Subscribe to Rohit Malekar
<100 subscribers
Rohit MalekarBlockchain for Public Goods - A Prequel to the Book Greenpilled
IntroductionI wrote this article an attempt for a prequel to the book Greenpilled. The book by Kevin Owocki is “designed to teach the ethos & game theoretic concepts behind regenerative cryptoeconomics to the next generation of dreamers, builders, and internet citizens”. If you are new to Web3 and Crypto, I hope this article serves as a stepping stone to then deep dive into the vision Greenpilled has to offer to sustain and thrive our public goods.What is broken?Our public goods are withering...
Rohit MalekarThe Decentralized Web and the Rise of Transparency-First Institutions
The inevitable redistribution of powerEvery generation has a seminal fight or two that define its years of existence. The memorable ones include people joining hands for the greater good in spite of individual sacrifices. The most memorable ones are rooted in defending the lines for equity and justice. As with earlier efforts in decentralization, whether its labor unions or cooperatives, the building of decentralized Web will see its chapters of resistance.It just might not look like the batt...
Rohit MalekarOpen Collective As a Decentralized Global Public Good
Exit to Community with Curve Bonded CrowdfundingThe following is a thought experiment to explore how Open Collective can Exit to Community. The goal here is to “transition from a privately owned company to a structure that allows us to share power and revenue” with its community comprising of employees, Fiscal Hosts, Collectives, funders, investors, and individual contributors. You can read about Open Collective and its pursuit to exit to the community here. This proposal is based on how Comm...
Rohit MalekarBlockchain for Public Goods - A Prequel to the Book Greenpilled
IntroductionI wrote this article an attempt for a prequel to the book Greenpilled. The book by Kevin Owocki is “designed to teach the ethos & game theoretic concepts behind regenerative cryptoeconomics to the next generation of dreamers, builders, and internet citizens”. If you are new to Web3 and Crypto, I hope this article serves as a stepping stone to then deep dive into the vision Greenpilled has to offer to sustain and thrive our public goods.What is broken?Our public goods are withering...
Rohit MalekarThe Decentralized Web and the Rise of Transparency-First Institutions
The inevitable redistribution of powerEvery generation has a seminal fight or two that define its years of existence. The memorable ones include people joining hands for the greater good in spite of individual sacrifices. The most memorable ones are rooted in defending the lines for equity and justice. As with earlier efforts in decentralization, whether its labor unions or cooperatives, the building of decentralized Web will see its chapters of resistance.It just might not look like the batt...
Rohit MalekarOpen Collective As a Decentralized Global Public Good
Exit to Community with Curve Bonded CrowdfundingThe following is a thought experiment to explore how Open Collective can Exit to Community. The goal here is to “transition from a privately owned company to a structure that allows us to share power and revenue” with its community comprising of employees, Fiscal Hosts, Collectives, funders, investors, and individual contributors. You can read about Open Collective and its pursuit to exit to the community here. This proposal is based on how Comm...
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
There are a ton of valid use cases for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) in Web 3.0. But there is ten times the noise and infatuation with underlying tech for the "how" before solving the "why".
Here are 5 questions worth thinking about before evaluating the construct of a DAO for the problem you are attempting.
In theory, a DAO decentralizes the power to decide how to extract value and automates the ability to extract it, thus drastically reducing historically prevalent sources of information asymmetry, corruption, and ineffectiveness.
To evaluate what institutions are most ripe for disruption by creating a DAO, think of a few examples where the stakeholders or communities impacted by the institution are most removed from the process today. Run them through these questions and you will sense a pattern emerging.
By no means exhaustive, we ought to have clear answers on some of these before embracing Blockchain or tokens or coins to create a DAO, or worse, pivoting an existing Web 2.0 effort to force-fit into a DAO.
