Generosity-dApp idea: A Commons Well

[federico]

Hi everyone, here’s a more structured recap of what i proposed in the telegram chat.

I’ve been thinking about a “Commons Well”: a small-scale system that rewards generosity and circulation rather than accumulation.

Full disclosure: my initial thoughts have been re-elaborated with the help of AI since i’m an illustrator that has NO techno-financial skills whatsoever, but fully support Ergo’s ethics and mission. I’ll mark in italic the AI-suggested stuff for the community to double-check if it’s going insane.

The basic idea is that everyone receives a small monthly allowance of generosity-tokens. If you donate all or part of them to someone who needs help, you receive a slightly higher allowance the next month (or next “cycle”, or next X). A small percentage of every transfer goes back into the Well so that circulation is maintained. In principle this could be something people keep on a smartphone, without becoming a marketplace, a ranking contest, or a charity platform. Those who give slowly become more capable of giving and those who need help are not excluded. Those who stop giving for a while simply see their generosity level reset, without being punished or removed.

After discussing this in the main chat (thank you Grayman), it became clear that these tokens should not be a currency at all. They shouldn’t be tradable, hoardable, or redeemable. They could behave more like permissions than money (decay if unused, cannot accumulate beyond a cap, and exist only to regulate access to the Well).

It could be the Well itself, that contains real value if it is meant to provide actual financial assistance. What fills the Well should be collectively decided: a merge-mined sidechain asset (thank you TMR.ΣRG), ERG, a stablecoin reserve, staking rewards, voluntary contributions, or a combination of these. Whatever the source, the distinction is that generosity flows through the tokens, while economic value flows through the Well’s assets. When someone needs help, they spend a certain amount of drops and the Well sends out a small amount of real value. Drops disappear when used.

This structure also addresses the concerns raised about Sybil attacks and collusion. Access to the system requires some form of proof-of-personhood, whether via BrightID, attestations, or another community-driven method. The generosity multiplier increases only through unique interactions and decays naturally, so closed loops don’t benefit from gaming the system. Since generosity-tokens are not money, there is no incentive to hoard them or trade them, and the decay mechanism prevents passive accumulation.

The entire intention is to design a mutual aid mechanism where flow matters more than possession, and where access to help is not tied to speculation or market dynamics. The generosity-tokens coordinate behavior and the Well provides the economic output.

This “the token doesn’t have value, the well does” is an evolution that appeared through AI brainstorming and crisscrossing it with the questions i received in chat. Originally, i thought it more straightforward as in: the tokens have a value that decades if not used, thus one is incentivized to keep them in motion. How and by whom this value is set, should have been decided by the community itself. Again, due to my limited knowledge, i thought this version to be more straightforward but i do understand the concerns raised by the community about it.

I’d be happy to share these ideas with whomever has the skills, time and energy to brainstorm them further (and, in my happy imaginary world, build; if anything, i can provide it’s look).

Thanks for your time!

[Grayman]

It’s hard to wrestle with tihs idea because it is non-monetary, in fact it is counter-monetary in a variety of ways - like this concept of decay or dissipation, which reminds me of negative interest rates.

I think that in limited circumstances, where reputation is more important than monetary accumulation (probably Dunbar’s number), that such a system could be useful (assuming general acceptance (on par with resident dominant currency).

My country has a long history of utopian societies emphasis on the history. I do not want to be excessively negative, but I do think that the burden is on you to argue how this functions, and in what (social/political) circumstances. Money is dirty. When people are saying politics is dirty, they mostly mean money.

How do we employ your idea, within a small to medium community, in order to make a producive change?

[federico]

I agree with you: this is not meant to behave like money. In fact, it deliberately avoids the properties that make money dirty such as speculation, hoarding, and power asymmetry. Those generosity-tokens, by regulating access to the Well, avoid a collapse into passive consumption and/or one-sided charity while decay and capping should prevent a drift into the usual shit.

The way i see it, the system should not be an alternative currency but a coordination layer for communities. Something like a protocol that helps sustain continuous mutual aid.

And yes, Dunbars number is quite close to the intended scale. To this point, i see the whole system as multiple islands of self contained (or open, i’m still not sure) coordination, rather than a global solution to make everyone happy.

As to where this proposal might work, i think about DAOs, collectives, mutual-aid networks, activist groups… globally distributed and somewhat precarious realities that already share common values but relay on irregular and ad-hoc solutions to sustain themselves.

To answer directly to your questions: i hope this system(s) would create a more predictable and steady mutual aid rather than sporadic donations, by avoiding speculative dynamics by design. The communities themselves should decide what fills the well and at what scale. It’s meant for those communities (future or existing) that already care about their members but lack a mechanism that keeps support flowing without turning it into a marketplace.

If this framing makes sense, i’d be happy to refine it further with whomever wants to stress test its social logic.