12. Hypercert Scenarios: Presentation and Workshop - Lisbon 2022

all right so hyper certs are a uh tool to build um scalable retrospective reward systems for impact and what I really mean with that um is what the goal is for the next let's say 20 minutes um so that you understand what I understand from from this sentence really so the agenda is that I give a little intro retrospective funding we have heard a lot about that today already um but I will briefly say why we are actually excited about retrospective funding and what that has to do with hyps um then go into um Grant system retrospective funding and price competitions all um about like how can we use hypers certs in these systems to get like a hypers CER um funding system started and then um tell you a little bit about why we think that hypers is an interesting um um interoperable data layer for a lot of funding mechanisms um and what the benefits of those are so retrospective funding why are we excited about it um well if we look at it from the perspective of the uh funders it's actually much easier to fund something after you have observed the impact when you have observed the impact uncertainty has been resolved and it is easier to allocate your limited resources to those things that actually were the most impactful things that is especially important for nonlinear public goods um this these are um public goods where the impact doesn't just increase with the work or the activity that you do um an example is like half a bridge is not as as half as good as a full Bridge um and a retrospective funer would just not fund half a bridge um they would rather like look at those things that were actually impactful um where the bridge is finalized the impact has been realized ized and that's where they put their money um so it's easier for the for the retrospective funders but at the same time they actually create powerful incentives for the contributors for those who create the impact and that is because when you fund it retrospectively you can make sure that you actually increase the rewards as the impact increases so we have an increasing function of rewards in in the impact that is um while you actually produce some public good that is supposed to be impactful at every point you have now to ask yourself how can I maximize the the impact that I create and not just follow whatever you wrote in in a Grant's proposal six months ago but you you can ask yourself and you can pivot and you can maximize that um that impact and afterwards you will actually get rewarded for that um ideally and we think that that definitely will happen that it also attracts more talent because now more Talent means you actually um get rewarded more for the impact that you create um so we we get more Talent working on the most impactful um projects and public goods um that we see and the third benefit that where why we think that hyps or retrospective funding is exciting is because it creates a way to create recurring income streams recurring income streams basically just the idea that as long as you actually create impact and an evaluator can prove or like shows that you create impact then you can also um turn that into income and um have a sustainable financing model for your public goods project what does that have to do with hyps well hyps are something like carbon credits on any impact Vector so we can think of it on like biodiversity journalism or uh for open source funding um and carbon credits is not a perfect system as as we kind of probably all know and we currently there are a lot of efforts to make this better um but what we really want to do with this is have this object that really identifies the work that we expect to be impactful so we make this work identifiable traceable and transferable um and that allows us especially in the retrospective uh funding to really um Implement these these mechanisms and also explore and experiment with this mechanisms where we have a common primitive of hypers certs hypers can look um something like this um that's kind of the the front of the hypers but it's important that we have two parts here so we have the part of the hypur and then we have the part of the EV evaluation so as I said the hypers really accounts for the actions that are expected to be impactful and that means we just um identify who did what when what does the work like point to um and want to have an impact on in what time frame and what is the are the rights that the owners of The hypers Have and then in addition to that we have the evaluations that can be self evaluations and independent evaluations that can be Quant uh quantitive or qualitative and they really point to towards the hypers certs and with that that we take that into like two objects we make it more flexible build a more open system uh where we can develop um the evaluations further and work with all this these projects that work on impact evaluators to plug into the um hypers Sears ecosystem um this is not all just Theory but we actually have built um a pilot application that is available on hyper. XYZ and it creates kind of this um this hypers seert and um currently it's it's running on the girly test um we have implemented the RC standard 35 25 because a lot of the things that create really impact are the things where people work together they collaborate um they um find other projects teams that work on something similar and in in total they really create um more impact than each individual contributor could on its own so the standard allows for example sharing a hypers between three um contributors um with different shares for each of them because they might have not all um contributed to the public good in the same way