Why I am joining the CryptoEconLab
Building a global cryptoeconomic hub to show the world the power of crypto incentives
2022 has seen some of the most tumultuous times in crypto’s nearly 15 year history. The Terra/Luna collapse, Three Arrows Capital bankruptcy and the FTX and Alameda research insolvency issues show us that people as central intermediaries may not be the best gatekeepers and have the best intentions to run global financing. Humans are innately motivated to act in the best interest of themselves with their finances and not always the best at making decisions for the world. Especially when financial markets aren’t as favorable.
This is why our crypto systems and protocols were built in the first place with transparent incentives and penalties built in to create a safer way to transact and manage global currencies. With all of this fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) building, it has been tough for all of us to stay motivated to build and believe our efforts in crypto are guiding the future of technology and finance.
In times of uncertainty I try to remind myself of why I got into the space; what really drives me to build. Back when I was working at ConsenSys in the early Ethereum days I wrote down four main principles to guide my decisions for building in crypto so that I never lose track. They included:
Enable digital, decentralized ownership of assets
Build global systems to unite the world
Create incentives that encourage cooperation
Design experiences that everyone can use
Following these principles have helped me make decisions on what teams to join, products to work on and what problems I truly want to solve. What we work on in this next bear market inevitably determines if we cease to exist when the next crypto bull run eventually turns this cycle around.
Though there is plenty of more work and research to be done, we have some technical innovations that help solve digital ownership (NFTs, verifiable credentials) and building global systems (Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol, modular blockchains). However, building proper incentive and design structures continue to be the toughest challenges in crypto and we need more work to be done in order to motivate every day people to use crypto tools.
Hence why I decided to join the CryptoEconLab team at Protocol Labs who research and build cryptoeconomic design cases for the world to use. Initially our team is directly funded and build most cryptoeconomic models for the Filecoin decentralized storage network and other products created within Protocol Labs. However, as our team grows the main motivator is to join forces with other economists, researchers, developers and implementers in crypto to build cryptoeconomic design systems that any protocol or network can use.
We do this by:
Incentivizing anyone to contribute to open problems on our GitHub page that include grant programs to pay contributors
Encourage teams to take the models we create in the lab and apply it to their own business or to any research project within the Protocol Labs Ecosystem
Share our research with the world through CryptoEconDay conferences that are hosted quarterly around the world with supporting content that will be released in blog, video and soon podcast formats.
I am excited to lead our Ecosystem efforts in expanding this work to the world so we can build crypto tools that are easily accessible and incentivize people to work together across many borders and protocols. Expanding the field of cryptoeconomics.
Feel free to reach out to learn more about what we are building and how we can work together:
Email: mike.mccoy@protocol.ai