foreign
[Music]
for those of you who are just walking
back into the room we're switching it
back up to the opportunity and Global
impact track
next up we will hear from Mario Havel
and he will be sharing what he has
learned from building a parallel economy
using ethereum before I introduce Mario
do we have friends in the audience from
Central Europe today raise your hands
Central Europe
cool cool cool
okay
Mario is someone I've had the great
pleasure of hanging out with and also
learning from he is a protocol supporter
and researcher working with the ethereum
foundation co-founder of the bordell
hacker space
a bit louder
[Applause]
um Maria has been building and educating
local communities in Bratislava Prague
Barcelona inspired many people to live
crypto native and contribute to the free
and open source software ecosystems
please join me in welcoming Mario
um thank you very much thank you so much
for the lovely introduction uh I really
appreciate that uh and I'm excited there
is so many friends from Central Europe
here because so um what I'm planning to
do here today is actually to share a bit
of experience from Central Europe uh
experience of building local parallel
police so the name of the talk in the in
the schedule is building Pearl Academy
but uh that's
two narrow uh topic and it will be
actually uh more about parallel Society
but all structures in general so
um yeah so that's the first question I
guess what is the spiral Society what
are these parallel structures I'm
talking about and um
yeah let's see where where it leads
so first of all to to somehow Define
somehow explain what is what are the
parole societies
um let's talk a bit about theory of
social change I believe that many people
in the world but especially all of you
folks here have ideas how to make World
better uh how to improve societies how
to make uh betterment for everybody
because well there are many issues in
the current Society in the governments
in the in the cultures and um there are
there are a bunch of Utopias but
especially there are various ways how to
achieve the change how to achieve this
Improvement
um
uh and I will very oversimplify the
social change theory I'm very sorry
about that but uh to sum it up uh we
have some top-down approach uh to
changing society which is uh we can
imagine some politician creating uh
better rules which will improve the life
um we have uh or like also I vote right
I'm giving my voice to to somebody
speaking for me so so
um
uh he has uh he has then took down power
uh the bottom-up approach coming from
communities coming from people from
activists whether it's entrepreneurial
uh non-profit activism and uh people
actually uh building projects which are
permissionlessly changing the world
and uh uh we're gonna social change I
also have to mention uh revolutions
which are another maybe kind of sudden
uh kind of change in society I hope you
can see the slides through me actually
um yeah nice and um
I mean we can argue about many issues of
these of these uh of these approaches uh
first of all uh there is uh there is a
the violence uh involved uh especially
in the top-down approach uh when we have
government enforcing rules it uh
requires coercion
um also Revolution can be can be kind of
violent and uh there might be hidden
violence even some uh in some bottom-up
approaches so that's that's one of the
critique and the second thing is
effectiveness of these of of various
approaches to social change and the
effectiveness in the terms of uh social
context I would say so the problem with
uh for example the top-down approach is
that the politician or somebody who is
creating these rules for us needs to
follow the Zeitgeist of society the side
case of society the the social context
uh for example the politician in very
conservative country cannot make very
liberal reforms right so he always needs
to follow what the electorate wants but
also in the bottom up our systems uh we
are limited by the social context in
multiple ways uh like uh when I'm when
when you're creating a movement which is
two outside of the the overturn window
uh it's hard to gain traction and um and
uh you might be even you know out
censored and um
uh also in the
in the in the activism
uh we see uh we see this uh limits where
I'm putting my productive energy uh to
something I believe in but it might be
used completely differently in the
current social context so for example
I'm building some open source tools I'm
contributing to to some open source
ecosystem and uh now government takes
this takes this open uh open program and
use it for an army for example so I'm
actually contributed to something I
didn't want it at all so yeah so we can
argue about like Effectiveness and
issues with the social change uh but the
the main issue here or what I want to
mention is that none of these work in
totalitarian regimes
so in the in Australian regime where you
well cannot really vote so the top down
doesn't work at all you don't have
freedom of expression you people cannot
uh cannot do any forms of activism this
is this is not possible and so what
would I like to share here is uh the
experience from Czechoslovakia which
experienced
um Decades of the italianism after
Communist Regime which started after
second world war and in late 60s uh
there was a kind of a liberal wave uh in
the in the Socialist Communists around
uh Czechoslovakia which uh argued for
opening borders so people can actually
travel to the West for example argued
for
certain free market principles and and
so on and so on and of course uh the big
Soviet brother didn't like that and um
as a part of the Eastern Bloc uh it was
it was something which was very
discouraged and uh it resulted in
invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and
uh yes so the version of Pac the the
Soviets just sent tanks and well
compared to Ukraine these days uh
Czechoslovakia wasn't able to fight back
so for coming years uh it experienced
strong uh a soviet-run Communists
totally totally damn it Authority and
regime and uh and uh especially in the
70s in the coming years there was Era of
so-called normalization which was a wave
of a strong totalitarianism and this
this resulted in uh in intellectuals in
people in scientists in artists being
persecuted being uh forced to uh become
just Workforce not the intellectuals and
uh and uh people were persecuted uh
spied on
and uh of course this kind of
totalitarianism results in some
opposition in some distant movement and
um there was so around the whole Eastern
blog there were many interesting and and
uh courageous
um uh distant movements and in
Czechoslovakia there was also uh various
of them for example like second culture
which was for example false folk singers
um artists like uh
uh but uh but one important one
important and probably the best renowned
this isn't moving from uh from Czech
Republic or Czechoslovakia I need to
mention is a charter 77.
