ReFi Generation
Cash Upton
ReFi Generation explores the new frontier of regenerative finance and the community mindset that gives local actions a global reach. We talk to experts and leaders in the field while examining how the ingenuity of ReFi can help bring environmental and humanitarian efforts into the next generation.
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Top 10 ReFi Generation Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best ReFi Generation episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to ReFi Generation for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite ReFi Generation episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
07/22/24 • 43 min
Welcome back from our summer break! Marcus Aurelius from Klima DAO joins us to discuss how blockchain technology can revolutionize the carbon offset market. Marcus has a background in data science and data engineering and is passionate about leveraging data to solve problems and make better decisions. Marcus sets the stage for us by sharing how nearly 2 trillion tons of CO2 have been emitted since the industrial revolution, yet the carbon markets to date have yielded only 2 billion CO2 credits, with only about half being retired. This is a huge mismatch, especially with an estimated 40 billions tons of CO2 being emitted yearly.
Klima is an exciting protocol for bridging carbon offsets onto the blockchain. You might ask why this is necessary? By bridging carbon offsets on-chain, Klima brings an unprecedented level of transparency and auditability to the carbon offset market. Klima is mostly focussed on the demand side of the carbon market, but we also learn about some of the carbon projects that Klima is supporting on the supply side who are using dMRV, digital measure report verification. This drastically reduces the cost of verifying ecological data claims, thus further democratizing the ability for smaller scale regenerative actors to enter the market.
Marcus is skeptical of the top-down approach, especially in the time frame needed to solve the environmental crisis. We discuss the key players in the carbon offset markets. From buyers to suppliers, Marcus shares nuanced insights on how this traditionally opaque carbon market is in dire need of improvement. In comes Regenerative Finance - bringing greater access to carbon markets with lower barriers to entry, allowing for greater liquidity, better on ramping rails for purchasing offsets, along with reducing green washing because the authenticity of impact claims can be verified and trusted.
We learn how AMM’s (Automated market makers) or decentralized exchanges, are the key innovation in decentralized finance because they allow for the creation of an asset with complex underlying behavior, unlocking the ability to create liquid assets out of previously illiquid assets.
Klima is looking to address the “Carbon tunnel vision problem” to move beyond just the carbon market and we learn of some of the exciting forward financing projects Klima is taking on. The beauty of ReFi is that some of these projects are cutting edge and would be traditionally hard to fund with the more conventional due diligence process of a philanthropy, but because KLIMA is a DAO, the public who holds the KLIMA token is able to vote and make decisions on where climate financing is invested.
Klima Twitter
Marcus' Twitter
Klima's Carbon Dashboard
Klima App
Offset your emissions with Carbonmark
11/02/23 • 23 min
Ever dreamt of a world where finance fuels regeneration instead of depletion? That's what our guests TeRex, Sam, and Sophia Dew aim to create and we’re lucky enough to hear about their innovative projects on today's episode. We delve into the intriguing world of the Traditional Dream Factory, a groundbreaking endeavor to build a network of provable regenerative villages powered by blockchain technology. You'll also get a sneak peek to Refi Week @ Traditional Dream Factory.
Bring your curiosity as we venture into the promising potential of ecological benefits Hypercerts for tracking impact claims, providing an additional source of revenue for regenerative stewards of the Earth. We also chat about the upcoming ETH Online Hackathon, pushing the boundaries of regenerative finance space. Join us as we uncover how the future of finance will be a game-changer for our environment.
06/10/24 • 50 min
In today’s episode we talk with Scott Morris, AKA the Token Jedi. Scott graduated from college with an interdisciplinary degree in political economics amidst the great financial crisis of 2008. What followed is a captivating story of Scott researching and implementing place-based initiatives, because as he puts it, “Place-based organizing in real communities, changing patterns, with real people, will create real outcomes and real value.
Scott is a seasoned veteran when it comes to community currency and I particularly loved this conversation because it is both philosophical and nuanced. We dig deep into what is actually within our means to protect the “main street economy.” To Scott, ReFi can steer us away from a shearing economy towards a sharing economy by making use of new capabilities that allow us to re-localize and re-circulatize our economies. These new capabilities allow for greater monetary pluralism and economic diversity, allowing for back-up systems and safety nets.
We discuss why Bitcoin is important to the world, but also how Scott sees the commodity aspect of Bitcoin being a tool of wealth preservation, whereas the folks who do not necessarily benefit from this are those people living on less than a dollar per day. Scott poses the question of what are certain instruments and strategies to bring people up from the bottom and helps us imagine what benefits a community could reap by using local currencies.
We get an update on what the ReFi DAO is up to, and discuss the ReFi DAO local node incubator: Alert! There is a local ReFi chapter coming your way! Go get involved locally!
Scott truly cares about making place-based systems for economic regeneration happen. I left this conversation inspired, I hope you enjoy it.
