How sustainable can it be in Web3? Brining sustainability front and center with Monty Merlin Content Lead at ReFi DAO. Innovatively linking this movement with tangible real world use cases, ReFi DAO’s community leads the way with Crypto’s mass adoption. Involving every possible type of economy your can think of, we explore why ReFi DAO’s model is the need of the hour!
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Transcript
ReFi DAO - Monty Merlin
Participants:
• JP (CMO of AdLunam)
• Monty Merlin (Product & Content Lead at ReFi DAO)
JP
Welcome, welcome ladies and gentlemen, to this episode of Diving into Crypto. This is JP from AdLunam Inc. Bringing you everything about web3 on the show today we have someone who's going to be talking about a system that is relevant for all of us. It is more importantly one of the key drivers of global adoption when it comes to crypto, in my opinion. But also I'm certain the more of that our guest speaker today is going to be speaking about it. You will understand the importance of who they are, what they are doing, and their way to introduce a lot more crypto adoption across the planet. Before we begin, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to remind you that views expressed on this program are for education purposes only and is not to be construed as financial advice.
JP
In case we get cut off, we will get back into we'll share a new link on the AdLunam Inc. Twitter handle, which we will also share on our speakers handle as well. So you can jump right back in and catch the rest of the show. At the end of the show, we will have a small segment for question and answers from the audience. So feel free to put in your question whenever you come across it. You can type that into AdLunam Inc. or tag speaker directly and we'd get those questions answered for you. Finally, please remember you have the emoji icon which you can change today. I've chosen the color blue for the heart. I'm going to show you what that looks like. Feel free to experiment with that because I think that represents a little about what our speaker is going to be talking about today, right?
JP
to build a better future. In:Monty
Thank you for that lovely introduction there. Glad to be here. Everyone, super Monty.
JP
You know, it's spectacular to have you on the show today. I know that my team worked really hard to get you here and we've been going back and forth about selecting the right time, but I'm glad that it's today. It's the end of March and we know that the first three months always lead to a particular climate change. I'm going to come a little back to that. But before we begin, tell us a little about your journey to what got you here.
Monty
Yeah, sure. I'd love to give a little bit of background. I think from my personal perspective, I've always been a technologist and interested in building things. I've been building things from a very young age and also always been an environmentalist. I've been learning about these issues from a very young age. My mum worked in the sector for 35 years as a campaigner and a consultant, working with some of the biggest companies in the world. So it's always been part of family discussions and could never understand how everyone was going about their daily business when it seemed like the world was going the way it is and is still going the way it is. And yeah, at the same time, like I say, I was very much a technologist and interested in economics as well, and even philosophy as well. This was one of my core subjects as well.
Monty
And of course, crypto lands directly in the center of all of those things, but it didn't have the sustainability aspect. In fact, for a long time. It was actually very bad for the environment. As we all know, the kind of proof of work consensus mechanism that's right has that kind of impact. So it was something that I was very interested in, but not something I was like, okay, this is my full time everything. And so, yeah, it was a year and a half ago now. I was at university doing my degree, and what happened was all of these carbon credits came on chain. And I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with carbon credits, but carbon credits are essentially a way to offset and remove carbon from the atmosphere so people organizations can buy these credits to remove them. And traditional markets exist for this stuff, although it's kind of nascent.
Monty
And what happened about a year and a half ago is huge supply of carbon credits on chain, and then all of this movement started to form around this term, refi or regenerative finance, and we can get into more about what that is. But, yeah, basically I became hooked from then and now, full time and probably for the rest of my life, this is what I'll be doing. So, yeah, good to be here.
JP
Sounds like quite a journey. Merlin, I have to ask, there has to have been a time, and you've given us the background, you've created the story arc of why you probably motivated. But in web three, what we've realized is that everybody has that moment, right? Everyone has that moment when the switch flips and you suddenly realize, hey, web3 is the space to be for me. What was that like for you?
Monty
Yeah, like I said, I think it was that moment when this explosion of carbon credits came on chain and that was millions of these credits representing between 5 and 10% of the global supply. So it was that idea that essentially carbon and ecological credits could become the first market to be fully on chain and being recognized by the wider world about what the benefits of blockchain brings to this market and others like it. So I think it was that was the kind of tipping point and then this movement around regenerative finance and regeneration more broadly as well as a concept, it's a philosophical, economic, social and cultural movement as well as just in the economic sphere as well. So I think it was that kind of ecosystem that started to really build around that concept that really just meant I was all in from there.
