Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
🔍Token Engineering: Insights on Stakeholder Studies w/ The DeSci Mic🎙️
Recorded: April 24, 2024 Duration: 1:06:39Space Recording
Full Transcription
. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, awesome. I think we dealt with some of the technical issues that these Twitter
spaces are rife with. Erin, should we get rolling?
Yeah, let's definitely dive in. This convo should be really cool today. And I'm excited to have all the guests we have on today to share some of the results from a study they did on token engineering.
So I guess just in the way of tradition, I'm going to open up the space and welcome everyone to this episode of the DSiMic.
This week we are diving into a very important topic and one that's sort of close to my heart and practice,
which is that of token engineering and token design.
And it's also, I think, a very timely topic
for a couple of reasons. One is we've been having sort of this recurring topic or touching on the
topic of incentives and applying DSI principles within DSI. Also, last week I was at the DSI conference in Dubai
that was hosted by VidaDAO.
And, you know, they're doing a ton of work,
launching a ton of tokens.
Other projects that were sort of, you know,
speaking there are also launching tokens.
Some are launching staking mechanisms.
You know, so I think it's a very exciting time for DSI, especially vis-a-vis tokenomics with all these different tokens and mechanisms launching.
So, yeah, as usual, I'm joined by Aaron McGinnis and also Crypto Shrimp PhD, who's behind the Design Mike
account. And yeah, as usual, I'll turn it over to Aaron to introduce our guests.
Thanks so much. Yeah, today we have Lisa, Livia, and Natalia on to talk about a study they did on token engineering,
and they were supported by the Token Engineering Commons.
Lisa, I know we've worked together at TalentDAO previously, so I might hand it over to you
to kind of introduce yourself and kick off an introduction into some of the work you guys
have done. Yeah, thanks, Erin. And it's a pleasure to be here. I am big fans of the people here in
Bankless DSI world. And Erin, I think we met two years ago at NFT NYC. And yes, at the time,
two years ago at NFT NYC. And yes, at the time, we're doing a lot of great work with talent though.
And also at the time really was the dawn of the DSI movement coalescing and coming together.
And I think that's what's so exciting about looking back is seeing how far it's come and
how many more conferences and gatherings and forums there are to talk about how we advance DSI is really exciting.
And I'm personally very excited to be here today representing this work with Livia and Natalia.
The three of us, along with a large team of people from Token Engineering Commons,
have really worked over the past year to usher this study into being.
have really worked over the past year to usher this study into being.
And a lot of what it was, was spawned out of this need to really take stock of what's
happening across the landscape.
And Livia was really the one who identified this need.
So I think I'll turn it over to her to share a little bit of the origin story of the study,
but so happy to be here and excited to dig into the insights.
Thanks, Lisa. Hi, everyone. Happy to be here and excited to dig into the insights. Thanks, Lisa.
Hi, everyone.
Happy to be here.
Yeah, so this study was born because being in the token engineering community for a while, I was one of the co-initiators of the token engineering commons.
one of the co-initiators of the token engineering commons and being around token engineers, I
realized how I still didn't quite understand what was the process of token engineering.
Was there a process? When I asked different people, they had different opinions about it.
What was the definition of token engineering? So how can we look at this
discipline from a more like grounded perspective and know that we are all speaking the same
language? So this, yeah, this curiosity prompted us to start this research where we interviewed 41
token engineers and asked them all of these questions.
And then we went through this very diligent process of finding the patterns, understanding really what we were hearing from them.
What was the disagreement between what we were hearing too?
what was the disagreement between what we were hearing too.
And yeah, the three of us working together
put out this 88 pages report,
which is a very long report.
So we are glad to have these spaces to share
in a more like easy way.
What are some of our findings
and what is interesting for us?
And we're also just quickly sharing that we're participating in this Gitcoin round to host
token engineering dialogues that will be like prompts that came from our research questions too.
Okay, fascinating. So sorry, you know, sorry to jump in. Did anybody else want to respond
to that? Or have anything to add? I was just going to invite Natalia to introduce herself
as well. The three of us have been in the trenches together, mining and looking at all the data to make sense of these 41 incredible people's interview responses.
And so really excited about the background of the people that I worked with and of how we advanced through the process to get to where we are today.
today. So Natalia, I'd love for you to share a little bit more about your background as well.
