S5. Ep. 4 - Celo x Easy RPGF w/ Luuk and Monty

Transcript

welcome to the green pill. network podcast you are listening to season five this summer of retro rounds which is hosted by Sall and La now Ma this season we'll explore retroactive funding in web 3 and each episode features a different ecosystem unpacking their experience in implementing the retr funding mechanism we'll explore how they're tailoring retroactive funding to their unique ecosystem along with the challenges they've faced in ways of overcoming that this season is co-hosted by SEL and laau and the next voices you'll hear on this episode are from that [Music] enjoy welcome to the fourth episode of Summer of retro rounds today we will be diving into cello ecosystem with leuk

and Monty we will unpack the recent retro round that cell did and also learn more about cell I think cell is uniquely positioned in this space because of its strong alignment with the real world impact and focus on financial inclusion so I would suggest if you are a Dev or anybody who is curious to know how crypto can make a real difference this episode is for you la is my co-host and La tell us what you are looking forward to in this episode thank you one of the things I'm really excited about is just listening and learning more about C's homecoming into ethereum uh they are now going to come back in the form of one of

the Opie chains they are now becoming part of the super chain and so it's also really interesting to see how this is the first case in which we see one of the optimism super chain members conduct their own version of retro rounds whereas optimism has already mentioned that they are interested in seeing more of those receiving funds either through r pgf or by being members of the super CH like receiving benefits by being members of the super chain to see them being the ones to allocate funds to those things that are most impactful to them since they will have better information and know what are the things

that need to be rewarded so I'm really excited to see and understand better like how does cell see itself becoming uh part of the super chain and then leveraging some of the learnings that optimism had through running their own ritual rounds welcome everyone we have the and Monty today with us and lau my co-host for the season so luk and Monty could you give us a tldr on what is cell ecosystem for the audience you know who don't know what is cell and about your role and Journeys within cell for sure everyone super pleased to be here there's so many angles to explain cell but let's start with the more kind of

the simplest explanation it's a blockchain and more specifically currently it's a layer one blockchain that's based based on the evm software or the evm stuff it launched quite a long time ago on Earth Day in 2020 with a mission mission to make money better and their perspective of the founders of cell which I'm not but I'm I'm very loyal to cell is to create a money that is inclusive and net positive for the world if you look back at the very start of Bitcoin Bitcoin was trying to do something comparable we're saying hey our current money isn't sufficiently good to progress us as Humanity to the next level now

Bitcoin as a money is built around certain features and certain values a lot of it is about self- custody it's about ownership it's about savings kind of wealth preservation and the C Founders were looking at Bitcoin in the early days were participating in ethereum ecosystem and realize that those values might not be the values that work for everyone in the world world or are able to progress the entire world it might work for some subset of people that were early in or that have certain needs yes but for the majority of people especially in emerging markets that are being plagued by um inequality by climate change these Solutions of

wealth preservation are in their primary needs privacy even for example isn't primary thing on their mind they need to eat they need to make sure that their houses don't flood there's other values and other features that are critical so cell launched on Earth Day as a mobile first blockchain with the aim to facilitate simple stable coins low transaction fees mobile first and really bring the infrastructure to the people that needed it most now when cell did that again four years ago the space was very different there was no such thing as layer twos so cell launched as a layer one an alternative blockchain to ethereum um interestingly cell has always been very close to ethereum and and has been contributing also to

ethereum um and the past year year and a half they have been on this journey to actually um kind of move back or come home to ethereum and operate as a later too they went through a nice Journey where there were multiple partners who said hey our tax Tech might be the right solution and then ultimately c um through a governance vote completely unchain token holders voted to become a part of the optimism network of the super chain using the op stack and that's kind of where we are right now at cell we have um three four years of history of trying to build impact for Sustainable Solutions we have we're kind of finding or refining our home within ethereum within the super chain so we're

actually at a quite interesting position as a blockchain right now and then the ecosystem that has emerged around that is is maybe as interesting in the first wave of cell there was a very big move for ubis we had good dollar we had um impact Market with hundreds of thousands of users ERS um claiming Ubi on Cell we also have Mento a um stable coin protocol for the longtail on Cell we we recently I think last week they launched a Philippines um stable coin um there's a Kenyan Shilling stable coin there's a Brazilian real stable coin and it kind of really shows again that c is hyperfocused on these Emerging Markets on these emerging countries and then in 2021 2022 because C has also a big

connection to things like climate change because they're so critical for Humanity cell also started to become the home of Raa or regenerative finance and that is also still a pad you're really seeing inside of the cello ecosystem this big push towards climate Solutions impact Solutions sustainable Finance Green Solutions and I think one of the the kind of best highlights of it is that um cello as a blockchain is extremely carbon negative and we call it Ultra green money which means that for every dollar of say ution that's that Sal the blockchain would emit again that's still assuming that it actually happens but assuming that the blockchain has certain emissions multiple times that is being

purchased and um sequestered on chain on cell so yeah there's a lot of again thetical technical elements to cell there's an ecosystem around and where we are now is really an exciting period in between this cell layer one to cell 2 with the cell 2 mayet coming out ideally later this year the end of the year but then also an ecosystem right really improving on the vertical that we already have from mobile friendly apps for example mini pay that's being built with Opa and Africa um I think they just crossed three or four million users but then also doubling down other verticals like there's a new protocol called corg being launched at defi Finance first protocol rwas are growing refi is refounding a new house I mean we we just

