The Next Wave of ReFi Is Here! Season 3 Episode 25

This episode explores the evolution and future potential of regenerative finance (ReFi), integrating digital assets and environmental sustainability.

1. ReFi is gaining institutional legitimacy, signaling a pivotal shift in how digital assets are perceived and integrated with traditional finance.
2. The resilience and innovation of ReFi projects during economic downturns indicate a maturing field ready to leverage the next economic cycle for substantial growth.
3. Personal well-being and internal balance are crucial for sustained activism and effectiveness in the ReFi space.
4. The expansion of ReFi beyond blockchain applications to include broader environmental and social initiatives suggests its potential as a holistic tool for systemic change.
5. Future directions for ReFi involve deeper integration with traditional financial systems and a focus on impactful, real-world applications.

1: Introduction

Ellison introduces the theme of the episode, reflecting on the growth of the ReFi movement and its future potential. He outlines the episode's focus on the evolution of ReFi, its current state, and the broader implications for environmental finance. John Ellison: "We're at a pivotal moment in the evolution of regenerative finance, integrating digital and traditional assets to foster a sustainable future."

2: Reflecting on the Bear Market

The discussion centers on how ReFi projects have weathered the recent bear market, with insights into those that have continued to push forward and innovate. John Ellison: "Despite the bear market, certain projects have not only survived but thrived, paving the way for a robust future for regenerative finance."

3: Institutional Acceptance and Future Financial Instruments

Ellison talks about the growing acceptance of digital assets among traditional institutions and the emergence of new financial instruments that could bridge the gap between digital and traditional finance. John Ellison: "The acceptance of digital assets by traditional finance institutions marks a new era for environmental and digital asset integration."

4: Personal Reflections and the Importance of Self-regeneration

Ellison shares personal reflections from his sabbatical, emphasizing the importance of personal well-being for long-term activism. John Ellison: "Taking time to regenerate internally is as important as our external efforts in activism and finance."

5: Conclusions and Call to Action

The episode concludes with Ellison summarizing the main points discussed and issuing a call to action for listeners to engage with and contribute to the ReFi movement. John Ellison: "Join the symphony of regeneration, where each contribution strengthens our collective effort towards a sustainable future."

1. Educate Yourself on Digital Assets: Dive deeper into understanding how digital assets can be used for climate and environmental finance.
2. Engage with ReFi Projects: Look for opportunities to support or get involved in ReFi projects that align with your values and skills.
3. Balance Activism with Well-being: Ensure to balance your activism efforts with periods of personal regeneration to maintain long-term effectiveness.
4. Monitor Institutional Trends: Keep an eye on how traditional financial institutions are adopting digital assets and explore how these changes can be leveraged for environmental benefits.
5. Participate in Community Discussions: Engage in community discussions and forums to share insights, learn from others, and strengthen the collective understanding and application of ReFi principles.

In this insightful episode, join host John Ellison as he delves deep into the regenerative finance (ReFi) movement, exploring its intersection with climate action and Web 3 technology.

John shares his gratitude for the journey so far and his excitement for what lies ahead. We start with a retrospective look at the progress and challenges faced by the ReFi community during the bear market of 2022 and 2023, highlighting projects that have successfully maintained momentum.

As we move into 2024 and beyond, our host discusses the emerging surge of interest and enthusiasm that is shaping the future of ReFi. This episode also covers the significant shifts in the mainstream acceptance of digital assets, including Bitcoin ETFs and the anticipation of Ethereum ETFs, which are likely to introduce a cascade of new financial instruments.Furthermore, John shares personal reflections from his recent mini-sabbatical, offering insights gained from time spent in nature and conversations with diverse leaders outside the traditional ReFi space.

Key narratives expected to drive the ReFi movement towards greater impact and adoption are introduced, along with core concepts that underpin the movement. For newcomers and OGs alike, this episode provides valuable ideas and insights to deepen engagement with ReFi. Don’t miss this comprehensive analysis of where ReFi stands today and its promising direction forward.

A special thanks to Marcio Vilela for the beautiful art photography on the wall from his Superflora collection in the Amazon.

People

John Ellison

Companies

ReFi Dao, Climate Collective, Sello Foundation

Books

"Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

John Ellison
Yo, what's good, refi fam? I am super grateful to have the opportunity to look back at the regenerative finance movement as a whole and to look forward towards what's coming in the months and years to come. We have witnessed an incredible swell of enthusiasm, of innovation, of capital and culture at the intersection of climate and web three. I wanted to do an episode to take stock of where we are today and to project what's the key ideas and key trends moving forward that really will bring this cycle to the next stage of its evolution. With the bitcoin ETF's having gained mainstream support, flowing billions of dollars of capital into bitcoin that otherwise wouldn't have been accessible, I think we're witnessing a major institutional shift in tolerance for digital assets.

In the evolution of money. We have Ethereum ETF's likely around the corner, and probably a further cascade of financial instruments that are looking to make these assets more accessible to more people. And of course, down the road, I think this has implications for climate related assets in general.

So in this episode, I wanted to start off with a little bit of my own personal reflections, just doing a quick stock take of the first wave of Refi, looking at the bear cycle of 22 and 23, some of the projects that maintain momentum, that push through the obstacles, and the emerging surge of interest and enthusiasm in 2024 and beyond. I also want to share some of the insights from my mini sabbatical as I've taken a few months off of work at Refi Dao, spent more time in nature, and done some of my work of regeneration within and talking to a wider range of leaders outside of the Reb three movement to gain context. But at a high level, I wanted to introduce a few key narratives that I think will drive the movement of Refi towards greater impact and greater adoption in the years to come. I also wanted to unpack some of the core concepts that make this movement possible and provide some ideas and insights for people to dig deeper who may be new to the movement and looking for a place to contribute that really resonate with their best skill sets, values, network and expertise. And finally, I wanted to wrap up with a resounding conclusion, to thank people for their support, and to call people to action, to take up their helm in the symphony of regeneration and contribute wherever is possible.

But let's kick off with a massive token gratitude to sello foundation and climate collective, who've been massive supporters of our work all the way back from early 2022. We definitely couldn't have produced this show without their help, and I am so incredibly moved by the enthusiasm of a blockchain ecosystem to go really deep into climate. Climate Collective spun out of Celo foundation with a rigorous eye towards bringing more natural capital on chain to fulfill this vision of beautiful money that Charles Eisenstein inspired Sep Komvar, Merrick and Renee, co founders at Celo, to look at using web three as an instrument in the broader climate action journey. We've seen a lot of growth in the sello ecosystem, specifically in Refi, thanks to the work of climate collective, and we are so grateful to be beneficiaries of their support. Diving into the topic today, I wanted to just reflect on this wave of sometimes irrational, but always exuberant enthusiasm for Refi in 2021.

