Video: Bread Coop Community Call with Updraft

Our most recent community call featured Updraft and founder Adam Stallard, where he presented a way we can fund democratic ideas without grant committees. The Bread Coop Cafe Discord channel is home to many insightful presentations, and this one got into many aspects of how a lot of our frustrations in crypto can be improved. Community Calls happen almost every week on Wednesdays, keep an eye out for the next one.

Podcast: Is This The New Internet Podcast

You're Upset at Capitalism, Not Technology

Joshua Davila, The Blockchain Socialist, joins me on the newest episode of Is This The New Internet?

https://hellofrommarv.substack.com

Breadfam Josh & Marv chatted on Is This The New Internet podcast about a range of topics close to cryptoleftist passions. Contents include debanking, a history of democratic economies, in-depth explainers of Bread and how our frustration with AI is actually frustration with capitalism.

Full episode available wherever you get your podcasts, shorts are on YouTube.

Article: Why The Cooperative Movement Should Care About Crypto Still

Why the Cooperative Movement Should Care About Crypto Still | Platform Cooperativism Consortium

In August 2023, my book Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It came out through Repeater Books. The past couple of years have...

https://platform.coop

Josh wrote an article for Platform Cooperativism Consortium about the advantages of crypto that are often thrown out by the left because of how the tech/industry is perceived. It's a shared frustration for many in our space, and this is a helpful article to share with leftist friends who have dismissed crypto because of only having seen our worst actors.

Article: Socialist Co-Ops Against Silicon Valley Empires

Socialist Co-Ops Against Silicon Valley Empires

Co-ops are often dismissed as attempts to create islands of socialism. But building democratically controlled tech infrastructure can be part of a wider movement for working-class power.

https://jacobin.com

Stefano Tortorici and R. Trebor Scholz make a compelling case in Jacobin for why cooperatives need to stop pretending they're apolitical. The piece argues that without co-ops actively aligning with unions and social movements, Big Tech wins by default. It asks hard questions about what it actually takes to build counterpower in the AI era, and doesn't let the cooperative movement off the hook.

And so ends our first-ever Bread Co-op Media Update! This is an open space where we'll continue to share updates, drop any articles you would like to be considered for inclusion on the Discord.

Till next time,

Solidarity forever 🍞

Solidarity economics are core to our values at Bread, and this includes the ability to freely participate without the fear of having your identity revealed. Debanking and exclusion from traditional finance is a very real threat to many who operate online, especially in leftist spaces.

We are incredibly proud with the work done to contribute to onchain privacy, and grateful to be trusted by the Ethereum Foundation in building such an important tenet for the network going forward.

Josh | ⬛🟥⬛

@TBSocialist

Stoked to see our work on the Kohaku wallet being shown on the big stage at EthCC! It was a pleasure to work with the @ethereumfndn

If you're interested in working with us (@breadcoop), please reach out to contact@bread.coop

youtube.com/watch?v=yp2oW6…

8

9:55 • 6 Apr 2026

The Problem: Every Move You Make Is Public

When you use a standard Ethereum wallet, everything you do is visible to anyone who looks. Every token you send, every payment you receive, every wallet balance. Transparency was necessary by design , and is central to how blockchains prove wallet balances. But it is also a serious problem for anyone who does not want their financial life on display.

Thanks to the way standard crypto wallets work, the privacy leaks go deeper than the ledger. Connecting and transacting exposes your IP address and network activity to centralised service providers sitting between you and the blockchain.

Previous attempts to fix this required users to jump through technical hoops just to achieve basic transaction privacy, and most people never bothered. The honest conclusion from years of trying is that privacy cannot be bolted onto a wallet as an afterthought. It requires a ground-up rebuild.

The Vision: Privacy That Just Works

Kohaku is the Ethereum Foundation's answer to this problem. Led by Vitalik Buterin and Foundation protocol coordinator Nicolas Consigny, it is an open-source SDK and reference wallet designed to make private-by-default transactions normal and accessible across the Ethereum ecosystem. You can check out the video below from November 2025 where Vitalik presented the idea.

The goal is that any wallet team can build on Kohaku's toolkit and ship privacy features without reinventing the wheel. Kohaku handles the hard parts: private sends and receives, per-app account isolation so one application cannot track your activity in another, P2P transaction broadcasting that bypasses centralized nodes, and network-level traffic masking to prevent IP leaks. It is designed to be integrated by all wallet players with minimal fuss.

The project sits inside a larger Ethereum Foundation initiative called the Privacy Cluster, a team of 47 engineers, researchers, and cryptographers dedicated to making privacy a built-in property of the network, not a feature you have to opt into.

Where Bread Comes In

The Kohaku team needed a React specialist. Someone who could get inside an unfamiliar codebase, understand what it was doing, and improve it without breaking what was already working. Our frontend developer has been doing exactly that.

In close to two months, here is what has been contributed:

• A new dashboard UI. The old wallet showed you one account at a time. You had to switch between accounts to see what was happening across your wallet. We built a consolidated view that shows your total balance and all account activity at once, public and private accounts together, on a single screen.

• Significant performance improvements. The privacy stack (the part of the wallet that shields transactions and manages the link between your public and private accounts) used to take around a minute to load. By splitting a large, tangled codebase into smaller, cleaner files and optimising how the code runs, we cut that to 20 to 30 seconds.

• A better dApp connection flow. When you connect a wallet to an application, the old Kohaku forced you to use an existing account, which defeats the purpose of having privacy tools. We changed this so that connecting to a dApp prompts you to create a fresh account on the spot, fund it immediately, and go. A clean address with no history attached, every time.

The Kohaku team reviewed the work and responded well. The partnership is continuing, with a new dashboard design in progress and conversations about expanding our scope on the project.

How the Privacy Actually Works

When you open a Kohaku wallet, you get two accounts automatically. One public account, visible to anyone, which works like any standard Ethereum wallet. The other is a private account, shielded from public view, is where the privacy lives.

The flow works in 2 parts.

1 - You start by sending funds from your public account into your private account. That move is the last traceable step.

2 - an create a brand new public account with no transaction history attached to it. When you send funds from the private account to that new address, there is no link anyone can follow back to you. The chain is broken.

