Distroid Issue 41
A newsletter for curated findings, actionable knowledge, and noteworthy developments from the forefront of innovation, governance, research, and technology (i.e., the frontier).
Introduction
Welcome to this week’s edition of Distroid, a newsletter for curated findings, actionable knowledge, and noteworthy developments from the forefront of innovation, governance, research, and technology (i.e., the frontier).
In this issue:
Digest
Research
An Allocator's Guide to Tokenized Treasuries
Legal Dynamism
Tools
Dune AI Analyst
Events
Conference: Local Tech Ecologies
DeSci Boston
The Science of Blockchain Conference 2023
Videos & Podcasts
Benjamin Life | Open Civics, Designing Better Systems, and Personal Accountability
The Hidden Workforce That Helped Filter Violence and Abuse Out of ChatGPT
122 - Finding a Business Model for HyperStructures with Connor McCormick
123 - AI DAO Simulator w. James Pollack
127 - GP A Pragmatists Guide To Governance
124 - A Protocol for Thinking Together with Gordon Brander & Michael Garfield
News
Trust at Scale: Verification Frameworks
Why the Super Rich are Inevitable
Federated Futures 2023 Recap & Key Takeaways
Generative AI companies must publish transparency reports
Why transformative artificial intelligence is really, really hard to achieve
jokerace v3: welcome to the post-token future
DAO Harvard Proceedings - Part 1: Lawrence Lessig and Sandy Pentland Discuss Code and Law
Why Hydra Is On a Mission to Propagate Community Driven Investment DAOs
State of AI Development: 34000% growth in AI projects, OpenAI's dominance, the rise of open-source, and more
Automating the Middlemen of Communities
Tweets
Thank you for reading!
Digest
Research
An Allocator's Guide to Tokenized Treasuries
Jack Chong, RWA.xyz team
RWA.xyz
Research
2023-07-11
Most public attention is on the speculative nature of digital assets. Little is known that the underlying technology of blockchain is now used for custodying, trading and settling more than $300M worth of US Treasuries. Crypto asset allocators should supplement this guide with their decision making processes; while traditional fice investors and service providers should find this guide informative about the ficial applications of blockchain technology.
This report dives deep into 11 tokenized treasury products offered by companies ranging from $1T+ asset managers like Franklin Templeton, to young upstarts like OpenEden. For each, we survey their different mechanisms and important nuances to help investors understand this nascent product.
Legal Dynamism
Sandy Pentland, Robert Mahari
Network Law Review
Research
2022-09-27
Shortly after the start of the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson wrote a now famous letter to James Madison. He argued that no society could make a perpetual constitution, or indeed a perpetual law, that binds future generations. Every law ought to expire after nineteen years. Jefferson’s argument rested on the view that it is fundamentally unjust for people in the present to create laws for those in the future, but his argument is also appealing from a purely pragmatic perspective. As the state of the world changes, laws become outdated, and forcing future generations to abide by outdated laws is unjust and inefficient.
Today, the law appears to be at the cusp of its own revolution. Longer than most other disciplines, it has resisted technical transformation. Increasingly, however, computational approaches are finding their way into the creation and implementation of law and the field of computational law is rapidly expanding. One of the most exciting promises of computational law is the idea of legal dynamism: the concept that a law, by means of computational tools, can be expressed not as a static rule statement but rather as a dynamic object that includes system performance goals, metrics for success, and the ability to adapt the law in response to its performance.
Speed limits provide a simple illustration of the difference between static and dynamic laws. “You may drive up to 80 kilometers per hour on this road” is the type of static rule statement we are all familiar with. A dynamic speed limit might be expressed as:
Objective: Minimize road accidents on this highway
Metrics for success: (1) Number of accidents per day, (2) average journey time
Range of acceptable interventions: Speed limits between 70km/h and 100km/h
A dynamic speed limit would be varied in response to road conditions to minimize accidents while also minimizing average journey times. Speed limits may be higher during the day or when the roads are less busy; they could be lower when going around a bend and higher on straight sections. The speed limit under any given set of conditions would be set based on evidence of driving accidents and, as more data is collected, may be updated. Legal dynamism is not a panacea: constantly changing speed limits would certainly confuse drivers. But as the law is expected to govern an increasing number of computational systems (which may one day include cars!), ongoing optimization of laws seems less far-fetched.