completed um I think two three days before this episode we completed the region coordination track and gitcoin on cell so I'm super excited to be speaking about this today because I just feel that all those years of development bare markets and everything that came in between were now really an exciting point to Define what the next stage of cell will look like wow love it I think this was such a dope overview of cell that you know I've B and I'm so sure like audience will love this and L you know would love to know a little bit about what about your role in journey within cell right like when did you start and at what point did you start yeah for sure so um if you look at my Twitter my name is Luke da and I've been Luke da now for a little over four or

four and a half years I started my journey in web 3 as an event organized in 2016 here in the Netherlands after that started a nonprofit in 2018 called the Caribbean blockchain Network we were looking for ways to create impact using blockchain and it's here that we stumbled upon Dow stack which was one of the early Dow Frameworks and we started contributing me and some Partners into what they call Genesis Alpha which was one of the first Dows that existed and ever since that moment I have primarily worked done moved in Dows I really call myself a Dost I've really grown up in Dows um I probably understand better how to talk to Dows than to talk to normal companies which is a superow in some ways but also a bit annoying in the real

world sometimes but long story short I started of a small Venture studio called collectivo Labs one of our biggest projects and kind of life mission for me is creating collectivo Network a network of local Reg of economies and in that Journey around 2021 we were looking for a place to call home and that's where Sal came on my pad we spent the first year year and a half primarily focused on just building collectiv Network some successes some learnings for sure I think in many many occasions we were too early with what we're trying to do but then around 2022 2023 I realized that hey I have a lot of experience running designing and kind of organizing doubts and I see that c as an ecosystem is moving more and more towards unchain

governance with an unchain treasury um so ever since I've been playing a role in the cell ecosystem as I would say one of the most active Dow operators and that kind of accelerated even further initially through cell Europe which was a regional Dow that I was part of and then since last kind of end of last year we started working on what we call cell PG or cell public goods which is the unchain funding of public goods in the cell ecosystem U we created a program around it we also rent different Treasury and governance updates in order to really set C treasury up for being able to bring sustainability or even regeneration to the projects in the ecosystem that have an impact and even to the individuals that have an impact

because we saw that there were so many opportunities that were being unrealized because of that lack of kind of pathway from resource to potential so for the past year one of my primary roles if not my primary role has been leading cell public goods and building on different programs to accelerate the builders that are making a difference in C but also in the wider web three and even the world yeah Monty we would also love to hear what's been your journey with cell like I remember it for Me Cell was the first blockchain that I heard of it was the first but also blockchain that I looked into what is it that they are building I think it really resonated with me for some of the reasons that dukee mentioned coming from a fintech background in

which my total focus was how do we provide under Bank people with more financial Services I was looking at Latin American perspective and African perspective how are we doing this with mobile money how does that translate into blockchain so would also love to hear what's been your journey with the solo ecosystem absolutely absolutely so yeah my Journey's been a little bit little bit different to Luke but um some rhythms and Rhymes there as well um yeah I I come from I think quite an environmentalist background I come from a family of sustainability professionals um you know but my mom's written a book called The Green green consumer guide when she was my age and it sold a million copies and and you know has dedicated her life towards that mission

so I've always grown up around that discourse on that problem space at the same time I've always been a kind of techy Builder you know kind of energy I studied philosophy and economics and um and so you know crypto always had this this interesting element uh of being this kind of radically disruptive new Force combining many of those kind of theoretical um spaces uh but of course it never really had the environmentalism side to it you know quite the opposite when we think of Bitcoin and uh you know the early days of crypto um until it and suddenly we had you know blockchains becoming super energy efficient with proof of stake and suddenly the refi movement was born when you know toucan protocol and cadow

managed to onboard like 10% of global carbon markets on chain and suddenly everyone was like Hey refi is a thing you know there were some early Pioneers before that uh but really we saw this kind of huge wave um Coming uh all these Builders wanting to say hey we can do carbon on chain can we do all of these other regenerative ecological uh social impact projects uh utilizing blockchain and you know I was I was studying my masters at Bristol at the time doing kind of management with Innovation uh Masters course and uh you know I just became totally hooked I was like this is this is where I want to be with my life this is what I want to do and so yeah just ended up going going super deep on refi uh I ended up doing a kind of Ted Talk on the space connected um with John

Ellison who was doing the refi podcast at the time and the refid blog he just kind of left tan and I had my own start refi kind of startup that I was doing as part of my Master's course and really channeled that work into into reial and kind of yeah went went full-time with it and have been been through the the Journey of the refi space from then until now uh which has been a very a very interesting journey to have gone on um I think part of just kind of zooming out on on refi for a second I think um one of the things that always resonates with me is is when I look at the world and I think you know Finance is almost one of the greatest coordination mechanisms that Humanity has ever designed seemingly guides our actions and decisions all over the world in a

very decentralized manner every day the Invisible Hand of Market forces Etc right now that's heading us towards total apocalypse and systemic collapse of of ecology and society and everything really and you know how do we not do that um how do we how do we redesign these tools so that we're not like baked into a system where these outcomes are happening um and you know stop tinkering around with paper straws and and these kind of micr consumerist solutions and and putting it all on the individual when there's a real deep systemic problem here and I think blockchains provide us with a new tool a new primitive to design these new systems um and you know previously would only be in the realm of huge governments or Banks

you know we now have the ability to experiment with these tools which is is in itself a double-edged sword uh you know we see lwh hanging fruit of bad experiments or or the systems that are actually worse or with you know maybe values that I don't align with um but actually we can use these tools to do incredible things and you know cell's mission of course redesign money uh to be in harmony with the Earth you know inspired a lot by Charles eisenstein and money can be beautiful and of this kind of thinking and actually really trying to to look at how do we use these Technologies not just to remain in Magic internet land money uh but actually have have real impact in the real world develop real solutions uh and build a regenerative economy um and