The foundations of this movement were laid probably in 2017, with the likes of Giveth Region Network, Ixo Moss and Nori, many of whom didn't receive the enthusiastic praise that came on board in 2021. But the core ideas were there, replaced by people, by giants for their field. And yet, as we witnessed all of this capital and talent coming into the space, it really centered around carbon. Carbon as an asset, carbon as a meme, and carbon backed money as an idea that could try to anchor our abstract supply of money, our value exchange to the earth, to actually take care of what really mattered. And as we witnessed a billion dollar market cap emerge out of a mere weeks, we also witnessed a rapid collapse in decay, and significant backlash from institutions like Vera, who banned the tokenization of carbon credits, now navigating their own carbon bear market, their own carbon winter, with lots and lots of different pressures and vectors from other sides.

And I'm sure the wave of refi really wasn't a major contributing factor, but it helped to surface some of the underlying vulnerabilities and challenges of the carbon market to date. And I think this really was a significant contribution of the refi movement. Yes, maybe more money could have flowed towards projects on the ground in a more efficient way. I think carbon brokers probably did walk away with the lion's share of the enthusiasm in that day. But the reality is we made a contribution to this unfolding evolution of consciousness around how we can fix our monetary system and make it work for the planet, and to enable land stewards and project developers to do their work and to get paid well for it.

But we witnessed some major crypto collapses in 2022 and 23 that really forced a lot of projects in the refi space to cut back, to scale down, and to really push forward towards a thesis that would make traction even in this market. And I think those projects that continued launching, continued making traction, really make a significant difference in the unfolding journey of regenerative finance. I think specifically of solid worlds, of region, network, of fallow, of Senkin, Toucan, many of the others who have produced innovations in this timeframe, despite the lack of enthusiasm, this is really where the rubber meets the road and where we will see fruits for the next cycle to come. Because people have done the hard work when there wasn't the energy and the interest in place. But now, here we are in 2024, with the crypto market surging back.

Yes, we're not anchored exclusively on price, but these are indicators of sentiment. And sentiment is an indicator of belief of how much people believe in digital money as a key part of our functioning society. And I think the more people that understand this as a core idea, the more that we'll get that digital money to finance climate, to finance water, biodiversity. This just makes sense that as capital is moving towards more decentralized systems, it has to find a way towards financing regeneration in the earth. At the end of the day, I've had a great pleasure in taking a few months off of leadership at Refi Dao and supporting Monty and Ana as they continue to grow the network that we co created together over the last couple years.

And one of the things that really struck me that I wanted to share with people in the refi space, was this idea that our reality is perceived by the state of our nervous system at any given moment in time. I'll say that again, that our reality is really dictated by the state of our nervous system at any given point in time. I don't know about you, but I found working in Refi to be very intense. Lots of time sitting down, or sometimes standing up in front of a screen. Yes, there are punctuated breaks where we gather for conferences and events, but most of the time we are stationary, scrolling through a device, managing lots and lots of channels and information, as our science indicates, do put stress on our nervous system.

We tend to move into states of fight or flight with higher levels of cortisol and adrenaline when we're sitting still. All of the sensory stimuli from the digital age is an embarrament into our nervous system. And if we don't take time to reset, to balance ourselves, it can be very easy to be heavily activated and to make decisions that aren't really in our best interest or the interest of the mission we feel called to serve. So I'm doing some work with a guy named Johnny at nervous system mastery over the next few months, to really understand my own nervous system and to be able to manage and regulate it better. If anybody else is curious, I'd love to have you join me on that journey.

It's just a personal exploration I'm going on because I do feel like it's a key part of the regenerative movement. The second piece is I realized after talking to Hanet Bazaad in the episode being other that I'd never actually read anybody else's work from an indigenous perspective. I started reading braiding sweetgrass, among other pieces of work by Robin Wall Kimmerer that really inspired me to recognize this massive treasure trove of wisdom that indigenous peoples hold. The fact that over 85% of all of life on earth, all biodiversity, is steward by a very small minority of the population, these indigenous communities. It demonstrates to me that there's this entire realm of knowing that we basically don't have common access to.

So digging into indigenous wisdom is definitely going to be an important part of my own journey as I understand the movement of regeneration in the years to come. This led me into a space of exploration that I will describe as regenerative leadership. For me, recognizing this complex web of existential threats that cascade upon one another in different layers and intricacies really does beckon for a new way of showing up as a leader, as a co creator, as somebody who is both moving, sensing, listening and building and functioning in different ecosystems at different times. It really is a different type of skill and capability than I think we've seen before. And I would totally call out to people like Kevin a.

Walkie and Griff Green who have been incredible leaders in these movements for many years and do stand with integrity no matter what state of the cycle that we're in. But I think there's also models of leadership that we haven't really seen before. The giants of the broader environmental movement have incredible stories to share, and I personally am very curious about what makes them tick and what works. I've had a chance to read through Laura Storm and Giles Hutchins regenerative leadership, a guide for regenerative leaders in the 21st century. But I'm also curious to look deeper into the work of Joe Brewer and the folks at Barichara who seem to be really pioneering bioregional regeneration on the ground and blending indigenous knowledge, ways of knowing with technology and different communities scale.

I think this idea of regenerative leadership really inspired in me this kind of felt sense that I do not have enough time in nature and I share this as an invitation because I witnessed in a short survey on Twitter that a vast majority of people in the refi space spend less than 5 hours a week in nature. And as people who are trying to build solutions to conserve and regenerate the earth, it might be wise for us to immerse ourselves in this living environment more often, see what comes up, see how it feels, and see what ideas and feelings emerge in this space. And the last piece that I think really began to surface as a pinnacle of importance is this notion of radical collaboration. It can be easy in this space to try and collaborate with absolutely everyone all the time, but it's impossible. We need to figure out who are the right people to engage with and how do we bridge the gap between actors that aren't working together and create effective means for making impact in the world without slowing things down to the point of being frustrating.

The endless Zoom calls and the long working sessions I think don't really serve anybody justice, but witnessing the ecological benefits framework gather leaders from all across the space and move towards consensus with enthusiasm and momentum has been a really inspiring model for gathering disparate stakeholders towards a shared goal. So I think I personally am curious to learn more about trauma informed collaboration, collaboration from disparate groups, and really getting to the heart of what separates us, removing those barriers and bringing people together. So just a little snippet from my time in my mini sabbatical here. Over the last few months I'm going to be doing some writing and sharing more thoughts and hopefully gathering more leaders for experiences in nature, digging deep into indigenous wisdom and exploring regenerative leadership. If you're curious, do reach out.

I'd love to hear from you. I'm speaking to a bunch of founders in this space and learning about the obstacles and trying to figure out what I can do to make a better difference in the years to come. Now I want to shift gears here and look at some of the top level narratives that are emerging. I've spoken to a lot of different people in Refi, hundreds of founders over the last few years, and spoken to some key people at institutions and having the pleasure of integrating all these diverse perspectives and looking at what are the key ideas, what are the key stories that are going to drive us forward. I think the first one that comes to mind is that Refi is not just about web three.