um or we can actually also um share it with like 50 smaller contributions and one major contribution so this is like what um what the this um EIP standard allows us to do so now I'm sarch Eng gears a little bit and talk about like what does that actually mean how can we really apply that and how can we take the first first steps into implementing hypers Sears into systems um where we um basically like create the first hyers Sears and and get it out in the bu um so Grant system is basically like the the simplest thing um so and attaching kind of hyps to the to a grand process would be just like a hypers is is minted evaluated and then funding flows and um the grantee who receives the funding actually Awards the hypers then to the grant maker this is not a big change except that we now have like a public record of this this funding and we can see it um but the exciting things about like this um system is when like multiple Grant makers actually use the same system because then it becomes really easy for a second Grant maker to just also buy parts of the the hypers CER and fund the contributor um through the same system and then we can also think of a another funer that is a retrospective funer to actually do the same thing but now after the public good has been created so we can combine multiple funders and also retrospective funer with others um in the same in the same system and make um this system easier um to like have transactions in so we we lower the transaction costs which will be very beneficial if this happens on like uh a very large scale um that is where the um the benefits get really realized um also when we think about multiple fun um then we also have benefits When the evaluation is actually done very publicly that evaluator signal to the funders to different funders and every funer um can rely on the signal instead of just doing their own primary research so that is kind of where we think this open system of evaluations and funders prospective funders retrospect of funders is something where each player each role can be optimized um in itself and that really um will improve the whole system um because it's not that we construct the whole system um from like designing a hyperset system but we try to create an open ecosystem where every player optimizes their own role in it when we think about um a lot of funders um we can also think about like crowdfunding so when we think about crowdfunding think of um combining hyperset with gitcoin so every funer actually gets a hypers to prove what they have funded in the past um and um this is something that is now that um uh gitcoin moves to the like to the open grants protocol so we can basically build a module for the grants protocol that um every every round can um in addition to all the functionality from from gitcoin also issue hypers threats to to the funders um and to make that more concrete let's suppose we run a retrospective funding round on gitcoin for the most impactful web 3 open source software in 2022 um or a subcategory of that with like the most impactful solutions for decentralized social media and the the interesting thing is like if we not only do that once but if we do that regularly every like six months or every year then we really create this powerful incentives for people to go out there and start projects because they know there will be funding in the future um through these mechanisms um something where this becomes very concrete is also price competitions so price competitions um when we think about retrospective funding in itself um this is like the the uh simplest sequence for retrospective funding um and the question is of course again why would anybody start to create this public good in the first place and it it is because we need like strong signals about future retrospective funding so and these expectations need to be reliable and the easiest way and this is the way that is done with price competitions already today is you you announce a price you really specify what are the criteria to give out money in the future um then with hypers certs combining that with hypers certs would be that hyperset would be U minted and accepted to the competition um based on this acceptance they optionally can raise initial funds from other funders um the public good is created it is evaluated um and then the retrospective funding flows um to to the contributors who actually did either the best work or met the criteria that were specified um so this is also just like a small departure from how price competitions work today um what we are excited about if this really happens on the same system with a lot of different price competitions um and then if we have those price competitions with specific criteria we can also think about a second step where you don't actually like specify exactly what what you're looking for you're opening up the solution space even further and you announce funding for a specific impact Vector basically you say like every six months I will buy hypers certs in the evaluation uh education space um and if if I want to start something in education I can basically look at the the process how funding is um awarded in the sector and make sure that something that I do will be that impactful that it's recognized by these funders that um award funding regularly in these um impact markets impact vectors and then if we um have a lot of funders doing exactly that then retrospective funding can emerge as a norm that it just normal nobody actually needs to announce anything anymore but we all kind of look back who did like the best the most impactful work in a specific area and refund that and the funders actually have like reputation Prestige um that