I think you know cell has the ecosystem the the kind of core commitment and resources to put towards this Mission and so I think I was actually feeling this the other night I was like damn I'm so grateful that solo just exists because it's like you know you look at some of the other chains and yeah there are some refi programs and Etc but a side quest for cell like it's it's it's the core Mission it's the core focus and the community that that's built around it is really exciting and inspiring it makes me think we can actually do this you know whereas sometimes you have moments when you're like ah what are we doing it's all pie in the sky but so yeah that's kind of been my journey and yeah obviously so founding reial uh we you know we've done a lot of work with

creating uh this kind of local node architecture of communities across the globe that are from those communities assessing local needs and then saying okay how can we actually innovate and Implement these these refi tools and Solutions on the ground and so that's been a really exciting Journey seeing that local node Network grow and start to thrive and um and the synergies with C were were quite clear and you know we we sort of started forming various proposals around what our collaboration with cell could look like uh we got caught up in the the cell Community governance fund and and some of the the governance challenges and and you know being first exposed to that kind of Dow uh mechanism uh but really that just ended up bringing me closer in and you know we went through some

changes at reaal um ended up reforming a proposal to say hey how can we utilize some of the amazing Innovation from gitcoin from optimism you know have funding for refi projects on Cell um and that really brought me closer with Luke who who was obviously very active uh and we said you know rather than doing separate things let's cell public goods initiative and that's kind of how we we came together at the beginning the half of this year and um started cell public goods and and all the things that we're we're doing today so yeah excited to to chat a bit bit more about that what we've done so so far this year and and what we'll be getting into uh later in this year and in 2025 so yeah great definitely and I think as you mentioned like all there's some of these di

systems can be so complex for people coming in so I'm really excited and happy to see as you mentioned that Wei found a home within cell I think it's also one of the really nice things about the cell ecosystem in which you have this very tangible communities that are doing this Hands-On work at a local level that are understanding first who's our user base what are their needs Thinking Beyond like focusing more on what the needs are I think this match like this goes on hand in hand really well with this idea of can we redefine money like within the optimism ecosystem there's like it's not capitalism it's not communism like they're calling it optimism we're trying to rethink how we maintain this digital

public goods that have now emerged or like well they've always been around but they are now I think more visible to some people than other within the web3 ecosystem so understanding as well how does the perspective from the cello Community comes in with how do we think about money as well like thinking of money as a coordination mechanism as a way in which we can regenerate not only our financial system but the way in which we collaborate I think also again bringing back this very neat idea that this tangible communities that know each other that have been doing a lot of work around local physical activities within their countries within their regions

that are part of the of the cell ecosystem would be super interesting to hear well ROP pgf as initially posed by the optimism ecosystem is this community effort where the community is judging or evaluating what is impactful to the community what is the take that cell is having on running this program look do you want to tell us more about what your thoughts are there yeah I have so many thoughts there and I mean I just love this topic and a way to maybe shape this or kind of picture this for people that might not be kind of this deep in the tranches is um for me I see a constant battle between two areas that are extremely critical there's the

underground work that needs to happen the things that need to happen in the physical world to realize an impact that is that is important for the world and on the other side the tools that would theoretically Orient practice enable those that can create that impact and that's a very big extreme at the same or comparably you have an extreme between Global and local and I think a lot of the um Innovations around what you would call kind of coordination are primarily trying to speed up the resource allocation and when I say resource not just money it's also information context between those extremes and with that context what I really see as like the

let's put at one end the digital I think it's like the internet we're extremely dependent on the internet in everything we do here and then ethereum as this new internet or web three as this kind of next generation of Internet let's put etherum at the that one extreme and then at the other side this person in a remote Village that doesn't have enough financial capacity to start a business is being plagued by Thro that has very tangible needs and where does value exchange happen for this to help solve this and for the people in the middle to understand where they need to play a role in order to ultimately have that impact and I think impact I know especially you la probably have a lot of thoughts around impact But ultimately it

is just extremely hard because it's to a very large degree subjective but I also feel that with a lot of Frameworks that we have where it's United Nations or ebf or we are at least aligning on some kind of impact metrics that we say hey we all agree that at least this has some relevance and I think that this is another element really innovating on all of these fronts at the same time that's also why it's so challenging and sometimes looks messy because it's not an easy solution it's not linear in any way or shape it's very much interconnected and but yeah to really paint this picture again it's this long value chain of digital public good or infrastructure all the way down to real world impact and I think that is where programs like copg and specifically retr pgf are trying to

