, I think the value of the networks and and the friendships and relationships and the reputation etc that you've built up in those networks is going to become extremely valuable. So in your case you would say for instance that DA is a

community >> a network society we kind of call it society >> and then but participating within >> which is part of a larger network nation >> a larger regen network nation or regen nation or regen coordination or regen commons whatever >> welcome back to the network nations miniseries on the green pill podcast I'm primar philippe and together with beer I will be your co-host in the coming episodes today we are witnessing across the world new kinds of civic communities which are beginning to take shape.

Community that use the centralized technologies to govern themselves to steward shared resources but also to act together collectively across borders. And this is what we call network nations. And in this series we explore network nation as a new design space for civil society in the network age. Our goal is to chart an alternative path to the network state, one where technology is at the service of civil society and not the other way around. And so instead of reproducing today's power imbalances in the network age, we are asking a few question. What if network societies were built from the bottom up as shared

commons rather from the top down as a startup venture? And what if they treated member as co-creator rather than as customers? What if they practiced cooperation and mutual care rather than competition and extraction? And what if they cultivated sovereignty as a collective good for the many rather than as a private asset only owned by a few? And so in each episode we will bring together thinkers, builders and organizers, practitioners who are exploring this new frontier of community self-governance, helping us imagine how civil society can reclaim political

agency in the network age. And if you want to dive deeper, please go and visit our website networknations.network network where you will find our manifesto and many other ways to connect with our growing community of practice. Today we're exploring how the regenerative finance movement which we usually refer to as REI or regen might help understand what is a network nation. Because when we look at this movement through the network nation lens, we see globally distributed communities united through a shared identity as regions as well as new emerging self-governance systems. And so

we want to explore whether regen can be regarded at least as a proto network. And to do so, we're joined by three pioneering voices in the regenerative movement. Kevin Awaki is the founder of Gitcoin and Greenpill and is one of the key architect of the regenerative web 3 ecosystem. Through Gitcoin, Kevin has helped channel over $50 million to public good and through Greenpill is cultivated the cultural and mimetic foundation that unite the global region community.

Austin Wedgemmet is the chief regeneration officer of regen network which is building blockchain infrastructure for ecological regeneration. The work of Austin is to bridge the gap between digital coordination tools and real world environmental impact in order to help create systems that reward generative practices. And then Monty Bryant is a co-founder of Rifi Dao which has become one of a key coordination layer for the regenerative finance movement. And through ref Monty has been helping to weave together the diverse project and communities working towards planetary regeneration.

And so together we will explore how those different initiatives are creating new forms of shared identity, self-governance and collective actions. And we will try to understand what the region movement can teach us about building network that serves both the people and the planet. Cool. So thank you everyone for being here. It's a pleasure to have the three of you together. Um so to start with uh I would love if like each one of you taking like maximum five minutes if you can each present like what is the story of your initiative of your community

like what uh what sparked it like what was the initial uh incentive to create it and also what was the process that has led to it becoming what it is today. and the aspiration that you have for it. >> Hi everyone, it's nice to be here. Yeah, so I'm Austin. I'm the executive director at Region Foundation, which is the nonprofit arm of the a broader project called the region network. to get some like context and story about how the project came into being. It began initially around like 2017 um uh around a community of uh permaculturalists and regenerative practitioners that were interested in leveraging decentralized technologies to further a core ambition of like humans

and planet living in symbiosis and in synergy and inherited a legacy of like regenerative enterprise from um some thinking by consultant and kind of philosopher Carol Sanford around like regenerative economics more broadly. and applying that to web3 technology and human environmental stewardship. I would say that the region network like the problem space that I think united the the project initially I would roughly describe as this question of like ecological state protocols which is how do we know the state and like the well-being of nature or the living world um in such a way that's credible and

durable that can inform economics, policy, law and that maybe blockchains and web 3 have this incredible opportunity to create this sort of distributed sensemaking apparatus where people can actually take the pulse of the planet and um not just rely on some institutional or centralized actor to broker that but create networks where we're able to sense the planet and inhabit it in form different systems. So that ecological state protocol premise I think is like really baked in and a lot of people are very interested in sort of this core question within web 3 of how can we create like genuine distributed knowledge production around the state of the planet and that has thus created this cascade of other questions around

um creating different kind of like financial instruments and governance models around the protocols that create value. I'd say like maybe one other kind of core interesting aspect that that unites a lot of the philosophy of region network is this idea of thinking in graphs where the the the data model and the underlying structure is meant to be that different inputs and attestations into this larger network begin to compound and reinforce one another to create this sort of collective intelligence like a aworked model of understanding that is dramatically enabled through distributed ledgers and things like that. Um, so this sort of like creating decentralized graphs has been this really uh important and

underlying interest within the regen scene and I guess in order to develop a protocol and an infrastructure layer that's able to achieve that and to be substantial and effective like governance at different scales has become like this sort of central question whether it's governance at a protocol level around token economics or different like software level upgrades all the way to like the lowest level of uh land steward. stewards and like environmental guardians, how do they budget uh in a participatory way? How do they make collective decisions um practice informed consent? So the governance space as a form of commons has been one of the kind of driving consequences of this original idea. So I

particularly work a lot in that space of governance um uh in this mode of like commons that are both like land stewards protecting the physical planet and also the commons in a digital form like knowledge commons data commons and things like that. So yeah that's like retention network in a two second intro. >> Amazing. Uh cool. Kevin, you want to go next? >> Yeah, happy to. So um I'm Kevin Owaki. I'm one of the founders of Gitcoin as well as the author of Greenpill. So, um, just a brief revisiting of those two projects. Gitcoin is a crowdfunding platform protocol community that's about funding what matters to your web 3

community. We've hosted 23 rounds of funding and and close to $70 million worth of funding has gone through Gitcoin mostly towards open source software but also have done things like community education, climate uh biodiversity, bio regionalism, Ethereum localism and during COVID we had people 3D printing masks in places where centralized facilities couldn't uh actually produce them and uh and and I think actually even saving some lives with those 3D printed masks. And um so yeah, we're about funding what matters.