So many of the projects that have gained traction to date have put web three either on the back burner or not in the picture at all. Now, I don't mean this to denigrate the technology. I do think decentralized and publicly verifiable systems are essential for scaling climate finance with trust and integrity. But I think it's clear that we need a diverse palette of technologies to come together to create a just regenerative transition. Geospatial tech seems to be at the core.

Leveraging Internet of things networks and decentralized physical infrastructure networks seems to be a key piece of the puzzle. Thinking of folks like gain forest, leveraging insights from different devices, and creating a blend of fidelity and intelligence about what's happening on the ground to reward people for regenerative actions. Obviously, machine learning and artificial intelligence is going to play a vital role in this transition, as we have larger and larger and more complex sets of data that we need to make sense of and gain insights about whether or not we're having a difference. So the big question is, can refi make the leap from being a movement in web three to being a movement across the board? Can we move away from being a tech led movement to being an impact led movement?

These are some of the questions that I'm sitting with personally. But at the end of the day, I think it's very clear we can all relate that technology is just a tool, and there's hard tech as well as soft tech. And for me, our bodies, our minds, our thoughts are as much of a technology as the hard coded tech on our laptops. And we need to be more conscious about the state of our nervous system, the ideas that we hold, and the ways that we communicate with our local community, our local governments, and the corporations with whom we might be active or holding shares. So this movement, for me, presents a lot of opportunity, not only as Refi moves beyond web three, but moves into the second key narrative, which I think is obviously apparent.

But I want to double down on. Refi has moved far beyond carbon. We know the problems with carbon tunnel vision, and we know the problems of the carbon market. Yes, carbon does seem like a great instrument to finance climate action because it has built a lot of global consensus. The Paris climate agreements use carbon as a unit of account, for obvious and various reasons.

But actually we need to move beyond this. And I think the ecological benefits framework, giving us six different measures of impact, is really helpful tool. But what I've observed is that there is a really interesting opportunity emerging beyond carbon. In the space of biodiversity, the market is small, it is fragmented, it is evolving at a very fast rate. But it represents a huge opportunity for us to take the learnings of the carbon market and implement them into an indigenous lead and an indigenous first market.

We know that these communities are the ones responsible for stewarding and preserving and growing nature all across the earth. This is unquestionable. But what we have to answer for ourselves is, can we build market mechanisms that really honor their rights as people on the land, behaving in the ways that they've done for millennia, and actually second guess our own ways of knowing? And put indigenous ways of knowing first, can we really begin to sense check our science, which has obvious biases and blind spots, with the indigenous ways of knowing that have been passed on for millennia, and demonstrated such high levels of efficacy for creating complex webs of life that are intimately in balance? I think the work of Savimbo in particular, as a biodiversity project, is incredibly fascinating.

I haven't had the chance to have a full episode with Savimbo, but I do look forward to diving deeper in the biodiversity market in the months to come. This idea of valuing nature, valuing life, to me, seems like the threshold of a new story. Carbon is very abstract. It can't really be understood in a felt sense, but you can see very clearly when you see a jaguar in the forest that, yes, this is something that is real and valuable and alive, and it's through something deep in us, this desire to be a part of the wild, to be a part of this symphony of life that goes on in jungles and rainforests, and we can be very separate from in our cities, in our boxes. So really enjoyed reading through Seamus work over at Bloom Labs looking into the emerging biodiversity market.

Happy to provide some links in the show notes. And if anyone else is interested, I'd love to jump on a call and see what thoughts are emerging here. Obviously, the third narrative of public goods seems to be predominant. So many people are latching onto this as a recognition that, yes, there is this vast realm of resources that we all need to survive, and we should do well to fund them. I think there are several trends within the public goods funding space that are super exciting.

First of all, decentralization. Weve seen Gitcoin go on a major journey over the last couple years as it has built out a protocol thats designed to let anybody fund what matters, what they care about. And with this decentralization, looking at rounds on many different chains at different points in time, different ecosystems, funding, what they care about also comes the side effect of proliferation, fragmentation, and sometimes disarray. There's so many different funding streams going on at any one given time, I sometimes worry that we could lose our focus and our rhythm around coming together as a community to fund what matters at specific points in the journey. But overall, I'm incredibly optimistic about these emerging primitives of quadratic funding, retroactive public goods funding and other methods to fund impact and public goods more broadly.

I think this idea coming into local governments, local ngo's is really, really exciting and worthwhile. We need more people who are creating bridges to these local communities and institutions to onboard them into these platforms. With the likes of Gitcoin passport now being radically usable for anyone in web three, it's time to get people contributing and donating and building up their on chain portfolio to be able to have match funding using gitcoin passport and other identity solutions. The reality is that every single blockchain has an ecosystem fund. Now a lot of these funds are being carved off with specific areas for public goods.

In a similar way to Celo carving out the climate collective, we now see a sizable proposal for governance evolution and a public goods funding strategy in Celo. Do stay tuned for this work stream. I think it could prove to be a model again for other ecosystems to employ. There's a lot of interesting stuff happening in this space, and if you haven't dove deep into the public goods ecosystem, do check it out not only on gitcoin, but also on giveth and optimism. There's more platforms coming around the corner and this really is an area to dive deep and understand how can I get my project funded and how can I prove this impact to the people who are supporting us before we maybe have even developed a reputation and a name for ourselves?

The fourth major narrative that I think will drive impact in the refi space is this desire to bring real world assets on chain. I think two in particular seem to be gaining significant traction, that of solar and land. Obviously we've seen Jasmine energy renew them and helios funding renewable energy installations and bring renewable energy credit on chain. These are really just no brainer solutions to bring into the world of Defi and into the world of crypto. We just need to see more attention, more liquidity and more projects coming online.

But this piece around land is incredibly fascinating because land itself is maybe in some ways our most precious and valuable asset. It's been fascinating to see the work of Fabrica, who wouldn't necessarily describe themselves as a regenerative finance protocol, bringing land on chain, allowing people to buy in stables and hold an NFT that represents a title deed to a piece of land. The idea of having millions of acres come online, come on, chain, be tokenized and be preserved with satellite imagery, remote sensors and people on the ground is incredibly fascinating and I do think plays a key role in the unfolding transition. I know Teemo at Basindao has been diving deep into this space and I'm really curious to see the long tail of land on chain with real world assets driving real value towards communities and the causes that they care about. The last narrative, number five that I want to introduce, is this idea of green accountability.

It's very clear that the annual conference of parties is a key coordination mechanism for fulfilling this regenerative future. But the reality is that nobody's really holding these institutions accountable. We were meant to have a green climate fund years ago, $100 billion a year, going from developed nations to developing nations, but we haven't seen even a fraction of what's been promised. Who's out there holding these organizations accountable? Who's contacting elected officials in a systematic way, letting them know that this is not enough and that this is a matter of contention for each and every one of our votes.

I really appreciate the work that net zero tracker has done to surface some of this information and to begin to make this more accessible for citizens, for shareholders and concerned individuals alike. I think we need to do more to create solutions and tools, to have people's voices be heard and amplified, to let the organizations of the world know that it is not okay not to have a climate target and it's not okay not to deliver on it. And that actually this is far more than just our balance sheets. This is about each and every one of our livelihood and our future. And as we've already seen, we've tipped well over the 1.5 degree centigrade warming mark.

