Afterglow: Integration and Cohabitation with national state
Next: Being big and small.
Integration
X-Road like approach
The purpose of integration is to allow different components to talk to each other without revealing how those components are implemented. This allows each component to evolve and change its internal landscape as needs change and newer technologies become available without that being seen at the parties that use it.
Let’s take an existing example how to achieve an integration architecture: the X-Road is an Estonian data exchange between different public organisations. The idea is to establish common interface that each public service offers for other users (other public service providers, private enterprises or individuals). So rather than doing point to point integrations that quickly explode the amount of integration, everyone integrates to a common standard.
This infrastructure is responsible for identifying requesting parties, checking their right to data, logging requests for later analysis and removing unneeded data from the responses.
Using this approach, a number of common policies can be implemented only once. For example, there can be a policy that public side can request a given piece of information from a citizen only once. If data is already available via the integration ‘bus’, other service providers need to fetch it via there, rather than buggering citizens to re-enter same data over and over.
Estonia has released X-Road as open source and it is currently implemented in over 20 countries. Its an example how to build loosely coupled architectures where different components can be built by separate organisations and have quite different technical backgrounds but still work seamlessly with each other.
And open sourcing it shows how openness as a concept allows large scale deployments and contributions without expensive sales teams or marketing, just based on organic need.
Something similar (or even taking X-Road as basis) is possible to enable integration between domain inside decentralised communities and between communities.
Web3 approach
DAOs also need integration with each other and with the public side actors. On the blockchain this is built-in to the architecture. On the blockchain the integration approach is already in the system design. Code on the blockchain is made with smart contracts and by default (unless specifically programmed not to allow), can be called by other smart contacts. In other works code on the blockchain can be used as building blocks by other projects writing new stuff. This makes the whole ecosystem composable. As example: any project offering requiring some upfront investment from participants (e.g., some physical device needs to be purchased) can leverage the functionalities of a lending platforms.
On a more fundamental level composability and open sourcing code means that teams see how problems are solved in some unrelated vertical and apply those concepts to their industry.
https://future.a16z.com/how-composability-unlocks-crypto-and-everything-else/
If some fraction of the DAO community is not happy with the way that the project proceeds, they can pick up and fork the implementation creating a new development stream going down different directions. This is similar to what happens in nature when species evolve into different variants based on different opportunities in their environment. Both will then have their smart contract on the same web3 fabric and users can choose what they use or integrate with.
Cohabitation
Integration inside communities and between communities are examples of parties on equal standing cooperate. An example where the other party has local superiority happens when global DAOs/INOs (Internet native organisations) communities and national legislation need to interwork. Globally there are slightly short of two hundred nations with their own regulations. Regulations tend to change as time goes by, sometimes to radically diverting directions when political cycles change.
How can decentralised organisations co-exists in today’s world where states are possessive about their power and almost everything is heavily regulated and micro-management by virtue signalling politicians is a growing trend?
The diagram below shows one alternative.
There cab be a party – let’s call it “Integrating Enterprise/Staking Node” that has access to legal expertise and can navigate the state bureaucracy and current legislation. This party makes legally binding agreements with the public side and participates in discussions about future direction of legislation. From architectural point of view, it acts as a “firewall” protecting small, self-organizing teams or as an in-between mediator.
It could also be called a staking node (SN) because it needs funds to operate and runs real risk of legal actions from state or traditional competitors trying to misuse and bend the legislation against newer competitors like DAOs. Staking Node is crowdfunded so that people “stake” their tokens to it to finance operations. The staking node takes a fee for its services towards global DAOs and from this revenue stream pays the stakers’ rewards.
The Staking Node offers then a way to meet legal obligations and can offer tested “products” - way of working that is legal (or has been tested in a court of law) in that legislation. DAO can then either set up own, separate company there or use the staking node as an agent for example.
The global DAOs are free to set up their preferred governance models, reward structures. For coordination and decisions about the direction, projects use global voting systems with everyone from anywhere participating. Whenever their services are offered in a given country, its via a local entity that has local bank account, can enter into level agreements etc. DAOs can produce global assets and operate global services in all countries and in more restrictive places use a local staking node.
States act within their boundaries. Staking Nodes provide the adaptation layer (mediation) between the two.
Whether such a mechanism works is anyone’s guess. The global legal scenery may be far too chaotic and contradictory for it to work. Legislators can maintain perfect peace of mind while churning out contradictory laws (its normally referred that there is “tension” between regulatory areas), but poor souls automating such systems in software may end up having nightmares.
And certainly having such staking nodes creates a choke point for politicians to target if they feel a need for additional visibility in the public media.