And that's deliberately vague. That's that's uh that means that people that are using Gitcoin can decide what matters to them and then use quadratic funding in order to distribute that capital. We're now doing more than just quadratic funding. And uh Gitcoin 3.0 is is on the horizon. And so we're evolving into um a new structure in the future and I can get into that uh if you guys are interested in that. But yeah, I mean I think when it comes to creating regenerative culture, the primary venture that I've been working on is Greenpill. Um, which started in 2022 as a uh book, a vibe book that I self-published and uh actually kind of like wrote it in like a fit of inspiration over December 2021, the

holiday. And basically what I wanted to do was I wanted to articulate the vision of how we can use coordination technology to solve coordination failures. So there's all sorts of coordination failures in the world. Things like climate change, things like not funding our open source software. A contemporary one that people love to talk about is like AI alignment. That's a coordination failure if it doesn't work out. And so I wanted to talk about how we can use the coordination technology in order to solve the coordination failures. And I also wanted to um carve out a little bit of a niche in crypto that uh where it was for other people like me who cared about making social progress. Um, I felt like at the at the time there wasn't really like a community for that. It was uh it felt like crypto had these very strong like

libertarian leanings and very strong financialized leanings and I wanted to create a place where we could uh gather around social progress and progressive uh things but without without invoking sort of like a culture war like it's it's a it's a bridging uh institution in so far as I think we understand libertarianism and we understand the need for finance and we're not like uh you know like rejecting those things but it's just a place where we can where we can uh focus on on social progress And so Greenpill was published in 2022 and then I turned it into a podcast with the help of my friends at Banklist. Thank you David Hoffman for helping me get the Green Pill podcast off the ground. I think episode one was uh Vitalic and it was really cool to have his endorsement

of sort of like regen green pill as an important uh part of the Ethereum ethos or or like maybe a component of it. Um, I know that Vitalic cares a lot about what he calls public goods and uh, public goods funding and making sure that public goods are funding is an example of solving coordination failures in my opinion. So yeah, uh, Greenpill then grew into Greenpill.network network which is a discord and uh telegram community of people who organize chapters all over the world and are practicing this kind of work locally running summits in places like India or places like Portland and um and it's been really neat to see this sort of like grow into I I was calling it for a little while a bank list calls their

their audience the bankless nation and so just as a ship host I started calling the green audience the coordination um and that was a fun little mimetic chapter but um it's it's really grown to hundreds of people who care about this set of values and and I'd say that those are my co-conspirators, the first people I go to whenever I have an RFP or things that I want to work on with Gitcoin. And yeah, I think that through that that's probably uh how I how I met Monty and started to be working with Monty. So maybe I'll hand it off to to Monty at this point. Nice. Yeah, let's do it. I'm I'm super excited and grateful to be here with you guys and all you all you've all done for the space has been awesome. Um and yeah, happy to to give a bit of background on Reefidal. Um as

well. Um so we kind of started Reefidal in the bull market era of 2021 when there was all this hype coming into this newly formed refi space. um as clemer and toucan protocol managed to tokenize carbon and suddenly bring 10 to 15% of the entire global carbon markets onchain in a matter of months and suddenly you know region network had been doing stuff for a while but this kind of refi acronym was born and and many more people projects capital started kind of pouring into the space uh and so we really started refi to try and be this kind of shelling point or supportive uh kind of movement to nurture and grow and support this uh movement that was kind of bubbling up in this in this space. Uh and so we you know did things like

founder circles. We had the Refi podcast and um also funded and supported a whole network of events across the globe with Refi spring um doing all this all this kind of stuff in the early days and then really as things kind of evolved and matured um and there became this lot of hype around Balaji's book around the network state uh how to start a country and we kind of realized that a lot of the pieces that we'd started building with Rifa the online community but also these real life events kind of uh you know fitted into this framework in some ways and uh and so we kind of yeah evolved this model of refi local nodes and uh really yeah leaning into local communities across the globe who are taking these tools and technologies that are being built in the crypto space and

um and actually implementing them in the real world to solve real problems and yeah of course we were you know riding that network state hype a little bit but also there was some really deep resonance in some parts of it you know looking at traditional systems and nation states that are so clearly you know fundamentally broken in a lot of ways with the climate breakdown poly crisis, meta crisis, uh all of these coordination failures that that Kevin is is talking to. And so, yeah, this idea of building something entirely new, you know, globally distributed systems and and starting a new kind of state almost appealed quite a lot. But then thinking and thinking about a bit deeper, peeling back some of the layers. Obviously, shout out Prima Vera to your podcast series that you did with with Josh

overthrowing the network state. it sort of really started to to peel back the deeper ideological underpinnings of Balagi and the network state kind of movement and and realized that actually maybe statehood and territorial sovereignty isn't what what we need here and that maybe we can still acquire regenerate land um and do this kind of coordinating and interfacing with some of the existing uh states and institutions. So yeah, really we kind of pivoted away from this network state framing and uh and you know recently we started uh regen coordination uh kind of leaning into that and bringing in other networks like refi but also you know green pearl network the salo regional dows bloom the bioi community ethereum localism to see can we kind of pull

together and start building these new institutional structures that coordinate and align these many awesome u communities and projects across the globe. So yeah, that's really been been my focus and the kind of evolution of Reefidal from network state to regen coordination and I know obviously it's it's not coordination anymore, it's network nation. So here we are >> the name change every once in a while. >> Um yeah, so amazing. So yeah, basically the three of you are are here on this podcast uh for a particular reason which is uh we we started like we started analyzing like which which are the proto network that we can identify in the space and uh there is this constant

coming back to this thing which unfortunately we don't have a name maybe maybe by the end of this podcast we can find a name for it but this kind of like there seems to be something building up in the in the web three but also beyond the Web three of like a particular community of communities uh or network of networks which is aiming to this uh like aspiring for a particular future which is using technology or leveraging technology in order to promote regeneration on sustainability uh at the planetary scale. Um and so your three your three project I think are perhaps like very like pillars in this but there

