S4. Ep. 30 - Onchain Impact Networks Book w. Lana Dingwall

Transcript

welcome to the green pill. network podcast if you're just joining us we're building a coordination a network Society of thousands of hacker dreamers and doers using crypto to bring positive sum digital systems to the world this podcast features the people who are doing it and we publish a season of five to 10 episodes every couple months this season is lean mean Capital allocation machines Capital allocation is the process of deciding how to spend or invest Financial Resources to maximize returns with web 3 we can maximize not just Financial returns but achieve impact equals profit achieve public goods funding achieve ecosystem growth and Achieve protopia so how can we build the cryptoeconomic systems that precisely allocate Capital at scale what are the coolest experiments these are the themes of green pill season 4 lead

mean Capital allocation machines my guest today does not disappoint their name is Lana dingwall Lana is a consultant specializing in Partnerships at the glow Foundation they also support grants at Charmers and serve at the gitcoin community grants Council Lana is also contribut at the green pill Network and a council member at octant as well as an ambassador and a delegate for unlock protocol Lana draws on a rich background as a seasoned Dow contributor and Community Builder and they offer deep experience in governance systems and network development committed to addressing Global challenges la lana advocates for collaborative solutions that promote Collective thriving all right what a bio Lana is in a bunch of

different great regen projects and I think that Lana is perfectly positioned to tell us us about the onchain impact networks book which is a book written by Lana and the green pill Writers Guild so this is a project that's all about all the projects that are regenerating the world in crypto so basically a 2024 update to the impact Al book that was released in 2022 a look at all of the different projects that are doing good work in the space right now to help you the listener get oriented in regen web 3 so the book covers blockchain decentralized Finance Community funding protocols regenerative Finance climate and environmental regeneration culture education infrastructure and impact measurement so those are the categories

that are active for us in this conversation and in 2024 as we cartography the design space of regen web 3 so really excited uh to talk to Lana today without further Ado I give you Lana dingwall hey Lana what's up how you doing I'm good how are you pretty good excited about onchain impact networks tell me about this book that you and the green pill Writers Guild have been working on yes um well the tldd is essentially we were trying to really showcase the ways in which crypto is not talking about how it's going to regenerate the world but we're actually trying to highlight and showcase various projects in different kind of categories

um in in how they're actually using blockchain to to impact the world which is really exciting and then on the flip side of it it was also a really fun experiment in kind of writing a book in a decentralized manner and very open matter where anyone was able to kind of come in and contribute so that in and of itself was also a really fun learning curve within the green pill Network yep so this book is out now and you can download it at Green pill. Network and what should I expect if I'm if I'm checking out the book if you're checking out the book a couple I would want you to expect essentially a couple styles of things I guess it depends on your your level of knowledge and how in tuned you are in the crypto blockchain space so if you're someone who's like newer to it

it's a really great discovery tool that's how we've written it it's meant to be more like a catalog a ton of different projects in a ton of different fields uh having tangible impact in whatever their their Niche focus is and then if you're a person that is hopefully maybe wanting to actually contribute and get more involved in the crypto blockchain especially regen side of the space it's also honestly a really great directory to go through and find projects that maybe you'd like to contribute to or support in various ways so I just want to trace back that in 2022 I published a book entitled how crypto could regenerate the world and uh very quickly was asked hey are there any examples of this happening in practice and so I worked with my writing partner

Ali bord in order to publish a book entitled impact alss projects that are actually regenerating the world and that was in 2022 kind of served as a directory and like an index of different impact DS and projects that were that were doing it and um you know in some ways I'm sort of like drawing lineage from the impact DS book to the onchain impact Network book and this kind of feels like it's a 2024 directory of who at the actual object level is doing the thing and and and I'll say there's like a fun fun rhyme between green pill how crypto could regenerate the world and the subtitle of your book is how crypto is regenerating the world so we're going from could to is and actually examples

in progress there which which I think is cool yeah I I definitely also think it's cool I mean sometimes it's taboo to tell people that you work in crypto or that you like crypto and so part of my personal motivations in helping craft this book and get a team to help write like the second version of it was so that you could actually go to a person and be like okay here here's like a little book that hopefully in a small way shape or form might shift some of your perspectives on blockchain and crypto and hopefully also inspire you to actually maybe think outside the box and the ways in which you could also leverage crypto in your own industry your field so our hope is that it it continues to Spire people and then our other hope is that next year because of how fast crypto moves one

