In Mexico, as in other countries in the region, there are coordination failures in innovation and technology development processes. Why do these failures exist? Issues such as censorship, corruption, and lack of transparency in the management of public resources have ultimately discouraged support for academia, public management, and citizen participation. Zenbit.eth emerges as an effort to contribute to creating a solution for these coordination failures. The adoption of web3 technologies is an alternative to practice our profession and continue our research, as well as a space to reflect the real needs of most of the population.

Zenbit is a platform for building the tools that future scientists and technology developers need. This laboratory results from the coordination effort of many citizens, heads of households, young people, scientists, activists, and older adults. An effort that has been contained by the abuses allowed by plutocracy and degenerative mechanisms in Mexico. In Ethereum and the web3 ecosystem, we have found the opportunity to solve these coordination failures and to coordinate to turn those efforts into public goods that everyone can enjoy, and that can be scaled in as many cities as possible. Let's build an infinite garden with space and opportunities for all.

1. Zenbit.eth origins

Zenbit.eth is a digital laboratory that promotes the creation, monitoring, and flexibility of public goods, enhancing coordination in cities and increasing the utility of their social, statistical, and economic dynamics.

Founded in 2019, Zenbit.eth was born from academic research on digital divides, urban information systems, and government innovation incubated at the Technological Development and Innovation Unit (UDTEI) of the Autonomous University of Querétaro. This was done in collaboration with citizens, representatives of civil organizations¹, and government entities from the city of Querétaro².

The research was integrated to conceptualize an alternative to smart cities, proposing Web3 Cities with the goals of (1) promoting traceability, modularity, and adaptability of tangible and digital public goods, exploring their ability to (2) mitigate the impact of digital, financial, and social divides in cities, and to (3) continuously improve citizens' quality of life. With this context, Zenbit.eth established three fundamental pillars for developing strategic urban solutions:

a) Customized city design: We analyze and understand the specific needs of each city to design personalized and strategic solutions³ ⁴.

b) Creation of digital public goods: We focus our efforts on creating digital public goods that contribute to the development, coordination, and well-being of urban communities⁵ ⁶.

c) Urban space regeneration: We concentrate on revitalizing urban spaces to harmonize them with the environment, geographical features, and economic dynamics of each city⁷ ⁸.

Based on these pillars, we identified four relevant user experiences in cities that facilitate the creation of a modular urban data system and lay the conceptual foundation for Web3 Cities:

1. Digitizing data in public spaces

2. Coordinating urban governance activities

3. Decentralized e-commerce

4. Incentivizing emission-free mobility and logistics

Since 2020, we have publicly developed applications and iterations of these experiences, connecting and collaborating with global talent through ETH Global hackathons. Zenbit.eth was formally established in Querétaro, Mexico, where we have implemented and tested many of the public goods we developed for recording, verifying, and updating urban data. We have also tested some prototypes in Mexico City, Bogotá, and San Francisco related to regenerative tourism and a game for incentivizing emission-free mobility.

2. Ciudades DAO / SpacetimeDAO

To explore data tokenization in public spaces and urban governance interactions, we began integrating a decentralized urban data system in western Querétaro City in the Bajío region of Mexico. The Felipe Carrillo Puerto delegation bounds this area, one of the seven delegations of the municipality of Querétaro, composed of 4 regions with more than 100 neighborhoods or colonies inhabited by more than 135,000 people and with a composition between urban and some rural regions⁹. The initial diagnosis showed that although the neighborhoods have different characteristics, they share roads, public spaces, and governmental processes. This facilitates the composition and contrast of data between the neighborhoods and allows identifying similar patterns in other areas or cities.

