---
title: An autonomous ecologist's guide to Namada & Anoma
type: slide
tags: presentation
---

#### an **autonomous ecologist**'s guide to **namada** & **anoma**


_{^{_Christopher Goes_
_Autonomous Ecologies 2_}}

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#### Alternative titles

_wtf are these crazy people doing?_
_why are there so many names?_
_will they ever ship?_

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**&**


(are)

**protocols** _for_ autonomous ecologies

---

but what _are_ autonomous ecologies?

---

our understanding:

--

groups (organisms) that want to:
- define their own boundaries
- self-govern their internal operations
- interoperate with others

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so, what's new?

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we live in the world of **westphalian ecologies**


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**westphalian ecologies**

_are characterized by_

a rigid, standardised set of articulable and enforceable relationship types

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some examples:

- employer / employee
- employed / unemployed
- for-profit / non-profit

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this standardisation is _not_ the result of evil

it is the result of optimisation for **state legibility**

---

the state guarantees _enforcement_ of the commitments involved in these relationships

fair enforcement requires **legibility** and **standardisation**

---

in a sense, we ask too much of the state

_sustainable self-governance_ requires internal commitment **accounting** and **enforcement**

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autonomous ecologies will rely on **protocols** to enforce their commitments themselves

_"the other sort of state"_

this frees them from state legibility

---

the **cambrian explosion** of _relational ontology_

- many tokens
- many metrics
- many types of relationships
- subtlety, nuance, and context-specificity

---

_early cambrian period examples_

- post-web society
- coordination collective
- vibecare collective
- public goods laboratory

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_where do autonomous ecologies live?_

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the now: _surveillance state of Ethereum_


and a patchwork quilt of protocols

---

the hope: arboreal Taiga


and a unified protocol substrate

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what is required of the protocols?

- value-neutral, but value-explicit
- distributed accounting
- programmable commitments
- programmable information flow control

---

takes a long time :sweat_smile:


^ live shot of heliax engineers

---

the soon: twilight zone


privacy where it counts most

meet people where they're at

---


aims to help bridge these worlds

--

_protocol-wise_

&

_community-wise_

&

_philosophy-wise_

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what can **namada** provide for your AE?

- private payments for previously public assets
- shielded actions for public app interop
- public goods funding for the private stack

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private _payments_

- one-hop from Cosmos
- one-hop from Ethereum
- shielded rewards for sitting tight
- sharing is caring, privacy-wise

---

shielded _actions_

- keep your assets shielded at rest
- initiate an action on namada
- unshield just what you need
- send it elsewhere to use the public app
- results routed back and shielded again
- add FROST and you've got a DAO

---

**public** goods funding for the **private** stack

- PGF is as important as PoS
- Stewards nominate (optimised fast-path)
- PGF is not altruism
- autonomous ecologies need collective funding for collective goods
- namada offers a schelling point

---

we can't do it alone!

_safety in the twilight zone_

still requires some patchwork protocol quilting

---

twilight zone privacy pack for your AE

- signal for comms
- namada for assets-at-rest
- penumbra for swaps
- nym for the network layer
- skiff/cryptpad for the docs
- (etc.)

it's hacky, but workable

---

approaching the **taiga**: sneak peek


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what can **anoma** provide for your AE?

- unified base operating system
- the same P2P layer for chat and consensus
- the same identity system for payments and poker tournaments
- programmable information flow control
- private consensus
- private IBC
- explicit commitments and assumptions
- automated accounting
- _fractal instances_

---

_our endgame (or really, the beginning of a new)_

--

**fractal instances**

_for_

**autonomous ecologies**

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how to _think_ about fractal instances?

- consensi created on demand
- application data & logic move freely across trust boundaries
- e.g. fork a discord chat
- Anoma wallet = Anoma node
- roles, but dynamic

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fractal instance _analogies_

- less blockchain, more (fancy) spreadsheet
- built into the relational structure of usage
- e.g. layered permissioning in chat
- also a rollup (what isn't these days)

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_upcoming events_

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**Namada key collection** [next several weeks]


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???


_catch Adrian's talk at EthCC on Thursday_

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remember: we work for you

come tell us what you want

thanks!