Digital asset regulation presents an obvious opportunity for dynamic regulation. In a recent article, we explored how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) provide an opportunity for lawmakers to embed the objectives of anti-money laundering (AML) directly into the design of digital currencies. “AML by Design” aims to create a currency that is inherently resistant to money laundering. We point out that design choices that aim to curb money laundering should not be viewed as a one-time exercise but instead, should be updated in response to data collected on the digital currency. Here, we hope to explore legal dynamism further through the example of AML for digital assets.
Tools
Dune AI Analyst
Tools
Analyze any Dune dataset using natural language
Events
Conference: Local Tech Ecologies
Media Economies Design Lab
Events
2023-08-08
When the devastating Marshall Fire spread across Boulder County in on December 30, 2021, many of us turned to our phones and our networks. They helped us make sense of the crisis and keep each other safe. We relied on information from local organizations and governments, as well as global platforms not designed for a moment like that, and not designed for our community.
What if we valued local technology the way we value local food and local businesses?
This event explores opportunities and challenges for building healthy tech ecosystems that are focused on the needs of local communities—with a focus on projects active across Colorado's Front Range. What kinds of social media could bring people together rather than driving them apart? What kinds of gig platforms could put workers and small businesses above global monopolies? How can regional journalists develop tools truly suited to their needs? The event will make space to introduce projects already cultivating local tech ecologies in Colorado and beyond, and we will discuss strategies for more intentionally developing those ecologies in the future.
Speakers include:
Aaron Brockett (mayor, City of Boulder)
Becks Boone, Jamie Anderson (Rootable)
Caroline Savery (Bloom Network)
Ethan Zuckerman (UMass Amherst)
Josh Ritzer (Nigh)
LeeLee James (Slay the Runway)
libi striegl (Media Archaeology Lab)
Mike Perhats (Nosh)
Saleh Khaled (Phoenix of Gaza XR)
Lunch will be served, along with snacks and a reception at the end. This is a free event, but please consider making a donation to MEDLab to support our work.
DeSci Boston
Events
DeSci Boston is a 1-day event bringing together Open Science leaders, web3 developers, DeSci leaders, and funders in the Open Science ecosystem. We will provide a platform for projects to showcase the work they have done, and the milestones they plan to accomplish.
The Science of Blockchain Conference 2023
Events
2023-08-28
The conference focuses on technical innovations in the blockchain ecosystem, and brings together researchers and practioners working in the space. We are interested in the application of cryptography, decentralized protocols, formal methods, and empirical analysis, to improving the security and scalability of blockchain deployments. We aim to foster collaboration among practitioners and researchers working on blockchain protocol development, cryptography, distributed systems, secure computing, crypto-economics, and economic risk analysis.
Videos & Podcasts
Benjamin Life | Open Civics, Designing Better Systems, and Personal Accountability
Amber Brandner, Derrek Coleman
All of Us
Videos & Podcasts
2023-02-19
In this episode, we speak with Benjamin Life, a civic innovator working at the intersection of applied systems change, culture, and coordination. Listen in as we explore the ethical imperative of inclusive and participatory design. We discuss how we approach civilization's most pressing questions and our collective responsibility to the moment. This is an episode you won't want to miss!
All of Us Podcast is a place where we learn to take care of ourselves, and each other, so we can build communities where all of us belong.
AOU is supported by Camp Social, empowering communities to self-organize with rewards and recognition, and ETHDenver the largest, freest web3 community innovation festival building the decentralized future.
ETH Denver
https://www.ethdenver.com/
https://twitter.com/EthereumDenver
CampSocial
https://camp.social
https://twitter.com/campsocial_
Benjamin Life
https://twitter.com/omniharmonic?s=21&t=AyAp9--GaMlpa_7GREPWcw
OpenCivics
https://opencivics.co
https://twitter.com/OpenCivics/
https://federatedfutures.xyz
The Hidden Workforce That Helped Filter Violence and Abuse Out of ChatGPT
Kate Linebaugh,Ryan Knutson
The Journal.