To validate this hypothesis, we developed a prototype in the Santa Mónica 2 neighborhood, an area with more than 5,000 residents, part of the Felipe Carrillo Puerto delegation. This prototype was carried out in collaboration with the residents of Santa Mónica 2, who participated through various web2 tools¹⁰ to collect relevant public data¹¹, such as:

1. Demographic distribution¹²

2. The state of public infrastructure¹³

3. Security incident registry¹⁴

4. Mapping of the local economy¹⁵

5. Geolocation of the main problems in the neighborhood¹⁶

6. Monitoring of government actions to provide greater transparency¹⁷

This urban data system prototype formed a digital community on Facebook with about 700 followers among residents, business owners, and street representatives. Of these, 27% joined instant messaging groups to manage and communicate the project's progress. In addition, 18 events were organized, most in-person and some virtual, which, along with digital activity, accelerated the identification of emerging issues and facilitated the coordination of 67 actions to address findings in Santa Mónica 2 with the help of local government and digital tools.

While these tools facilitated the initial approach of an urban data system, the following barriers were identified when using web2 platforms and public mechanisms for citizen participation:

1. Authoritarianism and centralization of urban governance, public budget, and management of technological development projects involving public data.

2. Coordination failures, privacy issues, and censorship when using web2 platforms.

3. A significant digital skills gap for using any digital tool is more evident in groups over 35.

From these findings, work continued with Santa Mónica 2 residents, and the exploration of web3 tools to address these issues was proposed. After several virtual meetings, the following agreements were reached to continue developing the urban data system and seek the decentralization of urban governance in Querétaro:

• Implement the DAO model in the neighborhood to coordinate neighborhood governance and establish a decentralized budget to complement the public budget allocated to address neighborhood needs.

• Promote creative talent through exhibitions of digitized urban art as NFTs.

• Digitize local businesses to improve their reach and contact channels.

• Use web3 protocols to encourage citizen participation.

To formalize these agreements, "Cities Protocol" was developed at the Scaling Ethereum 2021 hackathon, a prototype urban governance application that facilitates decentralized registration of proposals and urban data through a contract that manages governance proposals and voting (Governor Alpha) and another that generates VOTE tokens with which users are rewarded and used as voting power to approve or reject governance proposals during the two weeks following their creation.

From this prototype, version 0.1 was localized as Cities DAO to conceptualize using these contracts in a relevant environment such as western Querétaro. In the design process, we considered introducing web3 tools as part of the application tutorial to ensure users understand basic web3 concepts and smooth the learning curve toward governance interactions. The application prototype includes four interactions for citizens:

1. Obtain web3 skills certification for six months and voting power (VOTE governance token).

2. Create governance proposals and increase voting power.

3. Create governance proposals and increase their voting power.

4. Use voting power to approve or reject governance proposals.

5. Check the history of accepted and rejected proposals.

Once developed, this first version was tested with 35 residents of the Santa Monica 2 neighborhood who participated in the introduction to web3 tools events, of which 87% approved the web3 skills questionnaire, 71% voted for governance proposals, but only 23% encouraged to create them. The exercise was carried out in 2 rounds in which 100 transactions were generated in smart contracts and 18 governance proposals, of which 27% were for requesting construction or maintenance, 27% for organizing face-to-face events, 22% proposed improvements in public administration, 12% online events, 6% generated security reports, and 6% proposed additional functions.

When creating a proposal, the following information must be filled in:

• Proposal name

• Description

• Type of proposal

• Location URL (location on Google Maps)

• Cloud content URL (reference documents, images, or videos)

• Social media reference (URL of the publication)

However, not all proposals included all the data. The digital skills gap became evident, with some residents trying to participate through the web2 platforms they were familiar with.

The process was documented in Mexico Transparente magazine No. 2 (pages 107-111)¹⁹ of the National Transparency System, and the results report**²⁰** awarded the project an honorary mention in the 2022 Innovation in Transparency Contest organized by the National Institute for Transparency and Personal Data Protection (INAI) in conjunction with public, national, and regional institutions.

After testing version 0.1 of DAO Cities, we identified some friction points in the user experience and the technical capacity required to store the reference content generated in each governance proposal in a decentralized manner.

Among the functions or areas of opportunity to improve in version 0.2, the first is to update the governance model to one vote per person, since while the first version seeks to encourage citizen participation with the test tokens, in addition to facilitating the conceptualization of fungible tokens and their usefulness as voting power, its function in the pilot test was merely didactic, and the one vote per token model predisposes decision-making towards plutocratic models. We also identified that the references to social media or documents included in the proposals were not verifiable in all cases or contrasted with public records. Therefore, the urban governance process must include an evaluation period where citizens can complement their proposals while stakeholders participating as moderators can verify their reliability before moving on to a funding stage.