The Token Jedi's Twitter
ReFiDAO.com
ReFi DAO Local Communities
Ep. 19 Financing Impact with Maex Ament of WithEarth.xyz
ReFi Generation
05/21/24 • 29 min
In today’s episode we talk with Maex Ament of WithEarth.xyz & Centrifuge. Having vast experience leveraging technology to fundraise and create positive impact, Maex is a bridge between web3 and the climate space. Centrifuge tokenizes real world assets and puts them on the blockchain. Some examples are invoices, music royalties, mortgages, consumer debt, and all the way into carbon credits and carbon forwards. Maex gives a thorough and nuanced explanation of what tokenization of real world assets can allow for. One such example is democratizing the access to liquidity.
Maex shares his thoughts on how the immutability of smart contracts on the blockchain allows developers to build on a stack that is both philosophically and technologically “unstoppable.”
We discuss the real world asset summit in NYC this fall, as well as real world asset summits happening in Dubai and at ETH CC.
We finish the conversation with Maex giving some thoughtful feedback on how the ReFi space can evolve in order to “green pill” institutional players and governments. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Maex, I hope you do too.
WithEarth.xyz
Maex's Twitter
Centrifuge.io
Centrifuge's Twitter
05/09/24 • 44 min
In today’s episode we talk with Alessandro Mazzi from Sovereign Nature Initiative. Ale was a joy to talk with and is a wealth of knowledge. He is getting his PHD researching the influence of law on the capacity of human and wildlife to coexist.
Sovereign Nature Initiative works in biodiversity conservation and is sitting in the middle between philanthropic giving & conservation projects. Sovereign Nature Initiative helps to raise funds and do impact reporting. By looking at nature positive solutions, aka conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems, they are creating other ways to value nature rather than the traditional extractive model.
Ale discusses the benefits of using blockchain as a transparent accounting mechanism, thus helping to prove an environmental claim actually happens, and reduces green washing because it ensures accountability.
Ale provides a fantastic look on how dMRV (digital or decentralized measure report & verification) allows for significantly reducing MRV costs - further democratizing the access to MRV tools and monetization mechanisms for regenerative land practices. By working with locals and the stewards themselves, emerging dMRV technology can further reduce the barrier to entry and allow smaller scale projects to participate.
I especially loved Ale’s perspective on biodiversity credits, and how certain species can “activate the carbon cycle” by providing important ecosystem services. We discuss an exciting European Union development for a treaty on biodiversity mandates for corporations.
Ale shares an inspiring project surrounding bison restoration in Romania, where children are leading the monitoring efforts of biodiversity. These youth then educate farmers about the importance of biodiversity. I was left inspired and enthused after talking to Ale, I hope you enjoy this episode.
Sovereign Nature Initiative Linktr.ee
Sovereign Nature Initiative Twitter
Sovereign Nature Initiative Website
WWF European Bison Restoration
Ep. 17 Kingfishers Media Regenerating Knowledge
ReFi Generation
05/02/24 • 29 min
I love this episode with Will T. from Kingfishers Media LLC because Will is passionate about regenerative knowledge around community building initiatives.
Kingfishers Media provides educational tools and resources for starting a business in Web3. They are a bridge to help onboard people and to make sure people have the knowledge needed to engage in the space in a positive way.
Will seeks to democratize the access to knowledge and bridge the multilingual communication gap and has their learning content in Spanish, Portuguese, French, & Swahili.
This episode gives a refreshing take on how web3 & blockchain technology is a bottom-up paradigm shift from what has historically been a top-down extractive model. Will believes this technology allows everyone to participate in something that is bigger than ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Will, I hope you do too.
Kingfishers Media LLC Website
Kingfishers Media LLC Twitter
Will T's Twitter
Ep. 16 Public Goods Funding with QZ from Clr.fund
ReFi Generation
04/15/24 • 40 min
In today’s episode, QZ gives us a refreshing look at the ETH London conference, what the blockchain space is like in Singapore, and the quadratic funding mechanism of Clr.fund
Clr.fund has a permissionless quadratic funding tool, primarily focussed now on retroactive public goods funding, QZ discusses how it can also be leveraged to fund what specific communities want. This allows for a more forward looking funding tool that can be iterated on when a communities’ goals and needs change.
QZ talks about the nuances of grant funding, and how by nature grants are not designed to be sustainable and perpetual, so how do you create a perpetual funding process for impact and nonprofit work? Quadratic funding can be a tool to plug these gaps and democratize the grant funding process.
I especially loved a question QZ posed, "who are the agents that are playing the game, and what are they optimizing for." Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to optimize for profit, thus we have a linear extractive economic model that has gotten us to where we are now.
QZ is a systems thinker, and got me noodling on a lot of profound mental models. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, I hope you do as well.
QZ's Twitter
Ethereum Singapore Twitter
clr.fund Twitter
clr.fund Website
Ep. 15 Crypto Commons Association with Giulio Quarta
ReFi Generation
04/09/24 • 35 min
Today we dive into different economic models with Guilio Quarta from Crypto Commons association. Guilio, having a background in sociology, has been studying alternative practices of organizing and assigning value. This has caused Guilio to lean into the “Blockchain for good” space. What I especially resonated with was Guilio’s narrative agnostic approach, where his work seeks to be the narrative bridge that shows people they are doing things that are actually quite similar to each other, rather than strikingly different.