And this has significant implications for all of humanity. The time is running out on our carbon budget. We have far less time than we even thought. And so if we want to have any hope of maintaining our 2030 or 2050 targets, we have to act now and we have to hold these organizations accountable. And in the same way that we've seen an entire ecosystem of people making a living raising money using web three mechanisms, I could think that we also will see a citizen and shareholder activism movement growing if we can use these tools of web three transparent data to make it possible for folks to get their voice heard and to hold organizations accountable towards what they said that they would already do.

I think this is a very interesting design space and not only requires visibility, but also a new system of account. The generally accepted accounting principles really shouldn't be generally accepted. The work of Niels Backman and Yishan Wong on terraformation in a recent article, describes this transition that we need to begin not only to bring nature but life onto the balance sheet. And this ultimately comes down to consensus. Humans need to speak up to the organizations where they're spending money and say, this isn't good enough.

We expect more from you, and we're going to prove it with our vote and with our dollars. So I'm really interested to see where this space grows in the years ahead. As we mentioned, a quick recap of the top level narratives I'll just rehash. Refi is not just about web three. It's not just about carbon.

Yes, it is about funding public goods, but it's also about bringing real world assets into the hands of people that depend upon it. We need to hold our organization's account, and we need to move away from voluntary commitments to actually hold people to what they said they would. Otherwise, this whole journey is going to be pointless, and things are going to spiral out of control quicker than we think. But at the end of the day, this isn't just about narratives and stories. We need fundamental market mechanisms.

We need real world impact across several areas, and we need new social coordination vehicles, new ways to fund projects and to get institutions involved in this movement. So I want to transition to the third part of our episode here today, where we will unpack some of these ideas. This might be more relevant if you're new to the Refi space or if you're just getting into web three. And if not, if you're a longtime listener or you know the space very well, there may be some new opportunities or new projects that you haven't heard of before. But I just wanted to lay down some of the key foundational technologies and instruments that are required for this movement and to really invite people who are joining into this to find their place, to get involved, and to build something that can interoperate with others, that can be connected as a puzzle piece to this vast ecosystem of regeneration and web three.

Okay, so moving on to our next section in this video, the next wave of Refi. If you're tuning in on audio, I do recommend looking at the video version just to get a sense of some of the visuals and some of the mechanics that are coming in play. But we'll make sure it's suitable for both sets of listeners. So the first thing I want to dive into is market mechanisms. Now, regenerative finance is operating upon this thesis that in order to scale climate impact and regeneration more broadly, we need a financial system that does this by design.

A lot of people like to demonize capitalism and money itself. Well, the refi space really looks at this as a design challenge. It says money is just a technology. It's a tool that can be designed to fulfill any purpose. Our current monetary system has been really designed to accrue value to the people who hold capital.

It's preserving wealth for those who have wealth. And yes, in some cases, it provides significant opportunities and quality of life improvement, but often at the detriment of nature, of life, of clean water, of clean air, of living soil. And without some significant modifications to our economy, this will end in catastrophic ecosystem collapse and significant harm for lots of life on earth, ourselves included. So in order to correct this challenge, we need to redesign fundamental market mechanisms that provide access to public goods and services, private goods and services, while also embedding care for the planet at the base layer. This might sound like a very far off abstract idea, but as we begin to dive into these different components, you can start to wrap your head around it.

The first market mechanism that I want to mention is climate data. This might not seem like a market mechanism in kind, but it actually is the kind of underlying substrate upon which the entire market is built. Without data about our climate, we can't really build a meaningful climate marketplace. Now, I'll draw attention to the work of D climate here. We did an episode with D climate earlier in the year, and I really do think that this is a fascinating pioneering example of climate data done well.

I want to do a quick overview to describe the necessity of increasing the amount of data available on decentralized storage for a sustainable future. Now, Dclimate has done a very interesting play here by creating a marketplace for different data providers to upload their data and get paid for the data being used. They've also created a significant amount of free and publicly available datasets, aggregating whatever is available and making it possible for people to consume this data into applications. Having structured, reliable data is an incredibly key part of any application, and d climate is making this available and possible also for premium datasets. I think this idea of having a climate data economy is really interesting and viable.

Looking at the likes of ocean protocol, exposing datasets like this, allowing people to get paid of data on use, is really fascinating. The idea that our insurance market currently has very significant gaps in its coverage, and farmers and landowners and homeowners all around the world are effectively getting screwed in natural disasters because insurance isn't covering this. Climate data is a really key part of this puzzle, let alone the actual assets and instruments that are issued using climate data as a base layer. So I'd love to see more players coming into this space providing diverse sets of climate data and also using this data to hold organizations accountable. Now, market mechanism number two is registries.

So once we have this climate data, what do we actually do with it? How do we store it, and how do we make a record of ecological health? I'll mention the work first and foremost of regionnetwork here, who really went out as the first player in the space to become the de facto decentralized climate registry. They have had a pioneering view on the idea of climate finance long before anyone else knew of the term of refi at all. And now this idea of having a registry that's actually owned by its users, the land stewards, the corporate members, the community, the project developers, the measurement, reporting and verification bodies.

This is a really key idea that I think deserves a lot more attention and enthusiasm in this space. You could call it a public good for the market, you could call it an essential infrastructure. But at the end of the day, we need registries that are being adopted and being maintained and being grown by the communities that depend upon them. So I personally would love to see more people diving in and engaging in registry work and really helping to build out this infrastructure. Region network is obviously on Cosmos, which has increasing interoperability capabilities for other ecosystems, and they're doing deep work through their endowment program to make this possible, to engage with people who otherwise wouldn't, creating flows of capital to people who are stewarding nature but might not have the time to participate in online discussion forums.

There's other registries like the work of IXo who are allowing people to measure impact. They've got a number of projects in Africa in particular that are registering the impact of, for example, clean cookstoves and even education outcomes. This is a really fascinating idea as we look to see large scale impact organizations financing change and using public ledgers to demonstrate their impact to broader communities and funders. I think the work of IXo and Region network in particular should definitely be lauded and applauded as they've managed to endure many market cycles and are doing deep work to engage broader communities as they decentralize and engage broader bases through their DAO and governance initiatives. I also want to call to mention Hedera's Guardian, which is definitely positioned as the kind of corporate go to for environmental assets issued on chain.

Hedera is a fascinating piece of technology that's not really a blockchain. It's a hashgraph. And I won't go into the specific technical details, nor would I be the best person to do so. But I think the interesting idea around Hedera is the fact that they're working really hard to bring on board many, many different methodologies and what they call policies to allow people to issue environmental assets using distributed ledgers with very, very efficient costs and very high scale and verification. There's a lot of work going on in the Hedera ecosystem, leveraging the Guardian, which is not only a registry, but also an MRV platform, to be able to have an end to end audit trail that really measures and verifies all the way from asset issuance to the individual device that verified the piece of data coming into the hashgraph.