Videos & Podcasts
2023-07-11
ChatGPT is one of the most successful tech products ever launched. And crucial to that success is a group of largely unknown data workers in Kenya. By reviewing disturbing, grotesque content, often for wages of just two to three dollars an hour, they helped make the viral chatbot safe. WSJ’s Karen Hao traveled to Kenya to meet those workers and hear about what the job cost them.
Further Reading:
What Is ChatGPT? What to Know About the AI Chatbot
The Contradictions of Sam Altman, AI Crusader
Further Listening:
The Company Behind ChatGPT
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
122 - Finding a Business Model for HyperStructures with Connor McCormick
Kevin Owocki
GreenPill
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-13
✨ Subscribe to the Green Pill Podcast ✨
https://pod.link/1609313639
🟢 Get the GreenPilled Book 🟢https://greenpill.party/
Apple Show Link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1609313639
Spotify Show Link:Can HyperStructures be Free Forever?
Joining the podcast today is Connor McCormick to have a friendly debate with Kevin regarding the Challenges and Solutions for HyperStructures Business Models. They touch upon the role of speculation, prediction markets, and the necessity of Stable Attractors.Take the green pill anon.
SPONSOR PILLS:
👩 ATHENA DAO | ADVANCING WOMEN'S HEALTH
https://bankless.cc/AthenaDAOTopics Covered:
0:00 Intro
7:20 What Defines a HyperStructure?
13:09 Can Web3 Protocols be Free Forever?
19:41 Finding a Business Model for Crypto
29:02 Public Goods HyperStructures
36:29 The Role of Speculation
47:16 On Prediction Markets
49:30 Creating a Stable Attractor
51:33 Wrapping Up the Discussion
58:06 Closing ThoughtsSpeakers:
Connor on TwitterKevin on Twitter
https://twitter.com/owocki
Resources:
Jacob Blog Post
https://jacob.energy/hyperstructures.html
Connor Blog Post
https://coda.io/@connor/hyperstructuresMusic by WABI SABI - snowflake -
https://thmatc.co/?l=7786B012
Not ficial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any ficial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
123 - AI DAO Simulator w. James Pollack
Kevin Owocki
GreenPill
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-15
Can a DAO be run by AI?
Joining the podcast today is James Pollack, an artist and programmer who is exploring the intersection between DAOs and AI.
We explore the dynamics of an agent based model, what it looks like to put a model for goverce on-chain, and so much more.
Take the green pill anon.
✨ Subscribe to the Green Pill Podcast ✨
https://pod.link/1609313639
🟢 Get the GreenPilled Book 🟢https://greenpill.party/
Apple Show Link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1609313639
Spotify Show Link:--
SPONSOR PILLS:
🌄 ValleyDAO | Build the SolarPunk Future
https://bankless.cc/ValleyDAOTopics Covered:
0:00 Intro
2:53 DAO Simulator
10:33 Agent Based Model Breakdown
14:04 Complex Systems Meta Commentary
18:18 Can DAO's Have Programmable Goals?
21:51 Running An EVM Inside?
23:34 How Do You Monetize?
29:14 Reaching The Next Stage Of Maturity
32:21 What If The Model Lived on Chain?
37:04 What Features Would Kevin Want?
40:55 A Fun Design Space To Explore
45:16 Open Sourcing The CodeResources:
DAO Simulator
https://github.com/imgntn/dao_simulator
Toolkit
https://community.supermodular.xyz/t/dao-ai-goverce-simulation-dags-toolkit/281
Kevin on Twitter
https://twitter.com/owocki
--
Music by WABI SABI - snowflake -https://thmatc.co/?l=7786B012
--
Not ficial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any ficial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
127 - GP A Pragmatists Guide To Goverce
Kevin Owocki
GreenPill
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-29
Welcome Simone and Malcolm Collins! Coauthors of the book "The Pragmatist's Guide to Goverce". Enjoy the ride as they take us down the goverce rabbit hole.
