WEBVTT - DAO-mocracy (Alex Zhang) 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:04.120 Most things don't need to live on the blockchain, most 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.120 things don't need to be crypto based. But in a 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.000 world where that technology provides real value to that organizing 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.000 structure that I think adao is a really great thing 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.360 to explore in terms of how you can create fundamental 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.320 transparency and sort of value cruel to people who participate 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:26.720 in that network. Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.200 a podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.680 legal status. This season is all about how we practice democracy, 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.080 what can we get rid of, what can we invent, 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.839 and how do we change the culture of democracy itself. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:42.960 We're leaving the theoretical clouds and hitting the ground with 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.000 inspiring examples of people and institutions that are showing us 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:57.560 new ways to govern ourselves. Way back in the year 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.720 two twenty one, I tried to buy an original copy 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:08.600 of the United States Constitution. Okay, me and thousands of 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.160 other people tried to buy the Constitution. I was part 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.000 of this group called Constitution Doo. DOO stands for a 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.000 decentralized Autonomous Organization, and it was formed by a few 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.679 dozen people who wanted to bid on the nation's founding document. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.160 It was essentially a crowdfunding campaign where anyone who was 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.040 interested could pledge cryptocurrency to the bid and by doing so, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.760 have a say in what would happen with the document 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:39.440 if we won. So very nerdy, but people got into it. 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:45.360 Constitution Dow raised nearly fifty million dollars in a week. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.840 We did get beat at the auction, and in hindsight 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.440 it was pretty obvious. You don't enter an auction with 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.200 everybody knowing how much money you're willing to pledge. But 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.760 the energy around it was amazing and it was cool 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.400 to be a part of this flash mobby group purchase 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:09.119 of a piece of US history. And it's not just 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.480 Constitution loving freaks who are into DAOs. They vary in use, 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.440 in membership, and in purpose, and to me, they give 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.880 us a way to use digital tools to structure an 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.600 essentially online cooperative model of self governance. The thing that 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.080 makes DAOs different from your typical company or nonprofit or 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:34.880 coop is that they're built on blockchain technology. Yes, blockchain. 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.600 I'm sorry to have to say this word to you. 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:39.959 I know you've heard of it and it probably makes 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.079 you think of people coming to take your money. I'm 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.560 not here to steal your money. There's no tokens, there's 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.800 no FTX schemes, there's nothing like that. Okay, I don't 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.880 believe we need to financialize all human activity or speculate 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.920 on fake Internet money to feel like we're making progress. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.840 But underneath the flashy headlines of fraud, there is a 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:09.119 technology worth understanding. Blockchain is a form of relatively secure 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.639 and radically transparent storage. You can think of it as 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.120 a database that can be used to store financial transactions, 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.760 but also transactions like votes or even moves in a 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.079 video game. There's almost no limit to what you could 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.120 store in it, and when we think about citizening and 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.480 self governance, a DOW is an attempt to create this 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.640 kind of human organizational layer on top of that blockchain 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:40.200 with some of the same principles. The blockchain creates transactional transparency, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.960 and the participation of people through a DOW helps secure 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.680 and increased trust in the overall operation. The code itself 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:53.160 doesn't make those things happen, but it can help ensure 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:58.040 Collective self governing groups like neighborhood cooperatives aren't new, but 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.360 given how much time we're collect actively spending in technological spaces. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.280 It's worth asking, can we design systems in the digital 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.400 world where we can truly practice collective decision making and 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.560 resource sharing better than what we've seen done in the 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.800 physical world. Alex Jang has been asking this question for 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:23.039 a while. Alex is the mayor of Friends with Benefits now. 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.360 Friends with Benefits, or FWB for short, is a doubt 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:31.360 that's essentially an online club with thousands of members. Those 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.680 members decide what those benefits are and how to manage 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:39.640 their collective financial resources. Basically, FWB is a chat room 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.479 with a bank account. Think about a subreddit you're really 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.240 invested in, or an old Aowell chat room. Think of 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.719 those structures, but this time they've got a treasury and 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.560 some voting mechanisms attached. And with those new features, you 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.640 can do so many more things than just chat activities, 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:01.880 like funding projects, supporting artistic innovation, and organizing events and meetups. 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:09.080 The list goes on. Dows like FWB are a fascinating 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.039 place for us to learn some of the ways we 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.080 might citizen in the future, and they can give us. 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.799 They give me a little hope that when it comes 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:21.440 to our digital spaces, we can still define community for ourselves. 