While the vision for City/Sync is extremely ambitious, we recognize the need to start somewhere practical. For us, the ability to run a pilot is a stepping stone toward that vision, and it serves as a procedural artifact for how to replicate the foundational processes that will enable it. 

The engine of the City/Sync framework relies on the ability to recognize existing communal behaviors and to incentivize new ones.  The U.N. estimates that we have approximately 2.1 BILLION people who volunteer monthly either through incorporated entities or through direct volunteerism with each other.  This is a massive labor market with no standardized mechanisms that are able to recognize or reward their contributions, or to improve the effectiveness of their coordination efforts.

City/Sync wants to prove that through the use of blockchain technologies, we can create a Civic-Labor Credit system that can become a new standard for a Public-Sector economy.  This is the Pilot we seek to implement.

So let's get into the details of what we are proposing.

We have 3 major roles within the proposed Public-Sector economy - Issuers, Redeemers, and Civic-Participants.

Issuer Organizations
Issuers are organizations that issue tasks which expand the impact of their organizational mandates.  These are organizations who would directly benefit from expanding their functions as a means to execute on their mission statements.

Eligibility requirements for Issuers are that they must be an incorporated public-service organization that have a local service history, and have the capacity to manage a volunteer program.

Ideally the first Issuer organizations within the pilot will be organizations that already facilitate volunteer work and who have a group of dedicated volunteers that are available to execute the issued tasks.

The rules around issuance are extremely important, and therefore governance around these rules are also important.  Once the initial cohort of Issuer Organizations have been onboarded into the pilot, they will join a Representative Issuer Committee that will be responsible for managing the following:

Task Rules - the Task Rules dictate what types of tasks are deemed acceptable from the perspective of the Issuer Committee.  The initial ruleset will make two declarations: (1) tasks cannot replace existing paid functions of the Issuer organization, and (2) tasks must facilitate the delivery of a public good or public service. 

Task Catalog - the Task Catalog is the approved list of tasks that detail the scope of each task (time, nature, benefit, and a description of what success looks like), and quantifies each task in a relative pricing system that will evolve over time. The goal of the Task Catalog is to organize tasks into tiers, and to price the value of similar tasks, similarly.  This provides consistency among Issuer Organizations and creates a predictable supply of Credits when executing formal public planning.  Additionally the categorization of tasks will establish how task credential requirements are handled (elder care, specialization functions), and will reserve some categories of tasks toward equity and inclusion initiatives (tasks for disabled, mentally impaired, etc.).  

Issuer Onboarding - the Issuer Onboarding procedures establish the process for onboarding as an Issuer Organization, and create agreements among new members about Governance Rules, and the adherence to network standards.

Issuance Cap - the Representative Issuer Committee will be responsible for establishing the Issuance Cap (the maximum amount of credits that can be distributed in a given time period).  The Issuance Cap is the first economic control tool in the public-sector economy toolkit.

Redeemer Organizations

Redeemers are organizations that offer access to goods and services in exchange for the redemption of civic-credits. These are organizations that already provide some type of public service or public good as part of their mission.  This also extends to organizations that provide some type of common goods and club goods as well. 

The benefit here is that Redeemer Organizations typically receive some type of subsidy for providing these goods already, and their ability to grant access to these goods or services is not hindered by their financial dependence to provide them.  The potential target organizations are those that provision goods and services that are underutilized in the private economy and have the capacity to provide access without additional costs (think about our trains, buses, museums, zoo’s, etc.).

There are a lot of really awesome goods and services that have unused capacity, and these organizations can create the incentives for the issuance and execution of civic-labor all while increasing their visibility and role in the public-sector economy.

Likewise, the rules around Redemptions will also be managed by an initial cohort of Redeemer Organizations that will form a Representative Redeemer Committee.  This group will be responsible for managing the following:

Redemption Rules - the Redemption Rules establish the processes and procedures for introducing new offerings, modifying redemption rates for current offerings, and removing offerings.  Ideally, we want offerings to remain as consistent as possible in order to provide Civic-Participants stable expectations regarding redemption. A major role for this committee is establishing the timelines for how long these offers will be available to the public and how often they can change.

Redemption Rates Guidance - each Redeemer Organization will have full autonomy over the rates they set for Redemption, and what types of offerings they provide.  However, the Redeemer Committee will be responsible for setting credit-redemption targets that help balance the Issuance Rate and increase the Issuance Cap.