Monty
So that was the moment and then from learning about this movement of using Web3 and these technologies for genuine positive impact that you hear so much in the media and the wider press around all of the bad in crypto. And don't get me wrong, there is a lot of crap and a lot of bullshit in crypto, but it was exciting to see this real, genuine use case, real genuine application and I also wanted to share that and was surprised that wasn't getting more coverage. And that's when this opportunity to do a Ted Talk came in and kind of share the story of this new ecosystem that was emerging, that was ReFi. So yeah, that was basically the moment and the journey from, oh, that's super.
JP
Because often the entire industry, I'm not going to just say crypto, but I'm saying the entire industry. When it started out, everyone was talking about the huge power requirements, the rigs that have to be set up. Now of course that's gotten a little more mainstream, but it's still a sore point, right, it's still a sore point across the industry and of course regenerative finance is one of the solutions to that. Right. But before we go into regenerative finance as a whole, I'm curious to figure out what keeps you passionate about it. You can have that moment of inspiration, but something's got to fuel that as you keep going forward. And what is that for you?
Monty
Yeah, I think it's that chance to build a better future. I think that so much of what our current systems, how they work at the moment, they're broken and they're sending us towards a future that's quite dystopian to me. And I think what Web3 does is it brings the possibility to build new systems. It has an incredible set of tools that can be used along with lots of other digital tools and systems and things these days we can utilize to build new organizations, new systems, that hopefully can build a better future. But it requires a lot of work to do that and it's difficult. And it's not like I've said before, there's so many simplistic or shallow Web3 projects out there that claim to be building a better future but are not, actually. But what I'm really excited about are the ones that genuinely are.
Monty
And there is a huge potential to do that if designed very consciously and done in the right way. So I think that's what I think I find most exciting about it. It's kind of revolutionary potential.
JP
Super, of course. And speaking about it being revolutionary, right, I know that, as you said before, a lot of people don't understand what the correlation is between ReFi. If you Google it, the first thing that comes up is refinancing, right? Where you're thinking about maybe mortgages and loans and so on and so forth. But at the same time, it's not a new concept, but it's fantastic that it's finally come to the industry. Tell us a little about what ReFi is and more specifically after that, what you're doing in this particular space with ReFi DAO.
Monty
sure, yeah. So what you picked up on there as well is ReFi isn't inherently tied to Web3 and crypto, but more recently it's been an experimentation of how these tools can actually accelerate and support this regenerative finance concept. So, yeah, some context as to what regenerative finance actually is. So I think that a basic definition would be it's about building new systems that support regenerative and restorative outcomes in both natural and social systems. That's quite a technical definition. So if we think about what that looks like in practice, we can look at what is the concept of regeneration. So I think of regeneration as the kind of next paradigm from sustainability. If you look at what the concept of sustainability is, it's about systems that are sustaining itself so the system isn't collapsing and getting worse and breaking, but actually it isn't getting better either, it's just sustaining its state.
Monty
So a regenerative system is something that is about building resource capacity. It's actually improving, it's getting better. And you can imagine that most simply if you imagine a degraded farmland or something that's been intensively landscape that's been intensively farmed and degraded and it's just barren land and regenerating that with a biodiverse forest and fauna and food forests and community and these kind of things creates a kind of visual picture of a regenerative environmental system. But you can also have principles for regenerative economic development and social development. So regenerative economic system would be one that doesn't extract wealth and power to the top over time, but instead it's a more distributed economic structure that is flowing resources around the community and around the network in a way that's more equitable than an extractive economic system. Again, we can have regenerative culture and regenerative social systems as well that are fueling positive social and psychological capacity, regenerative consciousness, for example.
Monty
So there's a lot of different things to unpack there, but it's a really quite holistic movement.
JP
Certainly sounds that way. And to be honest, I don't know too much about ReFi as a movement completely. So I'm certain when you're talking about the sustainability aspect, that's the only correlation that somebody who's not focused on it can draw. Right, so how do you see this? How do you see this actually creating a change? Where do you see this going? What other sectors is this going to open up to?
Monty
Yeah, so I think that from that description, it actually can be touching quite a few different sectors. And at the moment the main focus has been on carbon, right, and creating functional and actually positive impact carbon markets. There's been a lot of fraud and not genuine impact happening in carbon markets. There's a lot of problems with the nascent markets. And so the hope is that with these technologies and experts forming around it, we can actually build much better carbon markets that are actually restoring the climate rather than just a sort of funny accounting mechanism. So that's kind of one application. And actually there's this idea that we need to go beyond just carbon, this carbon tunnel vision, and see that actually there's a much more holistic set of challenges. We have biodiversity depletion, we have poverty, we have the pollution of our waters and the air.