they get from the hypers Sears so basically like hypers certs as kind of the the new Rolex that you show to others like you you want to signal that you have done something with um with the the opportunities that you have and hypers certs is kind of the way you can do that and to make that a little bit more specific I would actually ask Vincent on stage uh because Vincent um from VD da um is working on a project on a price competition and they currently thinking about um doing that with hyps Vincent perfect perfect yeah um so maybe for like the very brief backstory of kind of like how this happen so we kind of with v da are funding longevity and kind of like one of our ideas was like to do public goods uh experiments and we did like a gitcoin quch donation round uh where we put in money and um also vag I think put in 400,000 and actually I think like the longevity prize was just a project we like were Keen to explore and like I um uploaded it to getcoin and ultimately I think it ended up being like the second or third highest funded gitcoin project in around with like 8,000 donors and received 200,000 then another 100,000 from donors so then we had to do something with it so uh and and basically idea was always to explore native crypto mechanism design for novel priz mechanisms um and we were like in early chats with crowdfunded cures kind of like exploring retroactive public goods and kind of like new priz mechanisms and yeah so that kind of like then led us to exploring also this exploration in the direction of hypur um so maybe like to yeah go back for the kind of like different stages so the first one is really um on just getting like crowdfunding the Retro price pool and like we're having a starting point with like the money we already got but basically um people can donate basically onto the price and uh receive uh hypers lat and exchange um from the prospective funders and then the prospective funders basically buys hypers Sears from researchers who are participating in the priz um and the goal is to distribute those um prizes on a yearly basis so the prospective fun have some certainty that they have like some Financial uh payoff um yeah so kind of like also repeating kind of like the the graphic there um the the the core is really to create like a novel incentive and also upside for a perspective funer to come in and fund research that might be public good medicine and um like doesn't have like a financial payoff um and the retrospective price of course rewards uh that and pays for that and the concrete um project that we're working out together with um Sava and cash from um crowdfunding cures and and Longevity prize V and everyone else involved um is kind of like exploring a novel mechanism with hyps to enable U public good medicine by concretely um repurposing generic drugs so kind of like there are a bunch of drugs out there like used for like for example like R me or met foran that have like life span expanding and like Health span expanding properties Als in humans but are that are off patent and uh so there's no incentive for anyone to do clinical trials and the goal is basically to explore this um as one of the probably lowest cost and fast fastest ways to improve Pro longevity um yeah so the the goal is basically to start this um like this year like as a very small uh proof of concept and pilot I think the benefit is really like only when we really like build like a first pilot do we see like the edge cases and what we need to figure out I think like the first impact markets and impact certificate ideas were already floated five or six years ago and I haven't seen really like an implementation that showed some of like the what like things that might break also in the small pilot um so yeah the goal is basically to in in this concrete example to have like a um basically get like researchers listed that um are doing research um with generic drugs and repurposing them for longevity with these kind of like end points um and and the goal is like to launch this with like 150,000 um kind of like by the end of this year and and then to raise kind of like the price pool to say like uh one or 10 million and more which I think is where it gets more interesting but I think um the the goal with 150,000 would be that like we would distribute that funding in the first year uh so even if there like three or five research projects um participating with clinical trials they would have like a certain payoff like some of them at least um yeah so the the criteria is um that we're still working out in detail but is basically having like actual clinical trials which are way cheaper for uh off patent generic drugs because the safety profiles are already established they already did basically um have clinical trials in humans so humans are already taking them since 50 years in some cases um so the only thing basically there is for example this example could be RIS um like a very uh like famous drug uh combined with exercise com uh compared to a placebo and and seeing how that improves some end points like for example uh 30 second chair test or grip test um yeah but that's basically the goal for the uh yeah pilot and uh if you want to get involved like feel free to ping me at vincent.com and the goal is really to like work out the details of course Al together with hypers certs and um crowdfund qes and others and um see this through in the first small pilot and and also get like first people to buy the hypers certs I think the benefit is really that with da we uh have an impact Dow funding longevity research that has actually a treasury and funding but also like 8,000 people in a community that are somewhat Crypton native and into longevity so