On the other hand, we identified a technical limitation in the use of smart contracts on networks like Ethereum, as they are designed to store lightweight data such as numerical or simple text values, so the content such as photographs, videos, or government management documents accompanying each proposal must be stored in centralized systems or through intermediaries that manage storage through decentralized networks.

After this review, we participated in the FVM Space Warp virtual hackathon. We developed Spacetime DAO²¹, a data DAO that integrates storage deals made on the Filecoin network through EVM-compatible smart contracts²². In this experiment, we explored solving the need to store content in a decentralized and intermediary-free manner with this mechanism. We also implemented additional stages for moderators, citizens, and government representatives to coordinate and evaluate the content at different stages. As a use case in Mexico, we implemented a verification stage where the information of each proposal is contrasted with public records through the integration of requests made on the National Transparency Platform (PNT)²³, which is a public information database managed by the National Transparency System of the National Institute of Transparency that facilitates queries of documentation and evidence about public processes at local, state, and federal levels. The PNT currently stores more than 8 million transparency obligation records and processes more than 600,000 queries monthly²⁴.

Spacetime DAO allows for incentivizing citizen participation and proposes funding the proposals through a decentralized budget. These functions have been tested and iterated during the first quarter of 2023 throughout the six rounds of Protocol Labs' Impact Builder Evaluator campaign²⁵, in which we started testing on the Hyperspace test network and gradually refined the implementation of storage deals in the urban governance process until deploying a stable version on the main network²⁶, with which we can link the storage of content in SpacetimeDAO and other applications with storage deals on the Filecoin network.

3. Punk Cities / Bright Forest

Although the development of Ciudades DAO / Spacetime DAO occupied much of our development efforts during 2022, we simultaneously explored user experiences that expand the experience in public spaces beyond urban governance.

In Punk Cities, we explored the gamification of data in public spaces through a collaborative game in which public space NFTs (ERC1155) are collected²⁷, and rewards (energy tokens) are obtained by verifying the current state of that public space with photos. These rewards are collaboratively staked to improve the level of the NFT, increasing rewards for those who have collected or verified it.

This project helps new users understand complex concepts such as digital collectibles, staking, and geolocation of content and incentives. Punk Cities was developed at the Build Quest 2022 hackathon, where it won the award for the best implementation of collectible NFTs²⁸; it received a Next Step Grant from Filecoin²⁹ and was inducted into the Filecoin Hall of Fame³⁰.

With this first version, we conducted an internal test by generating NFTs of some public spaces in the city of Querétaro. We conceptualized other relevant interactions in public spaces by iterating Punk Cities in other cities with recreational and regenerative tourism experiences.

During ETHMéxico, we developed Voyage³¹, an application in which travel content represented in NFTs is accumulated. The content was linked with public spaces generated in Punk Cities, so "travelers" receive rewards from a contract representing the city's decentralized budget vault by generating content in that city's public spaces. Additionally, the application publishes the generated content on the decentralized social network Lens³² and has Sybil resistance capabilities through WorldID³³.

Later, during Devcon 2022 week, we developed Regens at ETHBogotá³⁴, where we explored roles with regenerative task routes in public spaces of Bogotá issued in the Punk Cities contract as implementing video functionality as content linked to those NFTs.

With the Bright Forest app, we experimented with a zero-emission mobility application where users can register as cyclists to make trips between public places in the city of Querétaro registered in Punk Cities and earn reward units based on calories burned during the journeys. This application aims to align incentives for cycling with the impact of each trip on gasoline savings, quantifying non-emitted carbon emissions and participants' physical health. The proof of concept for this application was developed during the online event HackFS 2022³⁵, and was submitted for Filecoin Green Grants³⁶ and ReFi Future Quest 2022³⁷.