So, Natalia, I'd love for you to share a little bit more about your background as well.
Hey, so happy to be here and also really appreciative of the whole
direction that the DSI movement is taking. And also as someone with the background, both in arts and engineering, I find it's
always very rich to have environments in which we can learn together and continue building
and questions that are relevant to our fields right now.
And it was really such a gift to work on this study and I
think that coming out of this study now I have even more questions and I think
that questions that are more alive than before so yeah very excited as well to
have the space to dive in and to create more questions and be in dialogue about the findings
that we came across. Awesome. Kind of leading off of that, I would love to hear about what a few of the core questions you asked in this study were.
And maybe some of the inspiration or initial curiosity as to why those questions either
haven't been answered before or why you think they are essential to be included in this study.
or why you think they are essential to be included in this study.
I can start and let the others jump in as well. So the overarching primary guiding research
question was, what is token engineering? And a lot of that spanned out of what you heard Livia
allude to, which is this idea that when you talk to people in the space, they talk about it quite
differently. A lot of people talk about tokenomics, and that can be arranged from understanding the
economics in depth about how a token works, all the way to just somebody, you know, doing a pie
chart that does treasury allocation. And so there was varying degrees of understanding and depth on not only what it was, but also what terminology people used to describe it, whether it was tokenomics, crypto economics, token engineering, and all those had different connotations to them as well. any new emergent field, how do you study that well? And I think what I find so exciting about
the DSI space is, in particular, a lot of what we're forging ahead with, it's not entirely new,
it can build off work that's been done before. And yet it really is a pause moment for researchers to
say, what assumptions might we be carrying forward that we don't need to or that we could hold more loosely
as we do our research inquiries in this new space or new field.
And so what we did for the science geeks out there, a lot of it was anchored in grounded theory,
qualitative research. And the idea behind that is grounded theory is one of the best methodologies for
exploring a new phenomenon, asking how and why it even happens. And so that was a lot of our
anchoring initially is this is a space that's truly new and emergent. It's got all this new
language, all these new people working in the space. Some are teams that have really specialized
functions that are helping
bring a token into being, while others are one person, one-stop shop that does an end-to-end.
And is that what the field looks like or not? Even just the basic questions of what exactly
are we looking at here? How is it coming to be? some of the primary leading questions or curiosities, should I say,
around this. So the primary question was, what is token engineering? And then within that, we had
what they call, you know, like a semi-structured interview schedule that we asked all 41 participants,
but still fluid enough where we could ask different probing questions. And of course,
with grounded theory, as we gained different insights throughout some of the initial interviews,
we adapted that interview schedule to look into things a little bit further, like I'm asking the question, is there a step by step to the token engineering process? If so, how would you describe that? Just to get a little bit more nuanced with what exactly was happening and is happening when it comes to the state of token engineering.
So I'll maybe pause there and let the others talk about more specific questions that we
ask the participants.
Yeah, some of the other topics that we thought were important to cover were also some of the shared challenges and
needs with people that are currently working with token engineering and not
necessarily people that call themselves token engineers but there is a really
vast combination of roles that are involved within silicon engineering. So yeah, it was really rich for us to hear from them about specific challenges that they
have faced so far.
What are some of the pressing needs that they've been finding?
And also, what are some of their wishes for the future of the field itself.
And we also went into the question of ethics
and what is the importance of ethics within token engineering.
And yeah, I found really a lot of nuance
within those responses.
But before diving into it, I also want to pass to Livia.
If there's anything else you'd like to add about the questions?
No, I think you covered it well.
The one thing I'd add is that this was a huge benefit for us having a lot of our team be a part of Token Engineering
Commons is we didn't just come up with the questions in a silo, of course. A lot of it
was really related to what questions help address and study an emergent field and emergent phenomenon.
But also, really, these are people that have been working in the space or attached to it for quite some time
and being able to even just pick our core team's brain. But then Livia, I think, even posted out
to the broader community of what are the things that we'd be curious about learning about the
field. And so I think with any good research, you start with your curiosity, but you also think
very deeply about who this is meant to serve
and how do you get as close to those people and what matters to them as possible to ensure that
your study is adding real world value. Amazing. That's really one of, I think, the core powers of DSi overall is the ability to have all of these different key voices at the table and defining what science is conducted.
were asked, I would love to start diving into some of the results and findings that you all
discovered, starting with kind of the overarching question of what is the state of token engineering
today?