So other than registries, there's a key piece of the puzzle, which are known as methodologies. Methodologies are the process that people go through to verify that an impact claim is legitimate. The good that has been claimed has actually been done, and we have scientifically rigorous proof to say that they should be rewarded. An instrument, either a water credit, or a renewable energy credit, or a biodiversity credit, or a carbon credit, or even a practice based methodology that doesn't measure the outcome, but is actually measuring that the behavior itself has been done, and trusting the science that if the behavior has been done, the outcome has also been achieved. I think again, looking at region Network's open credit class module is fascinating here, because what this does is it provides people with the opportunity to create new methodologies that reflect what their local communities care about.

This could be a really fascinating opportunity for the regenerative finance movement, especially as we're gathering in local nodes. This is not only the work of Refi Dao, but also greenpill network through their local chapters, that if we're gathering communities through these market cycles, gaining enthusiasm and exuberance, we should also be onboarding local NGO's and activist organizations, ecological restoration campaigns, and helping to finance the work that they're doing. And given that every ecosystem, every community is different, we can actually develop community specific methodologies that reflect not only the work that we're doing and the needs of the given ecology, but also what the capital holders actually care about. And creating very highly localized and tailored methodologies to reflect these needs, I think could be a very interesting way to explore funding regeneration more broadly. I'm also super curious to see the work of Silvi protocol.

Geemo has been working on a tree forwards methodology, which in itself is just a mind blowing idea. The fact that we can finance tree based regeneration before the tree has even been planted, and receive milestone based payments to project developers as we verify the growth of individual trees and we can create a full spectrum picture of the entire supply chain of forestry is really interesting. I think this level of speciation and specification provides a lot of promise. It's going to take a while for these ideas to scale, but as we're seeing hundreds of thousands of trees being planted and verified in Kenya via Sylvie, I'm really curious and optimistic to see what they do broader afield. They have a campaign going on with Refi Miami that I think is definitely worth keeping an eye on for other local communities who want to measure their impact.

I'm just going to pull this up for folks who haven't seen this work, because I think this is a real invitation for people to say, hey, there's a problem in our local community. Let's go ahead, take action and verify that this work is being done, and ensure that capital is going to where it is said it's going to based upon the exact technology and the exact method that we're using to verify the work. So this idea of a reforestation project happening across Miami Dade county with Sylvie, future of cities and sustain of cities is really interesting. The fact that people can do urban tree planting and receive rewards for not only planting the tree, but also nurturing the tree's health and growth is a really encouraging methodology, because a lot of the problems in the reforestation market to date is that the capital mechanisms aren't really aligned towards the full life cycle of the tree and the forest as a whole. So curious to see where this goes.

Kudos to Geemo and the folks every five Miami. I think this type of model of experimenting with protocols, methodologies at a local level could definitely be a key catalyst for growth across the network over the long term. Okay, so the next major market instrument was the big buzzword in late 2022, as we were first getting rolling with Refi Dao. That is measurement, reporting, and verification. Now, if you're new to this space, this is the idea that we need systems to not only measure, but also to report and verify the ecological benefits that we're claiming in the world.

Historically, this has been done in a very manual and cumbersome process, with small organizations often flying all around the world with measuring tapes and clipboards to verify the circumference of a tree. This obviously doesn't scale, isn't very effective, and doesn't create a lot of trust about what's actually happening in the forest day to day. So the next scale of MRV is what people would consider DMRV, digital, or even decentralized measurement, reporting and verification. This first came to mind as I dove deep into the work of David Dow at Gainforest. Now, gain forest, I think, has made some incredible progress over the years.

They were one of the first refi projects on Solana. Solana has been gaining significant enthusiasm and movement over the last year, year or so as it's recovered from the FTX collapse. And they're bringing together some really fascinating technologies to map and measure impact, to reward regenerators with income on the ground. Now, I haven't had a chance to have an episode with David Dow and Sime at gain Forest, but you can dive deep into the work that they're doing. They're basically interpolating many different sets of data, not only people on the ground taking photos and videos of impact, but also remote sensors, drones, and satellite imagery into a single view to be able to verify that the nature project is actually doing the work that it said it was.

They aren't using any kind of carbon credit. This is effectively a donation based scheme, but the MRV methodology that they're creating here really is significant, scientifically robust, and has the potential to scale. I know David Dow through his work at ETH Zurich with his PhD in digital, MRV has gone really deep into this space over the last seven years, and I think this is an organization to keep an eye on as they also begin to implement more machine learning and artificial intelligence into their work. But overall, MRV is a key piece of the puzzle. There's a load of different actors that are actually trying to solve this problem, and I think that there's many more pieces of work that can be contributed to this space.

I look at Cyclops from dclimate as another example of an inspiring tech platform that leverages the power of decentralized data to build confidence about nature based restoration. If you haven't looked at Cyclops, I do recommend having a view. They have basically taken the D climate platform with large sets of satellite imagery and made it possible for people to monitor nature based restoration projects using decentralized data stores. I know that there is hope to be able to issue carbon credits using this platform, and there was a significant amount of interest from the legacy market about the offerings that climate provided earlier in 2023. I'm curious to see how the datasets grow to provide confidence about nature based restoration around the world.

I think nature definitely took a hit in 2023 with the number of bad news articles coming from the Guardian. But actually we can all intuitively say that we need nature to survive and so we just have to work through the technology and the, you know, the financing instruments to make this work for people at scale. We can't just move towards engineered removals and forget about nature because we might remove all the carbon from the atmosphere. But if we're just left with a concrete jungle, I don't think anybody's gonna be happy. I think Cyclops definitely provides an interesting example, especially because it's open source, it's built on top of dclimate, it's a separate organization and it just demonstrates the possibility and the composability of this space.

Leveraging climate data to build really interesting solutions. The MRV landscape is vast. We could dive deeper into open forest protocol, Ixo's MRV stack, the Guardian's MRV stack, and also the work of Shamba network. But I think the reality is that this is and remains to be a key piece of the puzzle and also where the refi movement has a major cutting edge on the legacy market to date. This just intuitively makes sense.

We need more data, we need more confidence, and we need to be able to measure the full value chain of regeneration from end to end. So if you are an aspiring professional looking to get into this space, check out MRV for either carbon or biodiversity. Soil, air, water, whatever you think of this is a space undoubtedly that has opportunities for innovation and impact. Now, the next market mechanism that I want to talk about is marketplaces. This is kind of a no brainer, obviously, but it's interesting to see different market players carving out niches within this space.

We saw Senkin launch with the world's first on chain carbon marketplace, I think early in 2022, far before anybody else had launched anything of significant import. But it's interesting to observe that Senken's actually really scaled back and even removed web three from much of their proposition. And it's also interesting to note which organizations are really buying into this. It's small and medium enterprises who are really forward thinking about nature. Yes, there's others like seamen who are using carbon marketplaces, but there is a niche in the corporate sector that hasn't been affected by the flak from the Guardian and other news outlets that are really harping on the, you know, the challenges of nature based solutions.