ALIGNMENT of financial incentives: Today, how strongly are the gains correlated for those who are in control of decisions versus those impacted? (e.g. there is a systemic weak correlation between policy holders' financial well-being and margins of a health insurance company)
REPRESENTATION of the community: Today, how much change is driven by those impacted versus those in control? (e.g. the most vulnerable in our societies have little say with how effectively social welfare is implemented by the government)
INFLUENCE in the outcome by the community: Today, how much of the value created by the institution is a direct result of the community's effort? (e.g. most gig economy platforms are efficient intermediaries at best for the work put in by partners)
ENABLEMENT by automation: Today, how much of the day-to-day interactions between the community and the institution have the potential to be codified by a ruleset? (e.g. most of the needs of a retail banking customer can be confined within a series of predictable steps)
SENTIENT specialist expertise needed: Today, how wide and deep are the requirements for human subject matter experts to be at the helm for managing exceptions and out-of-ordinary situations? (e.g. most social media platforms need humans in the loop to address hate speech)
The answers will tend to cluster together at one end of the spectrum where centrally controlled organizations or environments operated by closed intermediaries are holding unreasonable power over the impacted community. That cluster will be disrupted before others.
But expect some noise in the ecosystem before that, especially around the glitter of tokens and coins. At this point, I am simply wishing as many brands should try out their fantasies for "tokens for XYZ" and then move on to their next fad, so we can get to the real potential of Web 3.0 in terms of elevating the less heard voices.
What will be built-to-last in Web 3.0 will have roots in self-governance.
Token drops likely ain't going to give that. Also, don't trust anyone who says they have figured it out. That's like stating in 1994 what the Internet of 2021 would be like.
(Photo by Mateusz Dach from Pexels)
There are a ton of valid use cases for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) in Web 3.0. But there is ten times the noise and infatuation with underlying tech for the "how" before solving the "why".
Here are 5 questions worth thinking about before evaluating the construct of a DAO for the problem you are attempting.
In theory, a DAO decentralizes the power to decide how to extract value and automates the ability to extract it, thus drastically reducing historically prevalent sources of information asymmetry, corruption, and ineffectiveness.
To evaluate what institutions are most ripe for disruption by creating a DAO, think of a few examples where the stakeholders or communities impacted by the institution are most removed from the process today. Run them through these questions and you will sense a pattern emerging.
By no means exhaustive, we ought to have clear answers on some of these before embracing Blockchain or tokens or coins to create a DAO, or worse, pivoting an existing Web 2.0 effort to force-fit into a DAO.
ALIGNMENT of financial incentives: Today, how strongly are the gains correlated for those who are in control of decisions versus those impacted? (e.g. there is a systemic weak correlation between policy holders' financial well-being and margins of a health insurance company)
REPRESENTATION of the community: Today, how much change is driven by those impacted versus those in control? (e.g. the most vulnerable in our societies have little say with how effectively social welfare is implemented by the government)
INFLUENCE in the outcome by the community: Today, how much of the value created by the institution is a direct result of the community's effort? (e.g. most gig economy platforms are efficient intermediaries at best for the work put in by partners)
ENABLEMENT by automation: Today, how much of the day-to-day interactions between the community and the institution have the potential to be codified by a ruleset? (e.g. most of the needs of a retail banking customer can be confined within a series of predictable steps)
SENTIENT specialist expertise needed: Today, how wide and deep are the requirements for human subject matter experts to be at the helm for managing exceptions and out-of-ordinary situations? (e.g. most social media platforms need humans in the loop to address hate speech)
The answers will tend to cluster together at one end of the spectrum where centrally controlled organizations or environments operated by closed intermediaries are holding unreasonable power over the impacted community. That cluster will be disrupted before others.
But expect some noise in the ecosystem before that, especially around the glitter of tokens and coins. At this point, I am simply wishing as many brands should try out their fantasies for "tokens for XYZ" and then move on to their next fad, so we can get to the real potential of Web 3.0 in terms of elevating the less heard voices.
What will be built-to-last in Web 3.0 will have roots in self-governance.
Token drops likely ain't going to give that. Also, don't trust anyone who says they have figured it out. That's like stating in 1994 what the Internet of 2021 would be like.
(Photo by Mateusz Dach from Pexels)
No comments yet