I think something that shaped well, that stayed with me was the multiple functionalities of a token, that we're talking about token systems and not necessarily about token economics.
what the blockchain technology can offer.
We also look into this complexity of fields that tokens can be inserted in.
And I think a really big one that we've been evolving more and more
is tokens as a means of coordination.
So there's a lot of people that talked deeply about mechanism design,
about incentive design, about coordination practices,
and seeing tokens as vouchers, as money, as social rights, as different types of reputation and and governance and so on. I think that was a big part of what is token engineering,
is understanding that we're dealing with token systems
and not only with token economies.
And also the term engineering.
I think that was a very key piece of the report that engineering and how people told us brought a sense of safety to the practice.
I think that was a very key piece of the report,
So kind of like there was a lot of comparisons with a breach with like for how long people had to have bridges falling until they understood what was the problem for why that breach was falling.
And I think we are in that stage for token systems. until they understood what was the problem for why that breach was falling.
And I think we are in that stage for token systems.
There are a lot of token systems that are falling and breaking,
and people are getting hurt by this public infrastructure that wasn't built correctly because we still don't understand what correctly is.
So I think that is what token engineering is investigating,
how to create this public infrastructure that is, that are those token systems in a safe way for
everyone that is involved with it and to create a diligent practice to it.
practice to it.
Yeah, and I think that also connects to the question of ethics, because as we look at
what a diligent practice is, I think that often with token engineering and token systems. And also overall with Web3,
it can be easy to fall into morals and what is right versus what's wrong.
And yeah, and I think we're seeing more and more questions
of then how to go beyond the morals
and how to create scaffoldings that allow for accountability, for informed
decisions and that are guided by principles that are aligned with the systemic integrity.
So we heard it a lot from participants about that, like how do we navigate the nuances and the dilemmas that emerge in
a field that we haven't really had the time and, like, variety of experiences to learn
from and to gather provenance and to really learn from past mistakes. But I think that now we are really getting to that point.
And provenance is really something that also showed up as a, both as a need and a wish
from participants and how we can look back and learn from what has been done so far and
also from other disciplines and industries.
I think building on the ethics and the we're still learning, there were a couple participants
that mentioned that the space really needs some sort of almost like a creed of do no harm, because there are a lot of models and
trial and error and experiments happening. And yet, what I think is as a researcher is super
interesting and totally normalized is with any new emergent field, you're going to see lots of
different models, lots of different language, all this stuff. It's almost like that, you know, toddler that's still growing up, that's trying
everything out because it's not sure what the best way to walk is. So it's got to contort its
body in all sorts of different ways just to get moving. And I think that is a very natural
evolution. We know that through research that there's usually like this explosion of different models and experimentation before it kind of consolidates and these more widely
adopted models emerge in a space. And yet with that, what's interesting about this is, as Livia
mentioned, the bridge, this idea that you don't need to really understand a bridge, but you know, when you drive over it, that hopefully it'll
hold up, that there really is a lot of, whether it's reputational, maybe even damage in the space
around this idea that the token system space is riddled with Ponzi schemes, or it has unethical
things, or you have tokens that are being created
that now people are like, do we really even want or need a token? It can kind of have all these
different connotations to it depending on people's experience with it. And I think one of the biggest
things we heard through the interviews was disappointing for some of the people who got in
early and had been really working and trying to drive the space forward was almost how narrow in a lot of ways we've become of not seeing it as
something broader than the economic side or the DeFi protocol side or copy pasting the couple
things that have happened. And this wasn't a sentiment from everybody, but it was a sentiment shared by enough people that it does seem like, Erin, when you're asking about what's the state, it's still so early.
And there's a lot of sort of morphing and challenging and testing the bounds of what this new emergent field will look like.
the bounds of what this new emergent field will look like. And yet for people who have been in it,
it seems like there's this desire to want to have the space really live up to the potential of what
Livia was talking about of token systems versus seeing it just as the tokenomics side of what's
happening with this phenomenon, that there's so many more applications, that it's
almost like we don't need to consolidate to what's working yet. We actually need to keep testing,
keep experimenting, and expand it further. And yet, try to minimize damage as we do that,
because we've seen through different examples where that has hurt the space's ability to evolve
overall. And so how do we have some guardrails or create those interim
guardrails in order for us to advance? And there was many things that came through the interviews
that are hurdles. You know, Natalia mentioned that we really looked at under what is token
engineering, this idea of what the practices, challenges, and needs are. There's plenty of
challenges in the space. And yet I think one of the things that I'd like to normalize and say is the current state
of token engineering is that it's rife with lots of experimentation and lots of ethical
considerations to be thought through at this juncture.