This is built on two established privacy protocols:

• Railgun, which is already production-ready in the Kohaku toolkit

• Privacy Pools, which adds a compliance-friendly layer letting users prove their funds are legitimate without revealing their identity.

Our developer Blessing put it plainly: "I've always preferred it when nobody can trace a particular wallet to me. If I send funds to my private account, there is no way anybody can link that to my original address. Then if I send from the private account to a new public account, I've already broken that link for anybody to trace me." That is the design goal, and it is becoming real.

Financial privacy is not a niche technical concern. Nobody should have to expose their financial life just to participate in a new financial system. Kohaku is trying to change that for Ethereum, and we are glad to be part of it.

This is exactly the sort of work that Bread Cooperative specialises in. If your organisation is looking to build specialised blockchain tooling, we are on call to help. Email us at contact@bread.coop with any requests.

You can watch the full presentation by Nicolas Consigny at ETHCC below. Vitalik also called in, sit back and enjoy.

Welcome to all the new subscribers, especially those who attended our Beyond The Bank webinar where we got to showcase our new product Bread Stacks! If you would like to download the free guide that we shared after the event, head over to our Linktree.

Another month of onchain solidarity has been completed, and we've got all the details for you below. This edition also includes a brand-new video walkthrough, and a chance to share your own ideas through our community. Up first, Distribution Cycle #20 🍞

BREAD Distribution Cycle #20

Just over 2000 $BREAD going out to our member organisations, a resounding W for onchain solidarity. Prices might be down but the Bread community has continued to show up & support causes. Here are the member projects eligible for distribution.

Whether this is your first or 20th cycle with us, it always helps to go over how all of this works. Baking $BREAD generates yield, and this yield is the engine behind our onchain solidarity. Every month, we share the yield.

50% is split equally among all 7 members. The remaining 50% is voted on by $BREAD holders. The more BREAD you hold, the more yield you generate, and the larger say you have in where it goes. Here's how the distribution panned out.

And now a final look at the numbers. Thanks so much for voting, participating and baking. It really means a lot that you continue to show up 🧡

If you'd like to bake $BREAD and contribute to onchain solidarity, we've got a step-by step walkthrough here.

How To Participate in the Bread Solidarity Fund

Bread Cooperative

Jan 20, 2026

A beginner-friendly guide to Bread Cooperative's Solidarity Fund. Learn how to bridge, bake, and burn $BREAD to support onchain solidarity.

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And if you'd like to have Bread Co-founder Josh walk you through the process himself, you're in for a treat!

New Video: Walkthrough of the $BREAD Solidarity Fund on YouTube

This video is a great one to share with friends and naysayers who think that crypto is only good for speculation.

Call For Essays

We know that the cryptoleft sits at a tricky crossroads that requires nuance to communicate, and we want to hear from you. What are your experiences in the cryptoleft like? What was the journey that got you here, and where do you believe we can go, together?

In this spirit, we are opening up space for thinkers, builders, and activists to contribute to Bread's research agenda. It can be academic, it can be personal, but what we are looking for is a clear communication style.

The ideal essays will be between 500 and 800 words, and we will share the ones we really like within our community. Just like you're reading this section in our newsletter, it could be your own thoughts that are shared across the Breadverse. If your ideas open up some great thought trains, we would love to collaborate further.

Send your finished pieces to contact@bread.coop with the subject line "Essay Submission." We'll accept rolling submissions, but keep an eye out on the Discord announcements for any approaching newsletter deadlines.

And that's a wrap!

Cycle #21 has already begun, you know the drill, head on over to the Solidarity Fund to get baking and voting. The community on Discord is thriving, so head on over and connect with like-minded folks from all over the world.

Until next time!

Solidarity forever 🍞

What are Savings Circles, and how do they work?

A group of people pool a fixed amount regularly, and each member takes turns receiving the full pot. This entire system works through interpersonal connections and social trust. Variations on this practice can be found all over the world: Tandas (Mexico), Hui (China), Esusu (Nigeria), Chit fund (India) and Gameya (Egypt) to name a few.

These practices are widely known as ROSCAs, or Rotating Savings and Credit Accounts, and for the sake of clarity we will use this term and savings circles interchangeably throughout the article.

ROSCAs are by no means an extinct ancient practice, nor are they niche. This largely invisible layer of the global economy handles over $500 billion annually. Participation rates in regions of West Africa include up to 95% of adults. CARE International's savings program has over 30 million members across 67 countries.

The research shows widespread benefits to engaging in community savings practices, with strength lying in the collective. A 2025 study in Vietnam showed ROSCA participants consistently outperformed solo savers. CARE data shows members are up to 85% more likely to have emergency savings compared to non-members.

Bread Stacks is how we take this resilient, time-tested practice online, international and onchain. Our FREE guide covers the basics of ROSCAs in much more detail, and you can download it on our Linktree. You can see an early version of Bread Stacks in action by clicking on the embed below. We frequently hold educational webinars, and they are always free to attend. Make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter to be notified of the next one.

Crypto Commons Association is a community, a research group, and an events organiser. Just like Bread Cooperative, they're built on the idea that crypto tools can and should serve the common good.

What Does Crypto Commons Association Do?

CCA organises events around regenerative and collaborative finance. These concepts contain a lot of big ideas, and CCA makes them tangible to wider audiences through games, fiction, and performance arts. There is plenty of experimentation and applied research that provides a lot of room for community participation, with the annual Crypto Commons Gathering serving as the flagship gathering.

Taking place in the Austrian Alps for its sixth year, the Commons Hub is run by CCA co-founder Felix Fritsch and his brother Emil. Sharing a space helps centre the human factor in visions for a newer, fairer economy. It's an incredible setting that provides ample opportunities to connect with like-minded people and enjoy nature. Activities outside discussions, crypto and beyond, include mountain treks and mushroom foraging.

Unlike a traditional conference where sessions and speakers are booked months in advance, an "unconference" hands the schedule to the people in the room. Each morning, participants collectively map what they want to explore that day. Sessions emerge from those conversations, themes develop, gaps get identified and addressed in the next round. Around 20% of activities might involve invited speakers. The rest is self-organised, which means what gets discussed is always a direct reflection of what the community actually cares about right now.