month is like 10 years that the goal would be that next year there'd be another publication of it with a ton of more projects and then projects that are in the book right now would have way more tangible impact metrics to get updated as well yeah so it feels like we're looking at a line not a DOT here 2022 Edition 2024 Edition and then as the space evolves over time I think one of the roles the green pill Network can play is sort of being like a traffic router helping people find the projects who are who are doing the most important stuff and it would just be my it would Delight me so much if in five or 10 years I meet I meet people at a crypto conference or whatever that say oh this this book helped me find Project X Y and Z that I contributed to for years so

routing the right talent to to the right projects I think is is part of the job here absolutely and even in the book like when you open it in the the beginning section like we acknowledge that we would really love to see V2 V3 so yeah this is Essen like a a pit stop on like the continuing Road of updating this book over and over and over again as you kind of already mentioned like you helped craft V1 we we're calling it V1 but it yours was titled impact Dows and so this is essentially V2 and our hope is that you know even if you're listening to this and you read it and you're like oh my gosh there's so many projects in it that should have been included that aren't please let us know we can start crafting V3 U and I think the goal is to also like let other

people kind of Step Up and contribute in terms of not just obviously like writing the next versions and various kinds of versions because even for us while we were doing it we have a ton of categories so we've got like decentralized science Community funding regenerative Finance climate and environmental regeneration culture education infrastructure and impact measurement and honestly every single category could be a book in and of itself we like barely touch the surface on what really cool things these uh teams are doing these projects are doing so we'd also love to see people kind of step forward and say hey hey like I'm a huge dii nerd I'd love to like just deep dive into all the dii onchain impact networks and then we can publish that book as well so the hope is that again

this is like a Tipping Point and that we see more people iterate and it spin off into like a ton of different deep dives into various kinds of niches because there are a lot of really cool projects doing really cool things even doing the book uh I personally discovered a lot of projects that I had never heard of doing work that now I want to kind of learn more about and support so it's it's it was also just fun writing in that regard well that's a great segue into my next question which is what are your favorite projects what are your favorite Trends in the onchain impact Network space I mean I I feel if I say green pill Network that's cheating a little bit but because I'm you know acknowledging I'm from the green pill network but uh you know also shout out to you Kevin the

like green pill of the book is actually part of what got me really excited about crypto and I started to learn more about dii gitcoin a bunch of other things um that kind of sent me personally down the the rabbit hole a couple years ago so I always appreciate everything that green pill kind of pushes out and why I want to contribute to it I I also really appreciate projects like glow dollar foundation so disclosure I'm now like doing some partnership work with them but when I wrote the book I wasn't or helped I wrote part helped write their section I wasn't and I think it was also like a for me personally like a cool Discovery tool in seeing how people are experimenting with ways to fund public goods using onchain tools and systems and then I really like Athena I think a

lot of the stuff that they're doing in trying to help fund Women's Health initiatives and kind of help promote research um and they're part of like a larger kind of dii ecosystem that's doing a lot of really really cool stuff which you often don't think about I think when you think about crypto and blockchain you don't think about science automatically you think about finance and so the the d space is doing some really really cool things and then just projects like Sylvie protocol that are are uh essentially it's a it's a protocol that helps with tree planting and like carbon credit tracking but their whole system for like how they deploy funds how they have proof of like that not just the trees being planted

but actually like reward people for the trees to to mature and live like long term there's just a lot of cool ways in which they're using crypto and like location deepin services to essentially verify things send out payments and that it's actually quite popular like the global South areas so there's just a ton of projects I could probably just talk about everyone in the book but we'd be here for way longer than we're supposed to be right so read the book if you actually want to get a sense of the projects that are that are doing this work exactly great I was just going to say like even I know like the book's like 100 Pages if it feels too intimidating honestly I would just like pick a category that you're interested in and read about that category first um

and then you know like slowly go through the rest of it like you don't have to feel like you have to sit and read it like cover to cover it is meant to be something where if you know yeah just like hop in wherever you feel you might want to learn more I wonder if you could tell me about the reception of the book so far so you all launched it at utcc at the regen Village and what is the response been so far and what kind of responses are you looking to hear from people if they're listening to the episode and they have feedback so far we've had mostly only heard of positive responses I think that the biggest piece of feedback we've just gotten is thank you like thank you for it thank you for including our project thank you for highlighing what we're doing or thank