Redeemer Onboarding - the Redeemer Onboarding procedures establish the process for onboarding as a Redeemer Organization, and create agreements among new members about Governance Rules, and the adherence to network standards. 

Civic Participants

Civic Participants are individuals who claim and execute civic-labor opportunities provided by Issuer Organizations, and redeem those credits with Redeemer Organizations.

This group of participants are responsible for increasing the execution capacity of our public-sector.  All Civic Participants are required to attend in-person onboarding with a local Issuer Organization that will activate their mobile wallet and allow them to claim and execute tasks within that jurisdiction moving forward. 

Likewise, the most active Civic Participants (based on Vote Issuance, which participants receive 1:1 with the credits they earn) will participate in periodic Representative Civic Committee meetings that will manage the following:

Issuer/Redeemer Feedback - all Civic Participants will have a pathway to providing feedback on organizations, tasks, redemption experiences, and network operations as part of their participation.  The Civic Committee is responsible for aggregating that feedback into reports to be periodically issued to Issuer and Redeemer Committees.

Conflict Resolution Tasks - the Civic Committee will handle all issues associated with conflicts that occur within the Issuer or Redeemer governance committees including but not limited to, Onboarding Organizations, Issuance conflicts, and Redemption rules.


The Civic-Credit Lifecycle

(1) Issuer Organizations submit tasks to the Task Catalog for approval.
(2) Once approved, Issuer Organizations issue tasks with set credit values for execution.
(3) Civic Participants claim tasks, and execute.
(4) Issuer Organizations verify task completion. 
(5) Issuer Organizations release Credits to Civic Participants.
(6) Every Credit earned receives an equal amount of $VOTE.
(7) Civic Participants exchange Civic Credits for access to goods or services.
(8) Redeemer Organizations burn Civic-Credits upon redemption of goods or services.


The Economics of a Civic-Labor Credit System

A Civic-Labor Credit (CLC) system is not a monetary economy, but can be best described as a bounded coordination economy.  It formalizes civic contribution into an accounting unit that is minted upon verified civic-labor and extinguished upon redemption for defined goods or services.  The economic integrity of this system depends on an equilibrium between issuance and redemption within a constrained network.

The primary economic objective of this system is throughput optimization: increasing the volume and efficiency of civic contribution without destabilizing institutional capacity.  To achieve this, the system needs to be governed by explicit quantitative constraints that prioritize the establishment of equilibrium between issuance and redemption.

There are two models to evaluate: (1) the psychological equilibrium, and (2) the capacity equilibrium. 

The psychological equilibrium is how Civic Participants view the system at any given point in time.

The system only works if two things feel true at the same time: (1) It feels possible to earn credits, and (2) It feels possible to use them.

To understand the consequences of the first model, lets imagine the first imbalance: suppose a lot of credits are being issued.  Tasks are abundant and credits flow quickly into participants’ accounts.  But redemption options don’t expand at the same pace, or perhaps the redemption offerings are limited by time or capacity.  Over time, participants accumulate large balances but see limited pathways toward redemption. Credits in this imbalance will begin to feel less meaningful, and the incentive to execute civic-labor will erode.

Now, imagine the second imbalance: suppose redemption activity is strong, credits are being burned frequently, but issuance slows down.  Civic Participants are attracted to the redemption offerings, but opportunities feel scarce, and earning feels slow.  It takes too long to accumulate enough credits to participate meaningfully in redemption.

• Establish a repeatable municipal onboarding process. (Procedural)

• Validate participation, issuance, and service redemption mechanisms and processes. (Economic)

• Validate the concept of Mass Coordination Events (MCE’s) as a method for bootstrapping local administration. (Social)

• Expand the Issuer and Redeemer ecosystem through real-world operational use. (Governance)

Together, these objectives support a larger outcome that makes programmable public coordination observable and adoptable by cities.


Mass Coordination Events

Mass Coordination Events (MCE’s) are a mechanism that will be tested within the Pilot Program.  Once the initial cohort of Issuers and Redeemers have been onboarded, we will seek to accomplish an MCE, which is a highly visible, city-wide initiative that seeks to create a public benefit utilizing the underlying technical architecture of a public-sector economy.