The Community at Crypto Commons Association

Rok describes the community as a blend of all types. People define themselves as "weird economists, commons, degrowth, feminist, queer, decolonial, multispecies, artivists, hackers and utopian dreamers." Initiatives started all around the world find a place here to hold discourse, critique, dream, eat, and play in the same space.

It is also deliberately multi-generational. The Collaborative Finance Gathering, a related event at the Hub, brings in decades of combined experience in mutual credit, local currencies, and UBI models.

Blockchain is often, as Rok puts it, "the default thing quietly running in the background" while conversations sprawl across climate activism, regenerative farming, local currencies, and post-capitalist transition. The name invites a particular audience in, but the tent is wider than it looks.

The Research Side of Crypto Commons Association

Co-founder Felix Fritsch recently completed his PhD on "The Emergence of the Crypto Commons." This is a body of work that Rok describes as "quite a monument to the movement."

The last gathering led to the revival of the Crypto Commons Research Lab. The idea, which was previously discussed, now enables publishing under a CCA-affiliate banner to draw on community members for discussions, feedback, and case studies.

The Commons Economy Roadmap, developed by co-founder Giulio Quarta, maps the most interesting projects in the blockchain-for-good space, particularly those combining economic soundness with a post-capitalist orientation.

How Bread and CCA Found Each Other

The connection is longstanding. Josh, Bread co-founder and the Blockchain Socialist, has brought Bread to nearly every major CCA event at the Commons Hub. The CCA community makes up the earliest collaborators who helped get all this rolling. Rok has watched it develop from early Breadchain into what Bread Cooperative is today.

"We are both finding intriguing solutions to and pathways for going beyond capitalist realism," he says. "It starts with imagination, but at some point it needs infrastructure."

Bread, the Solidarity Fund and upcoming Bread Stacks all provide this infrastructure. Showing the world what's possible through blockchains adds credibility to the theory.

What Does Your Vote Support?

The BREAD distribution cycle is a direct line of support for what CCA is building. The funds every month contribute to organising teams, subsidies for participants who could not otherwise attend, and room to experiment with residencies, research, and new project formats. The goal is to maximize what Rok calls "peer production value," making each event build on the last rather than exist in isolation.

"We keep space for member initiatives that may grow into research or hands-on projects, innovative funding streams, residency programmes, economic sci-fi writing clubs," he says. "You name it."

What's Coming in 2026?

There are 3 flagship events to look forward to this year.

• The sixth annual Crypto Commons Gathering this August. No predefined theme, as always, built as a live overview of the past year and a look at where things are heading.

• Worldplay is a new series combining radical games, economic science fiction, and guerrilla futuring with the practical work of imagining alternative economies.

• The fourth Collaborative Finance Gathering brings together the longer lineage of mutual credit, accounting systems, local currencies, and UBI. Less crypto-heavy, but very much at a point where crypto can create an impact.

Get Involved

The easiest entry point is the Crypto Commons Telegram group, with around 400 members. If the Austrian Alps is a manageable journey away, you are encouraged to show up to one of the events. If you attend anything in the broader ecosystem, you will likely run into someone from the CCA community before long.

Governance voting for the current distribution cycle is open now. Visit the Bread Solidarity Fund to cast your vote.

Bonus Reading

We ended our chat with Rok talking about some of the fiction and storytelling that helps us see this proposed, better future clearer. And Rok enthusiastically recommended a reading list for just that. Enjoy!

Walk Away by Cory Doctorow
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
Multi-Species Cities: Solar Punk Urban Futures (short story collection)
An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052–2072

Just a reminder that the webinar is tomorrow.

Beyond the Bank: Practical Savings Tools for Underserved Communities

Thursday, February 26 | 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM CET

Communities around the world already pool and manage money together through savings circles. Bread Stacks brings that tradition online for groups who need it most.

It's a live walkthrough, so you'll be able to ask questions in real time.

No crypto experience needed, just show up and say hi.

If you haven't registered yet, you still can: https://dandelion.events/e/v5cp2

See you tomorrow.

The Bread Cooperative team

Just a quick heads up that our webinar is coming up this Thursday.

Beyond the Bank: Practical Savings Tools for Underserved Communities

Thursday, February 26 | 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM CET

Communities around the world already pool and manage money together through savings circles. Bread Stacks brings that tradition online for groups who need it most.

It's a live walkthrough, so you'll be able to ask questions in real time.

No crypto experience needed, just show up and say hi.

Register here: https://dandelion.events/e/v5cp2

See you Thursday.

The Bread Cooperative team

• Tandas in Mexico.

• Susus in West Africa.

• Chit funds in South Asia.

• Tontines across francophone Africa.

A $500 billion informal marker running almost entirely on trust.

We've been building a digital tool that brings this model online. It's called Bread Stacks, and we're giving you an early look before it's publicly available.

Beyond the Bank: Practical Savings Tools for Underserved Communities

📅 Thursday 26th February, view your local times at the registration link.
Register here: https://dandelion.events/e/v5cp2/

We'll cover the history of ROSCAs, why they've worked where formal banking hasn't, and how Bread Stacks can help your collective save in a new way. No technical experience needed.

Another productive month is behind us. We've got the stats behind Bread distribution cycle #19 and some exciting updates.

BREAD Distribution Cycle #19

Cycle #19 was a success! Let's start with the grant total.

A reminder of the 7 parties that are eligible for distribution.

As always, 50% of the yield gets equally shared between all members, while the remaining 50% is split by vote. Baking & holding $BREAD grants you voting power, which can be used to choose which organisation you would like to support for the cycle. Can't decide and wish to support everyone? That's absolutely fine, we've made it possible to equally split your voting power in a single click.

We were glad to see Gardens get a little more of their democratic share than usual, hot on the heels of being featured in our first-ever Bread Members Spotlight. Which other of our member projects would you like to hear from next? Let us know on Twitter/X or Farcaster!

And here's the final breakdown. Cycle #20 is already ongoing, head over to the Solidarity Fund to participate.

Webinar: An intro to Rotating Savings & a first look at Bread Stacks

We're hosting a webinar on rotating savings circles, and using it to give attendees an exclusive first look at Bread Stacks, our upcoming product. It's a continuation of our "Beyond The Bank" series, and showcases how communities collectively met needs before banking & loans were widespread.