Take the green pill anon.✨ Subscribe to the Green Pill Podcast ✨
https://pod.link/1609313639
🟢 Get the GreenPilled Book 🟢https://greenpill.party/
Apple Show Link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1609313639
Spotify Show Link:--
SPONSOR PILLS:
🌄 ValleyDAO | Build the SolarPunk Future
https://bankless.cc/ValleyDAOTopics Covered:
0:00 Intro
3:48 What is Goverce?
9:29 Experimenting With Digital Communities
12:07 Is Direct Democracy A Bad Idea?
16:55 Checks And Balances
22:11 The Path To Progressive Decentralization
28:19 The Cancer Problem
34:11 The Power of Sortician
38:25 Handling Consolidated Social Power
44:26 Capitalism in Goverce
47:22 Domice Heiarchies
54:26 What Web3 Should Be Exploring
57:32 Tyranny Of The Unemployed
1:00:15 In SummaryResources:
Get the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatists-Guide-Goverce-optimizing-goverce-ebook/dp/B0BSLDY94T/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=UyvGH&content-id=amzn1.sym.ed85217c-14c9-4aa0-b248-e47393e2ce12&pf_rd_p=ed85217c-14c9-4aa0-b248-e47393e2ce12&pf_rd_r=143-6984904-0856413&pd_rd_wg=U9NcO&pd_rd_r=9e470b4a-b9d6-4817-a695-86bf133f9e4a&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SimoneHCollins
Special thanks to:
Kyle - https://twitter.com/kbw
Kevin - https://twitter.com/kevinrolsen?lang=en
--
Music by WABI SABI - snowflake -https://thmatc.co/?l=7786B012
--
Not ficial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any ficial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
124 - A Protocol for Thinking Together with Gordon Brander & Michael Garfield
Kevin Owocki
GreenPill
Videos & Podcasts
2023-06-20
✨ Subscribe to the Green Pill Podcast ✨
https://pod.link/1609313639
🟢 Get the GreenPilled Book 🟢https://greenpill.party/
Apple Show Link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1609313639
Spotify Show Link:The internet has massively increased the complexity of our information environment. How can we make sense of it?
Joining the podcast today are Gordon Brander, Founder & CEO of Subconscious, and Michael Garfield, the Digital Media Strategist at the Santa Fe Institute and host of the Complexity and Future Fossils Podcasts. They cover what we can do to solve our current sensemaking crisis and what the future holds.
Take the green pill anon.
SPONSOR PILLS:
👩 ATHENA DAO | ADVANCING WOMEN'S HEALTH
https://bankless.cc/AthenaDAOTopics Covered:
0:00 Intro
10:50 The Information Scaling Threshold
20:34 The Three Trends
27:29 The Egregore
38:36 Solving the Current Sensemaking Crisis
43:36 The Importance of Plurality
50:59 The Future of AI and Sensemaking
58:22 Closing ThoughtsSpeakers:
Gordon on Twitter
https://twitter.com/gordonbrander
Michael on Twitter
https://twitter.com/michaelgarfield
Kevin on Twitter
https://twitter.com/owockiResources:
Thinking Together Essay
Subconscious Substack
Michael Substack
https://substack.com/@michaelgarfield
Nuralearning Course
https://www.nuralearning.com/Music by WABI SABI - snowflake -
https://thmatc.co/?l=7786B012
Not ficial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any ficial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
News
Trust at Scale: Verification Frameworks
Stefen Deleveaux,Govrn
Govrn
News
2023-05-17
Let’s talk about trust.
All communities and organizations require some level of trust in order to properly function. Having trust within a group is what allows members to rely on each other, cooperate, and collaborate. But how do these groups actually build trust?
Communities and organizations typically have mechanisms that we call “trust frameworks”. These frameworks are what governs different community interactions, such as onboarding, membership, contributions, and acceptance of those contributions. Trust Frameworks can take many different forms; they can be unspoken norms or explicitly stated rules, documented processes or ethereal expectations, but most importantly they increase comfort and accountability within communities. Think about how the groups you’re a part of operate - what you needed to do in order to join, what traditions or rituals are observed, and how group activities are chosen, carried out, and reviewed. These are all instances of trust frameworks!
Why the Super Rich are Inevitable
Alvin Chang
The Pudding
News
2023-01-01
Why do super rich people exist in a society?