I love that you use the phrasing of the space being a toddler right now.
We've used similar kind of terminology for the DSI ecosystem as well.
And it's super encouraging that there's enough of a trend within your different investigations and interviews that people are really focused on this ethical component of it.
And when we're talking about designing financial models and just mechanisms of engagement,
it's encouraging that that repeatedly came up in your findings and conversations with different people.
conversations with different people. Were there any other, like, interesting maybe micro trends
or things that came up that you weren't quite expecting going into these conversations or just
other points that you thought were intriguing that might be interesting to other folks as well to kind of point out?
I think there was a juicy one that was the discussion if Ponzi's are necessarily bad
or if there could exist ethical Ponzi's.
And I think that was the point where we heard most disagreement between folks of like some people thinking Ponzi's were important and that there were ways that if they were transparent and if information was accessible, that it was okay to build Ponzi's and that they have their reasons.
and that they have their reasons.
And some other people being very uncomfortable
about the idea of working with Ponzi's.
And some other people sharing how they were uncomfortable
because they felt like they had no choice,
especially junior engineers.
It's like, oh, I'm joining a project
and they are paying me and I need work.
And it's a Ponzi project that is hiring me.
What is my ethical consideration and if I'm going to take that work or not?
So I think there was like many layers of this dilemma that came up.
Yeah, and I think that also shows just how nuanced the field is and how it is so hard
to just generalize it and say this is right or this is wrong or this is aligned or not.
And then how do we navigate then?
How do we navigate these questions?
And I really appreciate one of the participants
brought up, is transparency enough then?
If we are building a Ponzi
and are being transparent about it,
does it make it ethical?
And I think it is really hard to say yes or no without
context and I'm really curious and excited to see know how we can continue
to enhance and foster the culture of really looking at our contacts before making decisions and how to really be in conversation about the
each specific case because of course there are principles and there are scaffoldings that we
can have within an ecosystem but also it is really important to look at each case and be able to discern
what are the, really the questions
within that specific collective or ethos.
Yeah, I think the context is super important
and it is a very nuanced topic.
I mean, some of the people that have been around for like a long time and maybe are more on the jaded side would maybe observe or opine that, you know, society or our civilization is a Ponzi scheme, very loosely speaking, right?
And moreover, you know, if there is, I think, you know, the point about transparency is very important, is a Ponzi that admits it's a Ponzi, really a Ponzi. And for that matter, if there is
somewhere like a Ponzi scheme that, you know, cures cancer or discovers cold fusion,
I mean, you know, would that necessarily be a bad thing, right? Great, great, great discussion.
would that necessarily be a bad thing, right? Great, great, great discussion. So if I may ask
a question, you know, based on your findings and discussions, you know, there's a lot of very
entrepreneurial people that tune into DSI Mike and listen to the recordings and things like this.
And just for the general community, you know, for people that are starting DSI projects,
do you have any like overall takeaways or thoughts on, you know, where people that are starting D-Sci projects, do you have any, like,
overall takeaways or thoughts on, you know, where they should begin or start looking?
Yeah, I can jump in here. I think one of the biggest things that we found throughout this
process was really the scale of your project and what the effort is would warrant
different token engineering solutions. And a lot of, again, why token engineering seems like a
befitting term based on the study that we did is this idea that with engineering, so many of the
participants were drawn to that concept because it has this notion of safety. It also, though, to some of our
participants is kind of plagued with this idea of going slow. And there's a pressure in the
entrepreneurial space to ship yesterday, as one of our participants put it, or that you are VC
funded, you need to deliver. And what that can lead to is a lot of just go fast and, you know,
maybe talk to one person about token
engineering, or maybe someone on your team even feels like they know enough, they can, they can
handle it. And then people move fast. And what we're learning is that that's, depending on your
project could be, could be a route to explore, but also that people in the space are finding that the
space is maturing enough, there's a greater expectation that you've done a little bit more rigorous work.