Stacks is a modern reimagining of rotating savings circles, sometimes called ROSCAs. A group pools money together, and each member takes a turn receiving the full pot. Members each access lump sums without the need for loans or lines of credit. Bread Stacks brings that principle onchain.

Webinar is on Thursday the 26th of February, click here to sign-up.

$10 goes further than you think on Artizen

And speaking of Bread Stacks, we have a fund live on Artizen right now. You can check out Bread Stacks on Artizen, Season 6 by following the link.

Artizen is running a funding round, offering to match contributions up to $20,000. Every $10 you put in is matched with another $10 from Artizen, plus $1 in prizes. In practice, your $10 becomes $21 in real support for Bread Stacks.

If you've been looking for a low-effort way to support what we're building, this is it.

Josh and Kin are ICDE Fellows

Breadfam Josh and Kin have been selected for the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy fellowship programme, which brings together practitioners working on cooperative technology and governance.

This is larger stage for Bread Cooperative to apply what we've been building. And it's amazing to do so alongside people doing serious work in this space. We're proud of them both.

That's all for this round of Bread Updates. Stay tuned for the webinar link, coming shortly.

Solidarity forever 🍞

Bread Co-op members Sara Bajor and Ron Turetzky are hosting Touch Grass, a four-day retreat at Elkenmist Farm, a 120-acre property in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The idea is simple: gather people who care about regenerative community, live together, and explore what it actually takes to build spaces that last.

What you'll explore

Communal Living: Past and Present How have people organized collective living throughout history, and what can we learn from them? We'll examine what's worked, what hasn't, and why.
Where Can We Actually Do This? A practical look at jurisdictions, land considerations, and what it takes to make intentional communities viable. Less theory, more actionable insight.
Bridging Tech and Reality Most of the work in building community spaces isn't technological, it's human and cultural. We'll unpack our assumptions about collectivism, community-building, and how groups actually function.

Hands-on learning

Site Walks Guided walks to understand natural systems: water, building materials, land features, and how the farm operates as a living system.
Food Sovereignty Workshops Gardening, animal processing, mushroom inoculation. Get your hands in the soil and learn where food actually comes from.
Farm and Land-Based Learning Time on a working farm, learning the rhythms and labor that sustain a community.

The details

When: March 26-29, 2026
Where: Elkenmist Farm & Retreat Center, Skamokawa, WA
What's included: Accommodations in a group house, three farm-fresh meals daily, and all programming.

Getting there: Nearest airport is Portland International (1.5 hour drive). Nearest train is Amtrak Kelso (45 min drive). No Uber or Lyft out here, so you'll coordinate transport with organizers or carpool with other attendees.

Visit touchgrass.how to get more details including pricing and how to apply.

Gardens specializes in conviction voting, a governance mechanism that smooths out noise in decision-making by weighing support over time. The platform is also actively integrated with Superfluid for reward streaming. You can read more about how conviction voting works and how Superfluid rewards work in our embedded guides.

Gardens Joins Bread Cooperative!

Bread Cooperative

Oct 22, 2025

Gardens and Bread Cooperative partner to advance democratic governance for working people. Learn about conviction voting and better collective decisions.

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$BREAD Holders: Your Solidarity Contributions Might Be Earning Rewards

Bread Cooperative

Jan 13, 2026

Gardens and Superfluid have partnered. If you hold $BREAD and support Gardens pools, you might be earning $SUP rewards. Here's how it works.

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Gardens currently serves over 150 communities globally with over $300,000 in funding decisions.

Why Vote for Gardens This Cycle?

All BREAD holders have a say in where funding goes each cycle. With the upcoming distribution around the corner, here's why you might want to consider Gardens.

Full Transparency on Fund Usage
Every BREAD token allocated to Gardens goes into a dedicated growth fund in the Gardens app. You can literally watch where the money goes. "All of the funding that we get from these votes is added here in the pool funds," Paul explains. "This is basically targeted towards our work on Gardens. It's a growth fund that's broadly scoped, looking for any type of creative campaign that helps get the word out or makes the platform better."

Every funding decision links to a proposal. You see who created it, what's supposed to be delivered, and exactly how resources are being used. "It gives you confidence that it's a good investment of money," Paul noted.

You Get to Vote on How It's Spent
As a BREAD token holder, you gain voting power in the Gardens growth fund. Want to see specific features built? Create a proposal. Think the Gardens team should tackle a particular marketing campaign? Vote on it when they submit the proposal.

"BREAD token holders are the ones who are responsible for deciding on which projects get funded for the gardens team," Paul explained. "Or if you want to create a separate proposal for other work that's helping the gardens platform somehow, then you could create a proposal and vote on those proposals as well."

Unlock Superfluid Rewards for Stakers
Once BREAD allocations start streaming into the Gardens pool, every community member who stakes their BREAD in the Gardens community becomes eligible for Superfluid rewards. This creates a direct material benefit for participating in the governance process.

Support Gnosis Chain Ecosystem Growth
Both Bread and Gardens are Gnosis chain originals. Gardens recently submitted a proposal to the Gnosis community that achieved 99% of the GNO needed for quorum. The Gnosis team has expressed interest in seeing this proposal return, and working together to create governance infrastructure for the broader Gnosis ecosystem could benefit everyone.

What's Next?

The Gardens integration with Bread Cooperative represents a rare collaboration brought together by genuine alignment.

Voting ahead of cycle #19 is already open, visit the Bread Solidarity Fund to make sure your voice is heard. If you would like to bake BREAD but don't know how to get started, click the embed below to read more.

Solidarity forever 🍞

How To Participate in the Bread Solidarity Fund

Bread Cooperative

Jan 20, 2026

A beginner-friendly guide to Bread Cooperative's Solidarity Fund. Learn how to bridge, bake, and burn $BREAD to support onchain solidarity.

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Want to contribute to the Bread Solidarity Fund, but the only digital money you own sits in a bank account? Getting started meant you had to jump through many hoops. But from today, this process becomes absolutely effortless.

We are thrilled to announce Peer integration right in the Bread Solidarity Fund.