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:28.200 We don't have to subject ourselves to these manipulative attention 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.960 extraction platforms. Investing in online spaces doesn't have to mean 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.840 divesting from our communities and our democracy. In fact, it 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.160 could mean the opposite. So I met up with Alex 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.919 over Zoom along with our virtual audience to learn how 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.719 we can upgrade our virtual citizening after the break, Alex 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.719 Jang on the benefits of doos and the potential of 0:05:52.800 --> 0:06:05.520 creating digital spaces instead of being consumed by them. We're 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.440 gonna be talking about web three and dows today, and 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.960 just very briefly, web threes, like the allegedly new version 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.960 of the Internet which has users not just being users 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.000 but also owners, are the platforms that we are a 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.559 part of. Alex Jang is an advocate for how Web 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.359 three technology can help propel culture and large scale human 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:29.160 coordination forward. He's the de facto mayor at Friends with Benefits, 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.159 a crypto enabled cultural membership and community cited by The 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.559 New York Times as one of the most interesting uses 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.440 of doos right now. I don't know if the time's 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.000 meant to rhyme like that. Formerly, he was the creative 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.280 director and president of Summit Series a global community and 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.479 evinced company, which is where Alex and I met. Alex, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.000 Welcome to how the citizen. What's up? Super happy to 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:52.560 be here and good to see you. It's good to 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.640 see you too, it's been a while. I want to 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.000 get your perspective on the big picture before we dive 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.080 into the world of FWB and possible to democracy enhancing 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.840 skills that we might gain through DOO activities. But by 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.520 some estimates there are about ten thousand dows. I want 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.240 to know how you think this structure of ADAO compares 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.400 to a traditional hierarchical company or to a representative democracy 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.960 whereas citizens slash members, we elect decision makers to determine 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.400 our laws and our spending and even what's allowed in 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.640 terms of our actions. What's the DAO structure offer that's 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.320 different from what these other structures were more familiar with offer. Yeah, 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.600 that's a great question. First off, thanks for having me. 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.920 Love to talk everything democracy and in between. And incredible 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.360 to see this community that you've built here. It's really 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.160 really fun. Yeah. I think to sort of first take 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.760 a step back and like demist defy dows decentralized autonomous organizations, 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.160 because I think there can be a lot of sort 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.040 of baggage and different things attached to it, which really 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.520 is an organization that has assets that live on the blockchain. 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.920 So that is my first sort of clarification point, as 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.520 you cannot be a DOO don't interact with crypto or 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:06.000 the blockchain. It is fundamentally attached to how an organization 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:11.000 holds in custodies its assets, which are primarily crypto based assets. 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.280 And then from there a DAW can be structured as 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.880 centrally or decentrally as possible. I call it sort of 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.360 a spectrum of decentralization, or other writers call it, you know, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.400 being progressively decentralized, no different than you can choose to 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.520 run your LLC or your c corp any way you want. 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:32.000 I've advised and supported many different DAOs that are completely 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.080 flat decentralized and bottoms up governed all the way to 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:38.560 ones that look a little bit more in the middle. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.319 I would say, how f TOBB is where we operate 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.600 as a representative democracy as opposed to a direct democracy. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.240 And then you have those that are very tightly knit, 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.840 tightly coordinated, centralized leaders, which are DAWs of four people 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.640 and they decide which art to buy and collect and sell, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.600 and that isn't, as say, flatly governed by its users. 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.360 So I would offer that there is not one fits 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.840 all DOW and dows are can contain a spectrum of 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:08.680 centralization or decentralization. But fundamentally, why DOW is a question 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:10.560 many people should be asking because even hearing that there's 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:12.920 ten thousand of them is kind of frightening because I 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.320 believe many of them shouldn't be a DOO. But a 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.560 DOO should only exist, in my opinion, if one you 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:23.800 have a cryptocurrency based sort of organization or reason for 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:29.280 existence and to the need to decide how to allocate 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.560 those resources should be governed via on chain decision making, 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:38.120 voting and governance. And so, really, where doos become exciting 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.040 to me as I look across five years, ten years 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.200 as the cryptocurrency industry continues to evolve and mature, Is 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.960 that doos feel like a really interesting organizational structure framework 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:55.640 for Internet based communities that leverage cryptocurrency as ways to trade, 0:09:55.760 --> 0:10:00.280 exchange and create value for its users trade exchange, change 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.000 and create value. So one, thank you for not telling 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.840 everyone to go start a doubt. I just appreciate the 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.360 non boosterism of that maybe right for you, maybe not 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:15.480 right for others. This common denominator that is blockchain based 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.880 on chain, crypto held assets. I don't want to get 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.000 too much into the rabbit hole, but since we're on 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.199 the subject, now, can you, for those who are not 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:31.400 deeply enmeshed, give your ambassador translation of the value of 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.839 putting an organization of people like this on a blockchain? Yeah? 