speed up those Pathways right so let's imagine I'm a builder and I can be very specific let's take collectivo as an example I come from a small Caribbean island we used to have I think the highest pollution per capita for a very long time we're close of the coast of Venezuela we used to live of bad things oil refinery offshore drugs those were like our top three economic drivers of the island so I grew up in an island where money was dark it was a thing that came from bad things and it was just I didn't have have that much of a beautiful perspective of it at all money was ugly so coming from an ident like that when I first discovered blockchain I was doing business and philosophy and I was like hey we can now reimagine our

values we can program these things like the whole world went open and then I was trying to understand what the people on the ground needed so we created a local stable coin with maker down in 2019 we got it curada it was like Wow amazing until the day that my mom called me angry look why why do I need to pay $20 BL blah blah BL blah because gas was too high so this was a very clear kind of Disconnect between the potential solution it wasn't even a final solution yet and just the infrastructure the tools that we had to do that those are things that now you can't even imagine but there were periods where people were paying $20 for a transfer of a stable coin and now retr pgf is creating a pathway that incentivizes or promotes

for people to Bubble Up these these scars these kind of real world triggers like hey we want to do XYZ but we don't want our moms to pay $20 gas fees so we need this this this this this and instead of waiting for being dependent on third party financing or government grants which take way too long like two three whatever your Cycles they are now incentivized to just start making progress building in public sharing learnings and then retroactively receiving a reward based on that process now again in honesty where we are right now it's it's far not from perfect like we're not there at all but even if we're there a little bit it already makes a

big difference and again bringing it back to collectivo we are able and incentivized to even the people that are no longer on the team because there's not enough money to still do small things because they're like hey maybe it rewards Us in some way and we can then do the build the next thing and so it creates this idea that as long as you keep moving and as long as you keep developing and building open source or these open Solutions and you will be able to get rewarded and continue to build and that maybe brings it back to a topic I I've been increasingly kind of vocal about is kind of bringing it back to ethereum ethereum has this concept of the infinite Garden or kind of infinite games where the theory is that it's more important to pick the right game and

just keep playing it with the right people that is essentially how you would win in I would almost say in life as a mentor like play the infinite game and from that perspective retro pgf allows more people to be able to keep playing the game forever because if if it wasn't for retr pgf I personally probably wouldn't be able to do a third of the things I'm doing today and those games would just potentially die off because other things come on my path and so I think it's so so important to have these programs like retro pgf of course there's needs to be more around it it's not just the Retro element but the Retro element is a lifeline and a blood it kind of it keeps it moving it in some case even helps it grow and but it at least gives this Rhythm and I think

that's very important so I guess tldr um it's a very important mechanism to ensure that good behavior is rewarded in perpetuity and as a result of that good behaviors are more rewarding and more talent and more people will kind of flu to that yeah and I think this is particularly one of the very important pieces that the precisely refi ecosystem is looking as well into how do we incentivize new behaviors that are in accordance to what's needed for us to continue to regenerate our ecosystem uh Monty What's the de refi perspective from using these kind of programs one of the things I wanted to touch on there was this kind of I think tension that

comes up when we talk about public goods funding in that like what is a public good and what deserves uh funding you know and we're talking that about that in context of blockchain ecosystems you know there are many public goods out there like air and clean water and clean environment Etc in blockchain when we're talking about RP GF we're talking about a spe type of public goods and public goods funding and you know we've seen the current state of the markets where layer to ecosystems are at Etc like there's at the fundamental layer of a blockchain a need to be economically sustainable like how do they allocate capital in a way that means that more people utilize the blockchain more transactions more sequence of fees Etc so really that's I guess at the root of

the economic engine of of blockchains and of capital allocation on blockchain chain and grants and retr pgf Etc and so I think what what's really interesting is is then where does the refi and the regen public goods come into that um you just like take any positive impact and just fund it well then the blockchain will die and that will not then be a sustainable source of funding for that impact you know I think that's tied in with how optimism started with retroactive public goods funding and is now retroactive funding it's a slight nod towards that you know optimism space as the super chain you know needs to fund the tech infrastructure and Etc that sustains all these other ecosystems but that again is where I think cell has

this really interesting piece here of being a kind of home for regen refi real world applications Etc um can actually yeah inhabit that space and actually look for that intersection of real world impact and public goods funding so it's building the digital infrastructure um yes but where does then that funding also create real world impacts positive externalities um and how does the public goods funding support that as well as regenerating cell's system but because we're joining the super chain cell doesn't have to focus as much on like the Deep Tech and you know the wider it can leverage that from The Wider ecosystem as opposed to having to build everything itself yeah I think this point that you touched on Monte is really important as part of the super

chain vision and how the optimism ecosystem has been thinking particularly about reer rounds and how who should be the teams or the people determining who who should be receiving funding like I think the optimism Collective is very aware that there's a lot of impact that is being generated that the batch holders as the currently setup is will not know how to evaluate that so it's best also to push this evaluation and this the depth choice of what's getting funded to the edges as well and I see a really nice opportunity here for the cello ecosystem and they know the refi communities not just the communities but products the technology that is needed