And a lot of that's just because we've now had enough years of failed experiments where
people rushed to get on chain and then realized it was so much harder once they got there,
that a lot of people are starting to see a shift or a movement toward the space of,
okay, maybe we go a little slower to go fast.
And so that's, and go fast and go in a way that is a little bit more solid footing.
And so for any entrepreneur, you know, there's plenty of things to recommend.
Obviously, one of the things that I would recommend is just skim, like look at the table
of contents of our 88 page paper and whatever is most valuable to you dig into that
section further you don't need to do all the work of talking to 41 engineers because we did so our
our sincere hope is that this is a study for people that need resources but don't have a lot
of time on their hands and want to get really solid insights about the space and then the second
thing i'd say is to really ask yourself some of
those intake consulting questions of what might be needed. So if you're doing a DAP, you might
have just a token engineer that helps you end to end think through stuff and really helps you
design what you need. But if you're doing a layer one, you're likely working with a shop that's got
multiple teams specialized in each of the different areas of the token engineering
process of helping you with discovery, design, implementation, verification, and validation.
And then you're also thinking through maintenance because that's very important as well.
And so it really depends on the extent and the scope of your project.
But those would be some jumping off points is just start with the table of contents from
our study to get familiar with the kind of 101 and then I would say it's erring toward 201 for what the space is but
our sincere hope is that we're seeing a lot more projects and people build on
what's been done but that entrepreneurs in the meantime can benefit deeply from it.
Also a prevalent thought from participants was the difficulty in communication
between clients and token engineers, especially because it's such an ascent field. I think a lot
of the people who are approaching the token engineers or who feel like they need a token engineer, they don't understand so much
what token engineer is capable of, what does it really entail when they are looking for a token
engineering firm, what can they expect. So I think there is a lot of work to be done too on this
like education of clients and of people that want to build token systems for what they can expect
and what are some things they can have before they approach a firm.
And also from the side of token engineers to work on that translation better, to have very clear communication.
To have like very clear communication, that's why we stretched in the report the discover process, because it was something people mentioned, to really hear what the clients are saying,
to break it down before everything becomes a mathematical specification, what are the
human readable specifications and make sure everybody's on the same page on that part.
Yeah, and I think that really goes into also the strategic thinking and how to gather intelligence
for a project to happen.
And I think it's worthwhile to also just mention again,
the token engineering process that we outlined in the stage.
So in the study, I mean. So the stages are discover, design, implement,
verify and validate, and then maintain.
The thing is, since we're talking about complex systems,
these stages might not always happen within that order.
Some of them might you know
repeated they might come in different orders and maintain for example both
maintain and verify and validate you know come in different positions between
other stages so yeah it felt important for us to be able to outline some of those and hopefully offer frameworks that are helpful for people that are coming in and might not have gone through a token engineering process yet.
And I think that also something that came up that is relevant is education.
So if you are a client, for example, that haven't really had the chance
or haven't worked with token engineering yet,
how do you even build some of the vocabulary and language and frameworks
to be able to connect and to talk to the developer
or token engineer.
And besides the study, of course,
I think it's also very relevant to find spaces
in which you can learn.
So Token Engineering Academy has been doing an incredible job with
lectures and study groups and then the Token Engineering Commons as well as a space for people
to come in and be able to ask questions and be in conversation with others. So yeah,
really highlighting there the spaces of conversation
and being able to ask questions.
Love that. With that, would love to also open it up to anyone in the audience who might have questions for our panelists today.
That was honestly a perfect kind of transition into kind of opening the floor up a bit more.
Feel free to request to speak or you can post a comment reply and we can read those out here.
So if anyone listening in has any questions for our speakers today focused on token engineering
and some of the findings from their stakeholder study,
please request to speak or share your questions so we can explore those topics.
In the meantime, I would love to explore how token engineering has evolved over time,
whether it's the understanding of it or the practice of it, and maybe any trends or predictions you might have leading from this
study or just kind of being deeply immersed in the space of where the field of token engineering
might continue to evolve into or progress into as we keep moving forward.
as we keep moving forward.
Yeah, I think there are different understandings
about the origin story of token engineering.