Additionally, during the ETHSanFrancisco hackathon³⁸ , we developed Sparkz, an iteration of Bright Forest in which the user interface was redesigned³⁹ and zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) were implemented in the smart contracts⁴⁰ to protect users' privacy during their journeys, proving that they started and completed the trip without publicly revealing the personal data emitted during the use of GPS on their devices.

4. Deco

In zenbit deco, we use NFTs (ERC721) for a decentralized commerce application in which small business owners can create their store, choose one of the six types of stores (general, clothing, urban, art, beauty, professional services), add products, and manage revenue through a vault in which they can withdraw income in DAI or provide it as liquidity to obtain returns from product sales in zenbit deco. This proof of concept integrates Aave⁴¹, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, and the use of the stablecoin DAI⁴² for commercial transactions on the platform. This project was developed at Hack Money 2022⁴³ and received a Next Step Grant from Filecoin⁴⁴.

We are currently preparing a pilot test of DeCo in the city of Querétaro, and in the process, we have successfully deployed its contracts on the Goerli⁴⁵, Polygon Mumbai⁴⁶, Optimism Goerli⁴⁷, and Arbitrum Goerli⁴⁸ test networks.

To reduce friction in the user experience during the introduction of web3 tools, we developed POAPcet⁴⁹, an application that allows developers or community leaders to create a customizable faucet that facilitates this process. This is achieved through a smart contract that allows linking attendance certificates (POAPs) from web3 introduction events to users about to test applications on test networks, facilitating the distribution of test ether for the payment of necessary gas fees for the test. POAPcet was developed during the virtual hackathon Scaling Ethereum.

5. Development and funding of public goods

To be consistent with the design principles of zenbit.eth, we have developed all our projects in public and with open source repositories⁵⁰. However, the knowledge and talent required to develop in public require mechanisms to fund these types of projects. To address the sustainability of zenbit.eth, we have participated in different public goods funding calls, first in the quadratic funding round @ devcon Colombia, where thanks to the invaluable donation of the person who supported our project, we obtained third place in the funding table for participants⁵¹.

Additionally, we participated in the second round of retroactive public goods funding from Optimisim with Eneagon⁵², a pre-filtering application for public goods projects that implements Optimism's bicameral model⁵³ and task traceability with gitbub goals⁵⁴ to facilitate coordination between developers and stakeholders developing public goods. We have used this application internally to retroactively distribute funds to the talent that has collaborated in developing the different experiences we develop in zenbit. In the pursuit of improving the modularity and utility of the application, we participated in the "Circles" of ReFiDAO⁵⁵, where we conducted a collaborative analysis of the participants to identify the socio-technical dimensions in which they have an impact and their current state of development⁵⁶. This analysis identified several functions that could be implemented to accelerate the development of public goods projects. However, due to communication errors in the project's approach, we obtained little preference among evaluators⁵⁷, in addition to opinions that reflect the areas of opportunity⁵⁸ we have not only with this project but with the set of public goods for web3 cities that make up zenbit.

During the 2nd quarter of 2023, we will continue with the development of the public goods that make up web3 cities and will carry out field tests in the city of Querétaro to validate the ability of contracts to register public places, small businesses, infrastructure, and organic elements as NFTs to generate historical data on their interactions and model the incentives that participants and collaborators will receive for creating, verifying, and updating the data of these digitalized spaces.

Following this test in the city of Querétaro, we will iterate the tools for web3 cities in other urban areas of Mexico and Latin America. In Mexico, we will carry out field tests in collaboration with INAI, the Secretariat of Sustainable Development of the Municipality of Querétaro, and the Public Space Laboratory, as well as inviting representatives from civil organizations, experts from multiple disciplines, representatives of autonomous agencies and public agencies to participate in the integration of a DAO that manages and evaluates the use of decentralized budget during these tests.

The results will be shared with different Latin American communities to propose a collaborative research and development protocol in multiple regional cities and evaluate the performance of web3 city tools in different urban environments.

If you want to support the public goods developed in zenbit.eth, you can help us:

1. By subscribing

2. Collecting this article

3. Minting the commemorative NFTs that will accompany each zenbit report. All income and royalties will be used to finance the operation and talent of our team.