From Mass Commerce to Regenerative Local Stewardship: Building Real-World ReFi Infrastructure

Transcript

[music] [music] Hello everyone. I'm as from uh parameter in Japan. Let me start with a small checkbox. When people in Japan book a house moving with one of the country's largest moving companies, they see an an option uh at a 1,000 yen. It's about $7 to help restore the forest. More than 60,000 households have ticked that box.

None of them needed a crypt wallet. Most of them have never heard the word refi. Today I want to follow those $7 from the ordinary checkbox through the proka on Ethereum into the solid on one watershed in Japan and back to the people who paid. But first, why does this matter? We are cing the compounding traps on one side climate.

In 2015, almost every country in the world agreed to try to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. The line scientist sees as the limit of what what we can safely adapt to. We are now about to cross that line. past it. Disaster like this become the new normal in Japan. Heavy rain tears open mountain side and the float town every single year. And this August just north of here in Nepal a glacier high in the Himalayas collapsed the deadly flow. It unleashed the trouble to

nearly one 100 kilometers downstream and thousands of people were killed or uh Mr. missing when mountain break the people living below that pay the price. On the other side, people. Japan's population is projected to shrink by 53% by the end of this century. Fewer people to care for the forests, rivers, and roads.

On this map of Japan, red areas markeries projected to face the high risk of disappearing by 2050. uh of more than 1,700 municipalities around 40% are considered at risk as the population keep shrinking. Our team's role is to reduce the responsibility that public institutions must carry along. This is precisely why we need to redesign governance around its original meaning. People governing themselves rather than leaving everything to the state or local government. More disasters, fewer caretakers.

Just when care matters most, the people who provide it are disappearing. For the last century, we assume the local government would look after everything we share, roads, rivers, forests, water. In a growing country that worked. In a shrinking one, it doesn't. Tax revenue falls, staff disappears, and the forest and the rivers are quietly left behind. There are two easy answers.

Wait for the state to come back. It won't sell the commons to whoever we pay and lose them. We chose a third way. We fork the operating system. Local coupe is what we call the second municipalities. Residents who care for the land, allies from outside who bring capitals and skills and open protocol that helps everyone coordinate. We want to take back a fun uh function uh once left entirely to public institution and build a more flexible richer foundation for everyday life.

Imagine count as small communities with people free to move among them to solving problems through a co-creation and a mutual aid and generating new value. Our strategy is to begin with a practical subsystem alongside local government. The second municipalities to be clear this is not about replacing the city. We add capacity where the old system can no longer reach. And this is not a white paper. Local coupe is already running today in the four places across Japan each with its own focus.

Tukas is a mountain of Nara city where residents run local transport and everyday service. Tats go on Amami Island where biodiversity and the tourism go hand in hand. Mr. Kubo in Shizoka where the forest resources cycle back into the local economy. And I always say uh where we care for the whole watershed from the forest to the sea al is where I'll take you today for very different landscapes and shared framework and everyone of them faces the same question who pays for the care that question is uh where most refund by

project have struggled. The user model ask the people to become a crypt user first set up the wallet buy tokens uh trade on the decks chase a yield the money circulated among people who already live on on chain and when the market cool down the money reaching the forest drops to zero. We took the opposite route. Instead of bringing the ordinary people into crypt, we brought the protocol to a where ordinary people already spend money.

Moving house, traveling, shopping, no wallet, no new app, no dragon. Web three runs quietly in the background. We call it the invisible web three. Here's what they look like. practice. Sakai moving service is now is one of the Japan's largest moving companies. Together with then we added a single option to their booking flow and FCA move for an extra $7. That's it. One checkbox more than 60,000 household have chosen it in one year. That's around 7% of customers choosing it on their own

with no discount and no rewards. Their contribution fund forest care equivalent to the about 3,300 tons of CO2 and Saka is only one example. We also building the similar ethical service with airlines, rail layer companies and travel companies. The principle is the same. Make regeneration part of the journey people are already taking with it asking them to become a crypt users. For me the most important number is not 60,000 it's zero. The number of people who had understand blockchain to take part

remove the friction and ordinary people are willing to pay for real care of real places. So how do $7 become a careful for the forests? Our system has three pairs. The first is demand mass commerce a small optional contribution at everyday checkouts. The second is the protocol we call as sina. It turns uh the money into the onchain assets tied to the specific restructured over time. The third is care loca cope. This is where people actually walk on the land opening water path restoring the coast zone and the arrows