is obviously many more and so uh what I'm curious to hear from you is like do you do you perceive this kind of like you being part of a larger network and if you were to try and describe what this larger network is uh independently of its names like how would you describe it? I've been sort of imagining this idea of a Dow of Dows, which is sort of like a meta structure wherein different Dows sort of like specialize and do one thing, but then there's like a meta structure on top of them through which they coordinate, share resources, and because they're specialized, rely on each other's services. Maybe the most tangible example of this is Monty, us working together. It it feels like I I

almost feel like Green Pill and like there's there's not a lot of like boundaries or like ego around who owns what uh in the work that we do together and we've kind of been reaching across the aisle and and um and building the movement together more recently. So it feels like that's a good example to me. I don't know. What do you think Monty? >> Yeah, definitely. I definitely resonate with that and I think it also speaks to me of this appeal of the kind of regen identity which I think exactly as Kevin's saying goes beyond our individual brands and whatever. Like I think there's a kind of fundamental appeal of the idea of being a regen and that kind of protopian cultural identity that I think a lot of people resonate like maybe even a quite a deep level of their meaning and purpose in life. You

know kind of I'm not super religious or spiritual but kind of being a regen kind of feeds your soul a bit. Um, and so hopefully that's a kind of narrative that many different people can get behind, feel that shared sense of kinship with other regions and want to participate in kind of larger coordination organizational structures that help to kind of further that identity. And I think for me the particular exciting bit about the network nation concept is I think there's been you know a long history of alternative movements and change makers and communities from like eco villages but you know so often living on the fringes and isolated and fragmented and you know if we're really going to exert I guess more more geopolitical power and

interface with institutions and really create the change that we need like how do we connect up all those isolated efforts and have a more coordinated kind of body to to really enact the change that we want to see in the world as as regens I guess. So yeah, that that's what's uh resonates with me. >> Yeah, I guess I would say like um this idea that like in like a kind of like root root principle or the sort of like spiritual alignment of regens or regeneration being this idea that as you participate and contribute to something you make the system ever more capable of supporting others. So you like you capacitate the system to be able to keep generating new things. Not pulling from

it like extracting from it or mining it but but um bringing more agency into the system that you're operating within so that it can support others. I feel like that's sort of this like core ethos of regeneration that can work in finance. It can work in like other forms of like law and and tech. Uh I think like an interesting example with network nations particularly with the region is because it really does straddle two significant sort of paradigms I think at the same time right now like there's a really big the mimemetic power of bio regionalism is really significant right now and it's been around for a long time but it's like really uh having a go which is great and at the same time the sort of like overthrowing the network state the like evolution of of Bellagi's concept

into thinking about like you know borderless communities in the idea of network nations is also like really urgent and important and it makes sense and I feel like the kind of region coordination world is the thing that's holding those two worlds together like the like we're all together in aworked form and people who are like having this sort of renaissance of place-based by regional approach and so I think like the region movement in particular and like folks on this podcast are holding both of those worlds at the same time and like not letting it be just the digital world or just the like just the like the place or like the bio regional planetary like

we're weaving those two movements together in an active way and so that makes this sort of like hybrid creature that I think is really cool and introduces weird frictions and and all sorts of stuff um but it's like a lot of bridgebuilding thinkers and practitioners in I'm stoked about that. So the task with this uh with this episode is to try and understand whether um these regions uh are coaling around something that is a proto network and then how we can actually move more towards the network uh approach and one important thing like so we have this uh important distinction that we usually uh use to demarcate what is a proto network nation what is just

an online community or a movement or things like this is like what what is at the service of of whom? Um and so on the one hand we have like uh you know environmental activist groups which uh coalist as a community because they have this objective and the objective is we want to you know preserve a particular natural resources or promote particular activities or block other activities. Right? we have like an objective, a goal and then a community is then coaling together and and doing collective action because there is this goal and so in this case the community is at the service of an objective which is

external to the community and which should justify the emergence of this community and so this is like common we we know those model quite well this is like all all activist community or whatever. Uh now there is another way which is where the community is actually designed for itself right so and sometimes the community does collective action but the collective action of the community is in order to foster the community and in order to foster the societal vision that this community has. Uh but the goal of the community is actually to be a community as opposed to to be an instrument in order to achieve a particular goal. Even though of course because the community is a community, it has its own functions and its own desire

of collective action. So I'm saying this to distinguish what will qualify as a standard environmental community which is acting together towards something and something else which which is really like recognizing that there is shared values, shared expiration and therefore a sense this this weird sense of like community building because we of the same kind, right? And this is where like we are regions as opposed to we are participating into a movement for something. And so I would love like if you if uh if you could elaborate according to you like where where are we in this regen community? Is it something that is coming together because there is

some things that needs to be done and therefore we need a community or is it more of a communitydriven endeavor in which people are finding each other because they share similar values and they feel some kinship towards each other and therefore uh eventually decide to act together as a collective entity. Yeah, I'd love to jump in here because I think we had this conversation prima in Stockholm and it was particularly resonant for me because it kind of got me thinking around Refi um and kind of reframing that thinking of yes actually is Rei Network nation because it is quite focused around that specific refi cause of growing the Refi movement and is that enough of a kind of intrinsic

kind of identity and cultural thing to justify it and actually that's when it kind of flipped into my head to say actually regen is the network nation. That's the kind of shared cultural identity. You don't have to be in the web 3 space to identify as a regen. It it really stretches across many different people and sectors that might look at that and go, "Hey, I really resonate with that kind of cultural identity." Uh and so that for me feels like a much stronger cultural shelling point to bring this network nation structure together. Um and there isn't like a single objective of once you know if we complete this objective the re you know our mission is done kind of thing.