MCE’s accomplish two important things: (1) it allows Issuer Organizations to work collaboratively toward executing a larger public benefit initiative within the city (learning how to coordinate collectively at scale is an important activity to practice), and (2) it incentivizes the onboarding of potential Civic Participants, Issuer Organizations, and Redeemer Organizations by creating a sense of legitimacy. 

The hope here is that if we can identify a collective community need, issue hundreds of tasks that execute on that need with hundreds of civic participants, it becomes a legitimacy engine for the adoption of the City/Sync Framework. 

In addition, during an MCE, we can seek to improve the redemption universe by temporarily onboarding private-sector companies and organizations that are willing to act as sponsors by honoring unique credits issued for those particular tasks. 

When the redemption universe for an MCE includes not just typical public goods organizations, but also restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, and the like, we can begin to illustrate the power of networked coordination at scale by creating really strong incentives for participation and cultivating a collective identity around collective action. 

Such events invoke to our communities about what is possible, and bring a level of legitimacy to the technology that facilitates it to prospective organizations, cities, and their governments.  We also hope that if successful, it becomes a method for the public-sector to tackle large-scale problems in a local setting. 


Recap

This Pilot Program is the first step to creating legitimacy for a decentralized Public Administration Framework that will seek to integrate with local governments and improve how we deliver public goods and services.

For those unfamiliar with the overall City/Sync vision, I invite you to please learn more about concepts such as decentralized Public Administration Networks (dPAN’s), or the development of Local Chains as sovereign coordination substrates.  Our larger vision for City/Sync requires the validation of this far more simple primitive of a public-sector economy based on Civic-Labor Credits, but it doesn't stop there.

If successful, we believe we can unlock a wide array of new coordination mechanisms that will facilitate the creation and delivery of public goods and services more effectively and at a lower cost than local governments currently provide.

Tools can only get us so far, but they can help facilitate the necessary social norms and behaviors required for humanity to thrive in the next century. 

We are moving forward with this regardless of how long it takes, and we always welcome any contributions from our Web3 friends and family.


If you are interested in building with us, please do email me: natesuits@pm.me

Or join our Discord:

While the vision for City/Sync is extremely ambitious, we recognize the need to start somewhere practical. For us, the ability to run a pilot is a stepping stone toward that vision, and it serves as a procedural artifact for how to replicate the foundational processes that will enable it. 

The engine of the City/Sync framework relies on the ability to recognize existing communal behaviors and to incentivize new ones.  The U.N. estimates that we have approximately 2.1 BILLION people who volunteer monthly either through incorporated entities or through direct volunteerism with each other.  This is a massive labor market with no standardized mechanisms that are able to recognize or reward their contributions, or to improve the effectiveness of their coordination efforts.

City/Sync wants to prove that through the use of blockchain technologies, we can create a Civic-Labor Credit system that can become a new standard for a Public-Sector economy.  This is the Pilot we seek to implement.

So let's get into the details of what we are proposing.

We have 3 major roles within the proposed Public-Sector economy - Issuers, Redeemers, and Civic-Participants.

Issuer Organizations
Issuers are organizations that issue tasks which expand the impact of their organizational mandates.  These are organizations who would directly benefit from expanding their functions as a means to execute on their mission statements.

Eligibility requirements for Issuers are that they must be an incorporated public-service organization that have a local service history, and have the capacity to manage a volunteer program.

Ideally the first Issuer organizations within the pilot will be organizations that already facilitate volunteer work and who have a group of dedicated volunteers that are available to execute the issued tasks.

The rules around issuance are extremely important, and therefore governance around these rules are also important.  Once the initial cohort of Issuer Organizations have been onboarded into the pilot, they will join a Representative Issuer Committee that will be responsible for managing the following:

Task Rules - the Task Rules dictate what types of tasks are deemed acceptable from the perspective of the Issuer Committee.  The initial ruleset will make two declarations: (1) tasks cannot replace existing paid functions of the Issuer organization, and (2) tasks must facilitate the delivery of a public good or public service. 

