HI there my name is Cameron Gray and I’m the creator of www.decntrl.org. I share a vision with many of a self-funded economically sustainable network of Developer Communities, Community Incubators, or Remote Autonomous Communities edit:(Physical Workspaces for DEVs) depending on what you prefer. This network would be ideally bootstrapped into existence by a customized bootstrapping coin (similar to LTBcoin). I recently spoke with David Irvine and he is very excited about the idea. He encouraged me to post in here to see what you all thought.
In our branding each community incubator would be a “node” in The Decentral Network. The bigger vision of this being we would create a network of nodes that not only tie crypto into the local community (businesses, artists, etc) but also creates nodes for a decentralized internet globally (SAFECOIN). Using other forms of cryptocurrency we could ultimately make a decentralized backbone economy that could sustain itself and support the actual communities in which these nodes are in including the nodes themselves. These nodes would be incentivized into existence by the bootstrapping coin. There are already two decentral nodes in The Decentral Network, Bitcoin Decentral in Toronto. And Decentral.bangtown in Vancouver, Canada of which I co-founded.
In my opinion we are witnessing the birth of a “Tradenet” that is currently evolving its infrastructure. We are now able to put value on things that we find have real value, including community. My concept-partner, Texture, came up with the term of Return on Community, instead of Return on Investment. We can picture a day when communities have their own tokens and trade within a local and global ecosystem, or a glocal ecosystem if you like. Once these ecosystems are fleshed out, they can be applied to other nodes (communities), and modified to suit their culture. This could be thought as an open source community modelling project that in turns creates economic sustainability.
The four economic tiers of a Community Incubator
Tier 1 = Global Network (The Decentral Network)
Tier 2 = Local Networks (Nodes, Spaces, Community Incubators)
Tier 3 = Specified Organizations (DAOs, NPO’s, Bands, Businesses)
Tier 4 = Sovereign Individuals (Personal Data, Reputation, Artists)
Please let me know what you think, I’ve expressed to you the greater vision, but this all starts with building a brand and getting DEVs organised in a general network.
Okay, I m not sure I already fully understood what you’re saying, but let me start here: I live in Brussels, what should I do, what can I do? What do you envision with the local networks?
What is a node in your context? A software running, or can it be more general?
Is the aim of decntrl.org build a software network to make this -
a general/repeatable mechanism for launching decentralised projects - work, or is it to build a social network to help all sorts of decentralised projects work?
No no no, Nodes in the Decentral Network is just a metaphor. We are Physical Hubs for developers that work on Crypto projects. I just feel the metaphor works beautifully with creating a decentralized internet, which seems inevitable. with the nodes(physical hubs) we could have Dev’s who are running safecoin, thus helping the spaces become self-sustaining.
At Decentral.Bangtown the hub I co-founded, we have weekly presentations on all emerging cryptocurrency technology. (Will be having one on Maidsafe soon) We also have weekly yoga-night to get more girls involved and we rent out space to cryptocompanies and DEVs. We have people over and are trying to foster a culture surrounded by disruptive ideas that will benefit the planet. We want to combine, Makers, Urban Farmers, Hackers, Artists. Everyone who wants to create a more sustainable community that doesn’t need to be dependent on stale systems of the past. We’re looking at setting up a podcast to join the Lets Talk Bitcoin Network to receive LTB for our content.
We’re also interested in making new forms of governance and helping out our homeless problem here in Vancouver. Politically we could really make a statement that crypto is not only more efficient but more ethical and less corruptible than legacy systems. Please take a look at our temp landing page http://www.decntrl.org/decentral-bangtown/ also check out the cointalk episode at our node. - YouTube
I think this is something project SAFE could make amazing use of. If we can set up a pattern for decentralised developer communities and builder groups it would be amazing. Starting with meetups and building to a decentral pod could be something we work on to automate as much as possible.
If this project included a set of tools each pod requires with some facilities for devs, then it could speed up our processes fast. We are testing mumble and various platforms now which would help to bring all of the pods together when required.
I Seen a similar idea with fab labs and it was amazing. A fab lab in Zambia would ask the lab in Barcelona for help, just by clicking on their screen and talking to them. It looked amazing. If decentral could show us a way to make this all happen or allow us to work with them as a community then it could be huge.
Great idea! I hope this is part of project SAFE, it would seem a very similar vision and motive to succeed.
Hi Cameron, we’ve chatted already but I thought I’d make my comments public (and add new ones).
This idea really does intrigue me as well but can prove difficult to pre-fund a node. Ideally, there should be some sort of fundraising mechanism to bootstrap.
Sustaining the spaces once up and running would certainly be possible through farming and providing various services but it can be really difficult to secure a space without having funding to start with.
Thoughts on bootstrapping?
I am looking at some schemes in the background to see if we cannot increase the cash available for these pods in some way. In the meantime all thoughts very welcome though.
A cost breakdown of requirement should be our first step here I think, This would be a great help, I wonder if we can find ways to create such a list of requirements etc.
Should also point out that if BTC gets back to a decent level or MSC gets more liquid the opportunities are much better as the crowd sale funds could probably cover much of what we need. It would be very cool if some of these things happen, I am pretty confident they will, I just wish it was now We will have some other options to soon I hope.
Very interested in getting this hub idea off the ground. A minimum list of equipment, estimates on the minimum viable office space/bandwidth requirements and general wishlist would allow myself and colleagues to advance plans for hubs in Glasgow and/or Edinburgh.
We hope to offer accomodation, workspace at VERY low barriers to entry.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on this thread, If you are in Scotland or N England and Troon is unsuitable for any reason, please contact me.
I’m going to be speaking with Adam B. Levine this afternoon to get his advice. Fundraising may be the way to go, I was also contemplating an initially weak currency with a deflationary curve.
We could Issue Decentral “Shares” as a coin to nodes/pods who want to get in early. Issuance is dependent on a few factors “proof of space” “proof of lease” etc… to verify that they’re not just going to take the money and run (maybe even fly someone out to meet them). Nodes can be pitched in a “space proposal” section (on a reddit style forum) and the network can vote if the funds should be released or not. Or we could have an elected council on the forum using a system similar to what Adam B. Levine has proposed here humint.is
The coin would be of little value at first, but ideally people would make spaces with their own money anyways because they believe in the project. The more nodes/pods that want to join the more the first issuance is divided up. But say if only one node/pod wants to join they’ll receive the entire issuance. This creates a bit of competition and more incentive to take a high risk move. Eventually the shares would find price discovery and be sold on the freemarket and issuance to nodes/pods would continue on a regular schedule.
Forgot to add. As the network “bootstraps” the price of Decentral Shares should rise in value in relation to the value of the network. Similar to bitcoins initial bootstrapping period. Belief in the network alone may be enough for speculators to invest.
and we rent out space to cryptocompanies and DEVs. We have people over and are trying to foster a culture surrounded by disruptive ideas that will benefit the planet. We want to combine, Makers, Urban Farmers, Hackers, Artists. Everyone who wants to create a more sustainable community that doesn’t need to be dependent on stale systems of the past. We’re looking at setting up a podcast to join the Lets Talk Bitcoin Network to receive LTB for our content.
We will have some other options to soon I hope.