Regen is more like a an ever everlasting game I guess that you're playing in or you know identity that you're you're kind of playing out. So um yeah for me that's >> so in your case you will say for instance that DA is a community >> and community we kind of call it >> and then but participating within >> she's part of a larger network nation >> a larger regen network nation or regen nation or regen coordination or regen commons what whatever we want to call it >> to define Mhm. >> Yeah. What's the take of uh that too? I feel like there's probably some interesting difference here that's worth unpacking because I think and in some ways there's some core questions and

core challenges that I think the regen community is like really interested in like exploring and like breaking down like Kevin introduced like coordination failures and like what are coordination tools around allocation and things like that like that's like a almost like a first principle kind of like core question and I feel like like coordination failures or the idea of like creating distributed frameworks by which we like sense and understand the state of the planet or of people and the planet that they're kind of like um I feel like they're like missionbased problems that potentially new paradigms in technology and economics can really like not necessarily solve but like can really evolve the problem space. And so

I feel like the regen scene has uh a strong prediliction for people who have discovered a particular like core set of like problems that they believe new models and like finance technology can do meaningful things to and through that communities form. There's there's common culture there's common alignment. I think for myself like I I don't I don't necessarily identify with like making a community per se like I see the community as a as an artifact as an outcome of the sort of shared orientation towards exploring some like really core questions through this like these new stacks and new coordination sensing allocation tools and things like

that. My sense is that the features of the regen space are like around like what's like what's the question that like enchants you or the problem space that you find enchanting that you want to like explore and that if there's distinctions and the sort of cultural context or the different like communities it's based off of like the sort of how they feel a strong conviction towards applying contemporary forms of technology and stuff to like these like core planetary questions. Yeah. So, I think there's like there's benefit to making it about the community. Um, but I think I don't know how much I'm myself personally like I feel like I'm doing it for the community so much as I'm like really in love with trying to explore some core

questions through these emerging technologies with other people. So, I think it's sort of like switching back and forth. I don't I don't necessarily know if it's f forming around the group of people or the group of people are forming around the mission, but I feel like there is this like core missiondriven set of questions that that align and orient a lot of people in the space. >> I feel like my definition of regen is like people always ask me to define regen. I'm like okay well like it's a little bit more of like a vibe than it is a hard and fast category. I think CoinDesk said that about the ref space and I'm curious if you guys would push back on that. But one thing I will say is that you know I I speak computer science. I am a technologist from the beginning and I feel like my definition

of of regeneration is more about like solving coordination failures and building systems that regenerate over time instead of uh degenerate over time. Whereas when I hang out with the regen network folks, it feels like it's a little bit more like earth forward or like earth first and ecological forward. And I'm wondering if um we think that there's a tension between the the earthy uh region versus like more abstract like coordination failures regen or they both like both wings of the same phoenix. >> For me not I think I I more define a regen as coming to something with trying to be a net positive impact on the world in whatever space you inhabit. trying to make things better actively in your kind

of outlook and I guess your unique talent is in the coordination space and the regen network folks are deeply immersed in the kind of ecological regeneration side but I think regener regeneration is inherently kind of multi- you know spans many different um kind of spaces I guess and that would be my my take. I think one one interesting example that I like to use is like the the example of Burman. Um because I think it really has this interesting collective identity where you you go to Burning Man, you go maybe to a local B like you you get into these places and you experience it for like one week or or or more and then all of a sudden some

some people stop identifying as I'm a burner, right? and you're still you're still a citizen of many other things but you're also a burner and this becomes an actual identity recognition and I think what's really interesting and that's where I think it it has it starts having the quality of a nation is that if you meet another person which has no degree of you know it's not your friend it's not the friend of a friend or the friend of a friend of a friend it's someone you have never met before that has no connection but is also identifying with this cultural identity of of of a burner all of then because we both associate as a bummer. There is some kind of kinship that is felt and therefore somehow a greater degree of solidarity uh even

though this is only justified from a cultural recognition of both being part of the same collective identity. And so I think the question with the region is like it's it's kind of similar I guess but I'm curious on on your opinion is like if you meet a region that's like it's just a region I'm a region um you don't have necessarily a link because of the you are not necessarily part of the same communities do you actually feel a particular sense of kinship or is just like you meet you you know like if I meet another French person in France it's not that special if I meet another French person when I'm maybe like on the other side of the of the planet. Maybe you're like, "Ah, oh, you're French,

too." You know, it's like there's something and then we start chatting, but I wouldn't chat with us with just a random person. So, there is this recognition of a common cultural background and a common cultural identity. So, how does it resonate to you? Like do you feel that the identity of being a region actually possess this nationlike feature of uh imagined community and resonance just because someone else also recognize themsel and have a shared cultural uh identity.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I feel like I could speak to my own personal experience around like wandering through some of these giant crypto conferences and feeling like a bit like lost or like is this really you know what what we're here for and and you know there's a lot of kind of yeah just kind of not resonant stuff that you might uh feel. Um, and then you know the particular example might be of uh in in Denver and then and then there was that really strong coming together of like the regen hub and all of that kind of stuff and I think there was a really strong kind of resonance certainly um around that community that kind of formed there and kind of I mean and now it happens at all of the the crypto conferences there's a kind of regen tribe that forms and does

you know side events and and kind of you know cross many projects and and kind of space. So I really yeah I I certainly have experienced feel that but curious um if uh if others have as well. >> Yeah maybe I can like uh reflect on that and I I love Kevin your question about like picking at that. I feel like that's a great space to to occupy airwaves for this conversation. I mean I definitely I would say like the the broader definition of regen is like like I like I don't surround myself with people who wouldn't identify with that kind of thinking. like I don't I don't want to hang out or like invest particularly a lot of time with people whose fundamental MO is like extractive or like not giving back into a supportive

and like um agency like bringing energy. So there's like a common a base level of like trust and understanding that like we're like in the same boat and a common alignment that I think is um like I can pick up on immediately and maybe a person would identify as a regen or not. But it's a kind of sort of just like a floor. It's like a floor to stand on. I think there's so many cultures and practices within that because it's a pretty big container. So yeah, it kind of depends. I think there's like thing to probe around the sort of vibe or sort of like is it like ultimately a regenerative kind of thinking culturally or on a coordination level versus like is it eco? Uh that's like fun to talk about because there is like that is sort