to empower these Builders within the refi ecosystems and also for broader adoption with mobile payments in Africa such as like the work that mini has been doing so I see a really good opportunity there for the C ecosystem to focus on how do we make this infinite game possible for these other niches within web through ecosystem that we are or at least I definitely am hoping to see more of maybe I can jump in there because one of the things that I've kind of taken my other side of my life is um back when C articulated first that they wanted to become an L2 they they didn't have different options they just said hey we're going to become an OP stack and

one of the things um that me and some people around me did right away was hey if Cell becomes part of optimism we need to understand what's going on there we need to understand of learn their language and and start to understand how we can collaborate and we started this knowledge platform called called super chain Eco which has now grown out to one of the main sources of kind of super chain coordination we're actually organizing a big event in uh Bangkok in in November but it also allowed us to get an even better understanding of the mission and the diversity of that super chain and I think it can we can bring it back again to this value chain right like the biggest the the biggest element or the biggest Pusher being ethereum

ethereum cannot take all the different scaling apprach approach it cannot be underground everywhere cannot they don't have to be the settlement layer thank you and then after that comes a different kind of ecosystems of L Bound by different values different companies different missions and what so then within that right a of ethereum that's already decision by itself people might opt in for Solana or not even blockchain right there's alternative people building comparable Visions on non-blockchain Solutions um but imagine you pick optimism then within there there's so much diversity again there's of course common values like we optimistic I think that's such a strong

value and I think one of the reasons why optimism is the most used L2 right now it's because it's so actionable and so forward thinking and and what so but within that cluster you really see that different geographies different verticals are being explored now and I think that's a really exciting phase where these different chains are really forming their identity but they're no longer shaping it identity purely by themselves because they're also influenced by looking at hey what are the others doing and I think that's especially what what I really hope to to explore even further in November in superon is really physically also understanding hey where are the focus

differences where are the cultural differences there's clusters in Southeast Asia there's clusters in Africa but there that's also different verticals there's inclusive Finance there's rwa there's Green Tech there's gaming there's and I think what we're going to see in the coming months especially coming years is hopefully a kind of positive some outcome where people can agree to disagree and kind of divide the kind of the addressable Market which I think is again where this value chain can be optimized where we're not trying to dominate on every Market by with every technology with every XYZ and every model but where we're like hey we have the best context resources Network in Latin America and Africa in let's say Philippines and we have great

technology and people building inclusive Finance onchain cordination Green Solutions great let's hyper optimize on realizing that opportunity While others might be dominating Africa on the gaming level and instead of trying to compete for the same niches actually creating positive some collaborations between those niches and I think it is quite challenging right it's a completely new economic Paradigm that even I mean blockchain itself is quite collaborative often it's very open source very built in public but I think this is even a step further and it's touches upon I think deeper rooted fears and potential right because we're still triggered in a way that hey my blockchain needs to sustain itself it needs some relevancy

it needs some transactions it needs some to be able to provide that ecosystem that Monty was explaining earlier that you also need to think about everybody that's on the blockchain like how do we sustain them but yeah I think that's one of the most exciting things for the coming years really is specifically for for the optimism ecosystem but also for I think ethereum and web3 at large kind of how do we optimize resource allocation not just on the kind of individual project level but also on the inter dependency level where do we spend their energy because if we're able to do that well then we can out coordinate web 2 and a traditional kind of economic paradigms even with onet of the resources because we're just way more efficient at accomplishing and making an impact than the systems I love that it

just makes me think you know yes these things are new as well what we're doing but also so much Rhythm and Rhymes with you know when we look at like the super chain as a European union or the United Nations and you know you mentioned then each of the super chain kind of carving out a a specialization or a place within that that's kind of like the division of labor in the global economy and it's it's just like the parallels there I think are really interesting and then and then like you say it's okay let's let's learn from what the conventional systems have been doing and all of the mistakes they've made and then let's use this new technology to try and you know innovate it and be 10x more efficient or some crazy goal um and it's just really fascinating to see those experiments play out and

we're you know we're very much not there yet which which I think is both uh presents some problems but obviously also presents the the opportunities and the the space to innovate and um and so yeah it's really exciting to be a part of that um kind of new new economy and new approaches yes and I and I'm wearing my super chain top I I changed it whil whilst Luke was talking I was like uh getting excited for Bankok yes and I think this is particularly a really good and interesting point where like we need to be sharing more of what we are learning what we're building like there's already so much open source technology that we all rely on regardless of which chain it is that we're building on and I think

this is also one of the reasons why having something as retroactive rounds is so important but just as Luke mentioned we need to coordinate better as well otherwise it's just like we're all giving the same like large amounts of money to the same groups without being mindful of okay what are other uh contributions other whether it is Tech contributions whether it is educational contributions whether it is community like onboarding contributions that will enable more of the pie to continue to grow right at the end of the day I think but several of us are focused on is how do we bring more people to play this game with us in the web three space how are we able to rethink how we coordinate how do we give more power to people so

that they can make more decisions and all of this is based on experiments just as M mentioned it's like we are experimenting sometimes we mess up sometimes we get it right and the most important thing I think there is how can we share when we're messing up and what we're getting right so that we don't have to be repeating the mistakes that others have already so here what are some ideas of both things that you would like others to be sharing with the c PG team around I know there's more rounds to come how do we make better rounds for the cello ecosystem and also what are some of the things that the solo team

