Unlocking the potential in decentralization

For centuries now, we have been designing our social, industrial, and political institutions with a "control-first" mindset. Web 3.0 provides the protocols, infrastructure, and tools for "transparency-first" organizations and communities. There has never been a better time to re-imagine efforts to bring change at scale with and for those affected.

As with earlier efforts in decentralization, whether its labor unions or cooperatives, the building of decentralized Web will see its chapters of resistance. It might not look like the battlegrounds of the past, but make no mistake, this is about redistribution of power. I wrote more about this in detail here.

As Pete Seeger would have put it, at some point in the future, you will have to choose, "Which side are you on?". Except, the world of the future may not be as black and white as the past, it might not even be gray. It will include as many colors as there are ideas and aspirations for common good. I spent a few days reading about the suite of tools at mirror.xyz. This team has been painting a few of these shades to cast the dream of decentralization into reality.

The shades of decentralization

The Mirror platform is growing in the potential to enable Web 3.0 communities by distributing the power to decide how to extract value and automating the ability to extract it. I am excited to follow their journey on how they can help communities reduce prevalent sources of information asymmetry, corruption, and ineffectiveness in the intermediaries in our current social and economic structures. Here's my summary and takeaways of their adventure so far!

Decentralizing value creation

Mirror's suite of features allows anyone with the ability to narrate their story to monetize their effort. With Ethereum as the backbone, you control your identity, content, and ways of value creation. As an example, you can choose to mint Entry Editions at varying price points or kick off a timed auction for your writing. This eliminates intermediaries in the publishing workflow. It offers you a fair sum for your creativity.

Most importantly, the content never has to hide behind another paywall.

Decentralizing governance

As Web 3.0 tools mature, the critical question is: now that we have ways to embed transparency and automation with greater finesse, what do we do about it?

To start with, the Mirror platform enables you to raise funds from your supporters in return for tokens as proof of their patronage. Using a Token Race, the community can vote on proposals using their token holdings. The platform abstracts the technical complexities of the "how" in executing this so you can focus on the "why" and the "what" for your community.

Decentralizing ownership

The ultimate litmus test for decentralization is the distribution of power. And true power lies in ownership. You may use Crowdfunds to assign a future stake for your supporters. Additionally, the Splits functionality empowers you to share your gains with multiple stakeholders you want to recognize or reward. This is one area I am most curious about in terms of how it evolves. For example, in truly legal terms, membership and ownership of a DAO are two different constructs.

Where relevant, will the community and the platform build the nudges to establish DAOs as a legal entity with assets of value that are then owned by the community as per the laws of the land?

Are we there yet?

This is a glimpse of what the future holds for the communities leveraging Mirror. From enabling communities that share gains amongst the builders of their business to helping restructure legacy institutions to balance performance and equity, I believe this platform is just at the start of the beginning of their story.

Morever, it's exciting that Mirror is being built on top of composable solutions for Web 3.0 using the first principles of shared ownership, community-driven governance, and regenerative economics. The team is looking for contributors and community managers to help them carve the future. You can read about the Mirror DAO pre-season here.