Monty
And so there's an expansion to ecological assets and that could be biodiversity credits for clean air, clean water, clean energy. And so that's a huge part of it as well, and internalizing the costs and the negative externalities which our current economic system doesn't address. We've built these really sophisticated economic systems to maximize GDP and to maximize financial capital, when actually it ignores the fact that there's a much more holistic set of values. And, yeah, there's this concept of the eight forms of capital, of which financial capital is one form, but there's also social capital, intellectual capital, even spiritual capital and living capital and these kind of things as well. So how can we build systems both financial and else as well, that actually support the resource capacity building in these other forms of capital as well? So, yeah, I appreciate that still relatively abstract. But what that actually looks like is building ecological asset markets, renewable energy, the circular economy.
Monty
Building systems that are actually making the world a better place and improving what we have.
JP
You know, Monty what? It seems to me like you're you when you spell it out that way, right, that there's various forms of capital. You're talking about sustainability at the same time. And in many ways it looks like the movement is going to call on all of us, right. Every single individual it looks like that every single individual in some way is already a part of this. Yeah. What are some of the ways that you get them to realize that already part of the system either contributing negatively or positively to it.
Monty
Right.
JP
But at the same time, build your community out for more advocates, if you will, who would want to be part of this movement. What does that look like for you?
Monty
Yeah, so I think it's a two part thing. And I think one of the recognition is a recognition that we're all part of this system that is actually destroying the Earth, and we're all part of this current broken system, and we need to face the facts of where we're actually heading with this current system. The reality of climate change is not a pretty picture. But when you contrast that picture and analogy I like to give is this kind of cyberpunk future, which is this technologically advanced but yet environmentally depleted and quite depressing future with a kind of solar punk future, which is actually focusing on the solutions and using technology for the betterment of people and planet. And I think that's where the hope comes in, and that's where you go, okay, let's focus on actually being a part of the solution and recognizing the interconnectedness of all of us and all of us in this system and building towards something that's better.
Monty
And I think that's quite an inspiring kind of story for anyone to get behind. And like you say, everyone has a part to play in that and can be a part of this new system that we're building. So, yeah, I would say that it's definitely an opportunity for everyone to come be involved.
JP
To be part of. You’re right, absolutely. So I'm curious to dive a little further into this, right. On one particular hand. When you speak about the credits, we all think of it as, okay, carbon credits. Most of us are familiar with what carbon credits are. The picture that comes to mind is, hey, plant more trees, get more oxygen, offset whatever pollution is happening. But in that system itself, right, in that system itself and the future that you describe of a cyberpunk future, which is more towards Blade Runner and less towards avatar to give a holistic view in that position, there are various ways in which refi can really make changes and people can be part of that movement. Right. What are some of the ways that your team at ReFi DAO are focusing on? What are some of the areas that you're focusing on to develop that?
Monty
Yeah, sure. It's a good question. So ReFi DAO has evolved from being a kind of ecosystem supporting founders in this new ReFi ecosystem who are building for a regenerative economy. And now we've got a very holistic vision, which is to build a network state to regenerate the Earth. And I'm not sure how familiar everyone is here about the concept of a network state, but it might be cool to kind of dive in on that a little bit and then I can go into how we're looking to support. So a network state is the concept from Biology's book and it's the idea that human civilization actually evolved from tribes and then those tribes found ways to coordinate among larger groups of people. Religion was one of the first good mechanisms for doing that, creating these shared myths and culture that allow these much larger cross border organizational structures to form.
Monty
And then you had kind of the nation state where we can imagine national identities and borders and these kind of relating to your neighbor and having this shared cultural national myths and stories. And now with the internet, we see the ability to have that same culture and community but spread all over the world because we're connected online. And you now might share more in common with someone on the other side of the world than you might actually do with your neighbor because we've created these global communities and so that's what an online community is. And then the concept of a network state is taking a highly aligned online community and actually bringing that into the real world and crowdfunding territory, but also meeting up and even living together and actually geographically dispersed, but actually having land all over the world. Right? Yeah. And in some ways people might say that could be problematic.
Monty
You're trying to create new borders, but actually that's not the case. What we're trying to do is create a system that can actually support other nation states that are actually taking the lead on building this next frontier of a regenerative economy. And the ambition to acquire land is not to create new borders, but is actually to regenerate that land and implement this new regenerative economy and show how it can be done in practice. And the brilliant thing is we can actually do that and build that without necessarily permission. And the more people and resources that flow into this kind of economy, this new economy, if you like, the more positive impact we can have. And so what that actually looks like in practice is we have these communities that are popping up now in virtually every region of the world around this concept of ReFi and they'll be able to have their own kind of systems but also ReFi DAO will provide them with resources and tools to actually be connected into this global system.