Many of us assume it's because some people make better ficial decisions. But what if this isn't true? What if the economy – our economy – is designed to create a few super rich people?
That's what mathematicians argue in something called the Yard-sale model, and I promise it has something to do with my dumb watch purchase. But first…
Federated Futures 2023 Recap & Key Takeaways
OpenCivics
News
2023-03-21
Federated Futurists,
As ETHDenver moves further from the ever-present now into the past, I‘ve been reflecting on what a truly exceptional group of humans came together for this event and what a bright and inspiring future lives in the space between all of our hearts and the devotional work we’re blessed to be able to do alongside one another.As one of your hosts and collaborators, I am deeply honored to have convened such brilliant and heart-centered speakers, participants, facilitators, and volunteers. Thanks to our sponsors Lobby3, Shared Ground, and Mandelbot for making this gathering of incredible humans possible. Thank you to everyone who attended and offered their visions of a more beautiful world. In the spirit of anchoring those visions into reality, here is a brief summary of both days of the event.
Generative AI companies must publish transparency reports
ARVIND NARAYANAN,SAYASH KAPOOR
Knight First Amendment Institute Blog
News
2023-06-26
How many people have used chatbots for self-diagnosis when they felt sick? For legal or ficial advice? How often did they receive incorrect answers?
We don’t know.
How often have generative AI based search engines defamed people, like falsely accusing a professor of sexual harassment?
We don’t know.
How often do chatbot users encounter inappropriate outputs reflecting racial, gender, or political biases?
We don’t know.
How many people are using chatbots and text-to-image generators for one of the many prohibited uses such as generating disinformation or child abuse images? How often are they successful at bypassing the tools’ filters? Are companies doing anything to track or enforce violations of their Terms of Service?
We don’t know.
The debate about the harms of AI is happening in a data vacuum.
Why transformative artificial intelligence is really, really hard to achieve
Arjun Ramani,Zhengdong Wang
The Gradient
News
2023-06-26
A collection of the best technical, social, and economic arguments
Humans have a good track record of innovation. The mechanization of agriculture, steam engines, electricity, modern medicine, computers, and the internet—these technologies radically changed the world. Still, the trend growth rate of GDP per capita in the world's frontier economy has never exceeded three percent per year.It is of course possible for growth to accelerate.[1] There was time before growth began, or at least when it was far closer to zero. But the fact that past game-changing technologies have yet to break the three percent threshold gives us a baseline. Only strong evidence should cause us to expect something hugely different.
Yet many people are optimistic that artificial intelligence is up to the job. AI is different from prior technologies, they say, because it is generally capable—able to perform a much wider range of tasks than previous technologies, including the process of innovation itself. Some think it could lead to a “Moore’s Law for everything,” or even risks on on par with those of pandemics and nuclear war. Sam Altman shocked investors when he said that OpenAI would become profitable by first inventing general AI, and then asking it how to make money. Demis Hassabis described DeepMind’s mission at Britain’s Royal Academy four years ago in two steps: “1. Solve Intelligence. 2. Use it to solve everything else.”
This order of operations has powerful appeal.
Should AI be set apart from other great inventions in history? Could it, as the great academics John Von Neumann and I.J. Good speculated, one day self-improve, cause an intelligence explosion, and lead to an economic growth singularity?
Neither this essay nor the economic growth literature rules out this possibility. Instead, our aim is to simply temper your expectations. We think AI can be “transformative” in the same way the internet was, raising productivity and changing habits. But many daunting hurdles lie on the way to the accelerating growth rates predicted by some.
In this essay we assemble the best arguments that we have encountered for why transformative AI is hard to achieve. To avoid lengthening an already long piece, we often refer to the original sources instead of reiterating their arguments in depth. We are far from the first to suggest these points. Our contribution is to organize a well-researched, multidisciplinary set of ideas others first advanced into a single integrated case. Here is a brief outline of our argument:
The transformational potential of AI is constrained by its hardest problems
Despite rapid progress in some AI subfields, major technical hurdles remain
Even if technical AI progress continues, social and economic hurdles may limit its impact
jokerace v3: welcome to the post-token future
jk labs inc
jk labs inc
News
2023-07-11
Back in those bygone days of 2022, we had little more than a few jokes and a dream: a dream to bring submissions and voting to a woebegone populace—
Actually, screw that. No preface. Let’s rawdog this announcement.
