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Simona Pop is engaged in various fields, including decentralized participation, community building, open economy, creative education, and experiential marketing. She currently serves as a DAO community engagement strategist at Gitcoin and as a community strategist at Status, while also being the founder of Bounties Network.

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👤 Simona Pop is engaged in various fields, including decentralized participation, community building, open economy, creative education, and experiential marketing. She currently serves as a DAO community engagement strategist at Gitcoin and as a community strategist at Status, while also being the founder of Bounties Network. Simona focuses on community building and growth, possessing expertise in blockchain-related social impact, token economics, and community planning, and demonstrating a strong ability to establish and nurture decentralized communities. She is the curator of the Schelling Point conference, dedicated to promoting diverse perspectives on social impact and novel coordination mechanisms. Her advocacy and promotion of the value of "human flourishing" have made her a Schelling point for this concept, encouraging more people to engage in expressive interactions and facilitate the establishment of coordination mechanisms. She likens her driving force to an "infinite carrot," motivating her to continuously pursue better interpersonal interactions and systems for opportunity creation. She provides unique insights into how to combine governance, community, and economy to create sustainable and inclusive future models.

💡 In this episode, Simona repeatedly emphasizes the value of human flourishing and discusses how this value can mutually promote and develop alongside Web3. Simona shares her experience in applying blockchain technology to drive social impact in The Bounties Network project, which incentivizes individual participation in cleanup tasks through token rewards, successfully helping some severely challenged communities improve their livelihoods and environments.

The "human flourishing" that Simona frequently mentions can be interpreted as a vision of creating an inclusive, transparent, effective environment that does not impose unnecessary stress. She believes that Web 3.0 represents a shift from extractive systems to regenerative systems, providing hope for human flourishing. Simona is currently dedicated to creating opportunities and pathways for newcomers to enter the Web 3.0 space, hoping to create an open, inclusive, and transparent ecosystem that encourages participation from all sectors to promote diversity and innovation. She advocates for fostering an open-source economy and finding a balance between diversity and efficiency, which helps achieve genuine consensus in DAO governance processes, laying the foundation for "human flourishing."

In the complex and subtle transition from old systems to new systems, "human flourishing" can serve as a value and goal, inspiring us to continue moving forward and building sustainably in the face of challenges and difficulties.

Why does Simona persist in the crypto space?#

Simona Pop is inspired by the potential of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to bring about significant social change. She recognizes that cryptocurrencies have the ability to decentralize power and democratize access to the global economy, especially for individuals who are excluded due to geographic or socioeconomic limitations. She values these technologies for their capacity to disrupt traditional systems, create greater inclusivity, and transcend geographic and socioeconomic barriers. By utilizing smart contracts, she sees opportunities for resource allocation on a global scale without the constraints imposed by existing financial infrastructures. She is committed to creating broader access and participation opportunities, ensuring that everyone has "a seat at the table." Her belief in these transformative forces supports her ongoing engagement in the crypto space.

Sustainable practices of Bounties Network#

What social and individual impacts does The Bounties for The Ocean bring? In 2018, Simona Pop and the Bounties Network team began experimenting with applying blockchain technology to social impact, particularly in non-technical fields. The project launched on World Oceans Day, incentivizing individual participation in cleanup tasks through cryptocurrency rewards to encourage participation from people around the world. This effort quickly attracted global participation, especially in regions where cryptocurrency access was limited.

The project's climax was a pilot project launched in the Philippines, one of the most polluted countries in the world. Ironically, the team encountered local fishermen who were burning discarded wires to extract internal metals for a meager income while scouting project locations. The team found a local partner to ensure that cryptocurrency rewards were converted into Philippine pesos and then mobilized a local fishing community severely economically impacted by pollution and fish scarcity. Within two days, the fishing community successfully cleaned up 3.5 tons of trash and earned corresponding cryptocurrency incentives.

The project demonstrated how blockchain can create new income streams and opportunities for challenged populations, successfully integrating nearly 200 fishermen into a mobile wallet system, marking their entry into the world of cryptocurrency. The project provided participants with tools to earn cryptocurrency and empowered some community members to continue completing other bounty tasks. This experiment validated the potential of blockchain to enable people to create and access diverse choices and opportunities without relying on traditional banking systems, charities, or international organizations.