would like to share with others around his learnings I mean that's such a great um approach that is laow and I think for me the answer to this is collaboration and joint ventures one of the Dows I helped incubate was primed out we were going deep into Dow toou coordination back in 2021 2022 looking into ways how to do incentive alignment at the very root at the start of something and for me if we take a perfect example I think it's the recent region coordination round that happened we had reial green pill cop PG not just sharing some kind of high level learnings but getting in the weeds together and forcing um not

just again shared ideas or learnings that are relevant for one specific group and then you need to see if the context works for you blah blah we literally came with all our backstory and said what do we want now and from that we were forced to come to concessions about oh what is important what is this what do these people need do they need it in there as well and I think something like that really forcing those multiple groups to shape a program together fund it together run it together I think that really drives a a level of coordination that's so much deeper than just sharing a list of learnings on an article because it's so hard to pass that knowledge on and to understand what knowledge is relevant and but if there's a milestone like if there's a nordstar

and it it directly affects the outcome of my community and myself I'm going to pay so much more attention to the resource and the learnings there and if you kind of draw that back to the super chain I think one of the things that CG we're trying to do is to apply for a super chain Grant which is a program that allows op chains to run a gr program for their own ecosystem and one of the things we're trying to optimize for in that is programs and projects that bring clusters of stakeholders together so for example imagine a regional Dow with two protocols and the United Nations together want to build this program in this country with the government those are the things that I'm

most excited about how can we create this multi-stakeholder collaboration that lead to Resource knowledge and kind of impact alignment on on those levels home yeah I think that's I think really those guys kind of joint ventures and and collaborations multistakeholder are are the way to to make progress there I love that I'd love to just build on that for a sec as well and I think um two answers that are kind of screaming uh to me at this moment is one like not Reinventing the wheel uh a lot of times I think you know we look at the Dow space and there's a and the blockchain space there's a tendency to go everything we're doing is new and it's all so Innovative and like ignore the Decades of organizational economic theory research practice in the conventional

space because we're saying hey it's all new because it's on blockchain um and I think that that almost hubris has led to a lot of the fuckups um that we've seen in the space and I think there's so much so much to learn from that and then build on it with all of these New Primitives and new ways of doing doing things um and so I think yeah certainly as well in the refi space you know let's not ignore the the the you know big history in regenerative economics and sustainable development and some of the amazing things that are going on in that space just because we we live in the refi bubble and Etc and you know one of the things I think that that then has been um building on that as well and also setting building on on Luke's Point around shared initiatives uh you know

I'm obviously one of the founders of reaal um green pear uh Network we've got szal here who who I think is one of the founders of green pill Network um you know we we're doing similar things we're very values aligned H and you know I've always loved that and and the same with c and so with this with this regen coordination movement bringing those networks together and saying uh instead of just like um competing and building our own islands and facing the same problems and um you know where can we share some of those Solutions um and how does that bind us together in a shared incentive structure Etc and so I think that's been really interesting to see how that's been kind of bubbling for a little bit and now with with the shared gitcoin round provided that kind of real impetus to pull resources together and

is really starting to build those common foundations um and now when I'm looking at the problem of say impact tracking and measurement which is a a big um kind of area that we need to figure out in reaal and when you're creating a decentralized network of local communities across the globe and allocating resources towards those when you're small okay you can just kind of you know sense what's going on uh when you when you scale you need to really have a robust system for impact tracking and measurement and instead of doing that in the island of reial um the same problems are going to be faced in green pill Network the same problems are looking at cell Regional dials and and in The Wider space and so if we solve that problem together uh we then all mutually benefit um and if we're you know tied in with the right incentive

structures Etc we're we're all going to the same place and we have the the shared values and so I think that's been really exciting to see and we can kind of pull some of the learnings and the resources and the solutions um in that space so definitely more more coming soon here I've been I've been going deep on some called the common approach um common foundations and so we'll be sharing sharing more about that soon but yeah just really excited to see those experiments blossoming and the kind of collaborative Spirit emerging yeah I love that you know uh I think in every episode uh I say that this episode could be a series of episodes like there is so much that you know we can unpack together but uh you one of the things that LA and I have been talking about is

how do we like we talk about sharing the learnings and you know we want to talk about our you know fuckups and even we do an event now which is up nights right just to make sure like you know everyone comes together and share their learnings and you know the things that went wrong but I think um now I think like luk and Monty you you guys are the perfect Partners to actually launch this like you know we should totally like come together on this and you know um do something about it right so that it's actually happening right so you know I know like we are approaching you know towards the uh the end of the episode I would love to know your thoughts on you know retroactive funding mechanism in general like how do you see this evolving like what are the maybe Trends

or innovations that you would like to see um you know with this in the in the public goods space now that you know cell also did their first retro round there have been previous funding experiments and like you know planning more rounds so yeah what would you like to see or something that you really excited about I'm quite opinionated on that front and I think again I just have this logic in my brain ethereum optimism sell real world and logic comes coming back to me and one of the things that I think is extremely critical from the optimism perspective is being more clear about the nordstar and being clear about that nordstar ahead of time I think one of the biggest frictions that the latest retro rounds have been some of the

