A shower thought I recently had: We need to be parasitic to the current economic system to reach critical mass that takes ReFi mainstream.

Let me explain, the world is going through rapid changes and soon we will confront a reality that’s vastly different than what it is currently. 

Where are we going? A techno capital driven system that repeats the old patterns of domination like slaveholders and slaves, feudal lords and serfs, capital owners and workers. Soon there will be tech driven dominant structures powered by AI, if it’s not already here. 

With Deepseek’s R1 release of an open source model that’s comparable to OpenAI’s o1, open source is not far behind the bleeding edge. It does seem like the democratisation of AI will make it more decentralised and personal like how smartphones enabled everyone to have a computer in their pocket.

But today the tech cloud that hosts data and AI is still run by centralised platforms who farm humans for attention and data, building a future that replaces human labour, albeit partially. Will they come around and act in the best interests of people eventually? Not sure we have seen many examples of it in history. The newly announced Stargate project is only going to consolidate that power and lead to Big Brother scenarios. 

What is a possible condition to avoid such an outcome? Majority of AI will run on personal devices locally like Truffle-1 (also smartphones and laptops) and interface with the internet via sovereign public cloud networks that work on vastly different ethos compared to big tech cloud - true ownership and control of data by the individual and business (the "own" part of read, write, own).

Out with the USA vs China AI arms race we currently seem to be in the midst of. In with who can leverage this tech in the most beneficial way for humanity. It’s the moloch at play that’s harnessing our fear mindset and tricking us to think its a zero sum game. 

But what does it have to with ReFi? In ReFi we are focused on building socio economic systems of the post-capitalistic world, that reward humans for outcomes that lead to a greater, holistic common good i.e, healthy natural ecosystems, caring and happy humans, etc. 

We need the third attractor outside of the dominant market or state driven economic systems - a commons driven economy. Every major societal shift happened because there were underlying conditions that emerged to form a dominant system from being a sub system. For example - there would be no capitalism without capitalists, i.e. a merchant class which over time, created a society at their image; similarly today, a commons-centric society may result from the efforts of digital and cosmo-local commoners to create a society at their image. Around this change in practices, and social desires and imaginaries, changing jurisdictional alliances will eventually lead to a new institutional order - a regenerative/solarpunk future.

It has to be a peer to peer(p2p) technology systems powering this shift in a truly decentralised, unstoppable way. We already have the tech that can host and run LLMs entirely on chain and be controlled by DAO members through smart contracts. We have the tech to host full enterprise grade software without big tech cloud. Blockchains like Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) already enable such capabilities but Holochain, Arweave and Ethereum’s World Computer vision to could also potentially serve this purpose. 

How do we align people on values that lead to more common good in the world without relying on centralised coercion? 

By collectively building protocols and apps that power the digital infrastructure ReFi needs, in a decentralised p2p way (Regen Network, OpenCivics and Tools for the Commons are a some primitives working in this direction). I believe this to be the most effective way to run organisations and social systems of the future.

While this addresses things at a technological layer, we still need to crack the financial, social and cultural layers for the systems to be broadly adopted. We gotta offer more than what existing systems do, for more individuals to switch to a new way of life. It simply needs to be a better product. iPhone didn’t win because it was just another phone with a touch screen. It had 10x better user experience and an App Store that allowed entrepreneurs to create apps and ready distribution channels to make money from it. 

ReFi needs to not only offer better financial returns than TradFi ($EARTH can provide a 25-42% yield by funding climate solutions in critical sectors of our society) but also the user experience to match web2 (caffiene.ai on ICP is a web app builder that unlocks capabilities allowing anyone to build web2 grade apps fully on-chain with web3 functionalities by chatting).

Can we pay enough for humans to sustain a living by primarily contributing to the commons? Work like ecosystem conservation, plastic recycling, care work and other everyday habits that help the world, have to offer better financial returns in $$ terms plus some regen tokens as a cherry on top. Regen tokens should have real utility in a local economy where they can be transacted for locally produced goods like food, shelter, etc so local communities can be partly sovereign from the current financial system. Imo we are still a long way from this. Is it possible? Absolutely, Grassroots Economics is a pioneering movement that builds regenerative economies with local production and local currencies representing their unique value system across Africa.

Can we also make it easy for anyone to fundraise for entrepreneurial efforts that lead to positive outcomes and help them sustain that impact economy? Yes, we have the primitives like Augmented Bonding Curves and q/acc fit for that purpose. Although we need way more funding than what’s currently out there for building the commons such as MRV and other tech tools and systems that need more resources to support the ecosystem and be of higher value in the market.

Now to the social and cultural layer. Can we make it more fun, engaging, cool and easier to interact with these systems? Lots to learn from the meme culture and gamification communities on this front. It makes normies who don’t care about the tech but want to affect the influence of big brother and big tech - who seem to be colluding and people are waking up to this reality. They will want to participate in a movement that can decentralise power and help communities regain agency while also helping the environment. 

We can meet people where they are - what do they enjoy doing? what do they care about? can we help them overcome obstacles? can we make cool art, music and movies through which they can be educated and engaged with our protocols? There are many out there that are aligned with the future we we working towards, it's time to bring them all onboard and reach that critical mass for takeoff.

Here’s where ReFi needs to be a parasite to the current economic system - i.e. we need to extract from it to build a new system where regeneration is the default mode of operation. It’s upto us to figure out how to align people’s self interests with that future, a symbiotic relationship for all parties. How does that look? Vitalik has some answers about meme coins funding causes but we can get more creative. It’s always going to be a spectrum of how much of it is allocated to self interest vs ReFi, but as long as we are extracting we are doing fine. Call it Extractive Finance (ExFi or xFi) if you like! 