you for creating this like more accessible directory where we can essentially go and kind of Deep dive into all of the various regenerative projects also it's like a tool again you can like send it to people if if people have really not so nice views about crypto you can send them this to help them just kind of look through the ways in which it's it's having positive impact and so yeah so far it's been largely positive and then again a lot of feedback in terms of oh you should include this project now next time or you could do this next time so again a lot of my like call to action to people is to essentially help us keep writing like the continuing versions moving forward as well because again it's meant to be more like a living document it's just hard to have like a living document

in physical print but we'll we're GNA just keep publishing more and more I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the organization behind this book so obviously this podcast is called the green pill. network podcast and there's now a Dev Guild and there's a writer Guild and there's a Discord server and a governance Forum this book was actually written by the green pill Writers Guild so uh maybe maybe we'll start by just shouting out the people who who wrote the book with you but then from there I'd love to to zoom out and take a look at the whole green pill Network together because I'm not sure that listeners know about it so maybe we start with uh who's on the writer's Guild and let's just give them a shout out for being your co-conspirators on the book yes exactly I'm I'm going to

read right from the the book to make sure I don't miss anyone but want to give a a huge shout out to Riley who was our our main editor she read the book like back and forth I think she edited it like 10 plus different times so massive shout out to Riley it's why it looks so nice and Polished um our writers were Sarah Kate uh Prince well myself Trinity Matt Anthony rain uie um our designers who are really awesome and did personally like I think an incredible job where Anthony Ashna and Sarah and also shout out to Sarah because she's not actually a designer we just needed to really get the book published at the end and so she jumped in and taught herself how to use figma so that we could actually like get the

designer piece through faster so that we could hit our publishing deadline myself and Izzy were the project leads and so just special like thank you to everyone and we give a shout out to you Kevin and a shout out to sel as well who helped kind of create the Inception of this book and the green pill Network in general and so just shout out to everyone who contributed on this book um whether you were like a researcher or a writer or an editor or one of our designers it was definitely a collaborative project um it would have been really hard for one person to to pump this out we decided to write it right after e Denver uh and then we published it at ECC so we had just a little over like two and a half months to kind of start the project complete it

and have everything ready for print so that we could actually hand out some of the books um so thank you to everyone and we all kind of fall under the umbrella of the writer skilled um and the idea is is that the green pill Network the community component when it first was created by SEL the idea was for it to have a bunch of like localized hubs and we still have localized hubs I I run the Ottawa chapter and that's actually how I got involved with creen pill but as we started to kind of progress in the network we realized okay there's people who maybe are very uh like they move around a lot or they live in an area where they can't really be a part of a local chapter or they don't want to be part of a local chapter because there isn't one there and they

have to start it it's a lot of work so we want to try and find more ways for people to contribute to the network and so the writer Guild kind of came out of that and so how it works and if you're listening and you're interested in you love writing and you want to participate you just join the Discord join our writer skill Channel and essentially whenever we have writing projects we just put it out open call calls are uh scheduled on our calendar you can hop in um and the process was very chaotic but like a fun a fun chaos which is part of you know I think what you have to embrace when you work in a when a in a network and so we just threw up an Excel sheet with calls and said hey if you want want to contribute here's the TDL

and what we're doing here's how much work it's going to be it's going to be a lot of work so just only commit to it if you can actually see the work through because it's it's a lot harder to I think clean up people's work than it than it is to just not have them there um so we had a really solid team of people who committed about I think there was 12 of us in the end and the process was just like having weekly calls trying to keep us all on a timeline reviewing each other's work having like a general working dock assigning projects to people so even that in of itself was a really interesting way to create the book and it was a really interesting way to also I think it was the biggest project that the writer Guild has ever done um but it was cool we had people

from all over the world contributing I would say half the people on the project were not native English speakers so that was also like a really cool and interesting way to like integrate and have people from all over our work and just overarchingly like really proud of of what everyone did yeah you love to see it I think that one of the things that we've learned about web 3 is that it's more fun to do it multiplayer so basically having a squad to go around and do it with and I think that's kind of what we're trying to do with green pill. Network and the Discord server and the various guilds that are are in it so there's The Writers Guild there's the dev Guild anything else that you want to shout out that's going on at the green pill. Network um so yeah you said Dev