Guilio discusses the concept of how a system is what it does practically, not what it says it does. One warning Guilio gives is of venture capital funding taking away from the good of all stakeholders, and how alternative forms of funding can ensure that all stakeholders such as the broader ReFi community, regen farms, everyday people etc have their needs met, rather than the needs of Venture Capital.
Guilio could see a dystopian future of making the whole world a data ledger and then plugging in all the financial market activities and ecological values. Thus, he cautions the ReFi ecosystem, similar to Douglas Gayton’s from ReFi Generation Ep. 6, to ensure that what we are putting on the blockchain is further democratizing society and increasing inclusivity.
We finished the conversation with a teaser on CoFi - aka Collaborative Finance. The meme of CoFi originated after ReFi - but is a method of accounting that traditional financial systems have historically been using. CoFi focuses more on using credit & trust based systems to improve the local & global economy and looks at Ways to optimize existing financial systems without using tokenomics. One thing to note: Post capitalism does NOT mean communism or socialism, but rather other ways of assigning value, Conscious capitalism, for example, can be thought of a post capitalist modality.
Commons Economy
ReFi Barcelona
Co-Fi
Ep. 14 BASIN Protocol is Building Nature's Balance Sheet
ReFi Generation
04/01/24 • 48 min
In today’s episode I have the pleasure of interviewing TMO of BASIN Protocol for a third time. TMO, AKA Thomas Morgan, having spent the majority of his career in commercial real estate, is the bridge we need for real world assets coming on chain.
TMO discusses the nuances of nature being on the balance sheet, versus nature having its own balance sheet. The former is the old extractive mentality, whereas the latter allows ecosystems to hold their own assets of value.
BASIN as a protocol is aimed to preserve, conserve, and restore more land by building a network of agents that are stewarding & flowing value into ecosystems. The protocol uses financial models that take real value, and then apply a monetary value to ecosystem services, such as pollination, biodiversity, soil health etc.
TMO explains how Basin’s 14 different ecosystems & 18 real values of natural capital fits into the broader Ecological Benefits Framework.
Corporations have personhood in the United States - so why not ecosystems, why not rivers & why not mountains? BASIN is creating structures so that ecosystems can fund themselves, in perpetuity. BASIN is giving land back to nature, where nature owns itself. BASIN is creating mechanisms to perpetually protect ecosystems and land against future lease and sell pressure. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, I hope you do as well.
BASIN's Twitter
TMO's Twitter
BASIN.Global
BASIN Field Manual
Confluence.BASIN
12/23/24 • 43 min
Today we get REC’d, and explore the innovative way Jasmine Energy is pairing the renewable energy credit market, aka RECs, with blockchain technology.
Nathalie brings a wealth of knowledge around the renewable energy space and is an excellent bridge between the traditional and the cutting edge. With her electrical engineer degree she has a broad set of skills, from working in energy compliance markets, installing solar & storage for Bitcoin mining operations, to building electric race car engines for Formula 1.
Nathalie’s systems engineering mindset enables her to take complex systems and synthesize them down to understandable concepts. She walks us through the nuanced ecosystem of renewable energy credits and how they represent the clean energy attributes of renewable electricity, as opposed to the physical energy itself. These energy attributes are important because they help us to know how clean grid energy actually is and holds us accountable to sustainability goals.
Jasmine Energy is a REC tracking app and marketplace for bridging renewable energy credits into non fungible tokens on a blockchain. Why blockchain you may ask? The short answer is allowing for liquidity and accountability. RECs are often a secondary revenue stream for solar developers and financiers, and are important for helping renewable energy generators hedge against the fluctuating prices of spot market electricity.
In addition, the traditional over the counter REC market is mostly all voice brokered, often using excel spreadsheets for tracking. REC brokers take a 10-20% fee, which takes away from the profit of renewable energy generators. By putting RECs onto a blockchain, it can more easily be validated when beneficiary claims are retired, reduce the aforementioned broker fees with less friction across a multitude of currencies, and protect against double counting and fraudulent credits.
In this era of environmental catastrophe, we cannot rely on humans using excel spreadsheets to solve the climate crisis. By using Jasmine Energy, we can ensure energy usage is verifiably green. I hope you enjoy.
Show links:
Jasmine Energy Website
Jasmine Energy App
Nathalie's Twitter
RE+
US Green Building Council - California
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FAQ
How many episodes does ReFi Generation have?
ReFi Generation currently has 23 episodes available.
What topics does ReFi Generation cover?
The podcast is about Blockchain, Permaculture, Crypto, Podcasts, Technology and Farming.
What is the most popular episode on ReFi Generation?
The episode title 'Ep. 19 Financing Impact with Maex Ament of WithEarth.xyz' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on ReFi Generation?
The average episode length on ReFi Generation is 39 minutes.
How often are episodes of ReFi Generation released?
Episodes of ReFi Generation are typically released every 12 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of ReFi Generation?
The first episode of ReFi Generation was released on Jul 22, 2023.
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