A shower thought I recently had: We need to be parasitic to the current economic system to reach critical mass that takes ReFi mainstream.

Let me explain, the world is going through rapid changes and soon we will confront a reality that’s vastly different than what it is currently. 

Where are we going? A techno capital driven system that repeats the old patterns of domination like slaveholders and slaves, feudal lords and serfs, capital owners and workers. Soon there will be tech driven dominant structures powered by AI, if it’s not already here. 

With Deepseek’s R1 release of an open source model that’s comparable to OpenAI’s o1, open source is not far behind the bleeding edge. It does seem like the democratisation of AI will make it more decentralised and personal like how smartphones enabled everyone to have a computer in their pocket.

But today the tech cloud that hosts data and AI is still run by centralised platforms who farm humans for attention and data, building a future that replaces human labour, albeit partially. Will they come around and act in the best interests of people eventually? Not sure we have seen many examples of it in history. The newly announced Stargate project is only going to consolidate that power and lead to Big Brother scenarios. 

What is a possible condition to avoid such an outcome? Majority of AI will run on personal devices locally like Truffle-1 (also smartphones and laptops) and interface with the internet via sovereign public cloud networks that work on vastly different ethos compared to big tech cloud - true ownership and control of data by the individual and business (the "own" part of read, write, own).

Out with the USA vs China AI arms race we currently seem to be in the midst of. In with who can leverage this tech in the most beneficial way for humanity. It’s the moloch at play that’s harnessing our fear mindset and tricking us to think its a zero sum game. 

But what does it have to with ReFi? In ReFi we are focused on building socio economic systems of the post-capitalistic world, that reward humans for outcomes that lead to a greater, holistic common good i.e, healthy natural ecosystems, caring and happy humans, etc. 

We need the third attractor outside of the dominant market or state driven economic systems - a commons driven economy. Every major societal shift happened because there were underlying conditions that emerged to form a dominant system from being a sub system. For example - there would be no capitalism without capitalists, i.e. a merchant class which over time, created a society at their image; similarly today, a commons-centric society may result from the efforts of digital and cosmo-local commoners to create a society at their image. Around this change in practices, and social desires and imaginaries, changing jurisdictional alliances will eventually lead to a new institutional order - a regenerative/solarpunk future.

It has to be a peer to peer(p2p) technology systems powering this shift in a truly decentralised, unstoppable way. We already have the tech that can host and run LLMs entirely on chain and be controlled by DAO members through smart contracts. We have the tech to host full enterprise grade software without big tech cloud. Blockchains like Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) already enable such capabilities but Holochain, Arweave and Ethereum’s World Computer vision to could also potentially serve this purpose. 

How do we align people on values that lead to more common good in the world without relying on centralised coercion? 

By collectively building protocols and apps that power the digital infrastructure ReFi needs, in a decentralised p2p way (Regen Network, OpenCivics and Tools for the Commons are a some primitives working in this direction). I believe this to be the most effective way to run organisations and social systems of the future.

While this addresses things at a technological layer, we still need to crack the financial, social and cultural layers for the systems to be broadly adopted. We gotta offer more than what existing systems do, for more individuals to switch to a new way of life. It simply needs to be a better product. iPhone didn’t win because it was just another phone with a touch screen. It had 10x better user experience and an App Store that allowed entrepreneurs to create apps and ready distribution channels to make money from it. 

ReFi needs to not only offer better financial returns than TradFi ($EARTH can provide a 25-42% yield by funding climate solutions in critical sectors of our society) but also the user experience to match web2 (caffiene.ai on ICP is a web app builder that unlocks capabilities allowing anyone to build web2 grade apps fully on-chain with web3 functionalities by chatting).

Can we pay enough for humans to sustain a living by primarily contributing to the commons? Work like ecosystem conservation, plastic recycling, care work and other everyday habits that help the world, have to offer better financial returns in $$ terms plus some regen tokens as a cherry on top. Regen tokens should have real utility in a local economy where they can be transacted for locally produced goods like food, shelter, etc so local communities can be partly sovereign from the current financial system. Imo we are still a long way from this. Is it possible? Absolutely, Grassroots Economics is a pioneering movement that builds regenerative economies with local production and local currencies representing their unique value system across Africa.

Can we also make it easy for anyone to fundraise for entrepreneurial efforts that lead to positive outcomes and help them sustain that impact economy? Yes, we have the primitives like Augmented Bonding Curves and q/acc fit for that purpose. Although we need way more funding than what’s currently out there for building the commons such as MRV and other tech tools and systems that need more resources to support the ecosystem and be of higher value in the market.

Now to the social and cultural layer. Can we make it more fun, engaging, cool and easier to interact with these systems? Lots to learn from the meme culture and gamification communities on this front. It makes normies who don’t care about the tech but want to affect the influence of big brother and big tech - who seem to be colluding and people are waking up to this reality. They will want to participate in a movement that can decentralise power and help communities regain agency while also helping the environment. 

We can meet people where they are - what do they enjoy doing? what do they care about? can we help them overcome obstacles? can we make cool art, music and movies through which they can be educated and engaged with our protocols? There are many out there that are aligned with the future we we working towards, it's time to bring them all onboard and reach that critical mass for takeoff.

Here’s where ReFi needs to be a parasite to the current economic system - i.e. we need to extract from it to build a new system where regeneration is the default mode of operation. It’s upto us to figure out how to align people’s self interests with that future, a symbiotic relationship for all parties. How does that look? Vitalik has some answers about meme coins funding causes but we can get more creative. It’s always going to be a spectrum of how much of it is allocated to self interest vs ReFi, but as long as we are extracting we are doing fine. Call it Extractive Finance (ExFi or xFi) if you like!