77 was
um well it was a collection of essays it
was petition which was appealing uh to
government so it starts to comply with
basically what it promised with uh of um
to stop violating human rights uh Civic
rights
um and uh
as peaceful as as uh humanitarian this
this uh uh this movement was the
government really took it back uh
government started to chase people
behind 277 and and uh publicly
destroyed uh destroying their figures
and uh basically
uh it was yeah so there are there are
many interesting people on this picture
you might know on the very left uh
that's of Hudl who later became the
first president of Czech Republic and
he's world-renowned humanitarian uh
liberal and um uh so the charter it was
collection of essays it has had few
spokesmen
and uh uh one of the one of the
colleagues of that sofa one of the one
of the leading uh personas in chapter 77
on the right here was vasov Bender
and he uh within within this recent
movement he actually focused on um
exploring how is the movement itself
evolving how it's how it's How it reacts
to the persecution from government
and uh he uh described it as uh parole
police
uh he he noticed that this
Contra culture dispersecuted uh
subculture or movement is building brow
structures its own culture its own uh
education right we had there was there
was many books which were just
prohibited and these were distributed uh
you know hand rev written uh Within
These communities so he described it as
could be defined as set of strategies
um for uh creating some independent
Society
uh this is this is outside of the
context this this big uh big uh
uh quote here by Irby Fuller but it kind
of kind of uh sums up the idea uh that I
have there uh basically let's
when I'm in the society like the
Communist Regime right I cannot fight
against it uh we cannot have uh protests
because we will be violently punished we
don't have any freedom of expression we
cannot write freely we cannot there is
only single party the Communist party we
can vote we cannot change anything so we
are forced to uh building free
independent parallel structures and um
and uh it's also it's not just uh like
out of the necessity but I believe that
it's also effective and moral approach
uh does this this is something similar
to what Gandhi says right uh be the
change you want to see in the world and
um so yeah parallel police uh is to me
uh set of strategy set of uh various
spiral structures uh and here are some
examples so the pillars of pearl police
would be uh not just the name of the
talk is the parallel Academy but here
it's just within the context right so
it's parallel education uh parallel
economy
culture uh Civic rights protection which
was actually uh the main reason behind
the charter 77 uh but all infrastructure
governance systems for these people and
this is not something which is strictly
defined which is uh like okay this is
the power of police these structures uh
it's these are just examples it's always
uh based on the circumstances uh what
the independence Society actually
requires in that moment
and uh
it's uh
it's uh completely up to you right okay
the community what it what it needs in
that context and uh yes being able to
social context when I when I mentioned
before so here is a beautiful thing
which parallel police enables and that's
uh actually having these
let's say design principles are rooted
in the in the
itself
so when we are building these problem
structures we are building them on the
on the basis of uh positive social
context and we can uh feel free to put
our uh our uh productive energy towards
uh para police chigoslovak dissident
invented uh it's something there
described but I would say it's uh
anthropological constant through the
history uh we see people creating parole
structures out of necessity throughout
the whole history uh whether it's
Christians who were persecuted in the
Ancient Rome or in the in the recent
history uh maybe hippie movement or LGBT
and similar uh Contra cultures uh ended
up actually building their own parallel
structures
okay now where ethereum fits in all of
this and
ethereum uh or like speaking about these
Technologies I have to go all the way
back to cypherpunk and um server Punk is
another movement which actually uh comes
to life in late 70s and 80s
um and this was a
this was a movement community of various
interesting people uh many programmers
scientists mathematicians entrepreneurs
uh people who uh at a time where
internet
computers and encryptions started to
spread the governments well willing to
fight with it right uh the the
government said the encryption is a
weapon it's something which only Army
can have and only to limit what people
can do with their computers what can
actually happen
um what kind of encryption we can use
and cyberpunks were people who stood
against this who cre uh not just build
tools as it's described here very nicely
by Eric use
um it's uh build the tools but also
created
residences against uh against regulation
of cryptography for example uh uh filmor
who started eff altering Frontier
Foundation very renowned until today and
so is different banks
so the first part here it's a it's a
part of a cypherpunk Manifesto by the by
Eric Hughes and the second part is a
Manifesto of crypto Anarchy which is a
movement coming out from the uh growing
from The Cypher bank and the manifesto
was written by Timothy May uh the left
guy on the left in the picture and uh
Timothy May took the idea of The Cypher
Punk even further not just to protect
ourselves but to actually achieve
Freedom through the digital Technologies