JP
Oh, that's brilliant. So would that also expand to blue economy initiatives, circular economy initiatives? Or is the focus more towards micro sustainable ecosystems that have scalability no, absolutely.
Monty
If by circular economy you mean zero waste systems and redesigning supply chains so that actually waste is not even a thing and that all of our material resources are tracked along their entire journey, then 100%, I mean, that's 100% part of it. And you can obviously see where blockchains play a big role in that in terms of tracking and tagging and creating trust and transparency in the resource flow of everything. A good example then zooming in on that example is, okay, we've got all of these amazing companies organizations building circular economy systems in refi. But to actually implement those, you need to implement them on the ground, right? There needs to be actual people who are going, okay, let's monitor this, let's consume this, and let's implement this circular economy on the ground in this city, in this region. And so by having these communities that are tapped into this global kind of network, we have the nodes who can actually start to implement the concepts that are being built on a global level, but actually being reactive to the local context.
Monty
Because it's really important that it's not like outsiders going, yes, we've built this system and you guys need to implement it here. It needs to really come from the local people. That's the way it's going to be successful because it's actually adapting to local context and it's avoiding this kind of western colonial mindset of we've got all the solutions and kind of coming in to dominate. So it's really important that these communities surface themselves with the entrepreneurs and the leaders coming from those regions.
JP
Okay, well, how do you pick these projects that you'd like to work with? If you can give us an insight into some of the methods that look like, okay, this would be an ideal project for us to work with, or this would be an ideal ecosystem to put a focus on, how does that work for you?
Monty
Yeah, sure. It's a good question. So we have on our website a database of all of the ReFi projects that exist and it's getting larger and larger, but over time, we've had a podcast for a while now and the first stage I think, is actually just building a connection with the projects and really understanding what is their value proposition. Is it well thought through looking at the white paper, getting to know the founders and the team? That's quite a hands on approach. But it's not necessarily a scalable approach because as this ecosystem grows, it becomes ever more difficult to be able to distinguish between what are the genuinely good ReFi projects and what are the ones that are greenwashing and trying to jump on it without necessarily having the right values or the right capabilities.
JP
Exactly.
Monty
So we are building a system that will be able to create a better mechanism and essentially doing it as a kind of decentralized crowdsourcing knowledge mechanism. So how that will work is I'm part of this process called the Ecological Benefits Framework Activator, and it's an incredible process that was actually funded by Google, and it's a nonprofit organization that seeks to gain cross industry alignment between multiple different stakeholder groups. So working across some of the leading companies in many different sectors to try and gain shared models and frameworks for understanding. And so now this process is going on in the regenerative finance space to try and unite all of the carbon market and regenerative actors to actually gain these shared frameworks and shared definitions. And so what we're going to do is we're going to use that framework and we're going to say, okay, we can now create, like, a set of analysis, right, that anyone can conduct to go, okay.
Monty
Are they meeting? Regenerative social, environmental, economic factors and then assign some form of score and that all be transparent and open source to the point where I could conduct the analysis, but someone else might disagree and they could also conduct the analysis. And all of that is recorded on chain. So it's all transparent. And over time, you have this kind of crowdsourced mechanism for starting to really evaluate the strength of these projects. So that's a system that we're actively.
JP
Working towards that sounds so open and transparent. I mean, if all of us can get involved in something like that would certainly be fantastic because what you're talking about is really a blueprint of what this decentralization process is about, right? In so many ways, it's intrinsic in the system that you've built. That's brilliant. That being said, Monty, I would like to ask you, can you tell us about some of the projects that you've worked with? Right, some of the ones that have really shown and maybe some of the ones that you've learned a lot out of, to put it diplomatically.
Monty
Yeah, I think that's an interesting question. So I think that one of the projects that I'm personally very interested in, because I actually went to visit a month or so ago, is it's this Regenerative village. And so basically they've actually got some land just outside of Lisbon in Portugal, and they're building a new kind of solar punk village and utilizing the tools of ReFi actually on the ground. So not only have they got an ultra-sustainable living space powered by renewable energy with a food forest permaculture to
Monty
Feed everyone who's living there from the actual land, but they're also then they've bought a plot of land. All the way around. I can't remember how many acres now and then are using the regenerative finance markets to actually have a source of income from carbon markets from the land that they're regenerating there. So I think the reason why I highlighted that example is just because it's bringing so many of these concepts together and actually creating a community that's living in this totally new way and utilizing some of these new tools. Another really awesome example of a project on a sort of larger scale, more of a protocol level, is called Colectivo. And yeah, they're actually creating natural capital backed currencies and they've implemented some of these systems in an island called Curacao and they did a festival there. And so it's actually aligning the currency that you use with the help of the natural environment in that region.