goes both way. Evidence of the care flows back to their companies and the customers who paid for it. The returns pass is what turns on the one-time payment interlacing relationship. Let me go one level deeper in Simla protocol because is it solves a very practical problem in traditional carbon market. A project must be certified before it can sell the credit that takes two to three years. But a forest team needs money on day one. two by twos, pay people and start digging so that people doing their work run out their cash

exactly when they need it most. Shindler flips that order. Each project is represented by an ERC 721 token on Polygon and it can be the founded from by day zero. The token then moves through five clear states. not applied, applied, certified with no credit yet, credit attached, and finally retires when the credit is used and can never be used again. Here's a real example. Token number uh 209 living on the polygon. It represented the minister of uh forest project in Oas. And right now it status is a certified credit not yet attached.

The project approved but FC credits serial is not linked yet. When it is the token will be the bound one to one to the public registry serial and when the credit is used it is canled in the national registry and burned on chain so that same tanco2 it can be counted twice and living forest keep changing so that tokens data keeps changing too but for any blockchain project that claims real All impact. One question matters more than any architecture diagram.

Where does the money actually go into the soil into the forest and rivers in local. So let me show you the the video. Oh. Oh. Can you play that smoke?

No. Uh-huh. They want more. Oh. Mhm.

And next. Yeah. doesn't work. Okay, sure. Okay. Okay, let's skip it. Uh oh. Okay. So, A was a small city of the Japan's Pacific coast. 92% of Islam's forest. It gets more than uh 4,000

million millimeters of zen a year. One of the waddest places in Japan and 48% of its people are over 65. Forestry and fishing have shrunk damatically. So how do you decide how what happened to the land when ownership is split into the counters uh small plots? We build a shared map with 13 layers of GIS data for the then matter most for certification and the carbon credit. How efficient efficiently timber can be to harvest where important habitant are now where landscape are likely on one map forestry residents and the city can finally see the same

landscape and the plan across pla polopy lines following the watershed rather than the paperwork. So in Japanese we call this new iiki uh literally the domain of the flow a waterershed what happens high in the forest shapes that happen what happened in the bay below in an 80 hectare hectare forest we called minanomori which is everyone's forest means uh more than 1,200 people have joined hands-on work over two years winner concrete we blocks water pass in the soil weaves the branches into small

barriers called shagala and a set of stones by hand uh water moves through the ground again and the tree and the bris the water reaches the city across the 30.6 6 hectare of coastal bay thing the timber from the same mountains in sack underwater to give the squid a place to lay their eggs mountain and sear one system. So we care for them as one and we while people care for the land nature responds within six months of opening the water pass five indicated species returned to the site including

the Japanese firebellied noot uh the near sitan species in Japan together with the local school children uh residents we have recorded 130 species in 277 observation and I naturalist a uh that site has also be certified by Japan's ministry of the environmental as a nature symbiosis site Japan's framework for OECMS areas outside the national park that effectively plate the biodiversity in Japanese we call the shim kagaku that's mean the citizen science force it

works as a civic oracle in web three an oracle brings real world data on chain here the data starts with a child standing in the stream photographing the n citizen care for the land and observe it the evidence show the whether nature is recovering the verified recovery unlocks financing and the many flows goes back to the community that governance the commons care evidence finance governance at one loop. Now let's go back to the person who ticked that box day zero they pay an extra 1,000 yen which is $7

uh while booking the move. That's all they ever have to do. After the move they received a message uh about forest they supported if they want they can claim the digital batch a soulbound NFT that provides their contribution it's optional no one is pushed into web three then uh through the season they get updated on the how their site is recovering and the invitation to come and see it and even to work with app uh in the forest it begins with ethical choice at the checkout out. It ends with your feet in the living soil.

Of course, the obvious question is who governs all this in OAS. The common is held by an alliance. The city's aasi brings a public commitment and land and seven companies bring long-term demand and capital and local coupe aas led by residents makes the decision on the ground and manage the shared pool around them. The parameter build and maintains the political and the nature conservation society of Japan provide the science. No single party can take it over. The balance is what keeps the commons at commons.