of like there are different camps and there are people who are like very eco and there are those who are more broad. They're saying like social, cultural, financial regeneration exists in all these ways. And yeah, I feel like that is there's there's a sense of like maybe protection is the wrong word, but I feel like the sort of eco types I don't think necess for myself like I I I definitely sort of like I feel like I represent the sort of eco corner, but I don't think of myself like chlorophyll and like drippy plants and stuff like that like as what defines regeneration, but more like if you take this core principle to its logical conclusion, you can't not include the more than human world and like soil health and like the water cycle. So it's less like am I

environmentally oriented. It's like if I take if I take the mandate that like people in the planet aren't separate from one another then inevitably you start talking with language that is like borrowed from biology or ecology or environmental science because it's like taking that idea as far as it can go means you're talking about like rights of rivers and stuff like that. So I I I see like there isn't a like environmental non-environmental distinction, but it's like how far do you take this principle down the rabbit hole and that is an interesting sort of space of like you know how explicitly does it have to align around like planetary regeneration like biosphere regeneration and stuff like that.

Um, I feel like I'm expected to go next since I haven't spoken yet of the section, but if you want to just reorient me, Prima, around your prompt and what uh what feels most present to talk about next, that'd be great. >> Um, yeah. No, I mean, actually, I'm very curious about your opinion on this because you you're actually the one that has explicitly started using the word nation for your community. Um, so I I assume that this like maybe it's just like as a joke, but like was there an actual sense that using this terminology is also qualifying the community in a different manner than just an online community?

>> Yeah, great question. So I started calling the Green Pill Network uh a coordination um mostly as a post on top of bankless who would call their audience the bankless nation. Um, but I do think that there's something that the word nation confers which is sort of like a shared cultural identity and a shared enclosure in which you're funding your ecosystems public goods whether those are roads and bridges or an army um you know depends on the nation and what the priorities are uh at the time. my favorite public good happens to be education these days. But um yeah, so I mean I think that there's um there's an interesting sort of like formation of a of a shared cultural identity and set of priorities and governance that resources

could be allocated to that we're sort of playing with there. Um, and and I think that that's sort of an interesting and provocative place to be because I don't think that there's a shared sense of uh like we're not all internet citizens or I don't think we all think of ourselves as citizens of Earth in the same way we think of ourselves as being citizens in the nation state. Maybe that's just like a Westfallian era way that people think. But the provocation I think for me is that you know um now that a lot of our relationships are mimedic and online as opposed to geographic and local is there a way that we could have a mimetically local sense of citizenship such that we're funding public goods or coordinating around coordination failures in in shared niches and then

from there I think that there's like there's a really interesting opportunity to take the technology that's working on the mometically local stuff you know things like Gitcoin things like uh public goods funding from Octit and Giveth and Gitcoin and then apply them in the geographically local sense. And so I I think that this could be a huge coordination upgrade for humanity if we're able to do it. And part of playing with the idea of this being a nation instead of just like a gaggle of people in a DAO is that it confers citizenship and membership and shared cultural identity and that sort of like enclosure of public goods funding. and and maybe that's what I kind of like fell ass backwards into by by posting about it. But I'll just end by saying the most

tangible example of this for me is um the Ethereum localism rounds that I'm working on with Monty where we're actually doing work in order to use Ethereum to make your local school and community and government and civic uh better. And I think that that's an interesting cosmological example of of sort of playing with using this technology in in a in a in a more like nation ccentric like civic civic-minded way. And so this isn't just theory. This is something that we're practicing and actively trying to iterate and evolve on. Um but you know I'm more attached to that momentum and showing progress in that momentum than I am specifically around the frame of nation. Um and and you know I think that

uh nation like there maybe I'll maybe I'll just end on that and say that like I'm really interested in momentum and showing the impact reports and then I think the memes will come as it starts to evolve and blossom into into whatever it is. >> The memes always follow. Cool. So yeah, in fact like I think another reason that uh uh that uh the three of you are on this podcast is uh because you know while we're trying to identify what is this thing that uh we are recognizing as regions uh you are already in some way taking steps like in practice to somehow like interconnect right to create to move away from just being one community

uh that does its own thing into recognizing that interconnection might be valuable and like trying to uh draw links amongst each other. So would you like to actually describe um like what are the steps that you have been taking already and what is the aspiration of like creating more of an interwoven network amongst those different initiatives? >> Yeah, I' I'd love to speak to this or Kevin you wanted to go first. I was coming off mute to say Monty should speak to this.

>> All right. [laughter] Nice. Yeah. Well, I think for me it really it really resonated because, you know, I was building Reef Dal, but at the same time seeing Green Pill, Bioi, Bloom, these other kind of Cosmo Local, Web3 regeneration networks and really thinking, you know, we're doing a lot of the same great things here and I really resonate with those communities as well. And instead of building in our isolated kind of camps and competitive with each other, how do we build more structures where we're coordinating better and developing shared resources and public goods that benefit all of us? H and luckily I think blockchain provides some good affordances to kind of align those incentives and stuff as well. So yeah, that was really kind of the underlying thinking around f you know starting this regen coordination uh started initially

really with a kind of deep alignment with with refi down green pill but also very much engaging uh with with some of these other networks as well. Um and so that's been been an interesting journey to go on. Obviously we've developed various tools and public goods but also run you know shared funding rounds together. Um but I think you know the the kind of initial structures that we've developed are quite like uh you know relatively you know basic rudimentary you know kind of a council with representation from each of the uh of of the of the of the member networks. Um, but I think what's really exciting and seeing starting to emerge is this kind of next evolution of DAO governance, which is really this shift or I'm seeing it as a kind of shift from uh maybe you know the tokenbased membership kind of Dow structures to