Monty
So it's a really incredible mechanism. And yeah, they've raised a lot of good funding and are doing some amazing work and just trying to kind of create these institutional grade technologies and protocols for regenerative finance. So I think that's been really cool to see. Those are two really awesome examples.
JP
Well, certainly if we had the ability to do that, I think a lot more people would be able to see that as a source of, how do you say, as a better method of living. Right. And it's really just about balance when you consider a city life versus one that most of us really want to be a part of. Because guess where we spend most of our vacations? It's in places like these. Places that are greener, places that are bluer, places that have the kind of activity that connect us with the Earth in so many ways. Right? And again, this is my opinion, but I'm certain if I look at the tourism data, this is specifically why so many places in Southeast Asia, so many mountainous regions, have a lot of footfall, have a lot of traffic. And it's always that balance that has to be played out with keeping it clean, avoiding pollution and so on.
JP
At the same time, Monty, I want to ask you, there's bound to be some projects that have maybe started out the right way, but have been really learning the road to hell is paid with good intentions kind of story.
Monty
Right. Really important point as well. And actually what I would say to that is I think some of the initial projects in the kind of ReFi space were essentially obviously it's in carbon markets. And I don't know how familiar people are with carbon markets, but you may have probably heard about them in the press and gone, they're a total scam because there are so many false reporting of projects. There's double selling. The intermediaries get so much of the cut and some projects in ReFi are just essentially recreating that or could be seen as recreating that same system, but just putting it on chain, which doesn't necessarily solve all of the problems and is still replicating some of the problems of the legacy markets. And so I don't want to names here, but there are definitely some examples of that. And I think actually what the whole sector is looking at now is, okay, we can't just recreate the traditional markets and put them on chain.
Monty
We need to actually have a system that's fundamentally better. And how do we do that? Well, we have much stronger reporting mechanisms. It's called MRV. Measurement Reporting and Verification. And it's looking at, okay, how can we actually really verify what's happening on the ground and have sophisticated technologies, satellites, drone data, to actually measure impact in all its forms. And measuring impact can get quite extremely difficult when you're looking at the more qualitative forms of impact as opposed to carbon. Should be a relatively easier although. Still quite complex, but at least you can quantify a ton of carbon is a ton of carbon. When you start to talk about social impact, it can become a lot more messy, should we say, in how you quantify that? I'd say there's definitely challenges of industry maturity and genuinely creating systems that are better as opposed to just repeating the status quo.
Monty
Yeah, fair enough.
JP
It does give someone a lot to think about and from both ends. Right? I mean, first and foremost, there's not a lot of exposure to the carbon market credits being available. How does somebody look at that data, let alone be able to be in the middle of an industry like that? Curious to understand, Monty, since you're in the space, what does that look like? How does that play out legacy wise and of course, on chain wise, in
Monty
Terms of how carbon markets work?
JP
Yes.
Monty
Cool. So the concept of carbon markets is looking at the entire world's carbon emissions. We can't simply just remove all carbon overnight, as much as that is what the planet needs. The entire global economy runs on carbon at the moment. What we need is to reduce and move away from these carbon producing technologies and systems as fast as possible. But even if we do that as fast as possible, there's still going to be these residual emissions. Like an example I would give would be flying. There's no technology that can replace the level of flight. Obviously, we need to do things to reduce and cut down, but essentially there's this way that we can actually use carbon credits to actually offset those sources of emissions and also provide a mechanism to actually channel funding towards the vital protection of nature and of carbon sinks. I think a really tangible example would be you look at some of these nations where the biggest rainforests and sources of nature are in the Amazon, in Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, they've got the second largest rainforest.
Monty
You know, it's all very well just as Westerners going, don't chop down the rainforest, but that's people's sources of livelihood and mining and oil and resources and the wood, and that's how people make their livelihood. And so just coming in and saying, don't chop it down because it causes climate change, when, as Western nations, we've been fueling the climate change at a far greater proportion and pretty much largely responsible, it doesn't really make sense. So what you actually need is a model that goes, okay, we can actually create a model that's protecting nature and providing a sustainable source of income for those on the ground that are actually doing the stewarding, the indigenous communities, the communities on the ground who are stakeholders, who are actually supporting conservation. And so there suddenly becomes an economic model for protecting nature and doing what's good for the planet.
