Realigning
incentives around public goods

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Our approach

Mission

Design principles

Incentive alignment
Radically open-source
Iterative development
Robust engineering practices
Polycentric governance
Open standards
Ecological economics
Biomimetic design

Vision

We want to create a world where public goods are valued fairly for the benefits they deliver. Our current economic system frequently exploits the environment, and undervalues open-source software, open research, and other altruistic efforts addressing the collective needs of our society. We aim to change this.

We are building commons-based microeconomies to sustain public goods through incentive alignment, continuous funding and community governance. Our library of open-source, interoperable web3 components will put effective new tools in the hands of communities, enabling them to raise and allocate shared funds, make transparent decisions, and monitor their progress in supporting the Commons.
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Our Commons have 4 layers, and for each we are building a fully open-source, interoperable component.

True open-source interoperability will come through a standardization of token engineering practices and simulation tools. With cadCAD you can test the economic parameters of a Commons before launching.

The Commons Stack isn't a platform, but rather a growing library of open-source components. Our designs and components are fully open-source and interoperable: you take what you need to incentivize work towards shared goals, provide accountability, facilitate governance, and receive feedback on the health of your Commons.

Iterative design strategy

Technical & cultural initialization

To advance the design of commons-based economies, we need an open-source ecosystem of token engineering tools and a robust token engineering methodology. That is why we supported BlockScience in open sourcing cadCAD at the 2019 Token Engineering Global Gathering; because this software serves the critical function of testing the economic parameters of a Commons before it launches. We have included this key piece of software as a core technical initialization tool of the Commons Stack iteration 0.

Of course, the most important feature of any Commons built using our toolkit will be the people who use it, the cultural initialization component of our systems. That's why we are implementing the Trusted Seed: a curated list of community members aligned with our mission of creating sustainable funding for public goods, specifically token engineering research, open source software and, eventually, all kinds of nonprofit causes. To become a member of the Trusted Seed, you can put skin in the game by contributing funds or labor to the Commons Stack, entitling you to CSTK tokens which denote your reputation in the Trusted Seed. Members of the Commons Stack Trusted Seed will be invited to participate in the Hatch phases of our various Field Test Commons to guide these communities toward success and bring this new cooperative economic paradigm to maturity. Read more about the Trusted Seed here.

Iterative design strategy

Iteration 0 - Technical & cultural initialization

To advance the design of commons-based economies, we need an open-source ecosystem of token engineering tools and robust token engineering methodology. That is why we supported BlockScience in open sourcing cadCAD at the 2019 Token Engineering Global Gathering. cadCAD will serve the critical function of testing the economic parameters of a Commons before it launches. This key piece of software is a core technical initialization tool and a deliverable for Iteration 0.

The most important feature of any Commons built using our toolkit will be the people who use it, the cultural initialization component of our systems. That's why we are implementing the Trusted Seed: a curated list of community members aligned with our mission of creating sustainable funding for public goods, specifically token engineering research, open source software and, eventually, all kinds of nonprofit causes. To become a member of the Trusted Seed, you can put skin in the game by contributing funds or labor to the Commons Stack, entitling you to CSTK tokens which denote your reputation in the Trusted Seed. Members of the Commons Stack Trusted Seed will be invited to participate in the Hatch phases of our various Field Test Commons to guide these communities toward success and bring this new cooperative economic paradigm to maturity. Read more about the Trusted Seed here.
Iteration 1 - Augmented Bonding Curve

The Augmented Bonding Curve (ABC) will be the main deliverable in the first iteration of the Commons Stack. Its role is to provide continuous funding to establish and maintain a shared public good, by using mechanism design to incentivize group behavior around the collection and prudent use of shared community resources. Read more in our deep dive article here.

Another Iteration 1 deliverable will be to further develop cadCAD as a standard & easy-to-use design & simulation tool, allowing for true mechanism interoperability and easy forking of Commons Stack components for reuse. We will also write a "How to DAO" wiki to aggregate the best cultural practices for evolving past DAOs towards regenerative Commons ecosystems.

The output of this iteration will be the field test of our incentivization component, the ABC, and supporting the community in the launch of the Token Engineering Commons.
Iteration 2 - Giveth Proposal Engine

The Giveth Proposal Engine will be the primary deliverable of the second iteration, an accountable and interoperable proposal framework for work carried out in Commons ecosystems. The open nature of this component ensures that proposals can be funded by multiple Commons, organizations, or independent individuals and prevents the need for duplicate proposal submissions. The Giveth Proposal Engine will lay the groundwork for the nomination process in our Conviction Voting component (see iteration 3.) Read more about the Giveth DApp here.