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.840 Happy too. So similar to why I was saying, you know, 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.480 not everything should be a doubt, Not everything should be 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.560 on chain or even a crypto based organization. What is 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.600 fundamentally interesting about cryptocurrency? And just for even the room here, 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.920 Like I got involved with crypto two years ago, like 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.480 fairly recently, I met Bartunda when I still thought crypto 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.400 was a total scam, and I was like, this makes 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.520 no sense. To centralize finance component made no sense or 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.320 interest to me. I was formerly worked in sort of 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.240 art and culture and events and community building, and it 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:09.440 was only until I started to really peak a little 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.760 bit behind the curtain when I started to see the 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.360 fundamental technology of cryptocurrency being interesting. The idea of a 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.480 decentralized monetary system that was sort of borderless was really 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.680 interesting to me. It still boggles my mind that on 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.719 a national holiday you can't wire money to somebody when 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.160 they need to receive money. So things like that started 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.079 to became really really interesting. And then as I started 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.440 to apply that thinking of the principles and values and 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.559 tenants of cryptocurrency and how they would relate to other 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.880 industries like culture, civics, community, I became really interested with 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.040 sort of two components. One transparency. I think currently in 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.439 society we're all struggling with a lack of transparency, from 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.520 corporate lack of transparency to governmental lack of transparency. And 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.959 the fact that the blockchain is literally transparent. No one 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.440 can obfuse skate it because it is all hoarded on 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.160 chain and anyone who can go look for the data 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.600 can go find that data and query that data became 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.840 really really interesting to me. And perhaps a world in 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.280 which different organizations imagine if you could see how Facebook 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:15.960 is spending their money or a private companies were spending 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:17.960 their money in real time and where they were allocating 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.160 that sort of capital. So that became really interesting to 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.319 me as someone who had been in community based organizing 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.720 movements organizations and saying, oh, how as a community based organization, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:28.360 it would be cool to see how that community is 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:31.080 actually deploying its capital, is it spending its money, who 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:32.960 is it paying, how much are they paying those people? 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.320 What are they actually doing to One was transparency, and 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.480 then two is what I call value accruel. And so 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.160 previously I'd worked a lot in various different art and 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.760 culture entertainment spaces, and I was always really upset by 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.679 how artists seem to be creating a lot of value 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.800 but not capturing a lot of that value. Yes, yes, 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.200 I just I want to interject all that point. So 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.320 many of us have heard, felt and lived with the 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.600 consequences of being the product in a digital perspective on 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.800 a Twitter, Facebook, corporate owned thing, and we're just kind 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.040 of feeding some economic machine that values not being returned 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.120 to us in any tangible way we can connect with 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.720 our own friends. Yeah, but they're monetizing that and making 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.440 money off of that. And certainly art has been rife 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.320 with that kind of exploitation of value, and so did 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.760 the concentration of it. So continue with the point I 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:26.840 would just so enthusiastic I had to jump in there 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.120 on the value point. Yeah, No, I totally agree I mean, 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.000 we know that whole narrative of the platform sort of 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.800 monetizing it via advertising models, and I just became really 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.840 interested in how creators, unlet's just use that big bucket, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.480 whether it's someone writing on social media and creating content, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.600 to a visual artist or a musician, that value that 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.760 they're bringing to an organization or to a platform, how 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.320 that value could actually accrue to the edges of that 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.120 network versus just the central owners of that specific platform. 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.600 And I saw that in both massive social media platforms 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.520 but also community projects that had really great intentions, but 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.720 seeing how as a community began to grow, ultimately the 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.280 organization the owners were capturing a majority of that value 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.840 as opposed to the actual contributors of that specific community 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.400 or movement. And so it became an interesting thought experiment 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.400 in the beginning of me and my sort of partners 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.359 where we were all exploring and cloudbrators of if cryptocurrency 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.000 could store financial value, could it store cultural value right, 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.360 and could that cultural value be translated financially to actually 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:23.880 reward people who are bringing them full selves and their 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.440 and bringing value to the table as it relates to 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.600 a social media network or as it relates to a 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.240 club scene in Bushwick. It was both similarly interesting to me. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.000 And that's how Friends with Benefits essentially it was created, 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.720 was a social network that was community owned and where 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.920 value could accrue to the people who brought their ideas, 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.160 their artistic expression, their connections, their full selves into a 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.520 membership club or network, and could that value be captured 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:54.640 equally across the board. Bravo, I am signing up for 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.920 no longer paying cover charges at a club, but making 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.520 the club pay me because I'm bringing cool there, he goes, 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:02.960 and now who's in charge? Let me see your ID bouncer. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.240 Friends with Benefits. It's a great transition, and FWB has 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.760 been called this group chat will a shared bank account, 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.040 decentralized SOHO house, this global VIP private club with a 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.640 lot of cultural influencers amongst its membership. Can you give 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.280 me more about the history of it and why you've 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.840 described it in these ways, especially on this point around 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.320 cultural compensation, you know, as a premise for this particular gathering. Yeah, 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.440 so the origin stories are actually you know, quite experimental 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.320 and accidental, as I find with most fun scenes or 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.360 things that weren't too serious in the beginning. I mean, 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.200 even the name of our organization, FWB, you know, is 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.640 all sorted as a joke. Trevor mcfederis the founder who 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.560 I've been friends with for quite some time. Has been 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.760 sort of a really interesting sort of creator and entrepreneur, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.520 and he's always sat at the interesting intersections of sort 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.360 of culture and new media technology, and so he was 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.280 particularly interested in this concept of cultural capture in terms 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.240 of value, and over the course of a weekend, he 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.080 created the FBB token as a joke and sent it 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.080 out to a bunch of his friends. I was one 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:08.960 of those friends, and there was like twenty or thirty 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.440 of us hanging out in this group chat that at 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.960 the time it was tiny or minuscule. And this was 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:15.840 all during COVID, and so all of us were locked 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:17.800 in at home, all of us were bored, and all 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.320 of us were asking questions about what is crypto? What 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.360 is Web three? What are NFTs? This was right when 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.600 the boom of crypto started to sort of occur and evolve, 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.080 and we were all in this room together essentially making 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.400 sense of what was happening together. And when we started 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.840 to see was a couple interesting things. One we saw 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.000 that people then began to feel a stronger sense of 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.680 ownership by holding the FTBB token and feeling a real 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:41.600 sense of pride over the network, that they began to 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.240 propose ways to evolve and change the network. You know, 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:45.560 I had this early saying of like when you see 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:47.000 trash on the ground, pick it up. We started to 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.560 see that happened really organically. You know, Hey, let's add 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:52.840 this channel, Hey, let's remove that channel. Hey, let's put 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.120 in a code of conduct early so we can avoid 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.800 issues of X y Z ahead of time. And as 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.560 someone who's been involved in lots of different community projects 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.000 and also social networking projects, I was like, this kind 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.560 of behavior feels different the early adopters of an online network. 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.080 That felt very similar, a sense of pride, a sense 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.399 of identity attached to sort of an online cohort. But 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:16.840 what felt different here was an actual sense of ownership 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:20.280 in terms of, Okay, this actual token, this asset that's mine, 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.760 is custodied by me, is actually both my entrance into 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.440 this experience and also a thing that gets to grow 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.920 over time as more value is sort of being created. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:31.760 And that sort of collectivism was the thing we wanted 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.560 to experiment with in a digital space. And so then 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.080 the story is quite you know, twenty people, thirty people, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.560 one hundred people, five hundred people. And then by then 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.880 I was like, wait, this is really interesting. I sort 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:43.880 of want to step into more of a leadership role 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.080 here because it was me and seven other people sort 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.480 of contributing. And that was when I sort of stepped 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.960 into my role as the mayor sort of you know, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.480 elected myself and a core team into this role. And 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.720 the first thing I'll say, which I think is a 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.360 fun conversation for this group here in terms of its 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.200 adjacency to sort of urbanism and civics, is you know, 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.639 wanting to be really clear that my role was not 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.280 as a CEO, but was as a mayor, and then 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.840 I'm here to sort of represent the people. And I 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.960 thought that fundamental shift in that leadership role would plant 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.160 the seeds for an online community or social network platform 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.200 to be actually built people first as opposed to platform first. 