Can this scale? I think yes. But no. By uh copying copying one tongue uh everywhere. We use a simple four stage matching model. M1 prepare map the waterershed and the formula core team. M1 run pirate in the field. And two, the commons run its own which outside commerce regularly financing local care and three get back share data message and the template and open source so that next region starts further effect.

So let me close with the philosophy behind all of this. Many conservation model protect the nature by putting the fence around it and keeping people out. In Japan, we have a different tradition. We are called satyama. The landscape between village and the mountains where biodiversity has been shaped by people tending the land for centuries. A clearing and growth to the lead light in keeping water moving setting stone. We call this taylor careful ongoing care.

And this is not only a Japanese idea. Many Asian community have their protect SC grows for generations. In Ethereum, consensus secures the chain. In Satyama, care secures the land. Stewardship is not a fence. It is ongoing hands-on relationship. So, let me step back and uh tell you why all of this matter to us. Climate change change and climate change and AI uh both forcing the same question. What does it mean to be human? For us the answer with the watershed du eeki in Japanese not just as anted on the map uh but as a way

of thinking through it. We are trying to restore the three things human, landscape and system. Force restoring watershed is a way of restoring our humanity. So here's my ask to you Ethereum builders and researchers. One, fork the OS. Takes the local framework and adapt it to the watershed you care about. Two, build all codes. We need a better way to the brink field data from citizens, [music] senses, and scientists on chain with trust and privacy. Three, embedded rails help us put regeneration options

everyone commerce. So funding it for nature [music] never depends on their speculation. So let's build the light of the living earth. Thank you, >> Aratoan. >> Thank you, Arato. >> So, let's let's move center stage because then we can see the questions right here. We don't have to turn around. >> So, there's a lot of questions that the audience asked. It seems like the topic that you just discussed is something that actually touches their hearts. So, let's start with the first one. what was the biggest challenge you faced in setting up local co-ops?

Okay. So the concept of local cope is uh uh I just started uh almost 10 years ago and 10 years ago uh the most of people uh didn't understand and especially local government people are kind of laughing but in Japan it's that's kind of sad story. uh Japan's population is rapidly declining and and hyperaging society is very very uh they are getting weak so they start think about uh new way of uh governance model so uh I mean the

that's a hard point but uh time uh you know it's it's it takes a 10 years to start a local group. Mhm. Thank you. Now that there's a lot of up voting going on, now we have a top question. What is the long-term incentive for one to be involved in co-ops? Uh well if it if we don't do anything uh the central government uh ask the rural people to move to a city but they don't want to move. They have a culture.

They have a traditional they have they they love their own village. That's their most biggest motivation to start a local group. I think >> I see a lot of nodding in the crowd. So I think you actually speak to the heart of the people. Next question. Do you plan to open the money transactions? Can the customers know where their money actually goes? Uh well yeah uh we are now we are planning uh now we have the the platform uh uh the transaction uh the user uh can access the platform and then they can see the uh where the money goes to the

uh how do how the money use is used to in in the uh nature restoring. But uh as they uh we are planning to uh the platform to share the more detailed data to the customer. Yeah. Just now we are uh working on. Thank you. A couple of people in the crowd are also interested. Can you speak a bit more about how the decision making within the co-op works? Who has the final say? Now we have uh uh we have uh we when we start the local cop in rural area we uh launched the each uh companies uh which is local cop

the most of stakeholder is the residence. So uh of course we have we advise to them uh to how to use the the budget or how to make money but like a final decision is uh by uh local residents. Yeah. Thank you. Now the next question who actually issues the credits and what does an evidence look like? Uh okay so it depends uh where the credit is uh made uh from uh in that OAS's case the forest is owned by uh city of Oasis

city so credit owner is Oasis city but uh we have uh the contract with uh uh Oasis with Oasis city to uh uh to make running uh uh local coupe. So the credit is made by O city but the sales of sales of the credit is goes to the uh budget of the local cope. Then a local resident can use those budget. >> I think we still might have time for the last question. What are some of the most pertinent challenges you faced in the care layer?

Well, now uh most of you know local lesson people is very uh uh well they they really like to start the local group but they was most of them is elderly people. So we have to bring the new young generation to the local side to make the new form of governance. That's the next challenge to keep caring the nature resources and the communities. Yeah, thank you very much for answering these questions and I think this talk is an invitation for all of you to also think more about the countryside about villages but also about connections to

the elders to [music]