elements have been fixed kind of by articulating earlier what the topics would be but then I think in many cases it's still unpredictable what the metrics would be and I think that is one of the common thems right once you have a Nord star you don't need the exact measurements but at least an indication of what you should be optimizing for then you can then find a balance between what you ideally or personally feel you should be doing and what has been articulated by whatever entity or organization or ecosystem that is funding you to look for the optimal pet and I think we're now still in a stage where that optimal pad has too many gambles in there where you need to decide yourself oh I think governance means Unchained votes let me optimize

for this where maybe you thought that optimizing for Education reads is the better thing but you're just afraid that that won't get funded so you don't do it but so I feel that that is such an important and critical fact on the optimism front now if we take that to Sal I think we are or hopefully going to be able to after the end of October we're going to do a retro citizen round so then we had two retro rounds on cell cell RPG F zero which focus on projects primarily backward looking kind of past 18 months then cow citizen again backward looking past 18 months we're going to move to cell 2 and I think then as an ecosystem we need to come together set a couple of Nord stars and really be like five years from now where do we

want to be here here here or at least somewhere in that direction great let's work back and identify some common teams that as if you're building around that we will ensure or look for ways to kind of keep you involved but think that that is something that in a c case we can only do once we have done this kind of next pulse check on the ecosystem we have an understanding of the projects now soon we'll have an understanding of the individuals we're going to have a new text tack like new almost like clean sheet and I think that's really going to allow us to again look forward three or five years into the future and maybe as a final thing from my side maybe coming back to something Monty said where you said we're still far away I disagree I think we're we're super freaking close

to to a big big breakthrough when it comes to unchain coordination if I compare the resources knowledge topics conversations quality access everything pay from now between so for for from today even in a semi- be Market not great conditions l2s are little bit down if I compare this to three years ago four years ago but then even more five or six years ago there was nothing no multi no l2s there high gas there was I think we're so so far along if it wasn't for regulatory uncertainty I almost want to say bull crap because a lot of it

doesn't seem in my opinion to accomplish what it's trying to do I think once those hurdles are gone I think on the technical front next year we're going to have interoperability for sure next year we're going to have a coun abstraction for sure next year if regulatory hurdles clear up a bit we're going to have instant on andof ramps we don't need much more blockchain Innovation from my understanding from my perspective to build a lot of the systems that we're imagining so I really think that if we almost get lucky but if we push and resolve some of these hurdles that within two or three years from now we can really be at the stage where is not 10% of carbon credits or impact running

on chain but we could be looking at 30 40 50% and yeah I think so I really feel that that's the case even if you look at the terminology it's changing again it's changing quick we went from things like blockchain to cryptocurrencies to then web 3 became a thing and now we're talking about things like unchain summer unchain Finance real world this I really feel that that we are getting so much closer and and um now really is the time to to be tough because it is not easy and that's maybe why it feels like we're far away like we're definitely not there in a comfortable way but I think in an uncomfortable way we're very very close actually to to these big breakthroughs and having a big impact yeah I think

this is also where we start to see the the web through ecosystem as a whole mature like mature as an industry I remember when I started in the web 3 space it was like oh of course no one is looking for product Market fit it doesn't really matter like we're not the industry is not at that stage yet but I think that we're getting closer and closer and similar to what look is mentioning is we already have a lot of the infrastructure that is needed for us to start testing out is this something that people actually want not just in our little bubbles of Highly technical people um but is this something that can generate good for a larger base of people in different geographical

locations can we get to adoption of projects that are solving for people's needs and see how we continue to evolve I do agree though as with what Monty was sharing in terms of the coordination games that we're playing there's still a lot of way for us to like a lot of path for us to cross I think in terms of Technology of course our technology will continue to evolve and there are several things Bo fixes and improvements that we can continue to build on but I agree that the technology is right for people to start building more projects that are serving larger audiences than these little Bubbles and before we wrap up this has been an incredibly interesting

conversation hearing and learning more about the solell ecosystem the refi ecosystem how this communities make up uh and inform as well this Le this community Le efforts to improve how Capital allocation is being distribute is being done in the web 3 space we heard a little bit of Alpha from Luke so there's going to be an upcoming uh reach around for Citizens is there any additional Alpha that you would like to share with our listeners about either coming developments and your grants programs and the evolution of Sil PG and how what else should we be looking

forward in terms of C becoming or already being one of the members of the super chain I'm happy to take this one Monty but but a lot of credit for this goes to you so within the realm of the super chain um one of the projects that we've been doing at Super chain Eco is building something called a super chain account um as a way to do two things one move more people to a better wallet from a externally owned account to a Smart account built on safe but then second also getting a better sense of context and contribution within the super chain through um kind of one source of truth there's a lot of different systems right there's the region token there's the region score there's the um layer Tre Galaxy there's different mechanisms that

measure some value or relevancy within whatever context but we realize that there's no such thing for the super chain but then while doing it we also realize that there's no such thing for cell and these scores can be so important as a mechanism to speed up decision making speed up resource allocation because if you be able to contextualize someone or a project or um you're just able to deal with it way better so um we're at the Point um very soon to launch super chain accounts but on the backdrop of that we have already making we're already making progress on a concept we call Prosperity password that will be developed on Cell it's a bit of an ultra Alpha because I mean there's still some risk that it doesn't