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.560 And so that sort of kicked off. How FTERBB has 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.000 been sort of governed today and now it's a six 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:28.240 thousand person, you know, membership community organization. It's a community 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.440 owned social network where funding projects across the network within 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.720 the community. We've thrown hundreds of events all over the 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.520 world organized by community members who received tokens as compensation 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.760 for organizing those events, from gallery tours to coffee tasting 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.199 to club nights in Paris, to building our own social software, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:48.840 our own products, and in our own physical goods like 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.040 apparel and merchandise and CpG, with all of that value 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.760 accruing back into that shared bank account sort of no 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.719 different than like almost like an ip or like a franchise, 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.080 where where value sort of flows back that shared treasury, 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.600 and that shared treasury you know, is a reflected This 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.280 is a question and a kind of checking my own understanding. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.639 I join, I pay to join, and I pay in 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.800 the form of these tokens that I hold. So as 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.920 I bring value to the community, the value of my holdings, 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.200 my ownership stake also goes up. Is that the kind 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.879 of mutually beneficial economic theory behind this? Yeah, why do 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.440 you care so much about the culture part, mister mayor, 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:30.600 And I want to come back to the mayor in 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:32.919 the election point in just a second, But how are 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:34.679 you defining it and what does that mean for you 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.879 in terms of the currency here culture like capital c 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.320 like at large, the community's culture. The idea that FWB 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.200 itself is built around music, around arts, around these cultural 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:48.320 things where there are many dows which are built just 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.960 around the idea of the token itself totally totally right, 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.000 or they're organized to purchase something like that constitution dow, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:55.480 which I was also a part of because I thought 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.840 it was weird and fun. So culture is the focus here? 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.639 What yeah? I mean? I think first off, community that 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.679 comes together organically and experimentally often has like threads that 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.800 connect it without it even being like an explicit manifesto 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.680 or mission statement. Right. I think we all came together 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.639 because all of us worked in cultural spaces, and I 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.640 think to date the crypto narrative has been heavily dominated 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.119 via financialization speculation and this you know ico boom and 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.080 by this token and number goes out initial coins offerings, 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:25.960 and we were all, like, you know, a lot of 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.440 us also our technologist were interested in technology, not cold 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.640 hard technology, but how technology can perhaps enhance human connection 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:37.200 and human experiences. And while this crypto boom was happening, 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.760 we all just became interested like can this actually accentuate 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.520 these cultural spaces that we all sort of came from. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.400 And so that's sort of like one track that we're interested. Okay, fundamentally, 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.719 how does this technology impact our industries was where this started. 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.560 And the second, I think the more sort of like 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.600 meta angle of it is a lot of us have 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:59.280 been frustrated because we've participated in many different cultural spaces, 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.080 from those early nightclubs or bar scenes in certain neighborhoods 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.479 that then became overly gentrified once high rise commercial development 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.800 and real estate agents came in and q the Williamsburg narrative. 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:12.199 And we've all been a part of those various different 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:17.040 stories and those fifteen year movements and were interested in 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:22.240 perhaps new mechanics or ways where those early artists could 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.680 actually capture some of that value on that gentrification curve, 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:30.520 and interested in does that same curve apply in digital spaces. 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:34.040 And so we were really interested in, like, clearly, there's 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.040 going to be a role for culture in crypto. At 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.439 that moment, there wasn't quite one yet. Everyone participating in 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:44.439 crypto was heavily financially oriented, and NFTs really became the 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:49.360 first framework where culture could enter crypto. Artists could actually 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.720 create digital artwork and have that be stored on chain, 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.440 and we were just the community layer on top of that. 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.920 Movement that saw a need to connect creators, technologists, developer 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.200 subject knowledge experts, people who were first timers, and to 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.720 create a fun space of camaraderie where folks could learn, 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.520 share and exchange knowledge together while also playing with the 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.600 fundamental technology itself. So yeah, so you've got a culturally 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.960 oriented membership club where the value of that collective is 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:21.280 more formally recognized than others and maybe more fairly distributed 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.800 than the historical analogies were often familiar with. Yeah, and 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:26.520 I'll add the last point, which I think it helps 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:28.400 click it for a lot of people, is those tokens 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.600 beyond value cruel are also the fundamental way you vote 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.480 in the network. So it's how you're able to put 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.199 up a proposal to fund an artist in residency program. 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:40.560