I think carbon marketplaces are going to be forced increasingly to do the work of building deep business relationships, not only with projects on the ground and land stewardship, and not only with corporates, but also the organizations that are creating trust at the middle layer, the likes of Bzero who are providing carbon rating and also insurance mechanisms that can be able to safeguard and insure people's portfolios as they build them up over the coming years. I think seeing Senkin focus significantly on Africa, significantly on nature, and also on the european market from a perspective of demand is a really interesting signal that yes, there is an opportunity here to go deep, to build subject matter expertise and to create an ecosystem of relationships where we can connect project suppliers with corporate demand who have specific values and specific culture. So I'm super excited to see Senkin continuing to make progress. Do check out the episode with Adrienne that we did earlier in season three and if you're in this space, have a broader survey. I'll have a link to some of the other carbon marketplaces here on the notes.

There's many other to mention. Obviously region network has launched their carbon marketplace which goes beyond carbon, it's just an ecological asset marketplace. But I think this fundamental function of matching supply and demand will continue to remain valuable and there will be opportunities in the future to help companies and organizations fulfill their climate commitments with integrity and to manage the risk in their portfolios. Next in the view around marketplaces would be exchanges. I think it's incredibly exciting to see the US V backed neutral protocol launching as a next generation exchange for environmental assets.

We haven't had a chance to bring Farouk onto the show, but I am super encouraged by the technical complexity and the ability for brokers and different traders to access environmental assets, from renewable energy credits to carbon forward contracts and also tokenized carbon credits, even though they may be low in supply in the current market. We do need highly functioning exchanges providing liquidity for environmental assets in order for this market to work. And I think this will just continue to increase the amount of demand in this space and become a key piece of the puzzle as we connect basically defi capital into these markets. But also as we're witnessing with the likes of Kumadao, we're also seeing institutional allocators who don't necessarily want to deal with web bringing demand into planet positive assets that might even be on chain. I found it fascinating that the borrowing and lending protocol at Kumo allows people to create loans denominated in us dollars in fiat currency, and that they're collateralized by tokenized carbon credits.

Now this remains to be a major challenge in the next wave of Refi about how do we bring assets like this on chain with Vera and all of the other major carbon standards. Having banned the tokenization of carbon credits, we are really witnessing smaller registries like Puro Earth and Plan Vivo to open up their APIs and to allow people to tokenize their credits. We've obviously seen this with Toucan protocol and with thallow and some of the others who are building integrations for more niche carbon offerings and really abstracting the web three, complexity behind the scenes and allowing people to have largely a web two based experience. I think that this on will be a major trend in the next wave of Refi as we bring web three into the background and just create a seamless buying experience for people who want to purchase planet positive assets and to use the benefits of tokenized carbon without all of the complexity of managing wallets and private keys. So we've had a chance to look through some of the key market mechanisms that are making this possible.

We need climate data. We need community owned and managed registries. We need scientifically rigorous methodologies that can be adapted and grown over time, and we need sophisticated, adaptable and scalable mrv solutions. We also need marketplaces that are targeting different types of suppliers and buyers and creating that bridge between the two with efficiency, liquidity and different trading tools that can make this seamless for all parties involved. We also need a various form of other tech.

I think the work of digital Gaia is one in particular that kind of pushes beyond these known market mechanisms and is beginning to look at next generation environmental assets in ways that other people haven't seen. Definitely check out the episode with Raphael Kaufman on this, but I want to transition to the next part of this show today, which is around the different impact areas. We'll use the six ecological benefits provided by the EBF as an overall outline, but I really want to look more in the outlying space, the fringes of this movement, for inspiration and for asking questions around what will really make this next wave of refi break. I want to start off first with equity. I think this idea is essential.

In my episode with Tomer Balrayach of Flory Ventures, I was fascinated to hear this notion that equity and climate are inseparable, that if we don't take care of the people on our planet, we're going to witness increasing ecological devastation. Now I want to call out the work, in particular of glow dollar. If you haven't seen glow dollar, I think this is a really fascinating example of a refi project that just makes sense. So glow dollar is a stablecoin that is designed to end extreme poverty, you can dive deeper into their materials. But the idea behind this is incredibly simple.

The stablecoin industry is nearly $100 billion. And stablecoin companies make a percentage yield on the amount of assets in circulation. And if you look at the like of USDC and USDT, you're talking billions of dollars per year that are going towards these stablecoin companies just in form of profit. But imagine you could actually design the stablecoin to do something different. What if instead of sending that yield in form of profit, you could send that yield in the form of impact?

Glow foundation sends all of their benefit to give directly an organization that has been rated incredibly highly for their efficacy in financing social justice projects around the world. Now you'll witness a really interesting movement as glow dollar begins to build traction in this space by celebrating each and every major person and organization that is holding glo dollars. And I think this really will be a long tail movement that has significant impact over the years to come. It's starting small, but as we see millions and even tens of millions of dollars be held in stable assets like Glo, which is financing social impact and equity as its default, I think this provides significant promise, because at the end of the day, we would all want to hold climate positive assets on our balance sheet. But we also need stable assets.

And so this idea of taking a stable asset backed by effectively risk free assets that just by holding has an impact in the world, makes a really compelling proposition for the mainstream. I think as wallets become more streamless and as people have an easier time managing their private keys, that this will be a significant step forward in onboarding people into Refi. And they might not even know that it's refi at all. People want to make a difference, but they often don't want to have to think about it. So I think the likes of glow dollar are a fascinating proposition for broader masses who don't want the complexity of choosing which project to fund.

They just want to hold the currency that is going to make a difference and fund impact according to their values based on the equity side of the equation. I wanted to talk about ethic hub. Ethicub is one of the refi ogs that has been in this space for a long time. I haven't had the chance to speak with Gabriela and Jori due to technical issues that we've had trying to bring them onto the show, but this really is an incredibly potent proposition. So many of us in the space drink coffee every single day, and the fact that we can earn up to 9% by financing coffee farmers.

Bringing their products to broader markets and helping them earn sustainable income is a really interesting proposition. I personally have deployed some of my own capital towards ethic hub and am encouraged by the work that they've made in growing their project base, raising capital and just continuing on their mission with fierce determination. This obviously isn't investment advice, but I just wanted to highlight the work that they're doing and demonstrate that there are really compelling propositions that are live, that have significant traction in the the space and are worthy of your attention and your time as you move into this next wave of refi. It also would be worth mentioning good dollar obviously as another unconditional basic income experiment. They have a very different thesis than the likes of impact market in that they want anybody to be able to claim this unconditional basic income.