Monty
And that, I think, is essential to actually creating a sustainable system that can actually deal with these challenges and creates the right sort of incentives. We need to value nature and we need to value natural capital and this is a way that we can realign our economies to actually start doing that.
JP
It's interesting that you mentioned that because when it comes to the aviation industry, right, we don't have a technology that can replace that. 90% of goods across the planet are moved because of the shipping industry which contributes about 3% to global pollution in itself. Up until recently when they had the introduction of scrubbers and newer technologies and now there's a movement going towards more electrical vehicles. But of course those have limitations as well. At the same time you also have the mining industry, which is crucial to so much of the economy and yet at the same time it seems to be that there's not enough focus on fixing or rather finding a solution that deals with what is left in the wake of these industries. So for example, when it comes to mining the larger pits that get built, there are enough of companies that do have solutions to regenerate the land, right, to make it in some way whole again.
JP
Would these also come in under the radar of ReFi and of course ReFi DAO's scope?
Monty
Yeah, not specifically under ReFi DAO's scope. We are supporting the emergence of a community of entrepreneurs and communities around the world that can help to deal with these sort of issues, both with advanced technology, both with access to the right financial resources and systems of refi and people on the ground with the expertise, connections to institutions and governmental things that can actually move the needle in the right way. So that's in a way a more ReFi DAO focus is that more kind of creating the systemic infrastructure to help to create this decentralized community of people that are helping to solve these problems all over the world. Each mining pit, for example, in a different region of the world, is going to require a different set of local context solutions, things that are actually going to be the right model to repair in that local context.
Monty
And there's not necessarily one solution, but it is an interesting kind of juxtaposition that you're kind of bringing up in that we need to make this transition to a green economy and a lot of the technologies that we need to do that require precious metals and minerals to do so. And so it's a very delicate balance between that. And I think what needs to happen is that we do need these metals and resources but at the same time can we implement models where we're actually taking them from the earth but then using them in a circular economy so they maximize the use? The land is regenerated after the metals have been extracted and the local community and the local populations are actually benefiting from that as well. As opposed to foreign mining companies coming in, completely wrecking the landscape, extracting everything they've got and taking both the resources and the money with them.
Monty
That's very clearly a totally extractive economic system that is not good. There are models which are better, but it's a difficult conundrum for sure and I wouldn't profess to be an expert in this sector.
JP
Yeah, indeed. If you look at virtually every industry.
Monty
Right.
JP
All of them have got pretty much the same problem to deal with when it comes to reducing their carbon footprint. And it's not always obvious the manner in which that can or should be done. And certainly being in the refi space that I'm certain that could push a lot more solutions going forward. Now, that being said, I do want to pivot to what the common man can do about something like this and what are some of the ways that you bring people on board to this community.
Monty
Absolutely.
JP
Yeah.
Monty
So that's going to be a big focus for us in the longer term. At the moment, we focus more on entrepreneurs, people with access to resources and people in connections to political organizations and founders as well, a really strong founder community. But we're really seeing that kind of grow beyond that as well. And I think to take it something really tangible, we partnered and merged with an organization called ReFiSpring and basically we have this global events network. So before becoming like a full on ReFi DAO local node community in say, we've got one in Lisbon that's a really strong community hub. Actually, the best place to start is to just have an event and we provide event sponsorship and support various materials to help with that. But basically it's about getting the people in your city, in your local region together to meet each other in person rather than just online as we're used to in the web3 space, talk about these issues and think about solutions.
Monty
And so bringing community together in the regions where these problems are having to stimulate discussion, to stimulate talk of solutions and connecting the organizations that have the solutions and people that have the capital and the people on the ground who can actually implement these models and changes. That, I think, is where the really powerful mechanism comes from. So for anyone listening on our website, we've got refidao.com. If you go to the community section, we've got about, I think it's 27 at the moment, local communities all over the world, in every region. And we've implemented a model that helps that we're going to see many more of these communities, hopefully in every major city around the world and beyond that as well. So, yeah, that's what I'd say is connecting into the community with other people to help advance the mission of the regenerative economy.
JP
All right, thank you for that. I think, yes, that is something that all of us should check out. That's refidao.com. That's the website to check out. I just got up on the website Monty and I'm looking at a global startup movement where you're inviting people to form local nodes. Tell us a little about that.
