<aside> 💡 ReFi DAO - A network state on a mission to regenerate the earth. Our mission is to realize a global regenerative economy rooted in local startup communities that catalyze both inner and outer regeneration.

We do not exist as an opponent to other nations, rather as an accelerant to realize a just transition to a net zero economy by 2050. Our ambition to support local communities that acquire land is not to create new borders but rather to demonstrate the power of mission-driven communities, cutting-edge technology and regenerative economics to solve the most pressing challenges of our time.

We need to redesign every aspect of our economy and society with regeneration at the heart.

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Mission

Our mission is to regenerate the earth.

Vision

Our vision is to realize a global regenerative economy that is rooted in local startup communities all around the world.

Our vision is to become the onramp for talent and capital to make a meaningful contribution to solving the most pressing challenges of our time.

Our vision is to become a key partner to nations and corporations as they navigate the transition to a regenerative economy.

Our vision is to see a regenerative societies emerge around the world with a new set of values, rooted in a new story of what it means to be human.

Values

All of life is inherently valuable.

Everyone needs to win.

Gratitude, hope and action together unlock regeneration.

Design for the seventh generation.

Build open source—build in public.

Practice radical transparency and inclusion.

Pioneer effective governance that honors local sovereignty, labor and capital.

Our story

We emerged in January 2022 as an online community of entrepreneurs exploring how to solve climate change using the most powerful tools of our time: Public ledgers, artificial intelligence, remote sensing, open data and open science.

Over the course of our first year, our understanding of the climate crisis expanded as we realized the interconnectedness of the systemic challenges our society faces. The ‘ESG’ pillars of the UN SDGs are all symptoms of a deeper underlying crisis.

The story of separation

The story that got us here is no longer serving our needs. The residing story fueling our colonial capitalist system is rooted in an underlying belief that we are separate from each other and the earth.

The colonial mindset, capitalist economy, consumer culture and derisive political system emerges from this story.

The story of regeneration

The human story that will enable us to reach the Paris targets is the story of regeneration. It is a story that beings with a core belief:

We are not separate from each other or from the earth. We are at the same time an individual and a whole.

The regenerative economy, gift culture and just political system emerges from this story.

This story and the resulting system provide the foundation for our organization.

A network state to regenerate the earth

ReFi DAO is a network state on a mission to regenerate the earth.

Our vision is to realize a global regenerative economy rooted in local startup communities that acquire land and other real-world assets.

We do not exist in opposition to other nations, rather as an accelerant to realize a just transition to a net zero economy by 2050.

Our ambition to acquire land is not to create new borders but rather to demonstrate the power of mission-drive communities, cutting-edge technology and regenerative economics to solve the most pressing challenges of our time.

What is a network state?

Balaji describes a network state as:

… a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.

What is ReFi DAO?

Extending Balaji’s definition with our own terminology and goals, we are:

An online community taking collective action through local nodes that crowdfund land and other real-world assets with a goal to become a recognized party at COP-33 with over 1M citizens and $100B GDP.

What is regeneration?

Regeneration is the process of restoring human and natural capital. Unlike extraction, it accurately values what matters for both human and planetary health and produces a surplus that is re-invested into the system.

Theory of change

We believe that nation-states and corporations alone cannot solve climate change. Civil society alone cannot solve the failings of the private and public sectors. Citizen activism has proven to be ineffective in bringing about the change we need at scale.

We need new organizational structures and economic systems rooted in the story of regeneration—where people and the planet exist as one symbiotic organism.

We believe that regeneration will be enabled by an augmented capitalist economy that accurately values human and natural capital while aligning financial gain with planetary health.

This economy must be rooted in local communities to enable local sovereignty, fair governance and a diverse tapestry of regenerative culture. These local communities onboard talent and capital into the regenerative economy—creating a vibrant sandbox for economic, social and technical innovation.

The best regenerative models and methods from the local communities can then be replicated throughout the network and adapted to the local context of other communities.

Note

The network state provides the key architecture for testing this theory, but does not provide an alternative to the nation state or any of the other structures. The network state is rather a global organization that is embedded within local public, private and third sector institutions that provides the moral, technological and economic innovation required to reach the Paris targets.

The problem of nation states

Our current global society is based on a nation state architecture where resources are governed by an entangled power structure of opaque financial, political and military institutions with specific geographic boundaries and varying people groups. Breaking this down further:

• States govern multiple people groups with decreasing moral cohesion
• Democracy has been co-opted by private interests
• Economies are fueled by fiat currencies created by interest-bearing debt
• Capitalism incentivizes GDP growth without regard for externalities
• Private property controls access to land and other key resources
• Short-term profit and election cycles fail to optimize for long-term outcomes
• Corporate-owned algorithms manipulate human attention and sentiment for extraction
• Monetary supply, public policy and public goods are all governed by opaque, inaccessible structures available only to the elite

This combination of factors has produced the cascading existential crises facing humanity today, referred to by Daniel Schmachtenberger as the ‘Metacrisis.’

Throughout annual COP meetings for over the last 27 years, nation states have proved incapable of solving global coordination challenges. Each nation has an economic interest to preserve some areas of earth and not others—to serve some people groups and not others.

This incentive structure results in coordination failure.

The network state hypothesis

We believe that the architecture of a network state—a mission-driven online community that gathers locally in startup cities around the world to take collective action—provides the key to solving global coordination challenges.

By creating startup communities rooted in cities around the world—the network state will pioneer long-term thinking, radical transparency and effective governance, thereby attracting top talent and capital.

By practicing radical inclusion—the network state will enable disenchanted citizens to contribute to a regenerative future and get rewarded for contributing their unique gifts as an individual, becoming an integral part of the whole.

By perpetually distributing ownership across the network according to the value they create—the network state will be owned and governed by the key actors who are pioneering a regenerative economy.

By building a global network of local partnerships with public, private and third sector institutions—the network state can solve coordination failures.

By creating a sandbox of innovation for new economic and monetary systems, we can apply the most powerful tools of our time to discover how we can redesign money and it’s flow of value to align planetary health with financial gain.

Strategic objectives

In light of this theory of change and the need to test this hypothesis, ReFi DAO has five strategic objectives. Each objective is given an ordinal number prefixed by ‘O’ for reference in the sections below (O1, O2, O3, O4, O5).

• O1 - Catalyze a global startup movement rooted in local startup communities
• O2 - Propagate regenerative culture through research, media and events
• O3 - Invest in top founders to enable radical social and technological innovation
• O4 - Coordinate global alliances between local public, private and third sector institutions
• O5 - Pioneer just and effective governance that honors local sovereignty, capital and labor

Why Network State?

• Current systems are failing to create the changes needed. Nation-states and corporations alone cannot solve climate change. Civil society alone cannot solve the failings of the private and public sectors. Citizen activism has proven to be ineffective in bringing about the change we need at scale.

• It is this frustration with the way things are at the moment that led to the appeal of the idea redesign the systems from the ground up by starting a new nation with an explicit founding mission to regenerate the earth.

• We need new organizational structures and economic systems rooted in the story of regeneration—where people and the planet exist as one symbiotic organism.

  

ReFi Network State Idea