Good dollar has done a fantastic job growing their ecosystem over the years and is continuing to work closer on the ground to get this on the hands of people who really need it most. Creating fascinating partnerships with USD, Glo and other organizations, and working even with local nodes across the movement to try and bring their offering to people all around the world. I think this broader public facing proposition will be a key part of bringing the refi movement to the masses in the next wave. Now, next on the ecological benefits stack, I want to talk about water. I haven't had a chance to bring these guys onto the show yet, but I think it's fascinating to look into the work of water lab, previously known as Waterdao.

They describe themselves as a decentralized national water laboratory for the research and development of advanced desalination and regenerative water. Water and water cycles are a key element of the regenerative transition, and this idea of a proof of water protocol that allows people to fund desalination and purification processes. Looking at specific projects around the world is a really interesting element that seems to be an underlooked part of the movement so far. We need large scale water infrastructure projects across developing nations to be able to take care of people all around the world and to be able to fund regeneration at planetary scale. Take a look at some of the projects that they funded to date, as well as their underlying methodology.

If you're a water nerd, I'm sure they'd be curious to hear from you. I think this is a vastly underexplored problem space that I'm curious to see grow. As I mentioned, I wanted to go further afield, and so I'm going to talk, talk about air one of the most underexplored areas of impact in the refi space to date. There's a couple organizations working in air so far. First is Planet Watch.

The other is ecosynthesis x from our friend Paul Berg at Refi Koh Phangan. The idea of having publicly available data around air pollution accessible via public ledgers is a fascinating concept, and it looks like Planet Watch, which is based on Algorand, has done some really interesting work in this space. Again, I think this moves largely into the area of green accountability as we publicize this major challenge around clean air and the hazards that this has for all of humanity, especially people living in major cities. If you haven't dove deep into the air ecosystem, or if you're a pioneer in the space, I'd love to hear from you and how this raises curiosity. I think the air quality AI assistant from ecosynthesis is a fascinating take.

I know Paul at Koh Phanggan has been a major pioneer in the movement to date, using quadratic funding to finance local projects in Koh Phangan and just gathering people across the board around this idea of regeneration. So it's super cool to see this kind of web of quadratic funding, public goods impact all weaving together around this idea of air quality monitoring. Next on the impact list, I want to talk about biodiversity. I already mentioned this a little bit in the introduction, as I think that this is a major thread worth exploring as the regenerative finance movement looks for different areas to deepen impact using these tools. So Vimbo is an organization that was founded by three unlikely environmental friends.

Drea Burbank, who's an MD technologist who's worked in tech for many years, came to the Amazon in Colombia and never left. She's built a partnership with Johnny Lopez and Fernando Lizama. I've had the pleasure of reading stories from both of these individuals like lives, understanding how biodiversity is a key market that can provide vital financing to local indigenous communities to take care of nature and to get paid for doing what they already would do. Their indicator biodiversity species methodology is an incredibly fascinating look at a conservation first and an indigenous first way of financing grassroots regeneration on the ground. It's a very pragmatic view, looking at the challenges that these local communities face, as they really are on the threat of deforestation from multiple fronts and do need capital now in order to prevent vast areas of the Amazon and other biodiversity hotspots from being destroyed.

This basic idea that indicator species or keystone species, are scientifically valid measures of a broader ecosystems health is an interesting one that was first mentioned in our conversation with ale over at sovereign nature initiative. If we know that jaguars are present in a given ecosystem, we know that the rest of the ecosystem is intact. And if the jaguars start disappearing, then there's cascading negative effects. All of their prey begin to multiply in number, which will undoubtedly destroy increasing amounts of flora. That flora being decayed will then be a lost food source for many of those who were eating them, causing a collapse in the ecosystem and an increase in significant negative externalities for all of life in the area, an eventual ecosystem collapse as a whole.

And so this idea of a simple yet scientifically rigorous methodology, leveraging indigenous ways of knowing as well as emerging technologies, I think is a fascinating concept. The idea of having no middlemen at all and having a single tech platform that finances this, as well as maintaining the methodology, is interesting, although I do think that as the market continues to grow, we'll see see more people playing different parts of this puzzle because of the obvious incentive misalignment of being both the methodology, the asset issuer, and the marketplace provider. But I'm personally very curious to come to projects like this and witness biodiversity and conservation happening on the ground and really understand not only how the tech is coming together, but what this capital is meaning for these communities and what would otherwise be the outcome if these solutions weren't available in place. So within the biodiversity space, there's also the sovereign Nature Institute. If you haven't seen the episode with Ale, definitely do take a look.

For me, this idea of having ecological data become an asset in our broader gaming online and cultural communities seems like a vital experiment in the transition of regeneration. I love the idea of having impact NFT collections that are representative of real lions and real ecosystems that mature over time as the NFT increases in its data and maturity, as new data samples come in through the field, this is just a snapshot of some of the work that they're doing. I definitely recommend diving deeper into the SNI ecosystem. They're based here in Lisbon and I know through direct experience and working with them that they're good people doing incredibly interesting and innovative work with major institutions and conservation organizations around the world. Similar to the toucan play, it's been interesting to see Thalo continue to grow and integrate more two way bridges with others besides eco registry.

It seems like they're really putting web three into the background and just creating a simple dashboard that people can use to build up their carbon portfolio and leverage the power of tokenized carbon without having to even understand tokenization at all. The volumes here are massive, but the progress is significant amidst the closed gate policies of gold standard and Vera. I think this is really a major pathway of innovation as people look to scale out climate impact using the power of web three and other technologies. I'm also curious to see how IV protocol continues to grow as they've focused on diving deep into the blue carbon space and really providing tools for project developers to assess the best methodologies and the best sources to finance their carbon projects. I know that their AI copilot, built in combination with two CAm protocol and OpenAI generated a lot of institutional interest, and I'm very curious to see where this grows as we gain broader and broader insights around the best ways for project developers to get financed, and as we witness the convergence of artificial intelligence, environmental asset markets and decentralized databases, I think we'll see new innovations that haven't even been thought of before.

But shout out to the folks at IV protocol. It was a great conversation with Nicholas. If you haven't had a chance, definitely do take a look. As a segue from the carbon impact area moving into soil, I think Nori is definitely a project that will see exciting things in the years to come. Nori has been a pioneer in this space for a while, focusing initially on soil based carbon based in the United States.

Paul Gamble has also been a pioneer alongside some of the folks like Gregory Landuay in the regenerative finance movement. I think the work of Nori definitely deserves a deeper dive. I haven't had a chance to sit down with Paul Gamble yet, but I've been really intrigued by the progression of their organization and their brand as they started on soil carbon in the United States and have begun to dig even deeper into the carbon removal space, focusing on nature based solutions primarily in the US. It's interesting to see them set up subscriptions and enable integrations to allow brands to show off and demonstrate the impact that they're making and to create carbon removal as a service to really embed the impact into brand and brand communities. I think for me, this idea of just saying this isn't about fulfilling some line item on a shareholder commitment, but about building a brand that people can get excited about and telling the story of impact on the ground.