But from my understanding, it came,
well, the term was coined in 2018 by Trent. And I think it was coming from
a necessity to understand this field that has evolved. So like we had the creation of Bitcoin
and all of the experiments that you could do with Bitcoin that were somewhat limited
until Ethereum smart contracts came up.
And then a bunch more crypto experiments happened with that.
And through what is happening with all of these experiments, there was some patterns starting to be shaped
and the understanding of those patterns and the necessity to start creating standards,
like we mentioned before for the bridge example. Like how can we make this practice become
Like, how can we make this practice become something more academic, something that people can study and have a degree on and have diligence building the systems?
So I think token engineering comes from that need.
Yeah, I get excited about when I reflect on the responses from our interviews of people who very much so want, just like we want appropriate regulations in crypto and Web3, people want appropriate levels of rigor to come into the space of token engineering. They want token systems that
people can trust as much as the bridge you would drive across without having to know who those
token engineers are. But it works and it's safe and people can trust it. And they know that requires
so much more than the scaffolding and infrastructure we have for this field currently.
And so there's people working at universities to start different programs and education and curriculum around the topic of token engineering.
There's more publications being done on this topic.
There are more groups educating people.
Even one of our participants said, I would love for there to be a path for people to become a token engineer in a very credible, certified, recognizable way that isn't through the university system.
That's like a Web3 native career path to this space.
And can you even have that? What's it mean to be an engineer?
And there's all these principles that we absolutely want to borrow from engineering's past, you know, so there's token
engineering's past, but token engineering's standing on the shoulders of these giants and
engineering and various different spaces like cybernetics that really start paving the way for
these multifaceted systems. And so what's really exciting is to think that there's a lot of people
really excited about the expansion of this field, and see a need for it and are actively working to advance it more than ever before.
And so I think that gives me a lot of hope when we asked for what people saw in the token engineering field's future.
future. You know, nearly all the participants see it as an increasing need and an increasing,
like an expansion of the field. And so this is something that I think is worth us turning our
attention toward how do we bolster it? How do we help support it? How do we help continue
investigating it? And again, not necessarily, you know, as researchers, we're not coming in saying this is good or bad, but what we are doing is saying this is what's here. And it seems to be that there are
more people that could take even the study that we did, or the work that's being done in the field
and continue to challenge it, stretch it, build on it, introduce different perspectives. And so I see,
build on it, introduce different perspectives. And so I see, personally, I get excited seeing
more eyes and attention turning toward this topic, because they see just how critical it is to
advancing the space of Web3 in a credible way that is available and ready for mass adoption
option at the level that it needs to be.
at the level that it needs to be.
Yeah.
And second, Dave, just want to second the, just the excitement about the diversity and
amount of people coming in to the ecosystem now.
And I'm just thinking of how, so I first had my contact with web3 in 2014 and at the time there was already a
diversity of mindset and of areas of knowledge involved but in a small like much smaller capacity
and um yeah i think it's really important that we now have larger scopes and, but not only larger, but I really hope that we can look into what is real now and ask this question of what is real now and how to build in dialogue with that.
in dialogue with that and and of course still within larger visions and our you
know fostering the imagination towards what we we seek for the future by again
like bringing this like what is real now and how to build an alliance to questions and problems that are contemporary
to then move forward.
On this topic as token engineering,
both from people wanting to become token engineers or go deeper into that
space, as well as others who might be interested in furthering the understanding or work or
credentialing, education, kind of touching on all of these different topics you all brought up, are there any good
resources that you think are worth highlighting to point people to as a starting point or
maybe just a really good kind of hub for folks to be able to dive in deeper?
Or maybe it's some other type of behavioral thing
you might recommend instead.
Yeah, I think first place to look at
is definitely the Token Engineering Academy.
Tokenengineeringacademy.org.
I'll double check the website,
but they have Token Engineering Fundamentals course.
That is the first bachelor level course in token engineering.
And there's always so many lectures.
There's a series of lectures happening right now.
They will also be present at ECC for who's going this year. Last year, there was a big representation of token engineering at ECC, and this year is becoming even bigger.
I think all the people that have been teaching token engineering, they are connected in some way or another with the Token Engineering Academy.
in some way or another with the Token Engineering Academy.
And also the Token Engineering Commons has many resources
and a lot of friendly people.
If you join the community and want to get involved
and know about what's happening in the Brother ecosystem
of token engineering, it's also a great place to go.