Monty
Yeah, so the local nodes is related to the network state concept and how we're looking at that is say you started, you're in a totally new city that's new to this ReFi place, doesn't have a community. You start by gathering some key people together who are also interested in this concept of regeneration. You're starting to build community there. Maybe you then throw an event that brings more people and stimulates discussion and has speakers and workshops and things like that. And so you're starting to form this local community. Right? So that's kind of stage one. And what we've recently announced is this local node concept and a local node price. And so the local communities which are showing the most promise in actually building community having the right access to raise funds and connect to the right people and have awesome startups being built then those communities can be all part of this local nose prize where they'll all come into the Gitcoin protocol and we've set up a match pool set of funding and the communities can then come in and also donate and vote essentially on the local communities which they think are strongest and have the most potential.
Monty
And yeah, the winners of those will become a kind of ReFi DAO local node. And the concept of that is taking the systems that we're building for the global ReFi DAO community and implementing a kind of local instance of ReFi DAO with the full support and tools and access to funding from our team and the systems that we've built to support those communities. So ultimately that will be their own governance token, their own treasury to invest in various models of the regenerative economy that are from my ecosystem. And yeah, basically it becomes its own micro economy within this nation. Like imagine a state in a nation, it's that kind of concept. And so yeah, that's what the local node is. It's the kind of most developed refi communities that have the full support of the core ReFi DAO team. So yeah, we've got a really strong one in Lisbon.
Monty
Like I say, there's one forming in Berlin which is really strong and we've just opened up the local node prize which you can see on our blog to actually have to looking specifically for a community in the Global South to be our first full local node partner community in the Global South.
JP
Okay, I was just about to ask you, there are certain geographies that you're focusing on or is it open to everybody that can be a part of this?
Monty
So it's open to everyone at the moment with the local node prize in its current round, this is the first round that we're doing. We're specifically focusing on the Global South. We think it's really important that these underrepresented communities are represented and it's also a lot of the place where a lot of these solutions are desperately needed. And so, yeah, we're looking for talented entrepreneurs and people in those communities to surface those voices and to give them the tools that they need to create real impact in those places. And I think that's a really powerful opportunity to do that. That's our focus for this round. But that doesn't mean that anyone else in any other region of the world can still start to form the local communities. If you're in the Global North, we will also run another crowdfunding round for those communities as well in the future.
Monty
But we're in startup mode, we're testing these models to learn fast, shall we say, so we can grow this thing in the right way.
JP
Well, fantastic. I think that is a brilliant move to get more people involved across Geographies, and if they are able to be part of this, then more power to you and to them.
Monty
Yeah, great.
JP
Super. Okay, Monty, one last question before we open the floor for questions from the audience. Right. You've told us a lot about what it is that you do, why you got into the space, what keeps you passionate about it the moment that sorry, that was a firework. I'm not living in a bad neighborhood.
Monty
Yeah.
JP
Of all things. So it's almost ominous that it has to come at a point on the show when we're speaking about ReFi. So, yeah, that's certainly something that has to go. All right, but coming back to the question, I want to understand, right, when it comes to you, Monty, what is your personal philosophy? What keeps you going? Every.
Monty
Good yeah, it's a good question. I think it's really envisioning the type of future that I want to see in the world. And yeah, I think it can feel quite overwhelming and depressing when you look at some of the things going on in the world and some of the things, the places we might be heading. And I think what I find really inspiring then is to imagine this solar punk future and then actually operate in the solution space. What can we actually do? That is what really drives me and excites me and thinking about, okay, how can we actually do things better and do things different and imagining what that looks like. So, yeah, it's that excitement of building a better future I think, is at the core of what gets me going.
JP
Well, super. Thank you for sharing that, Monty. It's been spectacular speaking with you about this particular your journey. What ReFiDAO is about the initiatives that they have, the space that they're in, and certainly it's something for more people to be part of in every way that they can. Right, I'm pivoting back to questions that have come in from the audience. I've got two of them and hopefully we'll be able to answer these before we run out of time. And ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you, questions are now open. I can see that there are a bunch of questions that are coming in. Let me just see if those have already been shown. Okay, so Monty, first question as I'm pulling this up is this right? What are some of the future plans for ReFiDAO?
Monty
Yeah. So on our roadmap, what we're trying to build is I've described this global regenerative economy that's rooted in these local communities all over the world. And so two of the next things that we're going to be building to really enable that vision starts with passport, right? So we're going to build a ReFi passport and that passport will be your identity in the ReFi nation. It will build your reputation and that reputation will be built off regenerative acts that say you've retired some carbon. You can get a stamp in your passport for that. Say you've joined the online community and participated in a certain way and brought your knowledge and skills and idea. Maybe you've joined one of our guilds or our working groups or interacted with a different protocol. For example, I've got an Ecosapien as my profile picture you might see. That is an NFT profile picture avatar that's bonded with carbon.
