Imagine if an idea could change the world and fundamentally redesign it. Imagine if this idea was so infectious that it spread like a viral meme, catching on rapidly from one person to another, embedding itself into the very fabric of our culture. This isn’t just any meme; this is Regenerative Finance, or ReFi, a concept that can redefine our financial systems and reverse the negative impact we’ve caused on our planet.

The term “meme,” coined by Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene,” describes an idea or trend that spreads within a culture. Born from the ancient Greek root, “mimeme” represents an “imitated thing” or a unit of cultural transmission or imitation. And just like the most entertaining or thought-provoking internet memes in the web3 ecosystem, ReFi has sprung up like a viral meme, expressing an urgent systemic need. It signifies a collective awakening, an innate human desire for a more holistic and balanced relationship with our world and its precious resources.

Therefore, ReFi is a cultural movement that embraces protopia and pursues the creation of healthier, holistic regenerative ecosystems. Here’s why:

• Protopia, as mentioned by Kevin Kelly in his book “The Inevitable,” he describes it as a continuous journey of becoming. It embodies the idea that today is marginally improved from yesterday, underscoring the concept of subtle yet consistent progress. Based on this understanding, we acknowledge the current system’s flaws and the need for systematic, incremental changes to mend our severed ties with the world.

• Healthier because, as a species, we seek to improve our relationship with nature from our human experience perspective. The current system doesn’t meet our restorative needs, pushing us to innovate and create more sustainable and regenerative models.

• Holistic because we acknowledge we’re dealing with complex issues with many abstraction layers; thus, such incremental proposal solutions are being aimed from a multi-disciplinary approach. To mention one of the many lenses, read about Moloch - the God of coordination failures.

• Regenerative refers to sustainable models that provide positive externalities to the ecosystem where it lives.

• Ecosystem as a social construct that encapsulates a cultural perception (collective subjective quadrant in the following graphic) of being. As Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

We need a comprehensive mental framework to fully grasp this concept’s complexity and significance. This is where Ken Wilber’s integral theory comes into play.

His theory provides a roadmap to understanding complex phenomena by looking at them from multiple dimensions. It divides our world into four quadrants - individual subjective (thoughts), individual objective (behavior), collective subjective (culture), and collective objective (systems). Each quadrant offers a unique lens to examine an idea or phenomenon, contributing to a more complete and nuanced understanding.

To better understand ReFi’s impact, let’s use this integral framework to compare a DeFi (Decentralize Finance) Degen and a ReFi project. For context, Degen is short for “degenerate” and often refers to a person or project involved in high-risk, speculative cryptocurrency trading to maximize profit in the short term.

Picture a DeFi Degen project that, from the start, has leveraged marketing efforts, user-friendly interfaces, and gamified storytelling to create a hype culture around the project. From a behavior perspective (individual objective quadrant), this could be seen positively cause if people perceive a positive behavior with potential benefits, they will tend to follow. In essence, a perception of value and high short-term incentives due to high Annual Percentage Yields (APYs) could trigger in people interested in participating in the system a “Schelling point,” a focal point people use in the absence of communication, leading to a potential short-term economic profit for its participants, ending on an arguably positive impact on its thoughts (individual subjective quadrant).

However, the picture changes if we shift our lens to the culture (collective subjective quadrant). Here, the risk of a “rug pull” or a Liquidity Provider (LP) liquidation looms large and would potentially fuel a culture of greed and short-term gain, turning into a system (collective objective quadrant) collapse when such greed is no more rational in its irrationality. The impact is no longer uniformly positive across the quadrants, exposing the project’s limitations. To temporarily alleviate this, some projects adopt different strategies. One could be to implement in their model social impact components, but this should be differentiated from ReFi. For example, while socially impactful and commendable, merely donating a portion of the transaction costs to a good cause or ReFi project or being associated with a ReFi-aligned blockchain does not fully capture the core ethos and operations of the project.

Contrastingly, a ReFi project endures a comprehensive balance, aiming to create a positive or, at minimum neutral impact across all quadrants. It is structured to incentivize individuals to create value in ways that directly or indirectly benefit the collective well-being, sustainability, and regeneration.

In conclusion, ReFi transcends its meme status to become pivotal in restoring and creating a co-living equilibrium between human pursuits and the natural world. It’s a way of acting to shape a healthier, regenerative future.

Will you embrace this cultural movement?