There's also Tokenomics DAO. I haven't seen them so active lately,
but they have a really good rapport of models and just different projects that they were analyzing
the token models from. There's also a bonding curve research group happening at the Token Engineering Commons. If people are interested in bonding curves, there's also Block Science and Block Science has a course on CAD-CAD, which is one of the main tools used in token engineering.
which is one of the main tools used in token engineering.
And I don't know if I'm forgetting anything,
if you both have more to share.
That is a great list, Olivia.
I was just hurting everything you were sharing.
The one thing I'd include too is
if you look at our stakeholder study, sure, you can look
at the table of contents and dive into anything deeper if you want more of like an asynchronous
thing.
But also a number of the 41 participants of ours have, you know, wanted us to name who
they were.
And so they're listed in the report along with some of the institutions that participated. So I think just
in general, obviously, you know, these are people that we thought to interview on the topic of token
engineering. And Livia mentioned Trent McGonaghy earlier, who's, you know, heading up ocean or
playing a role at ocean. And he was, you know, the person who coined the term token engineering. So these are
people that you can go read some of the papers that Trent has written on the topic. You can also
look at what the companies that have chosen to name themselves as part of our report, like what
they're up to, what they're doing. So I'm all about like a choose your own journey. And these are some
of the people that we believe are shaping this field.
It's not exhaustive. It's not a complete list by any means. But if I was a researcher or a
practitioner looking to dig deeper, just know that this, along with especially the resources
Livia mentioned, I think is a really solid starting spot to dig further.
solid starting spot to dig further. That was such a great list of different resources across the
board. So thank you for sharing all of those. We have a few minutes left. So want to invite anyone in the audience to share any questions or maybe reflections, experiences they might have in the token engineering space as well, if they would like to do so.
So that's an open invitation.
you can do so over audio or in the comments.
You can do so over audio or in the comments.
As we kind of are nearing the end of the hour,
would love to just create some additional space for each of our speakers to,
we have someone who's requested to come up and speak,
so you can think on this in the meantime
so you can think on this in the meantime.
but just any additional findings or tidbits
that you would like to share
kind of as closing thoughts
wrapping up this convo
we'll lead into that in a moment
but ECVM if you're able to hear me right now
would love to have you share your thoughts
now that you can speak.
This is kind of a large question I don't really expect.
I understand this is again,
you've been saying this is a new field and all,
but I'd like to just kind
of like open up the floor a little bit more for some of the longer standing economic questions
like um like for example what what might be called the land problem and um kind of like the trouble we see with corporations owning too much property and then society
being kind of at the whim of those entities.
I'm just wondering about things like real world assets.
And I guess in a general form, what I'm trying to bring up here is if you have any thoughts on how we can make sure that we address these issues that have already been troubling us.
I mean, this includes things like monetary theory and how our money system isn't really helping us.
Again, I'm not trying to put you on the spot.
I'm just wondering how we can make sure that we can engineer these in the right way
yes this is a big question and I think we could spend hours talking about it. And I think for me, the first thing that I go back to is ethics. And again, ethics for me is looking beyond the morality of it and diving into what's the health of the system, what are the actions
and decisions that point towards systemic health, and thinking about assets and some
of these questions that have been with us and with society for decades and centuries, the magnitude of them
and the complexity of it calls in for, I think, quality of interaction and relationality so being for people that are working within token systems and that are working
within systems that bring and that reactivate some of these questions i think it's really important
that we have a like relationship that we we question and we think okay what what is my
question and we think okay what what is my relationship to these questions
personally personally and and beyond you know there are so many levels in which
you can ask and answer these questions so yeah I I can I could go more into the philosophy of it and the abstractions by, yeah,
maybe a question that I would start with is that,
what are the levels of relationship
and ways in which I can either be in more conversation
and kind of unwrap and unearth some of these complexities
to then find real ways in which I can be involved with it
instead of jumping into development and jumping into what I think is right.
I think just pooling and adding some insights, I totally agree with Natalia. I feel like this
is a time for questions and personal ethics in the space of where you're setting your own
boundaries. I also am remembering one of our participants talking about using tokens for real world assets and collateral, like actual agricultural resources.
And so even this idea that a lot of times humans value what we can measure.
So what would it mean if we have tokens for like each tree in a forest?