Monty
So it's offset, I think, 25 tons worth of carbon and you can bond more carbon to it to upgrade it visually just as an example of a kind of tangible thing. And I might have the Ecosapien stamp in my passport, for example, as just one of the more fun sides to that. So yeah, so it's about building the identity system for the ReFi nation and then we'll also be launching the ReFi token and that will be on a kind of token bonding curve issuance and yeah, it'll be an index token almost of many different regenerative projects and a community token as well. And it will also then be linked to the governance system and also all of the other local nodes will have their own kind of micro tokens as well. That will also be part of this kind of global system as well. So that's all in the works and hopefully we'll be introducing that in the latter part of this year.
JP
Well, okay, thank you for that, Monty. I think that does answer the question. The next one that we have is one that I should have asked you earlier, but thank you for pointing this out. Ileana, what do you think are the biggest challenges that ReFi organizations face? I mean, there's bound to know tons of resistance when it comes to behavior change. So what are some of the challenges that you guys face?
Monty
Yeah, so I think a lot of the challenges are actually building the MRV systems and the systems to actually verify the impact and it's actually a really difficult challenge like I mentioned, impact can be quite a challenging thing to measure. There's the more qualitative forms of impact when you're looking at social systems but even the more tangible ones like carbon, it's incredibly difficult to create really robust systems that are antifragile and not resistant to fraud and these kind of things. So that's a big challenge but I'd say it's one that is very much a core part of what ReFi is doing and the solutions that it's bringing are helping that and I think there's been amazing progress going on in that department, I think. Yeah. The other side of the challenges come around some more classic Web3 stuff. Adoption and usability play a part of it, but in a way, it's in a slightly different space to some of the other Web3.
Monty
Protocols because it's more like a systems level upgrade in some ways and doesn't necessarily require some of the usability challenges that other Web3 projects have For example. I'd say that's some of the challenges for sure.
JP
Fair enough. Okay, there are two things that I wanted to share with you. First off today our co-founder Jason Fernandes was at the WOW Summit in Hong Kong. And on the panel discussion he did mention when he spoke about sustainability when it comes tokenization of assets, he spoke about sustainability. As one of the points I wanted to share with you that our partners at Prakash, the CEO and co-founder is working, of course, a lot more on sustainability. He's working on sustainability as one of the initiatives that are coming out of there and I'm not certain if you're seeing that as a much larger movement. I think in Palau, the government that side is working towards tokenizing carbon credits as one of an economy driver. Not certain if you're aware of that, but could be something is this in.
Monty
Hong Kong you mentioned?
JP
Sorry.
Monty
Was this in Hong Kong?
JP
I heard you mentioned he was while he was in Hong Kong. He's just there at this point. So at the WOW summit. Yeah.
Monty
Well, as it happens, I'm going to Hong Kong the week after next for the Web3 festival to help launch the ReFi community there speaking there, and there's an awesome community starting to emerge there because Hong Kong are positioning themselves I'm sure you know this already but positioning themselves to become a bit of a crypto hub of the east and have really opened their doors to a lot of this stuff, but also with a really strong ESG aspect to it as well. And Arkene which is a ReFi project that are tokenizing renewable energy credits in some really powerful discussions with some big actors here and also looking at creating Green Bitcoin using these things as yeah there's a really exciting community starting to emerge around these concepts in Hong Kong, and it would certainly be cool to connect with your team and anyone else who wanted to come along and see what's going on.
JP
Sure. Sounds great. Let's continue to stay in touch about that. I think that this is a great initiative to take forward, of course, personally, but know you can see a lot of synergies that can be fantastic.
Monty
Awesome. Well, thanks so much. It was great to be here and yeah. Anyone, feel free to shoot me a message if you want to follow up on anything, but yeah, thanks a lot for having me.
JP
You're very welcome. Monty, thank you so much for being on the show today. Appreciate your time. I know with the end of the show we're out of time at this point, but we'll continue the conversation, of course, on the channel that we have. Thank you so much for being here. Hats off to the team at ReFi DAO for being doing their best to be in a space that is creating two things. One, of course, focusing on the fact that we have regenerative finance and sustainability as a fantastic move into the economy. And also for you guys working on something that everybody should be a part of. So hats off to you. Thank you for being here today.
::Monty
Thanks a lot. All the best, everyone.
::JP
All right.
::Monty
Okay.
::JP
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning into our show today, Diving into crypto. Remember that on Tuesdays we have the Future of NFTs, co-hosted by our co-founder Nadja Bester, bringing to you everything about the NFT technology. We'll see you next week at the same time in the same place. Until then, cheers.