Cryptocurrency was designed to be used as a peer-to-peer cash, being borderless was a vital feature. But centralized exchanges have long served as gatekeepers to the onchain world. The big reason is that every country has its own monetary rules that need to be followed, with these 'on-ramps' linking crypto to the world of traditional finance. Exchanges have been key to maintaining user safety, but many people with a genuine need often find themselves excluded from these services.

Peer addresses this gap. Read the Peer documentation, and we have a summary for you below.

• Peer connects your payment app (Venmo, Cashapp, Revolut, Wise, Zelle, PayPal and many others) directly to your crypto.

• You no longer need to trust that a centralized exchange can securely store your funds.

• There are lower fees than what many centralized exchanges can offer.

• Zero-knowledge cryptographic proofs verify that transfers actually happen.

• Sensitive data is hidden from the public.

• Transfers settle in under 60 seconds, directly between the buyer & the seller.

With the new Solidarity Fund integration, you can directly purchase xDAI with your existing payment apps. Then it's a single step to bake BREAD.

Before you get started, you will need to install the Peer Auth browser extension to complete purchases. This generates the cryptographic proofs that make the system work.

Solidarity means everyone can participate. At Bread Cooperative, we are focused on ensuring all can benefit from the advantages technology can provide.

Want to learn more? You can ask the founder of Peer your questions directly on tomorrow's community call. Wednesday, 28th January at 3pm EST on Discord.

Click here to attend the community call. Add it to your calendar to make sure you don't miss out.

New to the Bread Solidarity Fund? Check out our detailed guide that shows you every step, in plain language. Perfect for beginners and seasoned crypto operators alike.

How To Participate in the Bread Solidarity Fund

Bread Cooperative

Jan 20, 2026

A beginner-friendly guide to Bread Cooperative's Solidarity Fund. Learn how to bridge, bake, and burn $BREAD to support onchain solidarity.

0 collected

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Our technical lead Ron Turetzky recorded a beginner session on vibe coding with Claude Code. No programming experience needed. You describe what you want in plain language, and AI handles the rest. There's a full video walkthrough at the end of this article, skip ahead if you know what's up and want to dive right in. For those who would like some background information, we've got you covered. Keep reading.

So what actually is vibe coding?

Vibe coding is exactly what it sounds like: you explain the idea of what you want, and AI builds it. Need a simple tracking system? A custom form? A tool to automate something tedious? Just describe it. Claude Code turns your description into working software.

This session is for complete beginners. Ron starts from zero and walks through everything step by step. If you can write an email, you can do this.

Give it a watch, give it a try, and let us know what you build.

A lot has changed since those early days, but the vision to use crypto in ways that are simply impossible in traditional finance remains the same.

This guide covers all you need to know about the Bread Solidarity Fund, formerly known as the Crowdstaking Application.

Sections include:

• How the BREAD Solidarity Fund works

• Overview of each part of the Solidarity Fund app

• How to get xDAI

• How you can contribute, or "bake" $BREAD

• How you can redeem your funds, or "burn" $BREAD

Explanations are intended to be as approachable as possible. Links to our documentation are included where available if you would like to explore any of the ideas in more detail.

How does the BREAD Solidarity Fund work?

Crypto networks are managed by participants, not a central authority like your bank. Your bank can offer you interest as incentive for keeping money in your accounts. Decentralised networks do the same by offering yield as a reward for contributing your crypto to maintain the system.

What makes $BREAD special is that you can support causes using just this yield, no need to give away your money. This creates flexibility to offer support over an extended period of time even if you have limited funds.

Exploring the new-look Solidarity Fund Application

Time to check out the Solidarity Fund page! We have screenshots below to walk you through each section, feel free to look around first. We highly recommend doing this on a desktop/laptop rather than mobile since it's just easier with more room to operate. We'll check out the "Governance" tab at a later date, this guide is just about the default "Bake" page.

The main Solidarity Fund page provides an overview of the $BREAD in circulation, with real-time updates being fetched from Dune Analytics. The box showing 5.1% APY is a snapshot of the current rate of yield generation per year. This number is linked to the SKY Savings Rate and will fluctuate based on market conditions. Fluctuations are totally normal, and are an inherent part of how decentralised networks work.

The orange box at the top-right of the page is the key starting point for your Solidarity Fund journey. Clicking it will open a window that lets you connect a crypto wallet, as shown below.

Unlike what the name suggests, your funds are not actually stored in your wallet. Crypto wallets enable you to send and receive crypto, but the crypto itself is permanently onchain. So if you ever forget your password to your crypto wallet, you can always restore provided you still have your private key or seed phrase (24 words that you were prompted to write down when opening your wallet).

Different chains have a variety of preferred wallets. $BREAD is on the Ethereum network, and most wallets you might have heard of will work for baking & supporting causes. While we are not endorsing any one wallet, many members of the $BREAD team prefer to use Rabby. Metamask is a major wallet too and is ideal for beginners. As you get more familiar with the crypto ecosystem and increase participation with Bread, we would encourage you to also support our member project Citizen Wallet.

If your wallet is not showing up on the list, go through the following steps:
1 - Check if the browser extension is installed & up-to-date. You might need to restart your browser after any updates. Next, check if you are signed-in, and you have the correct sub-account selected. This exact process will vary for each wallet.
2 - If you are using a mobile wallet like Rainbow, click on the WalletConnect option and scan the QR code with your device. You can then continue the sign-in process on your device.

How to get xDAI

If you have no crypto whatsoever, you will need to acquire some to get started. Rules for acquiring cryptocurrency vary between countries and jurisdictions, so please check your local rules. For those who prefer peer-to-peer purchases away from Big Tech influence, we recommend using zkP2P as an alternative.

Now that you have crypto and are signed in, the first step to baking $BREAD requires holding xDAI. xDAI's value is linked to the US Dollar, and this helps maintain $BREAD's consistent $1 value.

If you already hold xDAI and want to get to baking BREAD, you can skip this section and scroll on down. Or keep reading to make sure you always have xDAI when you need it.

For those who do not hold xDAI in their wallet, we have a really easy way to convert your existing crypto of choice to xDAI, rather than buying xDAI from an exchange. The all-new Solidarity Fund lets you "Bridge" over any crypto you already have into xDAI. The bridging function is marked here with the big orange star.