this network first approach and uh you know we're working on this with with Jake and Benjamin from Open Civics and others um to kind of create this web of trust where really you can attest to other people's expertise skills and that gives them automatically a kind of a governance role in that uh in network if they choose to express that um and and participate in that which I I think also has interesting parallels to how you get citizenship like in a nation you you kind of don't really apply to be a citizen of a nation you're just born somewhere and you have the rights of a citizen and so like rather than us having you having to join Dows and go through a membership structure like wouldn't it be cool if we were all just attesting to each other and then

suddenly that kind of gives you a sense of network identity and reputation and governance and participation within these structures that we're building. Um, and so yeah, this regen commons movement has been really exciting to see that emerge from kind of ETH danger eth and regen network and kind of putting their their regen train into a commons and then trying to form this kind of networkbased governance structure to govern that and other common pool resources and assets for the regen movement. So yeah, I'm super excited to see that as the kind of next evolution of our uh uh coordination network nation as the regen uh movement.

>> Yeah, I think there's like Monty's pointing out some interesting things and I I'm totally in agreement. the opportunity. I mean, I think Ethan last year was an interesting point because it was sort of like uh a moment when a particular culture like came up against how it was interpreted by sort of the masses or by the larger like East Denver community. And so coming together to like establish a sort of shared identity in distinction from how people might have interpreted how the word region could be used is really like powerful and helpful because there's such a strong anchoring of just the phrase region within the space. The sort of like identity or the integrity of the phrase I feel like is a common gravity

well that aligns a lot of people of wanting to maintain its integrity. And as much as like you know terms can be trademarks or like specifications like speech acts like specifications of a particular kind of way of being like I think the question of like what is and isn't regen is like a kind of core question. So yeah, like in the spirit of collaboration monsters or like how do you how is there sort of like a question around like governing collective alignment around the term and its fair use um without like squatting on a trademark or like resorting to more trad modes of intellectual property is like I think an interesting galvanizing force within the larger space. Yeah. And that

was really sort of accelerated in the earlier part of this year which was exciting. And that to me like in some call it the regen commons or how it relates to the region coordination. I I feel pretty like I have a hard time knowing which word to say because I like don't because there's just so many of them. So I like I just like don't say the word and I'd love to be able to land on one that isn't like a politicized phrase. >> Is this polyentrism? This is polyentrism though, you know, in a way >> in action. Yeah. Yeah. So in each sentence I'll choose a different center. >> Um >> but that move called like region comments particularly >> I would say feature not bug when it comes to like lily padding across these things as sharing uh spaces and uh it's

it's really fun for me to sort of weave in and out of these spaces that are very like collectivist and like about the mission and not about any specific container. I wish that the rest of the world was like that. I it's really a sigh of relief for me to have like no ego between the regen network and then refi uh coordination and then ethereum localism and then getcoin and green pill like I really feel like I start to feel the dowo at Dallas coming into being if not like onchain but mimemetically in the way that we're coordinating with each other and you know a way to make it stronger I think would be like to the extent that we each have sustainable business models which I think is questionable uh at this point like doing token swaps with each and then having them like economically forming a mesh

network of coordination uh would be really interesting to me. And it's almost like there's a biomimetic thing in my mind here as I talk about this which is like you know how a group of cells become tissue and then become an organ together uh by by interweaving so well and and I think that there's maybe something analogous that could happen with this Dow of Dows that we're playing with here where um you know my my my framework for a dowo partnership is like social and then technological and then economic inter interdependencies and so I think we're like you start with the social like do I want to have a beer with this person? Do I want to vibe with them? And then you start to integrate each other's technologies, which we're sort of starting to do in in a few ways.

And then like the last the last step is economically interoperating with each other. And then that's just like the onetoone example, but imagine the many to many uh sort of coordination that evolves when each of these things are interoperated with each other. And then so we have shared incentives around the mission instead of any any one container. So that's sort of like how I think this is going to evolve or at least I would like to antagonize it to uh to evolve in the future. >> Yeah, there's a there's an excellent point and this is actually like uh this is this is exactly what we are trying to like theorize but >> entanglement >> entanglement. So like I feel like you you're already doing entanglement uh you know and we're actually studying what you're doing in order to theorize the

the entanglement. I will add one additional one to your list which is a perfectly ordered list. I think the last step is actually structural right it's like first you need to like vibe with people and oh kinship you know it's like oh we there is this feeling of like we're a nation and then when you start creating technology in order to facilitate commoning and like putting resources together collective governance of those resources etc. And then you have like economic entanglement which is great but it's still economic. You can still rage quit you know. And I think the last step which is obviously like that's when you become texture and you cannot identify the distinction of the cell because they're entangled with one another is when like structurally there

is there starts to be like um you know mel melting into each other like you're actually sharing your blood as opposed to just sharing economics or mutualizing resources. And and I think the the most the most obvious thing in fact in uh you know when you think about like in the corporate sector structural entanglement will be like like exchanging of stocks right and so now I I I have an incentive that you do well and you have an incentive so there's like it's economic and it's structural because you're literally owning each other and so in the context of the region this I think is a interesting question to explore is like if we try to think about actually moving to the last step of structural

entanglement, what would that look like? >> So, I mean, I think if the prompt is what would structural entanglement look like, then I think that like the two priors that come to mind for me are how did traditional nations work and how are they structured? Um, and then there's also nature which has its own sort of like structure. I think that evolved a little bit more emergently over time. And so, you can start to region about like what are the institutions in mainstream society? I think those are the structural entanglements that we all rely on and we're probably not even aware of them, you know. Uh thinkions like the Fed and and schools and community centers and churches and stuff like that to me feel like the structural entanglements in in traditional society.