happen in the way that we hope it happens but I think that's also the nice thing about the space like I'm very happy to say today that we're going to do everything we can to try to have Prosperity passport live by the next citizen round on Cell as a way even if it's in the simplest version just as a way to get some information about what you've done in cell what you've maybe done outside of cell what you've done in the refi space What You've meant for cell PG and then understand how that influences the program design and decision making from the people that are involved in those decision so yeah I think that's something that that I'm super excited about it's something that Monty and I have spent two or three months just jamming and like jamming like we went from idea a to C to F to

and I think this week actually we had quite a breakthrough where we're like hey we don't need to to build anything because we have a tangible thing coming up a citizen round let's build something that works a little bit for that and then we move from there so um I think that's a big Alpha and I'll let Monty add to that yeah 100% I just want to want to build on that as well and I think looking at optimism's rpgfan other kind of um ways of of really looking at what those metrics are that are important to evaluate these things and you know when we're looking at onchain Builders and onchain applications yeah there's a lot that can be done by looking at those metrics of of Open Source and Etc but when we move

to other Realms whether it's citizens or communities or refi you know what are those other metrics and how do we get that at scale you know when we're looking at citizens like cell citizens uh people who have been in the cell Community like there's a bunch of onchain data that we can we can get for that how do we get there well we can aggregate you know all these different Badges and data points and Etc and so I think you know what Luke has been building with with super chain accounts and bringing that into a kind of prosperity passport and creating almost like a generalized infrastructure for identity building uh on on chain um I think is a really interesting application and we yeah we have a chance here with the with the cell citizens round to then trial that out with a reasonable you know 250,000 cell tokens

to distribute to all of those uh citizens and so yeah I'm really looking forward to seeing how that experiment goes and then where we build from there um and you know we've already just done gg21 and right now I'm like crunching the numbers on the matching calculations with with regen tips proof of regen and seeing how those signals influence the quadratic funding allocations and you know the more signals we can play with the more we can start to optimize and tweak these systems so that we can get the results and the the optimal Capital allocation systems that we're looking to build so yeah just really excited to you know build on the shoulders of giants but uh bring the kind of unique flavor of cell and regen and see what experiments we can do to really make this Vision a reality so really just

really grateful as well I mean look at us we got we got four four cell public good stewards in in in in the cool right now uh I was super super happy to be able to I want to say poach but not poach I mean bring bring both of you soal and Lao into the cell public goods team and just really been enjoying uh building building with you and the other stewards and just really excited about what we what we're doing together yeah no and I think I think this is really great Alpha I definitely like it's part of the work that I do looking at how do we improve those reputational systems how do we and more than anything how do we create additional impact data so that we're making sure that all of the different items that enable the web three to thrive from open source

software contributions to what communities what educational initiatives onboarding initiatives are contributing to enable us to get to more people how do we evaluate them how do we generate the data that is going to allow us to make this cap Capital allocation so much more efficient so this is the end of the podcast but I'm definitely looking forward to chatting with both of you uh on what the prosperity passport is gonna look like yeah no this sounds super exciting and super interesting definitely want to hear more about it so maybe we'll have to do we'll just have to do another episode Cel but I'll give it back to you so you can tell us more about yeah I love that uh thank you so

much luk and Monty for sharing that I I do want to say like you know it has been great working with you guys and I love the fact that you have so much appetite for experimentation that is exactly what you know we need in the space and I think cell ecosystem is quite lucky to have you know folks like you and you know and grateful that you know we are also here but it's super aligned and looking forward to you know collaborating more and yes thank you so much and I'm going to end this now so it's a wrap up for the C episode I am quite amazed to see the fact you know the initiatives cell is has been taking region coordination round that just got concluded in GG and the upcoming citizens retro round right so find all

the details in cell's Forum about what this round is all about if you're eligible or not we will put it in the show notes you know now I've been uh seen like round operators it's quite interesting to see how they are experimenting with these different rounds and mechanisms to achieve the outcomes or objectives for their ecosystem as an expert like what are your thoughts on this and tell us a little bit more about the strategy by round operators so particularly interesting is how cell decided to use this retroactive rounds like the one that has already passed in which they focused on projects that have been around the cello ecosystem for a long time and rewarding that loyalty and that perseverence of continuing building I

think it's a really good incentive as well to show them we value that you've been part of the C story for a really long time and we really look forward to having you as part of this new chapter in which cello becomes part of one of the op chains and then for the upcoming round that Luke mentioned at the end is they'll be running this reer round for cell citizens so people that have helped shaped cow governance and now again as it's transitioning into becoming a member of the super chain and revamping its own governance after so many years this is a wink to these people we really

appreciate the work that you've been doing and we looking forward to have you participate more so there's strategy on leveraging this mechanism not only to distribute funding in accordance to what has been useful and is has been valuable to the solo ecosystem but also to understand who the members and key contributors and participants of the ecosystem are is quite interesting little bit of a different flavor to what some of the other round operators that tend to focus more on like bring more developers bring more X bring more Y and see these are rounds that are enabling C to understand better who's part of their

ecosystem and through that same process incentivize them to remain in the ecosystem and continue contributing so I'm really excited to see as well how this citizens found plays out at the end of this year and if you're interested on in bringing value to the cello ecosystem particularly in its governance understand more about how they are moving and how they are shaping who's going to be a citizen what that looks like make sure to come over to the cello Forum check it out read through the proposals and start engaging them