Guild Writers Guild we'll start a chapter um or join a chapter and and the chapters are locally locally based is that right the guilds are more around skill set yeah the chapters are locally ba based and then The Guild I would say it's like skill set or just also interest like you don't have to consider your I don't consider myself a writer but I led the project is I don't think would consider himself a writer but he helped lead the project so I think it's also uh for the guilds it's more like if you want to learn and or have skills then the guilds are for you the same with the dev Guild afo who runs the dev Guild is very good at like wel welcoming people of all skill sets and interest in finding rules for them and then the obviously listen to the podcast but you

already are listening to the podcast that might be redundant and then uh we are participating in the regen coordination round in gitcoin coming up so I would just say if you do like onchain impact Network book and you find it helpful uh the writer Guild will be in that round um and we're using the funds to essentially retroactively reward the people who went like above and beyond what they were supposed to um in helping us publish that book yeah it's fun to get to chat with you about this this book because like a object level we just want people to know about what's going on in regen crypto but you know I have this line at the top of the podcast that I always say we're building a coordination a network Society of thousands of hackers dreamers and doers focused on using crypto to bring

positive some digital systems to the world if you listen to the podcast you've proba heard me say that dozens of times and uh I think that like with the green pill Network we're trying to feature the people who are doing it and upregulate them and help them find each other and it's been kind of fun to create a shelling point for people to come together and to find each other and to explore this space together and yeah it's just more fun to do to do multiplayer I have fond memories of Ed ECC kind of stomping around the regen village with you all and meeting other people who believe in this mission and vision and I think that that sort of energy sort of feeds off of each other to have smart people from diverse backgrounds working in Earnest to make it happen exactly and I think too like

one of the cool things of the green pill network is that there's it's still relatively actually like new I would say even though it's been around the network component has been around for a bit over a year but I would definitely it's a call to action like if you're a person who's just very regen focused or wants to be like very regen focused join the green pill Network there is a place for everyone there's a ton of new energy coming in right now uh they're doing a lot of like reorganization of our Discord our gov Forum um our Charmers space trying to make it really easy for people regardless of what their interests are to kind of hop in and and contribute I know we'd like to spin up more guilds because again the guilds are meant to be like Global shelling points

for interests um Andor like places of discussion to learn and then hopefully from those the guilds actually like pump out projects so they're not necessarily like they're not like a social club it like we're actually trying to like produce things and then again if you're new to crypto and are just trying to like beef up your portfolio it's a really really good way to do so like to contribute obviously everyone who contributed to this book they're now able to say like hey I helped contribute to this book they're able to to Showcase that and use it as part of their portfolio so I think that's also where the green pill network is really good is it's also trying to essentially be a a stepping stone for people who maybe would like to work in crypto or be more in the blockchain space but maybe haven't quite found their Niche and or

don't have the skills or background to get there and so green pill has been like a good I know for me personally that's been true um and a couple other people it's been true as well so you know if that's you also come in everyone's really friendly everyone is really welcoming and they'd love to help you kind of fix figure out what's your jam and how you can contribute and make it fun yeah I got to say that it's really a great pleasure to be able to create this shelling point for people and you know when I entered the web 3 space there wasn't a place for regen crypto it was sort of like libertarian culture or financialized culture and to have like more of a protop and pro-social culture and group of people to to come around with it it feels like uh it's it's just a little bit more of a

welcoming environment for the next participant into this space so hopefully green pill. network is useful for people it is a little bit chaotic as things are being reorganized and evolving at all times but um I'm committed to to helping people find their place in crypto if any and especially with these regen projects so uh lots of resources available at Green pill. network if a listener wants to check it out absolutely and I think there's something I mean the chaos can obviously be quite frustrating at times I acknowledge that but the the kind of chaos pieces of it are also what makes it fun and it's where you learn the most and you gain the most skills and you make the most kind of connections and I think the fun part at least for me with the regenerative parts of crypto in blockchain like I'm a Degen at heart I'm

a full like half de genen half regen the regenerative stuff is just consistently energetically very easy to get behind and to want to continue to contribute to it essentially exists outside of like the market cycles of the highs and lows of whatever tokens you've invested in or doing or or any of that kind of stuff and so it's also just I find like a more consistent space in terms of like good energy people trying to solve real problems um and a lot of really cool opportunities for people to contribute who have very diverse backgrounds and experiences so I think it's also just a really good entry point for people who maybe again want to be more in crypto or be more in crypto like in a serious way