we can actually like end to end have like the prospective funders within our community or the Dow itself could fund research and with the longevity price we also have the um price pool so um yeah I think that will make it easier to get off the ground uh but then I think it will be interesting to uh one once it scales up and gets more hyps and researchers on boarded yes perfect thank you Vincent uh yes take that um and I think it's like it's really cool to see that like projects that were like probably started like around the time that we were thinking about hypers certs as well are now thinking about like how can we actually combine that with with hypers certs how can hypers certs create value for such projects um and that is also something that we want to do um more like if if you have projects where you think um hypers would be an interesting mechanism to use um get get in touch with us um or um if you want to know like how it is working out with the longevity price um get get in touch with Vince me as well um so basically just to conclude um what do we actually mean with like the like creating an interoperable data layer with with hypers certs um it is really like this this data layer where we think that different types of funding um and I explained already like a little bit how how like grants and retrospective funding work together with with hyps um but it is an interesting way um that hypers is a connecting um connecting data between that so that grants and retrospective funding can actually operate also together um and that is interesting because like retrospective funding is not a solution to everything we still need in some cases grants especially when we like um when it's difficult to observe the the impact um and we just rather fund the activities that a team does um then a grant system might be just much easier so there are different different conditions under which different types of funding are actually applicable and the most optimal um and then hyps is also enables potentially like more experimentation with different decision me mechanisms how we actually um distribute the funding and that doesn't matter in what types of funding um there are always like the decision mechanisms um that we use and I think there are many more than the the four that are listed here um and using hypers certs enables us to um compare these um and like then later on if you have retrospective evaluation of that and see really what kind of decision making mechanisms led to the most impactful projects being being funded and that is something um that is I think some something where we can improve the system over time more and more to arrive really at at the best impact funding mechanisms or the whole like tool set that we need to fund impact um and also to know under what conditions um we will use what tool so this like how the funing mechanisms live on the on the hypers um so the hypers seerz um is kind of like this this kind of simple object that we want to create but it it enables uh a lot of um benefits according to like retrospective funding um there's a lot of actors involved that can plug into the system through hypers seerz and that is really um what what our goal is to to enable that um and um that's why um I think we think that hypers certs really are a tool to build scalable retrospective reward systems for impact um and um if you are interested more in what we do um in the in the project um uh go to hypers XYZ um join our telegram group um there's also the first Community call where we actually will show um eight different or like at least eight different projects that um kind of are thinking about using hypers Sears um they will show um what they are thinking about um and I think that is a great place to also find synergies with other projects or how they think about using hypers um and then we are in general just like excited about your projects um so if you if you are thinking about um something related to hyps write us at hypers at protocol. or just like um join the telegram group and and write it there so that everybody else can also benefit from from your ideas um and I think I have a little bit of time for for questions and also um Vincent is also still here so if you have questions for Vincent um also ask those and otherwise I think I'm also the only thing that is between me uh between you and the the cocktail hour except Ben Ben might be in between as well I guess the okay I thought the cocktail has already started and so microphone is off um awesome I'm I'm a huge fan of of this so it's really exciting to see all of this coming together um my question is uh I didn't see it mentioned I know it's been in the back of my mind and I'm sure it's been on the back of your minds as well but do you foresee the hypers search themselves use being used as kind of these uh having long-term monetary value as assets uh use use cases like uh carbon assets have sorry carbon credits are traded and you know you can retire them but you can also hoard them and and hope that they go up in value uh in the case of carbon for you know the market is distorted so it's kind of questionable whether it will have value or not but in general you could set it up so that the market kind of understands okay this this there will be a a liquid Market in the benefits that are being generated by this by this public good and uh we will use these hypers search to be basically meter the the allocation of the of the rewards for that uh is is that kind of part of how the the protocol has been or the the the smart contct is being designed and uh and what are the the kind of consequences of that yeah um so I think there's a a huge design space um like around hypers