Task Catalog - the Task Catalog is the approved list of tasks that detail the scope of each task (time, nature, benefit, and a description of what success looks like), and quantifies each task in a relative pricing system that will evolve over time. The goal of the Task Catalog is to organize tasks into tiers, and to price the value of similar tasks, similarly.  This provides consistency among Issuer Organizations and creates a predictable supply of Credits when executing formal public planning.  Additionally the categorization of tasks will establish how task credential requirements are handled (elder care, specialization functions), and will reserve some categories of tasks toward equity and inclusion initiatives (tasks for disabled, mentally impaired, etc.).  

Issuer Onboarding - the Issuer Onboarding procedures establish the process for onboarding as an Issuer Organization, and create agreements among new members about Governance Rules, and the adherence to network standards.

Issuance Cap - the Representative Issuer Committee will be responsible for establishing the Issuance Cap (the maximum amount of credits that can be distributed in a given time period).  The Issuance Cap is the first economic control tool in the public-sector economy toolkit.

Redeemer Organizations

Redeemers are organizations that offer access to goods and services in exchange for the redemption of civic-credits. These are organizations that already provide some type of public service or public good as part of their mission.  This also extends to organizations that provide some type of common goods and club goods as well. 

The benefit here is that Redeemer Organizations typically receive some type of subsidy for providing these goods already, and their ability to grant access to these goods or services is not hindered by their financial dependence to provide them.  The potential target organizations are those that provision goods and services that are underutilized in the private economy and have the capacity to provide access without additional costs (think about our trains, buses, museums, zoo’s, etc.).

There are a lot of really awesome goods and services that have unused capacity, and these organizations can create the incentives for the issuance and execution of civic-labor all while increasing their visibility and role in the public-sector economy.

Likewise, the rules around Redemptions will also be managed by an initial cohort of Redeemer Organizations that will form a Representative Redeemer Committee.  This group will be responsible for managing the following:

Redemption Rules - the Redemption Rules establish the processes and procedures for introducing new offerings, modifying redemption rates for current offerings, and removing offerings.  Ideally, we want offerings to remain as consistent as possible in order to provide Civic-Participants stable expectations regarding redemption. A major role for this committee is establishing the timelines for how long these offers will be available to the public and how often they can change.

Redemption Rates Guidance - each Redeemer Organization will have full autonomy over the rates they set for Redemption, and what types of offerings they provide.  However, the Redeemer Committee will be responsible for setting credit-redemption targets that help balance the Issuance Rate and increase the Issuance Cap.

Redeemer Onboarding - the Redeemer Onboarding procedures establish the process for onboarding as a Redeemer Organization, and create agreements among new members about Governance Rules, and the adherence to network standards. 

Civic Participants

Civic Participants are individuals who claim and execute civic-labor opportunities provided by Issuer Organizations, and redeem those credits with Redeemer Organizations.

This group of participants are responsible for increasing the execution capacity of our public-sector.  All Civic Participants are required to attend in-person onboarding with a local Issuer Organization that will activate their mobile wallet and allow them to claim and execute tasks within that jurisdiction moving forward. 

Likewise, the most active Civic Participants (based on Vote Issuance, which participants receive 1:1 with the credits they earn) will participate in periodic Representative Civic Committee meetings that will manage the following:

Issuer/Redeemer Feedback - all Civic Participants will have a pathway to providing feedback on organizations, tasks, redemption experiences, and network operations as part of their participation.  The Civic Committee is responsible for aggregating that feedback into reports to be periodically issued to Issuer and Redeemer Committees.

Conflict Resolution Tasks - the Civic Committee will handle all issues associated with conflicts that occur within the Issuer or Redeemer governance committees including but not limited to, Onboarding Organizations, Issuance conflicts, and Redemption rules.


The Civic-Credit Lifecycle

(1) Issuer Organizations submit tasks to the Task Catalog for approval.
(2) Once approved, Issuer Organizations issue tasks with set credit values for execution.
(3) Civic Participants claim tasks, and execute.
(4) Issuer Organizations verify task completion. 
(5) Issuer Organizations release Credits to Civic Participants.
(6) Every Credit earned receives an equal amount of $VOTE.
(7) Civic Participants exchange Civic Credits for access to goods or services.
(8) Redeemer Organizations burn Civic-Credits upon redemption of goods or services.


The Economics of a Civic-Labor Credit System

A Civic-Labor Credit (CLC) system is not a monetary economy, but can be best described as a bounded coordination economy.  It formalizes civic contribution into an accounting unit that is minted upon verified civic-labor and extinguished upon redemption for defined goods or services.  The economic integrity of this system depends on an equilibrium between issuance and redemption within a constrained network.