the the regen space has like a lot of of opportunity and room for growth in that regard for contributors yeah that's the hope all right well I guess getting into the second half of the episode so I'll start asking my wrapup questions uh if you were maximally successful in 10 years what does the world look like what does your work look like take us forward to 2034 what do uh onchain impact networks look like onchain impact networks look like in 10 years I would say the goal would be to have been so impactful that there's no longer this narrative that crypto is a bad place or it's like taboo to say that you work in crypto I I think that that would honestly be really important because it would prove that there's just been so

much positive impact created or generated that people can't deny or kind of like be an ostrich with their head in the Sands to the ways in which it can actually be quite beneficial um it also means that we haven't gone down a bad path and maybe supported projects that help reinforce those not so good narratives um but I think you know in 10 years it still might be too soon so I'd like Benchmark this as it's like the beginning of it's not like we're there yet but my hope would be that in 10 years from now we've actually created real tangible systems that exist outside of country borders and like what passport you hold and regulations exist in your country to be able to actually create like real positive sum Financial systems and have it be so that people

who are living like in areas where maybe traditionally they have to like immigrate to a new country that's very expensive it's a lot of money um and you have to leave like everyone you like care about in love my hope would be that blockchain has made it where our essentially working economy like doesn't necessarily care about borders and people are able to really work as long as they have the right skills they don't need to leave their family and their friends they don't need to hold a certain kind of passport they don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to an immigration lawyer um I think that having that sort of accessibility globally would be good that's or at least I hope it would be good um and I do think that blockchain and crypto just even the way that payments work and work

Works um in this industry that that actually would be would be plausible and it would also be really cool to see some more experiments in Ubi or like new versions of Ubi um and have the ways in which like crypto might be helping handle that while also being able to prove personhood which is sort of like an like you know that you need proof of per personhood to have Universal Ubi um so hopefully those things have kind of been solved in a way that isn't like dystopian yep that's the dream I think you you you were able to articulate something that's quite shapeless so I think it's beautiful to hear uh is there anything I didn't ask that you want to say no I I think all of it is just like again I

really want to shout out all everyone who like I'm on the podcast talking but I like this was absolutely a team effort and so many people contributed to this book so please check it out and I would also like my call to action again to people is it just essentially like if you have doubt or you're kind of skeptical which a lot of people are like there's healthy skepticism and then there's just like pessimism to be like a pessimist my recommendation would be like if you feel like there's people who would do well kind of opening up to like the more positive sides of crypto and blockchain I do think that this is just like a really good easy read for them we try to make it like easy high level not

too jargon focused we try to write an intro so that even if you don't know anything about blockchain you have like a basic introductory using basic and air quotes cuz sometimes it's hard to explain blockchain simply but we also tried our hardest to make this be something that people who have never really thought about crypto or blockchain could actually read through and get some of it or at least most of it they might not get like the infrastructure pieces but that's okay but the the decentralized science the community funding the uh climate Environmental educ ation like those types of things are like there's a lot of real world examples where the end impact actually has nothing to do with blockchain blockchain's just like what helps deliver the tools needed to create

the impact um so it's definitely also not a book that's just like all about crypto and for crypto um there are some really really great real world examples in the book as well and there's a lot of projects doing incredible work so just check them out follow them support them in any ways you can um because I think if we really want to change the narrative and policies and viewpoints that people have around blockchain they obviously have to start being fed a different narrative which is the more positive side of it um and so this is just like a very small starting spot um to help with kind of Shifting that narrative got it Lana thanks for coming on the green pill podcast and again for the listener the book is onchain impact networks you can get it at Green pill.

Network Lana thanks so much yeah thank you you just heard from Lana digwal I'm excited about the new book because I think it's a great cartography of the regen web 3 space and hopefully will help you the listener get oriented in the regen web 3 space thanks again for listening to the green pill. network podcast again this podcast features the people who are building a coordination a network Society of thousands of hackers dreamers and doers using crypto to bring positive some digital systems to the world like Lana while you're here if you value our work you can collect this episode go to pods. medgreen pill to find all episodes from this season and to start collecting shout out to MMA on chain. eth and Nick node. eth for being recent collectors of

green pill episodes while you're here you may as well also make an offering to our algorithmic overlords Please Subscribe written review it really helps us spread the message of the regenerative cryptoeconomic movement all right peace and love thanks for listening and see you on the next one goodbye