And so you can actually see how resources become more scarce or not. So I think there's, I mean,
only scratching the surface is what it feels like we've done when it comes to the inquiry you're
talking about. But then the other piece that is coming to my mind from the interviews was on this
notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. But I think it has so many more broad implications for
proceeding forward into the future in an ethical way.
And again, ethics, a lot of people, that can be a triggering word. What is ethical to one person
might not be to another. And yet one of the things that I do feel like came from our interviews was
this idea. One participant in particular posed the question to people of what are you like,
if you look at the world right now with crypto, what are the top 10 geographic markets using
crypto?
That it's not a fun like side project they do part time, but the future of their nation
is actually highly dependent on cracking the code of this whole Web3 business.
highly dependent on cracking the code of this whole web three business. And so do you have
on your core team when you're building in the space representation from the largest markets
that are using crypto or that are using token based systems? And it brings up this broader
kind of larger framework of sometimes when we design, we're designing for, and sometimes when we research,
we're researching for other people. And it's almost something that can feel like we're doing
it to them. There are subjects, you know, that's an evolution in research is moving from subjects
to participants. Because then there's designing with, and that's where they're more participating.
And, you know, whether you're an entrepreneur in Web3 or a researcher, are you are they part of the participation process? Are they helping you determine what are the right questions to being the people who are creating them. And I think
there's a lot of different problems out there, but often the people who are facing the problems
are also the ones that are close and benefit from determining the solutions. And so I think that's a
loop that we can close and make a little bit smaller when we're designing, whether it's
research or entrepreneurial projects or efforts in the space. And so that's just something that's on my mind from what we can practically do.
That was such a great question.
And to kind of wrap up this space here today we'll have a couple minutes right now though
if Lisa, Olivia, or Natalia for any closing thoughts or key takeaways to leave listeners
with as they continue to maybe dive deeper into token engineering or check out your study if they haven't done so already.
Yeah, thank you so much for having us here. I would love to see you at the discussion rounds
that we'll have about the open questions that we have from the study. And I think it's very fun actually to imagine a future world where token engineering is established discipline and what is the wild places that token systems can with and how we can take more autonomy in shaping them and being a part of them.
And I think one important thing from token engineering and from the Web3 space in general is to give us more autonomy as agents of the world.
So I think there's something interesting for everyone there, not only for
like tech geeks or science geeks. I think it's a very important topic. And I will shamelessly
plug our Gitcoin link here, just so you can take a look at what we're doing, how we're moving forward
with this project, and that we're very passionate about it.
Appreciate the time here.
Yeah, I really appreciate the time as well.
Appreciate the forum. Really appreciate the work you all do to advance the broader DSI conversations happening across the space. And like Livia would shamelessly plug our going grant round, please donate. It helps us keep moving this work forward.
And the last thing I'd share as a teaser, our study, again, it's a bit of a beast, 88 pages long.
There's so much more there on things like provenance, on things like AI, on things like what the future holds and what these 41 token engineers wish for the future and what they see on the horizon.
And so please do check it out.
Share it with others.
Make it a part of your future curriculums.
If you're at all adjacent to the space, recommend it to people, have it be part of some fundamental
reading in your DAO, whatever that looks like.
But this is quality work that we hope gets built upon, challenged, stretched, and is
a continuation of work that advances this broader Web3 and DSI space.
So thank you for the time and the venue. Really appreciate it. Yes, just want to second the appreciation and
also just share a reminder that the idea is for this study to be alive and to serve as a useful tool for those who want to continue the research.
The database is all available.
You can find the link on our website.
But all the transcripts of the interviews are there.
But all the transcripts of the interviews are there.
And yeah, it would be so, like, we'll be so happy
if people want to take that database
and continue using it for other research inquiries.
And yeah, in general, we're very happy to stay in touch.
So also feel free to reach out if you have more questions.
And yeah, I want to join any of our discussion sessions as well.
Amazing.
Thank you to all three of you for being on our space today
and really allowing the DSI community
to also better understand what token engineering is
and have this incredible report and resource for them
as they continue building out initiatives of their own.
So thank you so much for all of the work
that you each are doing and for coming on
today to share that with all of us. The DSI Mic is a weekly DSI space to have conversations like
this on lots of other incredible topics. So to anyone listening in, looking forward to
seeing you back here next week as well.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
