Dawn of “ReFi” ── From the sticky note pasted on the entrance of the apartment | coindesk JAPAN | Coindesk Japan

When society fell apart, people rose up, that’s how Manuel Alzuru felt after moving to Barcelona in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He got infected with the new coronavirus. “There was nowhere to turn for help. All the hospitals and clinics were completely destroyed,” Al-Zour recalled.

apps for helping each other

But Alzur noticed something small in his apartment. Amazing, wonderful. Residents put up sticky notes on the front door of their apartments, saying things like “People on the 5th floor need medicine” and “People on the 3rd floor need food”. I’ve seen similar notes in other apartments. The government may have failed, but the people were working together to do the right thing.

While impressed by this spirit of generosity, Alzur was astounded by the lack of a systematic system for coordinating assistance.

“I couldn’t believe there was no app for helping each other, even though there are apps for showing off your physique like a dating app.”

Therefore, he launched the portal site “FightPandemics” to connect people who need help with those who want to help. And he took the idea one step further.

Alzur has already set foot in Web3, including participating in several DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), and has launched an NFT marketplace called DoinGud, which uses the proceeds for charity. It has now grown into an ecosystem that funds worthwhile efforts.

“The idea is to come together from all over the world and decide what will make an impact. Instead of relying on governments, we will come together and organize ourselves,” he said cheerfully and positively.

Increasing number of ReFi (regenerative finance) projects

DoinGud is one of a growing number of ReFi (Regenerative Finance) projects. Simply put, ReFi is all about doing good, as opposed to the “degen” culture in crypto, which favors high-risk, high-return and money-making. We want to remove the speculative aspect of Web3 and focus solely on positive social impact.

“We think of ReFi as a system that grows in resources over time,” says Kevin Owocki, a software engineer and one of ReFi’s leaders.

Owocki is the co-founder of Gitcoin, a company that funds crypto-powered open source projects, and the author of ReFi’s manifesto Greenpilled: How Crypto Can Regenerate the World.

For Owoecki, ReFi can take many forms as a way to replenish the “public goods.” “I don’t just want to revive my wallet. I want to revive my physical capital, my cultural capital, my intellectual capital, my spiritual capital,” he said.

Definition is debatable

ReFi’s scope is still a bit vague and controversial.

“It’s not well defined yet,” said Paul J. Dylan-Ennis, a professor of crypto assets at University College Dublin. rice field.

A typical person involved in ReFi, “Regen,” for example, is an Ethereum fan who “aims to build a long-term infrastructure” and often puts focus on “environmentally friendly types of projects,” says Dylan-Ennis. (But according to Owocki and Al-Zour, ReFi’s scope goes beyond environmental and sustainability).

Owocki’s book has received endorsements from industry heavyweights such as Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and Glen Weyl of the non-profit RadicalXChange, which calls for political and economic reform. Balaji Srinivasan, author of Network States’s, describes regenerative cryptoeconomics as follows:

“Make crypto sustainable, like renewable energy. Not zero-sum gambling or negative-sum hacking. Positive-sum. wealth creation”

There are many abstract theories, but what does reality look like?

Gitcoin is probably the most important ReFi project right now. It started in 2017, before the term ReFi was coined, and is said to have funded more than 3,000 open source projects with $72 million (approximately ¥9.4 billion). Others, such as UniSwap and Yearn, got funding from Gitcoin as seed projects and grew into larger projects.

Other major ReFi projects include the Regen Network, a blockchain-based marketplace for tokenizing carbon credits, the Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment, and the provision of school supplies to children. , which allows people to donate with crypto assets, and has the slogan “the future of giving.”

solar punk

Alzur is a Solar Punk. He describes it as one of technical optimism.

“I am greatly tormented by the government. But I don’t want to be a victim. I don’t want to live in fear. I choose not to live in fear. I choose to live in love.” A lot of people who call themselves solarpunks have similar values.”

Have you ever seen a vision of a futuristic city with flying cars and lush greenery covering the entire building? That’s Solar Punk. But Al-Zour said, “Honestly, I don’t like being labeled.”

just started

But even the optimistic Al-Zour admits that ReFi has been damaged by the “crypto winter.” Amid the bear market, “funding ReFi projects is dire. “People are just trying to survive this bear market.”

Owocki acknowledges that funding has slowed, but says he sees the crypto winter as a process of “selection,” a form of natural selection, and that surviving projects will be “the seeds” of the future. That means funders are “becoming more selective,” he says.

Dylan-Ennis even believes that “crypto winter will favor ReFi.”

“Crypto winter underscores the message that if we don’t disrupt our current culture, we will forever be stuck in a four-year cycle of rising and falling prices, and that we need some kind of philosophy. will give you

That philosophy now seems to be gaining momentum. “This movement will definitely continue to move forward,” says Arzull. He still thinks of sticky notes where people wanted to help someone.

“The social awakening is beginning. It’s just beginning.”

｜Translation and editing: Akiko Yamaguchi, Takayuki Masuda
| Image: Kristopher Roller/Unsplash
｜Original: The Rise of Crypto’s Brand of Regenerative Finance