DAO Harvard Proceedings - Part 1: Lawrence Lessig and Sandy Pentland Discuss Code and Law
Metagov News
News
2023-07-10
DAO Harvard, which took place in April 2023, was a three-day conference bringing together practitioners, policymakers, and academics to discuss research, legal, and policy considerations of DAOs. Thank you to Harvard Belfer Center’s Technology for hosting us!
The following is the first in a series of transcripts from the DAO Harvard proceedings. In it we feature Lawrence Lessig and Sandy Pentland remarking on the intersection of code and law. Lessig and Pentland were two of four speakers on Day 1’s panel titled Technology, moderated by Metagov’s executive director, Josh Tan.
Why Hydra Is On a Mission to Propagate Community Driven Investment DAOs
Hydra Ventures
Hydra Ventures Blog
News
2023-07-07
Hydra Ventures DAO was summoned to invest in and incubate the next generation of community-first investment DAOs and to proliferate a landscape of organizational innovations in investing. We’re a DAO fund-of-funds composed of DAO operators, professional service providers, founders, and web3 VCs with a mission to establish new market-standard practices for how investment DAOs are designed and operated.
We’re united by the conviction that investment DAOs are a new form of human coordination that represent a huge upgrade over traditional entities. They can empower niche communities to manifest their common purpose cooperatively, flexibly and with lowered barriers to entry so that specialized knowledge and sweat can be rewarded with economic returns, not just invested capital.
This piece - part one in a series that covers Hydra’s mission, thesis, legal framework, and mechanism design - expounds on why we believe that investment DAOs can not only achieve venture scale returns in cutting edge fields, but can level up existing VC models. We’re convinced that the Hydra DAO design unlocks smarter capital allocation by: 1) expanding the participant set; 2) aligning incentives among members; 3) setting beneficial constraints that focus collective energy; and 4) serving as a persistent “third place” for communities of affinity to share, debate and build their ecosystems.
State of AI Development: 34000% growth in AI projects, OpenAI's domice, the rise of open-source, and more
Jeff Burke
Replit Blog
News
2023-07-14
With the introduction of Large Language Models (LLMs), for the first time, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) became accessible to everyday developers. Apps that feel magical, even software that was practically impossible to build by big technology companies with billions in R&D spend, suddenly became not only possibly, but a joy to build and share.
Automating the Middlemen of Communities
Leo Nasskau
Automatos
News
2023-01-23
One of the first things that made me take notice of web3 was this quote from Vitalik Buterin:
“Whereas most technologies automate workers on the periphery, blockchains automate the centre.
Instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi drivers work with the customer directly.”
Specifically, Vitalik is talking about the part of Uber that matches drivers with customers, taking a cut on the fare in the process. They do this by having all of their drivers on a big database, which their algorithm picks from to find you a driver. The reason Uber can take a quarter of every fare is that only Uber has this database.
The promise of blockchain is to automate middlemen like this. Essentially, a blockchain is a very secure database that anyone can view and contribute to. Instead of being on Uber’s database, taxi drivers could all be on a blockchain. You could access the same driver via Lyft, competing to connect you with the same drivers.
I’m interested in how blockchain automates the middlemen of communities. In web3, we all know these as DAOs, decentralised autonomous organisations:
Decentralised: All community members vote on…
Autonomous: …whether to spend money on a particular cause…
Organisation: …that helps them achieve a shared goal.
Nouns and Uniswap are two iconic examples. Nouns is a small organisation with $40m in its treasury to build a brand. The voting quorum is 37 Nouns, and DAO members have a vote for every Nouns token they have bought. By contrast, Uniswap voters each hold a quantity of UNI, the platform’s currency in which fees are paid and earnt. With one minted every day, there are just 588 Nouns (Jan 25th, 2023), but 1 billion Uniswap tokens. The Uniswap voting quorum is $40 million UNI, and the treasury is around $4 billion.
Tweets
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