Um whereas the structural structural entanglements in nature um that feels like it has a heavily overlap with keystone species which is actually something that uh your partner Gregory Landoa uh taught me. Um basically keystone species are species upon which all other species in an ecosystem uh rely. So basically like mcelial networks is a keystone species. I guess humans are a keystone species in a way because >> this is kind of the the argument that humans are the keystone species too >> and but but you know are we a cancer also from the point of view that's another question but like I I guess like primo how would you feel if I followed back to you if the question was what are the structural entanglements like uh I guess first starting by looking at what structural entanglements look like in human society and in nature and then

using that to reason about what a web 3 structural entang entanglement could look like. Um yes actually so we discussed this in in our last workshop and uh in some way like in the human society our structural entanglement is when we like it's like legal structure and reproduction so when you create family you're you're structurally entangled at the you're just become one unit right and then when I create like a company with people I'm also structurally entanglement through this structural thing now we are all into the same both right is like so it's creating those structures which are such that it becomes it's actually become undesirable like I cannot rage quit anymore it is

you can you can always divorce you know but it's like very very tedious process because the structure is so strongly incentivizing you to stay together so we create I would say like in human society is is like legally done right like we create those legal contraption which are such that there is such a strong incentive in collaborating together in order to make something happen that uh that benefits everyone. That the concept of like the tragedy of the commons or the concept of rage quitting makes no sense because we are so structurally embedded into this into the structure that it's it's so costly to leave that we would rather try and collaborate in order to make sure that this works well.

Right? And I feel like the blockchain space has some degree of like structural entanglement with like if I'm part of a DAO, you know, but those are often times like a little bit too weak because of the rage quit or because of like you you can always leave and then you know take take your take your funds and run. Um so how do we actually increase the entanglement to a point in which it actually becomes desirable more desirable to collaborate than to exit? >> Yeah, I like that. I think maybe maybe part of it is this uh reputation system that we're kind of building up because you know that that can be a soulbound reputation right and if you rage quit or do something that's defecting against

the group and they negatively attest to you maybe that you know is bought across you know influences your position across the entire space that you're operating in and influences your financial and economic opportunities and whereas if you do positive of some collaborations. You're going to continually get positive attestations from other people that you're kind of in that community with and it's going to level you up in in multiple ways. And so maybe that is a as a mechanism of kind of positive some entanglement >> that we can. >> Yeah, I think that's a that's a great point like as you accumulate a lot of like reputation and attestation, it becomes very incentivized for you to continue to to make sure that this system flourish because you're going to flourish with it, right?

>> So maybe that's Bitcoin 3.0. No, >> like if the ident if the way that you form an a collective identity with one another means that you're it's like a sto like the the shared structure the shared framework is the store of like your agency within that space like your good reputation then there's a fundamental incentive to keep that like larger frame intact or like be stuck in its stickiness because it's enabling and like bringing about your ability to do further things. Yeah, I think I think you said it very well. I think it's like the the structural entanglement is when you create a structure which gives you more agency and collectively the people that are part of the structure benefit

from this additional agency and so you act towards the flourishing of the structure and then everyone benefit from that and everyone is actually acting towards the benefit of the structure. >> Yeah. And maybe it gets even stronger when we kind of reach out to say, you know, you could even be living physically in some of these regen communities. You know, TDF, traditional dream factory comes to mind and these other communities across the globe that are actually co-living uh and also then part of these kind of more global reg, you know, structures and network nations. And if you defect from that, you know, that's literally where you're living. So you could be, you know, turfed out of of your living space, which is obviously a quite a strong if you're literally socially entangled with

the people that you're living with on the ground. And especially as we head towards a quite scary potential civilization collapse type moment, I think the value of the the networks and and the friendships and relationships and the reputation, etc. that you built up in those networks is going to become extremely valuable. And so yeah, I think that's an interesting kind of extension of that kind of with parallels to Yeah. Uh normal nations I guess. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like living on the same territory is obviously one of the strongest structural entanglement because if something something goes wrong in that territory, everyone is suffering the same. So everyone wants to preserve the territory. Okay. Last question that I want to ask everyone is um so if we recognize this thing as this

regen network um what do you think is the lowhanging fruit of like what's the easiest or most expeditive way to actually move a little bit more forward the formation of this thing as a network nation I mean you guys are already doing it but like given this data we did that what do you think is the next step >> I want to capital flowing. It feels like it's all just fluff until we're like sending money to each other and then proving back with impact certificates a proof of impact uh and starting to spin this flywheel of delivering money to the network it and proving that the impact happened. That's the most important governance function I think that nations

have. And by the way, this is all just a Trojan horse to shill bitcoin 3.0 and the GG24 work that we're doing together because we're actually going to distribute uh at least 100 200k into uh Ethereum localism and uh across sort of like regen causes. Monte I don't know you can correct me on that or speak more I think you're closer to that than I am but yeah it feels like actually getting money flowing to these causes in a cosmol local way is is the way to go. Yeah, definitely. I totally agree with that. And I think I guess one one sort of challenge I guess for network nations is that you know network states have a really great model of raising money uh maybe on popular but involuntary taxation of of your wealth is a great way to raise lots of money and it

probably is going to be more challenging for network nations to continue you know to raise that capital. Maybe there's kind of tithing but you know that's voluntary. How how successful is that going to be? We'll find out. But I think what is exciting is working with Kevin and others to try and you know unlock those those capital raising structures where we're kind of bringing together many sources of capital matching on matching and from you know the Ethereum localism side it's are those local communities partnering with local municipalities uh sponsors you know NOS's etc and then matching that with the various sources of crypto capital we can kind of pull together and then how we're creating those kind of feedback loops that it's then replenishing the blockchain treasuries and other kind these, you know, we're all operating on

the same economic infrastructure and hopefully that creates some of the feedback loops where we can um kind of sustain uh the the funding of of the activities. Um so yeah, super excited to see all that continue to emerge. >> Yeah, I mean it's an interesting question with the like with the low hanging fruit. I feel like because it's such a big space like the differentiation into like organs that create a collective body is like kind of coming to mind here and like the capacity for coordination and allocation through Gitcoin or the kind of identity and reputation system that Monty's talking about or like a sense and impact attestation system that region network's been working on like how like coming up with a like a very humble exercise that like links these like three elemental forms together to route capital and like