uh it's like 30 years old it was further
distributed on a conference crypto88 in
1988 and I have to say it's very
prophetic if you read it and he said
during basically about what we see today
I believe that today when you look at
the world uh when you look at the
digital world the digital realm is uh
well I would say bigger than the
physical one it's maybe even even more
important and we can leverage these
Technologies because the government
the authoritians will have the power the
the coercion power in the physical world
but they are losing it and maybe never
really had it in the digital one and
that's thanks to tools of crypto Anarchy
the crypto networks a bit like something
something ideological like it's some
political political idea like anarchism
based on crypto I don't know uh to me
Anarchy acrylicism is a set of tools
it's a toolbox which allows for many
important things
generally I would say that crypto
Anarchy allows uh to build
uh to build human interactions uh more
voluntarily rather than based on
coercion and uh it comes with many
important tools with
those four
anonymity in the internet digital money
uh
encryption and privacy which uh I
believe is the fundamental uh
fundamental uh
a building block for freedom
so we have this parabolis which is set
of strategies for building independent
parallel structures and now we have
crypto Anarchy which is a set of tools
for building independent communities
well and it kind of fits to get together
doesn't it
um so there is this lovely building in
Prague called paragonipolis as you can
see is the script Anarchy and I would
say this this building is actually like
the manifestation of the connection
between the physical and digital world
and um
and this is where it comes together uh
in the idea that we can build these
parallel structures this independent uh
communities thanks to the tools of the
crypto Anarchy and parole near police
has been running for over nine years now
uh educating about these Technologies
and experimenting with them and so in
the talk I would like to actually later
explain some some examples of how we uh
how we experiment with ethereum as two
of crypto energy for building parole
societies but
but uh one one uh one uh piece that get
polynomial is famous it's actually this
little place bordel and many of you who
followed the merch might heard about
Borel WTF but it's named after actual
physical place which is in basement down
there uh of this building and the
basement is called bordelon and you
might know these memes about the robsten
merch with the whole get team which
happened there so uh the paralleling
police is like open platform uh talking
about a specific project it's open
platform for various communities to meet
uh because like when when various
communities I'm now talking about the
crypto not just ethereum but we have
bitcoiners monorail people I have Monaro
stocks here uh and uh and all the people
who are actually building privacy
tooling and an encryption tooling and
artists and so on meeting this place and
create beautiful things so there are a
few things we experimented with in
parallel police uh considering ethereum
So like um I I mean I don't really have
to explain this I believe that you folks
who understand ethereum know that it's
such a strong tool for what I explained
because it enables permissionless
coordination
and uh I would say it's uh it's a Cypher
Punk solar panels each bank and pixel
Punk Tool uh very versatile tool
um kind of a when I have a toolbox uh in
the crypto of the crypto energy tools
ethereum would be a Swiss knife which
can which enables me many things and
these are some of those few important
things that we uh we use in our little
experiment with pearl police and
first of all the D5 or the open finance
the permissionless finance which
ethereum enables this is something which
is
which is necessity for uh well uh I
would say dissidents or for people who
are who don't have access to the
traditional Finance or don't agree with
uh immoral morality of the traditional
finance and and want to explore the
permissionless Alternatives and
paropolis uh this building that I showed
accepts only cryptocurrencies for the
whole of its existence there is actually
a Bitcoin Cafe it's a place with this
Cafe which accepts only crypto there is
a co-working there is many people coming
to this building and they are forced to
pay with crypto so all the income is
actually only in cryptocurrencies and
it's kind of a mess to live crypto
natively because of the volatility
because of
uh because of the bear markets which
will come always right so uh thanks to
ethereum we have tools like stable coins
we have tools like collateralized loans
uh so the defy here is not about chasing
yield farming but about actually using
this to to survive economically in some
parallel economy so uh and uh
so so uh as an individual who is living
without banks it's uh it's a tool which
is which is a necessity uh to be able to
to survive
um with uh just crypto uh but also as
the organization as police it's uh it's
great we have the tool like loans and
there are it's not just using the tools
but there are also uh people coming from
paraple is who are creating these tools
there is pwn Pawn Finance which is
aiming to bring mortgages for crypto
natives for people who don't have or
don't want to have can have access to
the traditional Finance uh public goods
uh I also don't have to go deep in those
because you folks are here you
understand what public goods meme
ethereum is uh but uh it's the
realization here how it clicks it's it's
super it's really amazing right I mean
