Welcome to the Decentralization Research Center report, a monthly briefing on events and research relevant to decentralization, DAOs, and governance.

This Month’s Updates

Key Notes

In light of the rapid development and deployment of AI, decentralized tools that can distinguish between human and machine online while maintaining user privacy and data sovereignty are more critical than ever.

We at the DRC are proud to have co-authored a paper that explores AI-proof ways of determining who is human online alongside researchers from OpenAI, Harvard Society of Fellows, Microsoft, University of Oxford, Spruce ID, MIT, among many other organizations leading initiatives on digital identity.

For more detail, see coverage from The Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, The Atlantic’s CEO, CNET, MIT News, and Abstracts.

We would like to announce two upcoming events in DC: Financial Privacy under Fire on September 12th, a rethink of financial privacy from policymakers and experts, and the inaugural DC Privacy Summit on October 24th, which will explore the intersection of decentralized networks, advanced cryptography, and the law.

In other news, as DAO adoption and use continue to change based on local context, DAOstar presents another in their series on DAOs in Asia, this time focused on Singapore. You can read their previous report on Japan here.

And while Jonathan Galea presents a definitive guide to DeFi under MiCA that attempts to separate fact from fiction in this new regulatory landscape, a16 presents their Token Launch Guide covering tokens as part of overall compensation, a new cash flow model for tokens, and the art of tokencraft.

The Full Rundown

Other stories and research we’ve been tracking for you:

• With AI “ too important to be left to technology companies,” what role might Citizens’ Assemblies play in their development?

• Vitalik Buterin looks at plurality in the age of the blockchain and describes it as an "’intuition pump’ for ideas for designing social mechanisms to better preserve freedom of individuals and communities, enable large-scale collaboration, and minimize polarization.”

• How to fill the gap between governance aspirations and technical know-how for AI, in a paper whose learnings could equally apply to other areas of digital technology and governance

• How fundamental ideas in political and legal thought shape the governance of blockchain communities, and are, in turn, shaped by blockchain technology.

• While many markets treat crypto as a vehicle for speculation, Argentinians have been turning to crypto to avoid the inflation of the peso.

• Thailand’s SEC has announced the creation of a sandbox for cryptocurrency business in digital asset exchanges, brokers, dealers, fund managers, advisors and custodial wallet providers.

• Analysis of decentralized voting, including governance protocols, token concentration, and voting costs and patterns

• How can we measure AI’s improvement in making value judgments? “It is especially hard to find objective metrics that distinguish between persuasive bullshit and authentic excellence in matters such as morality and aesthetics.” 

Head of the Coinbase Institute, Paul Brigner, joins us to discuss the centralized internet: A mistake we can’t afford to make again, focusing on the development of the internet, blockchain advocacy in DC, the importance of decentralization, and how we can avoid the mistakes of the past.

In Democracy Bytes, Audrey Tang shares her perspectives on the intersection of society and AI, including industry self-regulation and the “race to the top.”

If you’re working on related research or would like to get involved in our work, please reach out to us via [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!

Connor Spelliscy
Executive Director
Decentralization Research Center