That soil's restoration is not just good for the plants, but also all of life and all of the planet. Moving on to soil as an impact area beyond carbon. It's obviously financed by carbon removals and carbon credits, but the work of Nori really has gone deepest into this space. Everybody in the refi movement has been looking for a niche and an impact area in which to gain traction in the market. Nori started with soil carbon focused primarily in the United States, and has gone really deep into this narrative.

As others have moved away from nature based solutions, they have doubled down. They have extensive work on soil carbons, both as a methodology, but also as a marketplace connecting people who value this kind of impact to subscriptions. And really integrating the story of carbon removals via soil into brands and brand ecosystems. You think of the work of a patagonia or another brand, which has become almost like a meme in its own right as a result of their depth of environmental impact and commitment to make the biggest difference with every part of their supply chain and with every garment that they create. I think the idea of integrating carbon removals and the story that this enables into brands is a really exciting concept that I'm excited to see Nori pursue.

But at the end of the day, the idea of restoring soil is in itself essential. Yes, we're witnessing carbon credits as the mechanism to finance this now, but I think as more and more technologies can begin to measure and quantify the health of our soil in any given ecosystem, we might even end up witnessing different types of instruments to finance soil as an intervention in particular. Who knows? Let's see. The evolution of the EBF framework is definitely at the very, very earliest stages.

As we had in our conversation with Douglas Gatin, there's a lot to be figured out and understood, but exciting to see the likes of Nori making continued progress in soil carbon and using the meme around carbon removals to finance impact for earth regeneration.

Okay, we have covered a lot of ground in this episode around the next wave of Refi. I wanted to transition here to the next core concept, which is around social coordination vehicles. We've talked about my personal reflections, these top level narratives driving change, and dove into some of the market mechanisms and impact areas. Hopefully, this is a good primer to get you started into the refi space if you are new, or if you're digging deeper into a new area. For me, the idea of a social coordination vehicle is kind of a new concept.

We have built money as a coordination vehicle. The Internet and other technologies are coordination vehicles, but for me, the idea of coordinating people together ideas towards specific impact is a really valid one worth exploring. This was really one of the core ideas behind the Refi Dao network of local nodes. Now we have several networks who are building out these local communities that are coordinated together through an online forum or an online brand, not only Refi Dao, but also Greenpill and others. But I think this third pop up villages concept that has come through the work of Gary Shang at Edge City is a really interesting idea that provides a complementary lens to this idea of social coordination.

We have local communities gathering regularly, bringing founders, investors, NGO's, local governments and impact organizations into the same room, having conversations and going out and making action together. We have these global coordination networks that are propagating insights and information and helping to support these local communities on the ground with knowledge sharing, with funding mechanisms and with human relationships with. But pop up villages, I think could be a really interesting way to cross pollinate and collaborate these different ideas of local and global coordination networks. I'm personally very interested in the work of Gary Shang. He's a fantastic storyteller and a genuinely amazing human.

The idea of a pop up city that brings people together across many different technologies and ecosystems, to live together, to have events and to really be in a deeper sense of place goes beyond what conferences can provide with that few day mania that conferences inevitably enable. So I'm curious to see how this unfolds. It's obviously new. The Zuzalu ecosystem has been growing over the last year and I'm curious how many people end up gathering in these pop up cities and this becomes more of a social coordination phenomena around specific public impact areas. Beyond social coordination vehicles, I'm also curious about the evolution of funding mechanisms.

We've seen the public goods ecosystem evolve with gitcoin and giveth optimism and several others using quadratic funding and retroactive public goods funding. But I think that this is really just the tip of the iceberg. We can begin to witness new funding mechanisms and we need experimentation in this space. I know Kevin a walkie is planning on doing an entire season as a deep dive into this area around capital allocation machines. Do stay tuned into his work and dive deeper into that space.

I think this is an area to explore in the next wave of Refi for people who really want to experiment on the edge of what's possible with web three and financing impact. The last area of note I would definitely highlight is just institutional engagement. I think organizations like Solid World partnering with Mastercard Lighthouse to support carbon forwards through mangroves is a really interesting example that we just plainly need more of in this space. Kumo partnering with ABN Amro Bank, a major tier one bank in the Netherlands, is also a major milestone. And guess what?

They leverage solid world's work and the institutional legitimacy of their crisp m forwards product. I think we need more and more web three institutions engaging at a broader level. It would be amazing to see larger folks like Makerdao and Aave digging deep into this regenerative narrative and deploying capital towards this end also. So if you personally are looking for a greater lever of change, I hope this episode has given you an overview of the different areas that you can get involved in the refi movement. As this continues to gain momentum in the next cycle, I think undoubtedly as prices continue to rise, so will enthusiasm and so will the amount of founders and investors and builders entering into this space.

This is a cyclical industry and even more volatile than many others. But as this cycle continues to rise, I would encourage you to buckle down and focus on impact making the biggest difference in the world. What makes refi different from the rest of the space is that we are actually looking to embed a new set of values into our monetary system. Making money itself isn't just good enough, and yet we also believe that money itself isn't evil. It's a tool that we can use just like any other, to fund projects that we care about, to create a better world and to secure our future for generations to come.

I know we covered a lot of material today. I threw a lot of different ideas at you. I was hoping that this would be somewhat of an episode that people could dive through no matter what point they are in their journey, to get inspiration, to connect new dots, and to think differently about the emerging movement of regenerative finance. This is not just about web three. This is not just about carbon.

This is a social movement using technology of various kinds to regenerate the earth. We're on the edge of something special, maybe in many ways cutting far beyond what other areas have been, are even capable of seeing in the past. We are witnessing a conscious evolution as well as a technical evolution, and it is our job to be good stewards of these tools and of our time and of our resources to make sure that we're contributing to this regeneration and bringing as much capital, as much talent and as much interest into this new economy that we possibly can. I have been super grateful to each and every one of you who have supported me over the last two years. This has been an absolutely wild ride and I have learned so much.

I started this podcast out of curiosity, wanting to learn more and make sense of this emerging movement in web three. And yes, I probably had some of my own glassy eyed, irrational exuberance in my eyes and have sense matured and tempered and learned a lot about this space. I feel like I'm just beginning yet again. There's so much to learn and so many different areas to grow. And this, for me, is really what it means to be human, that we never have to stop and settle for the status quo, that we can continuously evolve, become better versions of ourself to show up and to make a difference in our communities, in our families, in our broader society as a whole.

We have the most powerful tools ever designed. This is an epic time to be alive, and what a great opportunity it is to be in a community full of regenerators all over the earth who are giving their absolute all to make a difference in the world. Thanks so much for allowing me to play my part in this symphony. I'm so grateful to be alongside you and I'm very curious to see where we go. Thanks so much for tuning in.

I hope you enjoyed the show. I would be so incredibly grateful if you had a couple moments to leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. This really helps us reach incredible guests and to gain traction with audience members just like you who are looking for the right levers to make a contribution to this unfolding symphony of regeneration. Appreciate your time and always do. Let us know what you think.

If there's anything we can do to improve, drop us a note in the comments and we'll listen in and figure out how we can make this a service to this unfolding movement of regeneration. Thanks.