During the second iteration, we will also produce an online video training course for cadCAD in order to encourage other organizations to use this industry-critical tool. Additionally, we'll further develop the Augmented Bonding Curve with an emphasis on UX.

The output of this iteration will be the field test of our accountability component, the Giveth Proposal Engine, integrated with an ABC. CSTK token holders will vote to decide which community launches this Field Test Commons.
Iteration 3 - Conviction Voting

Conviction Voting (CV) is the primary deliverable of the third iteration. CV is a novel decision-making process based on the continuously expressed preferences of community members. By requiring voters to assert their ongoing preference for proposals rather than casting votes in a single time-boxed session, CV reduces the problems of voter apathy & poor user experience that plague traditional voting systems. A voter can change their preference at any time, but the longer they keep their preference for the same proposal, the "stronger" their voting power grows. This governance module was designed specifically for allocating funds amongst multiple proposals and reducing the impact of last-minute vote swings by large token holders. Read more about Conviction Voting here.

This iteration will include funding for an additional cadCAD developer to speed up development of the software and integrate improvements requested by the community. This iteration will also include improvements to the ABC & Giveth 2.0 components from previous iterations.

The output for this iteration will be the field test of our governance component, Conviction Voting, integrated with an updated Giveth Proposal Engine and ABC. CSTK token holders will vote to decide which community launches this Field Test Commons.
Iteration 4 - Commons Analytical Dashboard

The Commons Analytics Dashboard will be the primary deliverable during the fourth iteration. Its purpose is to display the operational metrics of a Commons. The Dashboard will also be supported by a cadCAD-simulated digital twin, which will process, analyze & monitor the data to discern the health of the Commons and report those findings to the community in order to close the loop on ecosystem governance. Using aggregated data, we will be able to incorporate lessons learned from the deployment of the different components of the Commons Stack library across several Field Test Commons. Read more about the future of the Commons Analytics Dashboard and computer-aided governance here.

This iteration will also feature improvements to the ABC, Giveth Proposal Engine, and CV components. Further deliverables for this iteration may be added as our timeline for development of this iteration approaches.

The output for this iteration will be the field test of our monitoring component, the Commons Analytics Dashboard, integrated with the ABC, Giveth Proposal Engine, and CV. CSTK token holders will vote to decide which community launches this Field Test Commons.
Iteration 5 - Minimum Viable Commons

The Minimum Viable Commons will be the primary deliverable of this iteration, with a focus on making the entire system easy to deploy and maintain, even for non-technical users. No new components will be added during this iteration; instead, we will focus on making usability improvements and improving the performance of each of the components, especially Conviction Voting and the Commons Analytics Dashboard.

The output for this iteration will be the field test of our Minimum Viable Commons, integrating the Augmented Bonding Curve, the Giveth Proposal Engine, Conviction Voting and the Commons Analytics Dashboard. CSTK token holders will vote to decide which community launches this Field Test Commons.

Token Engineering Commons

Token engineering has the potential to address many of the problems facing humanity by giving us the power to realign economic incentives. The Commons Stack aims to accelerate the development of this new engineering discipline by inviting the token engineering community to come together as a DAO and use our Augmented Bonding Curve to launch the Token Engineering Commons. This will be an 'ecosystem-funding DAO' focused on furthering token engineering R&D. The Token Engineering Commons will raise and allocate funds to establish and grow the token engineering discipline as well as incentivizing siloed researchers across the industry to collaborate on shaping the emerging standards of this nascent field.

Griff Green

Michael Zargham

Bernd Lapp

Core team

Jeff Emmett

David Llop

Stefaan Ponnet

Kris Jones

Tamara Helenius

Daniel Knobelsdorf

Lívia Deschermayer

Jessica Zartler

Ivy Bagay

Algene C

Freshelle Tilanduca

Simon de la Rouviere

Eden Dhaliwal

Jordi Baylina

Advisors

Trent McConaghy

Luke Duncan

Patrick Storchenegger

Raphael Bauman

Abbey Titcomb

bio

Lorelei Loie

Kris Decoodt

Resources

Read more about the various components we are building, and how you can be a part of this incredible project by applying to become a member of the Trusted Seed. Learn how the Commons Stack was partly inspired by Giveth's mission and how BlockScience's focus on algorithmic decision-making ties into what we're building. Understand more about the components of the Commons Stack: (1) the Augmented Bonding Curve for fundraising, (2) the Giveth DApp for fund allocation, (3) Conviction Voting as a decision-making tool and (4) the Analytics Dashboard for real-time system feedback via cadCAD.

Realigning incentives around public goods

Realigning
incentives around public goods