The primary economic objective of this system is throughput optimization: increasing the volume and efficiency of civic contribution without destabilizing institutional capacity.  To achieve this, the system needs to be governed by explicit quantitative constraints that prioritize the establishment of equilibrium between issuance and redemption.

There are two models to evaluate: (1) the psychological equilibrium, and (2) the capacity equilibrium. 

The psychological equilibrium is how Civic Participants view the system at any given point in time.

The system only works if two things feel true at the same time: (1) It feels possible to earn credits, and (2) It feels possible to use them.

To understand the consequences of the first model, lets imagine the first imbalance: suppose a lot of credits are being issued.  Tasks are abundant and credits flow quickly into participants’ accounts.  But redemption options don’t expand at the same pace, or perhaps the redemption offerings are limited by time or capacity.  Over time, participants accumulate large balances but see limited pathways toward redemption. Credits in this imbalance will begin to feel less meaningful, and the incentive to execute civic-labor will erode.

Now, imagine the second imbalance: suppose redemption activity is strong, credits are being burned frequently, but issuance slows down.  Civic Participants are attracted to the redemption offerings, but opportunities feel scarce, and earning feels slow.  It takes too long to accumulate enough credits to participate meaningfully in redemption.

• Establish a repeatable municipal onboarding process. (Procedural)

• Validate participation, issuance, and service redemption mechanisms and processes. (Economic)

• Validate the concept of Mass Coordination Events (MCE’s) as a method for bootstrapping local administration. (Social)

• Expand the Issuer and Redeemer ecosystem through real-world operational use. (Governance)

Together, these objectives support a larger outcome that makes programmable public coordination observable and adoptable by cities.


Mass Coordination Events

Mass Coordination Events (MCE’s) are a mechanism that will be tested within the Pilot Program.  Once the initial cohort of Issuers and Redeemers have been onboarded, we will seek to accomplish an MCE, which is a highly visible, city-wide initiative that seeks to create a public benefit utilizing the underlying technical architecture of a public-sector economy.

MCE’s accomplish two important things: (1) it allows Issuer Organizations to work collaboratively toward executing a larger public benefit initiative within the city (learning how to coordinate collectively at scale is an important activity to practice), and (2) it incentivizes the onboarding of potential Civic Participants, Issuer Organizations, and Redeemer Organizations by creating a sense of legitimacy. 

The hope here is that if we can identify a collective community need, issue hundreds of tasks that execute on that need with hundreds of civic participants, it becomes a legitimacy engine for the adoption of the City/Sync Framework. 

In addition, during an MCE, we can seek to improve the redemption universe by temporarily onboarding private-sector companies and organizations that are willing to act as sponsors by honoring unique credits issued for those particular tasks. 

When the redemption universe for an MCE includes not just typical public goods organizations, but also restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, and the like, we can begin to illustrate the power of networked coordination at scale by creating really strong incentives for participation and cultivating a collective identity around collective action. 

Such events invoke to our communities about what is possible, and bring a level of legitimacy to the technology that facilitates it to prospective organizations, cities, and their governments.  We also hope that if successful, it becomes a method for the public-sector to tackle large-scale problems in a local setting. 


Recap

This Pilot Program is the first step to creating legitimacy for a decentralized Public Administration Framework that will seek to integrate with local governments and improve how we deliver public goods and services.

For those unfamiliar with the overall City/Sync vision, I invite you to please learn more about concepts such as decentralized Public Administration Networks (dPAN’s), or the development of Local Chains as sovereign coordination substrates.  Our larger vision for City/Sync requires the validation of this far more simple primitive of a public-sector economy based on Civic-Labor Credits, but it doesn't stop there.

If successful, we believe we can unlock a wide array of new coordination mechanisms that will facilitate the creation and delivery of public goods and services more effectively and at a lower cost than local governments currently provide.

Tools can only get us so far, but they can help facilitate the necessary social norms and behaviors required for humanity to thrive in the next century. 

We are moving forward with this regardless of how long it takes, and we always welcome any contributions from our Web3 friends and family.


If you are interested in building with us, please do email me: natesuits@pm.me

Or join our Discord: