Niran Babalola is a tech entrepreneur with extensive experience in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. He previously worked at ConsenSys and founded the Panvala community during his tenure there. The Panvala community is a network of multiple communities that launched a new product called "stamps."
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Introduction#
👤 Guest 丨 Niran Babalola
Niran Babalola is a tech entrepreneur with extensive experience in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. He previously worked at ConsenSys and founded the Panvala community during his tenure there. The Panvala community is a network of multiple communities that launched a new product called "stamps."
💡 TL;DR
This discussion revolves around Niran and the Panvala community, covering the following topics:
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How Niran entered blockchain technology and created Panvala. Panvala is a community network composed of multiple communities aimed at addressing shared resource issues through collective action.
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Supporting communities through Panvala stamps and changing the way resources are allocated to achieve a fairer economic system.
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The vision of Panvala, believing it can empower individuals and communities to shape the world according to their values and preferences, thus addressing global challenges.
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The importance of staying optimistic during bear markets, predicting that future developments will be a repetition of existing things, and proposing a thought experiment in collaboration with Gitcoin to promote the culture of stamp collection.
#1 Collective Action#
The concept of Collective Action emerged in the 1960s and has since developed into an interdisciplinary research field spanning sociology, economics, political science, history, social psychology, communication studies, and anthropology.
The concept of "collective action" is defined in two broad categories: Broadly, collective action refers to coordinated efforts made for shared benefits or plans, which can occur within or outside of institutional frameworks; narrowly, collective action is limited to collective political struggles or actions outside of institutions, excluding non-political collective actions and institutional political behaviors from the scope of "collective action."
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Psychological-oriented collective action theory: Participants in action are seen as irrational, emphasizing the significant impact of psychological factors such as dissatisfaction and resentment on collective action.
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Rational-oriented collective action theory: This theory overturns earlier social psychology traditions that viewed social movements as irrational, steering research on social movements onto a rational path. Rational-oriented collective action theory views participants in social movements as rational actors, particularly emphasizing the role of collective action organization and social networks in collective action. When describing the motivations of social movement participants, it discards emotionally charged terms like resentment or deprivation, opting instead for concepts associated with rational choice, such as interests.
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Structural-oriented political process theory: This theory focuses on the relationship between collective action and macro structures.
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Cultural-oriented collective action theory: This theory gives ample attention to the role of working-class culture, shared cognition, collective consciousness, and attribution patterns in collective action.
#2 Dialogue#
The Possibility of On-chain Collective Action
Niran and Panvala
Niran's interest in the blockchain field originated from Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum entering his view, although he was skeptical about incorporating programming languages into currency. However, through voluntary contributions to an open-source project in a prediction market, he discovered the significance of incorporating programming languages into currency, which allows for the creation of rules for any interaction between individuals or groups. The Ethereum network serves as the Game Masters for any socio-economic interaction. This enables people to design new collaborative methods without relying on intermediaries. Consequently, he eventually joined ConsenSys and founded Panvala during his tenure.
Ethereum is a toolkit for social and economic coordination and should be used as much as possible to tackle the most challenging problems—shared resources. Organizing for the benefit of groups is more difficult than organizing for individual benefit. For example, every improvement in mobile phones benefits individuals, so companies can charge more for better phones if they make users happier. However, if phones are shared among multiple people, it becomes more complex, requiring committees to decide on phone features, making it difficult for an entire city to pay. Thus, he believes that solving shared resource issues is key to social progress. To address this, he began to establish decentralized non-profit organizations, with Panvala being the most promising among them. Panvala is essentially a network of various communities that collaborate to push value towards the donation fund through shared donations and collective actions. This is the core of Panvala's founding story.
Collective Action: Addressing Shared Needs
Niran believes that programmable currency can be used to address shared needs. He emphasizes his stance that he is not just someone who wants to do better but someone who wants to do the best within the constraints of the world we live in, not trying to create miracles but thinking about how to achieve the most ideal society possible. He believes he is not sacrificing when serving others because he trusts that in the cryptocurrency space, those who create value for the most people will ultimately have the most resources. Collective action is not a technology that magically solves problems; it is about harnessing the power that people have always possessed. Many people feel they cannot make a significant impact in the current society; although society is free, it lacks the capacity for action. However, through collective action, everyone can leverage significant economic resources and direct them toward their desired outcomes.
Panvala Community and Panvala Stamps#
Introduction
Panvala is a network composed of various communities, starting from an initial five communities to currently 82 communities. They will continue to incorporate more communities, including crypto communities, open-source projects, and DAOs. They hope to include every community in the world in Panvala's network, as long as they are composed of like-minded individuals pursuing themes they enjoy, making them potential member communities of Panvala.
Panvala uses an NFT called "Panvala stamps" to provide resources to communities. When individuals collect these stamps, they will provide funding support to the community. Members can claim these stamps after making purchases or completing activities set by sponsors, which can then be redeemed for funding support for any community. This can be a community within the Panvala network or any community they wish to help.
Niran mentioned three ongoing Panvala stamps activities, one of which is initiated by Index Corp, requiring email subscriptions to their newsletter or YouTube channel to receive an NFT worth $3. The owner can choose to allocate this $3 to fund any community.
Philosophy
Niran believes we are collectively building a new world. Resources are undergoing a significant shift among various communities in society. The current social structure is quite rigid. People are dissatisfied with many things, and everyone has different visions for how society should operate, while Niran hopes everyone can obtain what they desire. The core of the current society is businesses and politics, where businesses pursue profit maximization, and politics aims to defeat political opponents. Community life, however, is different; members can almost always live according to their own ways. If a significant amount of resources can be directed toward community life, everyone can obtain more of what they want. Because everyone can decide where these resources go, addressing the world problems they see and shaping the world they desire. Niran believes this approach can solve social issues, including climate change and workers' conditions. When the leverage of society shifts from politics and profit to individual choice, almost any problem can make progress. Unlike the current world, when the decentralized society and cryptocurrency movement reach their endpoint, everyone will be able to take action to solve problems they see, granting individuals more autonomy and influence.
Feasibility
Regarding whether Web3 can solve global coordination failures, Niran believes that every project people are engaged in is part of changing the world. Through the efforts of Panvala stamps, everyone should believe they have the power to change the world. Addressing global coordination failures is an important goal, but the importance of solving individual community issues should not be overlooked.
The current society has many intermediaries who are capturing value that belongs to users. For example, social media companies like Facebook and Google earn money by selling users' attention to other businesses, and this value actually belongs to the users themselves. Additionally, every time a credit card payment is made, about 1% is paid in fees, which is also intermediaries capturing value that actually belongs to users.
Through collective action and collecting Panvala stamps, the flow of value in the economy can be changed, redirecting value from intermediaries to communities, achieving resource redistribution. By collecting Panvala stamps, businesses can be encouraged to shift their marketing budgets from intermediaries to communities for fairer resource distribution. Niran believes this is how we can change the world together. He calls on people to believe they can obtain these resources and change the flow of resources.
Vision
In the early stages of the movement, Panvala is striving to promote a culture that changes the flow of value in the economy through collective action. This means that community leaders and actively engaged community members will encourage people to collect Panvala stamps to gain more resources and support their communities. Their vision is to expand this movement from the current crypto service businesses to include more types of communities and broaden the range of sponsors to every business in the economy, allowing stamps to be widely applied throughout the economy.
Panvala stamps differ from traditional advertising because they do not encounter diminishing marginal returns. This will stimulate competition, as every business will want to offer as many stamps as possible to attract customers. They will work to eliminate various intermediaries to reduce costs, allowing customers to obtain more stamps. In this new economic landscape, no longer will businesses try to gain value by controlling and exploiting users; instead, they will win their business by providing stamps to users. This will foster a fairer and more open economic system, which is the ultimate goal Panvala hopes to achieve.
The power that Panvala stamps give to communities is not just about collecting stamps; communities also have the right to decide which stamps to accept and which to reject. This ability gives communities a shaping power. For example, if a community collectively decides that a company's stamps are unacceptable because they do not align with their values or environmental goals, they can refuse to accept those stamps. This leverage can be used to address significant global challenges, such as climate change. By allowing companies to benefit financially from reducing their environmental impact or adopting sustainable practices, communities can encourage positive change. This is not about individuals making these decisions; it is about communities collectively influencing business practices. In this vision, individuals and communities have the responsibility and opportunity to drive change in the world, rather than merely relying on governments or companies to solve major problems. This approach empowers people to take action on issues they care about and actively shape the world according to their values and preferences.
The Future of Web3#
Staying Optimistic During Bear Markets
The desire for people to make an impact in the world and generate positive change is not cyclical; it is an eternal part of human nature. Therefore, even during market downturns, the desire for positive change remains. Niran maintains his passion for Panvala's work because the themes he focuses on empower individuals and communities to shape the world according to their values and preferences. This is a long-term task that relies less on short-term market fluctuations. Niran believes that organizing and coordinating a social movement can withstand economic cycles. Even with limited resources, it is essential to maintain efficient resource allocation.
Nothing New Under the Sun
Regarding the future development of DAOs, Niran holds a traditionalist view, believing that most future developments will be repetitions of existing things. In most cases, people will look for existing organizational models that have proven effective in history and apply them to the crypto and decentralized fields. Rather than seeking new tools and methods, it is better to try adopting successful existing models, such as consortium organizations. Similar models will emerge in the crypto space, especially when different DAOs need to collaborate.
The spirit of cooperation is crucial to achieving this goal, as people need to believe they can enter into cooperative states and find ways to facilitate collaboration among various organizations. Although crypto assets are inherently more competitive, achieving cooperation among DAOs may require rethinking the meanings of tokens and crypto to make them more suitable for collaboration and collective action.
Thought Experiment: Combining Panvala with Gitcoin
Establishing a culture of collecting stamps within the Gitcoin community. Gitcoin's "trust rewards" mechanism is related to the verification system, and by linking stamp collection with Gitcoin's trust rewards mechanism, it can promote the culture of stamp collection within the community. For example, if participants actively collect stamps, they can receive higher trust rewards, leading to more matching funds, which will encourage more people to participate in stamp collection. The Gitcoin community is one of the most actively engaged communities in the crypto space, conducting on-chain transactions quarterly to support projects. Therefore, if the stamp collection movement succeeds within the Gitcoin community, it is more likely to succeed throughout the entire crypto space.
[1] Panvala Official Website: https://www.panvala.com/
[2] Panvala Stamps: https://www.panvala.com/stamps
[3] Niran Babalola: https://x.com/niran
[4] Panvala HQ: https://x.com/PanvalaHQ
[5] Zhou, Xueguang. 1993. "Unorganized Interests and Collective Action in Communist China." American Sociological Review 58(1):54. doi: 10.2307/2096218.
[6] "The Logic of Collective Action": Olson, M. (1975) The logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
[7] "Theories of Collective Action": Reisman, D.A. (1990) Theories of collective action: Downs, Olson, and Hirsch. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan.
[8] Feng Jianhua, Zhou Lingang. 2008. "Four Orientations of Western Collective Action Theory." Foreign Social Sciences (4):48–53.
[9] Wang Guoqin. 2007. "The Conceptual Spectrum in 'Collective Action' Research." Journal of Central China Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition) (5):31–35.
[10] Zhao Dingxin. 2006. "Collective Action, Free-Rider Theory, and Formal Sociological Methods." Sociological Research (1):1-21+243.
[11] Zheng Xutao. 2020. "Collective Action: Understanding in Conceptual Comparison." Exploration (4):64–75.
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