Kevin introduced makes a ton of sense. is super interesting. Um the like celebrating that there's like areas of focus within each one of the organizations that can then contribute to the other one I think is like like >> not having to say that we're all the same, but being stoked about the differentiation as a way of creating collective emergent capacity is what's really getting me excited during this conversation. Um because yeah, there's there's basically at stake there's like what feels like an enormous amount of capital that's ungrounded and seeking a way to the ground in some core ways that like are requiring the stacks that folks on this podcast are collectively building to meaningfully route itself to

with integrity to different places. though like proving that there's a pipeline and a a readiness by organizations who receive funding to not have that be divisive but to be capacity building in like small ways so that it can scale up to larger and larger is I feel like the sort of procession that's that's unfolding here like that's the walk that we're trying to explore. One one question or maybe a provocation I have for you Prima Vera is we're kind of discussing proto network nation and I'm curious I guess for you what defines reaching that you know network nation status and you know I guess network states have a really clear end point

it's like they get diplomatic socy and recognition from other nation states and then they're a network nation but like what's the network nation version of that where you'd come back to us in a year's time and go hey you guys are not no longer a proto anymore Oh yeah. >> Um it's a it's a very good question. I think it's like it's not it's it stay there's a lot of axis I guess and like you know everyone is emergent on a few of those axis. I guess there is a point you know you don't know exactly which point in which there is a state change.

It's like I guess it's like when there is diplomatic recognition by other network nation which mean like when people recognize themselves as part of the region network and the region network is recognized by others as its own entity. I think that will be like so it has like the it has the social and the cultural like self-perception and external perception and I guess it's like capacity of collective action in the name of right it's like right now I think there is all those nodes all those community that are acting as a collaborative network which is great but you can still tell okay this is this node and this node doing something

together and this one doing something with that one and I think there is a point in which that texture is so well interwoven that people just don't say this is refida or this is like green peel or region network they just say this is the region network because it's just it becomes difficult to so I guess >> the answer will be the moment in which it's too hard to tell which node is what because you can still recognize the constitutive part but the actions are all interwoven by so many actors then I guess it becomes too complex to list them and so you just say network.

>> Yeah. Like a micro example of that already happening is we had the kind of refi pangan in in Thailand nodes that also had green pill uh nodeed chapter and then they were like well we we're not running these separate organiz and then they're like bring them together. It's like we don't want to have like >> 10 different nodes all run by the same people the same place and actually just all merge together. It's the regen, you know, identity versus the the meta >> or it's sort of like I just like I honestly don't know what word to use to describe the collective thing like when it's like oh there isn't an obvious default like reference for the proper noun or region coordination or region commons or green pill like I'm not sure what to say like the words are slipping away from me I feel like is a healthy

indicator of like right those nom those nominations are slipping away into like this this core or understanding of alignment. So, it's like pick your pick your phrase in a way is a healthy sign to me. >> Yeah, I agree. I think it's a very beautiful uh Kevin, you said it. It's a very beautiful sign of proper polyentricity. >> Okay, cool. Um we're at the hour. So uh last chance for uh each one of you uh if you can uh give your last word whatever you want it to be and also uh let everyone know how they can connect uh with uh you on your initiative.

>> I feel like my last word uh I'm I'm taking this as a provocation to be for it to be last word. My last word is protopia. We're not pushing for a utopia some faroff distant future that we all have to have faith in some benevolent leader in order to get there. Trust me, we're going to get to utopia. No, we're building a protopia, which means that every quarter is better than the last quarter, every month is better than the last month, every year is better than the last. I iterating and evolving. And that's what to me I feel like that's my last word is Protopia. So, um, the way it looks in September 2025, which is when we're, uh, recording this podcast, is going to iterate and evolve every month, every quarter between now and whenever we eventually realize your

vision primo, or we iterate and evolve on the vision from there. So, for me, this is all about building protopia. And, um, I would ask that you don't trust any leader that's telling you that they're bringing you to an utopian place. Trust yourself. Trust the visible signs of progress around you and stance make with the people around you about the direction you go and iterate evolve towards creating a regen coordination or regen commons or network nation or whatever you think that your goal is. But uh I think that Protopia is increasingly the way that I'm thinking. So that's my last word.

>> Kap. >> Nice. Yeah. I mean I think my my last words would just be to question like what what are we here to do in web 3 and crypto? Like are we are we just here to pump the meme coins and speculate? Sure, it's fun, but like yeah, I think we can do better and hopefully we're here to actually build systems that genuinely solve real problems and serve all life on Earth. So that's my provocation to any web 3 builders um in listening to this podcast. Join the regens. Yeah, I guess my my invitation is like I feel like there's a ton of lowhanging fruit in front of us that if we can symbolically demonstrate like other futures, other present tenses to be possible, like a lot of resourcing and

momentum can get behind it. So, I feel very excited by the fact that if we can like like wire up more proofs of concept of of like of resources and like capacity flowing in this way like that there's a lot of momentum that can grow from that. I feel like we should just and if y'all are in NYC for climate week, I feel like we should just hang out. That's kind of like my one of my last things like let's be friends and hang out. >> And uh >> regen house in in Argentina, Edge City. Let's go. >> Great. Great. Well, um thank you everyone. That was cool.

>> Yeah. Thanks. >> Thanks. Appreciate you hosting. Looking forward to the rest of the season and looking forward to working with everyone on this panel in building this vision together. Looking forward to the developments. >> Cool. Appreciate jobs. >> We'll check We'll check back in in a year's time. See how the the regen Nation's doing. >> Yeah. Whether we >> Yeah, that'd be cool. >> Yeah. Network nation status unlocked. >> I after I after I spike the ball in Protopia, it better be better than it is now. Uh we'll see. All right. Invite us back in a year. >> Thanks. Thanks everyone. >> Thank you. Bye. Bye. Cheers. Bye. Bye.