Kevin believes that the actions of Bounties for The Ocean confirm Charlie Munger's famous saying, "Show me the incentives, and I'll show you the results." Faced with the vicious cycle of marine pollution in the Philippines and the severe threats to local fishermen's livelihoods, the team deployed bounty agreements on Ethereum to incentivize cleanup actions. This approach cleverly addressed both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of fishermen. By providing tokens as rewards for cleaning beaches, the program not only offered a new source of income but also contributed to restoring the high-quality fishing environment that their original way of life depended on. This initiative, by leveraging blockchain technology and innovative mechanism design, opened up an excellent solution to collaborative challenges, transforming the Schelling point of incentives, thus bringing about renewable and sustainable outcomes, effectively showcasing how this flexibility and innovation can cut administrative burdens and drive social change.

How to understand "human flourishing" brought by Web3?#

Simona Pop believes that the ecosystem of Web 2.0 is fundamentally extractive, placing high demands on users while offering relatively little in return. This constructs a world where every action is aimed at extracting value without adequately considering the returns to individuals and communities, leading to imbalances at social, economic, and geographic levels. It is a system that operates at the lowest common denominator of survival, rather than true human flourishing and the meaning of life. In the Web 2.0 world, individuals and communities are often constrained, unable to do what they truly want, forced to abandon their genuine desires due to economic pressures or geographic limitations.

In contrast, the model of Web 3.0 may provide mechanisms to address these limitations, as it transitions from a one-way, extractive system to a regenerative system. In this system, value is not only extracted but also fed back, akin to the circulation of air beneath a butterfly's wings. It is a system that recognizes and rewards value input, providing opportunities for continuous creation and redistribution of value, rather than one-way, non-reciprocal value extraction.

Simona believes that Web 3.0 is not just a technological advancement but a commitment to a new way of life, a vision, a form of existence that brings us closer to understanding and promoting human flourishing. She sees the power of Web 3.0 in its ability to open up new possibilities—a place where people can engage in meaningful activities without being constrained by the rigid structures of the current system. The potential of this new paradigm keeps her hopeful and motivates her and many others to contribute to advancing this potential.

Challenges in achieving "human flourishing"#

Achieving "human flourishing" during the transition from traditional financial systems to new crypto-economic systems is a challenging task. Kevin posits that the old system is an exploitative model that favors the wealthy and exploits the poor, while the new system is envisioned as a regenerative model, realized through mechanism design, Ethereum, community culture, and more.

One of the main dilemmas in achieving "human flourishing" is the need to "learn to unlearn" the deeply ingrained mindsets and behaviors from the extractive model system. We must let go of the zero-sum attitudes that are deeply embedded in our social norms and habits, such as "If I win, you lose." Simona repeatedly emphasizes the importance of building new mindsets and mentalities. When constructing new systems, we must ensure that we are not merely replicating old, problematic structures in different contexts.

The transition to a crypto-economic system is a complex yet necessary process, and surviving while operating simultaneously in both old and new systems entails complexity. This transition involves subtle decisions, where individuals must navigate a path through the established, familiar, yet flawed old system, attempting to establish and transition to a new, unfamiliar system. This requires finding a balance between maintaining the stability of the old system and accelerating the adoption of the new system, which demands flexibility and wisdom. We need to identify which aspects of the old system are beneficial and worth carrying into the new system, and which aspects need to be discarded. The complexity of system transition, maintaining both old and new systems, and reshaping deeply rooted habits, among other challenges, makes the journey toward "human flourishing" complex and subtle.

Various dimensions needed to establish a regenerative crypto-economic system#

Kevin envisions that future generations, such as Generation Alpha, will become the natives of a regenerative crypto-economic system. However, establishing such a system is not an overnight task, and Simona certainly cannot provide a perfect solution. She believes that building such a system requires various perspectives.

First, she advocates for inclusivity, emphasizing the need to create opportunities and pathways for newcomers to enter the Web 3.0 space. It's like hiking; if the path is too wild and difficult, many people will be unable to continue forward. She hopes to establish clear pathways and provide paradigms that guide them to some extent while still allowing them to progress at their own pace and comfort level.

Additionally, she emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives when addressing complex issues. She acknowledges that, like everyone else, she has blind spots and inherent biases due to her personal knowledge and experiences. Therefore, acquiring diverse cognitions is crucial; by gaining diverse viewpoints, we can achieve a more comprehensive understanding, akin to viewing a 3D model rather than a flat map, as we currently need to build a higher granularity 3D map.

Finally, Kevin introduces the concept of "intersubjective consensus," meaning that by combining the subjective consensus and skills of multiple individuals, we can understand the overall picture of what they are building. This means acknowledging that the task at hand is too vast for any one person, and the realization of the ultimate vision requires collective decision-making and collaboration. Overall, achieving a regenerative crypto-economic system requires inclusivity, diversity of perspectives, guidance for newcomers, and collective decision-making.

Simona's current work focus and goals#

Currently, Simona is exploring and advancing several aspects simultaneously:

• Status Communities: Simona has been involved in a project called Status, which aligns with the principles of decentralization and privacy. She is developing a community feature that will serve as an alternative to existing tools (like Discord), incorporating more crypto dynamics, such as voting mechanisms.

• DAOs: Simona is interested in improving the operational methods of DAOs. She has noticed that while there is great enthusiasm for DAOs, there often lacks deep participation and interaction, with most DAOs remaining at a superficial level of interaction. Her goal is to understand and reconstruct the operational methods of these DAOs to avoid bureaucratic and cumbersome processes, figuring out how flow works within DAO organizations and how we can capture, distribute, and allocate attention in such a way that ensures meaningful and substantive participation.

• Gitcoin Ecosystem: At Gitcoin, Simona focuses on exploring and improving governance participation processes that guide people on how to engage in decision-making within decentralized systems. She is interested in exploring not just governance but a process that can bring human dynamics into a model and relationships, creating a system that is inclusive, participatory, transparent, efficient, effective, low-tax, and does not impose excessive burdens on participants.

• Tools and Standards: Simona is also developing tools and standards that can assist the broader ecosystem. People need tools to help navigate the overwhelming information and changes in the crypto world, and after recognizing the challenges of information absorption and decision-making in the crypto space, she is advocating for the creation of standards that can simplify these processes.

• Community Building: Simona actively participates in nurturing communities, creating spaces for people to join and develop. She is committed to initiating or co-creating events, especially some offline activities in physical spaces, to enhance communication, invigorate community vitality, and cultivate and develop community culture, allowing it to generate its own principles and values. She hopes to maintain this unique culture that attracts many people into the crypto space.

Are subtle differences the enemies of consensus?#

Kevin posits a common saying, that "subtle differences are the enemies of consensus," which is a challenge that needs to be addressed in constructing DAO governance structures. In response, Simona believes that the open-source economy can provide a foundation for "human flourishing," allowing room for subtle differences and creating possibilities for understanding the depth of governance structures, fostering intrinsic subjective consensus and participation channels. She believes that providing modular "building blocks" for these economies, akin to a set of easy-to-follow guidelines like IKEA furniture, is essential. However, unlike fixed furniture designs, she envisions these "building blocks" offering flexibility for various communities, allowing customization and adaptation. This flexibility provides possibilities for subtle differences, personalization, and innovation.

In governance structures, she advocates for the importance of balance. Using biomimicry as an example, nature can find the optimal point between diversity and efficiency, providing a viable ecosystem for the survival of complex systems. However, humans tend to overcomplicate systems (creating excessive diversity) or oversimplify them (leading to excessive efficiency), often veering toward two extremes and missing this critical balance point. Therefore, she emphasizes the importance of avoiding extremes when creating systems, contracts, and other mechanisms and agreements, maintaining caution in creation, and finding balance between extremes. She believes this approach is key to fostering subtle governance structures and establishing consensus mechanisms that allow participants to feel inclusivity and empathy.

In summary, Simona believes that by promoting an open-source economy, finding balance between diversity and efficiency, and providing space for innovation and personalization, we can create systems that truly reflect the needs and dynamics of participants, thus achieving more meaningful and effective consensus.

Some suggestions from Simona#

The tech ecosystem is a high-intensity, rapidly iterating, and exhausting field. In this rollercoaster-like journey, finding a motivating factor to keep moving forward and building continuously is crucial. If "human flourishing" aligns with a person's values and goals, it can serve as a continuous guiding principle. This perspective calls for a comprehensive, inclusive, and generous view of things. Simona encourages us to be generous not only to ourselves but also to others. The world she envisions is driven by generosity rather than extraction. In her view, this perspective can serve as a continuous motivating factor—an "Infinite Carrot"—that keeps us moving forward in the face of challenges and intense impacts along the journey.

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