Sears like what we are really focusing on is um building this protocol as like really identifying the the work in itself um and then um combining these with like different funding mechanisms in the first place so that is something that we are focusing on right now and like in the hyperset protocol itself um nothing that you described is like build in um where this like develops into um is I think an open open question where we don't want to set the Primitive such that it excludes like a lot of um options um but it is something where um and that is I think where why I'm like introducing this as like trying to build a primitive for an open um ecosystem around um hypers certs that a lot of things are possible but we are not trying to like build in too many things in in order to um self-optimize the system over time um I want to share a perspective also as a disclaimer um I helped a little in this um but something that gets me crazy excited about hypers certs is um this idea of retrospective funding like what you know from um carbon markets for example you could today create a startup that um knows we can create carbon credits cheaper like 10x or whatever than the market and we know somebody will buy them and if we transfer this principle to basically any kind of public goods market like I know if I find an Innovative way of building like a lot of a lot of schools or um drill Wells or um Quality quality adjusted life years or whatever like suddenly we can use a lot of the mechanisms that work in startups and apply them to public goods so I can take risks I can be Innovative I can like assemble the team higher top talent let lend money somewhere because I know I will be able to sell the impact so I get over this goal confusion of my organization has to somehow make money and somehow also create impact because I'm literally selling the impact and just wanted to share that because it gets me super excited yes thank you for that perspective also other comments also welcome doesn't have to be a question uh cool so uh basically like I mentioned that uh uh on the hypers shs there's the impact score uh so how is it uh how is the methodology basically uh made visible uh accessible uh I probably sound like very evasive for what those question but it's again like building an open um ecosystem also around the evaluation and we have heard a lot of talks about impact evaluators the different methodology it can be quantitative it can be qualitative um I think there's like a lot of work um that um like it like there's no project that can like do all of that and that's why we focus on building this primitive around really um making this this work identifi in the first place place and then um trying to have and Rafael is actually one of them um who's talking about and thinking about like very sophisticated ways of evaluating impact and then um if we can plug hypers certs into that system um and make it really easy for for the evaluation to report on a hypers um then I think that is kind of what success looks for us um because then different projects can um like try to have different evaluations and we even think about like what happens when different evaluations on the same thing actually produce different results and then you have um like more more things where like I mean it's something about the the impact space today as well that there are not a lot of like negative evaluations of impact um and change I don't want it just like like have a list of like this this project wasted your money but it is something where like a lot of money is wasted today and if you build in systems um that basically Bally say this is where you really spend your money most effectively then you get um a system overall that um that produces over time much much better results um but it only will do that if you allow for different evaluation systems to also compete with each other um and then we just have to make sure that the competition is not for who like where's like the most positive um evaluation but like also something around like where is The credibility created in this system who do we trust to evaluate and then and all of that probably steams back from the retrospective funders because like especially when you have large retrospective funders who say this is actually what I want to fund and these are kind of the evaluators that I that I trust and um that that is then a system where like the the retrospector78 I mean I'm out of time but go ahead cocktails whatever um so just to to emphasize that the the the problem of of figuring out what constitutes impact it's you know there's no right or wrong answer but there is uh convergence right you can get to you can get incrementally better and you can figure out how much better you get it right and that's at the heart of you know uh it's a little bit sophisticated from the mathematical perspective but it's actually really simple it's about finding better models that people can agree on and getting better at agreeing on these right so uh to the extent that that these can be Quantified and you can look at at the performance of these models over time you you eventually don't need anymore to rely on any one specific impact evaluator but you can just trust the network that whichever evaluator you point to it's going to be consistent with the other ones because you're working off of the same reality right that's ultimately it cool and now we're actually out of time but uh thank you for that and uh I hope we will continue the conversation um outside but I think that's that's Ben's uh announcement to make no uh should I open the cocktail hour no no you should not uh but I'll join you let's let's give hok a round of [Applause] applause