Clicking that Bridge tab will show you all the assets currently held in your wallet, example below.

For this example, we will be bridging Ethereum from the Base network to xDAI on the Gnosis netwok. Both Base and Gnosis are known as Layer 2 networks, designed to make Ethereum transactions cheaper and faster. If you would like to learn more about how Layer 2 (also known as L2) solutions works, you can read more here.

We have chosen to bridge 0.001 Ethereum from the Base network to xDAI.

The bridging is handled by LI.FI, and shows you the US Dollar value that you are sending (in this case $3.21) and the amount in xDAI you will get out ($3.19). The number out will be slightly less than the number in because this bridging action comes with small network and participant fees.

The price that you have been offered is valid for a limited time only, and the network will refresh and provide you with an updated quote if you take time to bridge. This is normal, because asset prices in crypto are always changing.

The intern doing the bridging waited for a bit to show you this price change in effect.

Clicking the "Review Bridge" button takes you to this next screen, where you can see the bridging route and final fees.

Clicking the "Start bridging" button will open a transaction window in your wallet. The address & balance have been blocked out in orange for privacy, but all the other information is important for you to review. Intern is using Rabby wallet, your experience might look a little different but the end result will be the same. Let's go through the steps on how you should be reviewing this transaction.

• Intern expects to pay 0.001 ETH. Check.

• This amounts to ~$3.20. Check.

• The chain I'm bridging FROM is base. Check.

• The system uses the LI.FI protocol to do this bridging. Check.

• Intern is expecting to pay in ETH. Check.

The last numbers in blue let me choose how large a transaction fee I am willing to pay to ensure this bridging happens faster. Best to leave this at the current defaults.

Take your time to review. If the prices change and you need to start again, that's totally ok.

Intern's review has passed all the checks, so they click sign.

The next window will show that the transaction is happening. It will take a little bit of time, feel free to stretch your legs for a couple minutes.

When it's all done, you'll get a success message.

Close the window and you'll get a secondary confirmation. Click done and you can head over to the 'Bake' tab.

How you can contribute, or "bake" $BREAD

Intern has a total balance of ~6 xDAI, and for this example will bake 3 $BREAD.

1 $BREAD = 1 xDAI = $1

Enter the amount in the xDAI field and you should see an equal number in $BREAD. Numbers match, intern clicks "Bake."

A transaction window from your wallet will pop up. You can review this information, double check all your numbers. Wallet address and balances have been blocked out in orange for privacy.

• 3 xDAI in, 3 $BREAD out. Check.

• It says "Unknown Signature Type" because the $BREAD network is still a somewhat novel kind of onchain action. Other wallets might show a similar 'site popularity' tab. The Solidarity Fund has a small but passionate set of users, unlike the 'high popularity' services like decentralized exchanges with tens of thousands of daily active users. When in doubt, ask for help on our Discord and tag a moderator.

• The operation is 'mint,' which is what the act of creating fresh tokens is called. Check.

• If it's your first time baking, you may get an additional warning. Intern does this all the time so their wallet is familiar with this process, as you can see in the 'interacted before' section of the transaction. Check.

• If it's all clear, sign the transaction.

This process will be quicker than bridging, and you'll get a triumphant pop-up message post. You're now part of the $BREAD Solidarity Fund, and we get to officially call you Breadfam for the first time.

Tell your friends on socials because you're doing something that is beyond the comprehension of traditional finance.

How to 'Burn' $BREAD

The $BREAD you hold is yours to do with as you please. We would love you to keep your funds in the network as long as you can, but we know that there are times you would need to redeem your funds. Here's how you can do so.

Navigate over to the "Burn" tab. You'll see that the entry fields have swapped. The process of burning reduces the total number of $BREAD in circulation by giving you back an equivalent amount in xDAI. Intern will redeem 3 xDAI back.

The orange button enables you to convert your BREAD into Wrapped xDAI, which will maintain the current amount of $BREAD in circulation. If you still want to redeem to xDAI, click the "Burn" button below.

A popup window will give you a final chance to swap instead of burn.

Just like before, we have a transaction to review. Addresses & balances are blocked out in orange.

• 3 $BREAD in, 3 xDAI out? Check.

• Dollar valuations line up? Check.

• Interacted before? Check.

• Operation = burn? Check.

• Gas fees? Keep them at the defaults. Check.

Click sign, and the transaction will only take a few seconds.

Here's your success message.

Join the community

If you have questions, want to connect with others doing the same, or just want to be around people who believe crypto can be more than just speculation, join us on Discord.

The Breadfam is small but committed. We're happy to help if you get stuck, and we'd love you to join the journey to make crypto work for everyone.

Solidarity forever 🍞

• Gardens Growth Fund supports the ongoing development of Gardens

• Tesla Takedown Fund is a solidarity fund covering legal fees for protesters engaged in direct action against Tesla. 

Until the 25th of February 2026, streaming funds into these pools earns $SUP rewards. These rewards don't just go to the person streaming, but are split 50/50 with everyone who has staked $BREAD in the community.

Here’s the official announcement from Gardens. Don’t worry if all this is new, we’re going to break it all down for you.

What is Superfluid

Superfluid is infrastructure that lets organizations send money continuously. Instead of one-time payments, funds flow by the second. Think of it like a tap that flows steadily rather than dumping a bucket all at once.

This matters because streaming money over time becomes a measure of sustained attention. It's not a one-click donation you forget about. It's an ongoing commitment that reflects where a community’s attention is actually focused.

This fits naturally with the ethos of how solidarity economics values consistent mutual support, rather than sporadic charity.

This approach has already powered serious funding work. You can visit this link to find out more. 

What is Gardens

Gardens is our newest member organization. They build tools for democratic fund management using conviction voting.

If you missed our announcement, read the full introduction here.

The short version: Gardens lets communities allocate funds based on sustained support over time rather than one-shot votes. This is why their tools pair so naturally with Superfluid's streaming infrastructure.

What this means for you

If you're already contributing to these pools:
Good news. Your solidarity work is already being rewarded. You're earning $SUP for funds you've committed. Head to claim.superfluid.org to set up your Reserve and start claiming.