we have the the whole the parallel
Society the parallel structures which
are mostly all public goods the whole
building ratio it's not it's probably
good which provides education it
provides platform and and it's a
something which needs to be
funded not via coercion via taxes or or
so on but uh by uh but alternatively
regeneratively and um
uh would we uh would we experienced is
that parole police get uh uh uh get uh
successfully uh crowdfunded multiple
projects uh not just for itself but for
example the the other tough coveted
winter uh paropolis took uh the
volunteers from peropolis had a track
with Bitcoin Cafe on the wheels and
provided coffee for doctors uh fighting
the coffee in the hospitals and this
Cafe was free for them it was
crowdfunded mostly with Bitcoin and Fiat
little 50 room to be honest but uh still
the crowdfunding and the public good
funding ethereum tools are much stronger
but our police access donation on
bitcoin on give it and um
and uh generally if you we want parallel
structure they need to need um this kind
of funding uh running out of time but uh
yeah the governance uh uh another
another important part uh we need uh
reputation systems and governance what
do we experimented with is for example
tokens for people who are contributing
for volunteers who uh get awarded with
our own token and based on this you can
you can track the contributions in the
physical space right in the local
community but also in the
in the digital one uh like example of
the digital parallel police would be for
example the network states there is
balaji's book about it uh vitalik has a
good article on it and uh or like uh
Network States or parallel or Cloud
Societies or parallel societies it all
sounds same to me and this is these are
uh local or or digital communities which
need governance and repetition systems
and ethereum provides that
um
the specific project in Prague created
these beautiful silver coins or metals
as a tribute to uh to Alan Turing uh the
certificate of these is nft on ethereum
uh but also before we uh uh there were
uh coins silver and even some gold ones
with Aaron's words
um Russell breach uh
and and others and these These are
certificate on bitcoin as a multi-second
Bitcoin so it was kind of like a
technology but still uh this is
something which sends crypto weddings
were a cool idea which which almost got
materialized in the Slovak version of
paraple is in Bratislava where a lawyer
I was working on basically this parallel
kind of wedding where uh so as a
homosexual he was fighting for uh having
uh same-sex marriages which are not
possible in this country but he created
as a lawyer he created a contracts
peer-to-peer contracts which enables
similar uh similar things as uh having
the normal legal marriage and the
certificate of these can be a contract
on ethereum
um it was yeah
uh yeah security system this was this
was a concept which didn't get
materialized but there was a nice nice
idea a nice concept about having like
parallel Uber kind of police based on
ethereum in a way that I have a fountain
I have a physical device in my home
which uh I found through a contract and
when you come you beep your NFC card
like you have these uh these cards with
your with your ens and you get rewarded
by basically securing the perimeter
um as a proof of concept of these uh we
had there was a bird feeder are in
parallel police it's a cute project
which does this incentivization for uh
this like this kind of instrumentation
for feeding birds so we have like a bird
feeder with a device where you tip your
cart you put there uh you put their uh
bird seed and you get paid from a
contract where everybody can
some money right uh for for feeding the
birds so incentive systems and
Environmental Protection another
important thing which uh ethereum also
helps with uh in
free independent manner there is a there
is a project which was also funded
thanks to quadratic funding which was at
eat Prague in parallel police uh and if
Turtles and these are folks from
environment apps from parole police who
another piece of community which came
and learned about this ecosystem and
these folks are coming to Indonesia
saving Turtles and the thing is that
each turtle is unique they have unique
faces like people so they make nfts
under them and you can adopt them you
can buy them and support uh the actual
the actual protection of the turtles
because it's a lot of work to be on the
beach all the time and make sure that
they are they're right
uh yeah good I think I went through it
um
and uh so the motor that we use in
parallel police is enter the outside ADI
here is that thanks to these
Technologies thanks to these parallel
structures
um we can I don't want to say opt out
when people often say this opt out from
the system use crypto you are opting out
but it's not like opting out to some
vacuum because you are actually entering
something right so you enter the polar
police but at the same time you are
entering outside uh and whether in
English I like it in Spanish or Czech
and so uh yeah enter the outside I guess
I guess that's it thank you so much
I can't believe I made it on time and
I'm sure if we have room for some
questions
anybody
it's all right thank you so much for
coming folks I really appreciate all of
you here hope you liked it and I will be
around here you can find me if you see
masked Anon it's still me uh just leaked
it but uh whatever yeah and can yeah
normally I work in the protocol support
this was totally out of EF stuff but uh
there is my email feel free to contact
me or Twitter yeah thank you so much
again
[Applause]