If you're streaming but have more to give:
Consider increasing your commitment during this three-month window. The reward pool is fixed, so earlier and larger participation means a bigger share of $SUP. Your additional support strengthens the funds and earns you more rewards.

If you're a $BREAD holder who hasn't joined these pools yet:
Now is a good time to deploy your $BREAD toward Gardens Growth Fund or Tesla Takedown. You'll be supporting aligned solidarity work while earning $SUP rewards. Every $BREAD holder benefits when more people participate, thanks to the 50/50 reward split.

How to participate

What you'll need:

• A wallet like Rabby or MetaMask

• Tokens to stream

Step 1: Stream funds to a Bread-aligned pool

Go to the Gardens campaigns page and choose either Gardens Growth Fund or Tesla Takedown. Stream at least $10 to qualify for rewards.

→ app.gardens.fund/gardens/campaigns/1

Step 2: Set up your $SUP Reserve

Your rewards accumulate in a Reserve contract. To claim them:

1. Visit claim.superfluid.org

2. Connect your wallet

3. Set up your Reserve. This is the vault that holds your earned $SUP.

4. Delegate your voting power to a governance delegate

5. Come back daily to see your stream grow

Important notes

Rewards stream continuously
You earn $SUP by the second, not in lump sums. Your share of rewards is dynamic. It grows as long as you're actively participating. You can check claim.superfluid.org daily to see your stream grow. 

You can claim your $SUP tokens whenever you like, but there is incentive to ‘Stream Withdraw’ over a 12-month period to get all your $SUP. Draining your reserves can incur a heavy tax. Consistent streaming/draining is the preferred means of operating with Superfluid. 

Early participants get a larger share
The reward pool is fixed for the campaign. As more people join, the rewards get distributed across more participants.

This isn't about rushing in for profit. It's just how the math works. If you were already planning to support Gardens initiatives, doing it during this window means your solidarity work is recognized with a larger $SUP allocation.

The campaign has a time limit
This runs for approximately 3 months, ending in mid-March 2026. After that, streaming into these specific pools won't earn $SUP rewards. The pools themselves will continue to function.

The 50/50 split explained
When someone streams funding into a Gardens pool, they get $SUP rewards, and those rewards are matched between all members of the Bread Co-op's Gardens community. 

More BREAD staked in the community = more matching rewards from pool funders

This is about infrastructure, not speculation
Superfluid is rewarding people who use their streaming infrastructure for real work. Gardens is doing real solidarity funding. The $SUP is recognition for participating in that work, not a financial product.

If you're here to flip tokens, this probably isn't for you. But if your desire is to compound your mutual aid contributions to drive more positive impacts, you’re in absolutely the right place. 

Solidarity forever 🍞

Questions? Reach out in the Crypto Leftists Discord.

Among the many topics covered are why Bread Cooperative chose to build without venture capital funding, and how that decision shapes everything at our organisation. The conversation explores how the $BREAD community currency and Solidarity Fund work in practice, and what "solidarity primitives" mean for encoding cooperative values into technical systems.

Listen to the full episode by clicking on the preview below. Sit back and enjoy, and don't forget to share this far & wide within your circles. Subscribe to Crypto Altruists and support Drew's work in drawing attention to this especially uplifting side of Web3.

Crypto Altruists Episode 232 - Bread Cooperative - Solidarity Over Speculation: Embedding Cooperative Values into Blockchain Infrastructure

For episode 232 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we welcome Joshua Dávila, host of The Blockchain Socialist podcast, author of Blockchain Radicals, and Co-Founder of Bread Cooperative. We explore solidarity-driven Web3 infrastructure, the $BREAD community currency, cooperative governance, and how Web3 can embed worker power into real-world financial systems.

https://www.cryptoaltruists.com

Solidarity forever 🍞

The entire team at Bread Cooperative wishes you a very happy new year 2026! We hope the festive season gave you a chance for some rest & reflection ahead of an exciting year to come. 

This edition of Bread Updates will focus on the most recent $BREAD Distribution Cycle #18, some community updates & an after movie summing up a real high-point of last year - the Bread Cooperative Popup at Funding The Commons 2025 in Berlin. Let’s go!

BREAD Distribution Cycle #18

January’s BREAD distribution took place over a 40-day period, resulting in slightly higher yield than usual. This happens because yield is calculated by multiplying the variable DAI Savings Rate with the number of days of yield generation. 

It was another stellar cycle, with $2,743 in BREAD going out to our member organisations. 

The 7 parties eligible for yield can be found below. All align with the Bread Cooperative ethos of solidarity economics.

As always, 50% of the yield gets equally shared between all members, while the remaining 50% is split by vote. Baking & holding $BREAD grants you voting power, which can be used to choose which organisation you would like to support for the cycle. Can't decide and wish to support everyone? That's absolutely fine, we've made it possible to do so with a single click.

Regen Coordination topped this month’s charts again, so congratulations! We mentioned in our last update that the Bread Solidarity Fund has a new look, and this also includes an extended history of voting cycles. Feel free to scroll through and pore over the numbers to your heart’s content. Here’s the final state of play. 

Community Events

We have resumed our regular roster of events on our Discord. If you have any ideas on how we can make our community spaces more engaging, the Discord is where a lot of these discussions take place and there’s always somebody to hear you out. 

Monday 12th January: Co-working. Many of us work remotely, so this is a change to create a shared workspace to bounce off ideas and be accountable to each other. 

Wednesday 14th January: Temperature check & informal hangout, followed by structured discussions. Check out our calendar to see upcoming topics - https://breadchain.notion.site/Calendar-060194a70a884b1c87cedbf70efde393 

Free Downloads: Crypto For Beginners & NGOs

The Bread Cooperative team believes that cryptocurrency and Web3 can bring a lot to the table for cooperatives, non-profits and worker-owned businesses alike. This drove us to host the second instalment in our ‘Beyond The Bank’ series of webinars to show how these freely-accessible tools can benefit communities. All of our guides are available for download on our Linktree, and we will send out a more detailed article & webinar recording soon.

We've had an encouraging response so far, and there will be plenty more webinars to come.

Looking Forward to an Amazing 2026

2025 was a huge year for us. We grew our community, hosted our second IRL conference, and changed our name & visual identity. We have YOU to thank for it all.

Thank you for showing up, being a part of our community, and helping show the positive impacts worker-ownership can bring. Let’s have an amazing 2026.

Solidarity forever 🍞

Your organization works across borders, but your payment infrastructure probably doesn't. NGOs and cooperatives working internationally deal with uncertain environments where barriers to funding impacted communities are often outside your control. When disaster strikes, time is of the essence.

Delayed transfers, delayed approvals and blocked transactions are familiar issues for NGOs all over the world. Traditional banking wasn't built for organizations working in crisis zones or under-banked regions.

This hands-on workshop covers cryptocurrency and blockchain as practical tools for international money transfers. We'll walk through how crypto payments work, when they make sense, and how organizations like yours are already using them to reach partners traditional banking can't serve.

What You'll Learn

• Why traditional cross-border payments sometimes fail NGOs

• How cryptocurrency addresses these barriers alongside existing infrastructure

• Live walkthrough: sending funds using blockchain tools

• Real case study: ETH Evacuations and crisis zone funding

• Context-dependent implementation (which countries, tokens, how to acquire them)

What You'll Leave With

• Clear understanding of when crypto makes sense for your organization

• Setup guides, best practices and documentation

• Ongoing support and consultation options

No technical experience required. We start from the beginning and keep it practical.

Who This Is For

NGOs, cooperatives, and collectives working internationally—especially organizations that send funds to under-banked regions, work in crisis zones, face expensive wire fees, or need faster emergency funding response times.

If you've ever had funds stuck, blocked, or delayed when communities needed them most, this workshop addresses that problem directly.

Join Us

When: December 18, 2025 at 4:00 PM CET (10:00 AM EST)
Where: Online (link sent upon registration)
Cost: Free
Time: 1 hour

Register Here

Questions? Reply to this email.

— Bread Cooperative

As always, if you're new, welcome! If this is your first time here and want to get in on the cryptoleft conversation, why not join us at our Discord? But without any further ado, let's get into the Bread updates.

Bread Cooperative product "Gas Killer" impressed at GG24

Gitcoin's contributions to grants in the crypto ecosystem have turned them into a household name. They frequently provide a platform for projects to pitch their goals to a highly-motivated audience that wants to help good ideas flourish.

Bread Cooperative, individuals from our cooperative, as well as our member organisations have all benefitted from (and contribute to) this ecosystem. This occasion was no different!

Gas Killer were awarded $10,000 which will go toward the continued development of Bread Co-op's patented scaling solution. Check out our previously-shared blog to get the 101 of all things Gas Killer.

You can read the full proposal crafted by the Gaskiller team below.

Gardens - Gas Killer: Super Scaling Ethereum Computation

This proposal has ended and can no longer receive support.

https://app.gardens.fund

The wider Gitcoin Grants 24 (GG24) initiative took place on the platform of our most recent Bread Cooperative member, Gardens. You can read more about their novel Conviction Voting mechanism by clicking here.

Bread Distribution Cycle No. 17

Time for the montly $BREAD distribution roundup!

This month's distribution was pushed by a little bit to accommodate some upgrades. Yield never stops though, so this cycle generated a tad more.

We've got a new member organizations layout for you, featuring Gardens for their first-ever distribution!

As always, 50% of the yield gets equally shared between all members, while the remaining 50% is split by vote. Baking & holding $BREAD grants you voting power, which can be used to choose which organisation you would like to support for the cycle. Can't decide and wish to support everyone? That's absolutely fine, we've made it possible to do so with a single click.

Congratulations to Regen Coordination for topping the voting charts this cycle!

Here's the final distribution, as seen in the all-new Bread Solidarity Fund application! Our new-look application, formerly known as the Bread Crowdstaking App, matches the look & feel of our rebrand and we encourage you to explore it! We've added some new features & visualisations, so check it out and let us know what you think!

Join the CryptoLeftists Discord Reading Group

The endless expanse of the open internet is as beautiful as it can be daunting. So many incredible books, articles and perspectives are shared every day and it's impossible to keep up with it all. That's why we are gathering for weekly reading, where we can learn together.

The first session of the new series looks at "Seizing The Means of Computation," a long read by famed writer & novelist Cory Doctorow. Many of Doctorow's ideas echo tech discussions within leftist circles, providing ample food for thought about the tech world that's being put in place. Most importantly, Doctorow provides solutions that we can engage in both individually and collectively.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, join us every Thursday! Link to our Discord right here!

That's all for the updates for this edition! Share this with fellow cryptoleftists everywhere, and see you on the Discord!

Solidarity forever 🍞

Now we want to show you how to build them for yourselves.

Your organization runs democratically, but your bank account probably doesn't. Traditional banking wasn't built for shared ownership. In reality, shared finances often means one person holds the keys, creating bottlenecks they (and your collective) never wanted.

We want to show you it can be better. Truly democratic management of your team's funds.

Introducing you to tools we use every day

We're running a hands-on workshop on shared wallets for transparent treasury management. These are treasury accounts where multiple people control spending, every transaction is transparent, and there's no single point of failure.

We've managed $400,000+ this way. Every member has real oversight. Every decision is visible. No gatekeepers.

This workshop shows you exactly how.

What you'll learn

During the live tutorial:

• Set up a shared wallet in 15 minutes (step-by-step walkthrough)

• See real examples from working cooperatives

• Understand how to handle approvals, spending limits, and member changes

After the workshop:

• A tool you can implement immediately

• Setup guides and documentation

• How to get ongoing support from our community

No technical experience required, we'll guide you from the beginning.

Who is this for?

Anyone who is looking to learn how to manage funds as a collective. This can be cooperatives, NGOs and groups of all size. Most importantly, it's to learn how to do manage your shared funds securely.

Why are we doing this?

There are many services built for shared financial control that organizations like ours need. With the right tools to make our operations easier and more secure, we can commit more of our effort towards moving the needle and putting positive changes in place.

In a single hour, you'll have the foundations for true collaborative financial management and oversight.

Join Us

When: November 6, 2025 at 3pm EST
Where: Online (link sent upon registration)
Cost: Free
Time: 1 hour

Register for the Webinar on Dandelion

Got any questions? Our Discord is the best place to ask, come on in.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Solidarity forever 🍞