# Newsletter #2 - Researching the User-Defined Organization

Hello everyone! We're coming back to you with some very exciting news. We are happy to announce **two very promising research projects exploring our concept of the User-Defined Organization**. We will be working with BlockScience, an engineering, R&D, and analytics firm specializing in complex systems, as well as the RadicalxChange Foundation, a non-profit organization carrying research and development on governance, mechanism design and game theory. In this newsletter you can find out more about what the projects have in store and how you can get involved in research with us if you have an idea. We've also got some news from the ecosystem and another exciting announcement - **we're hosting an AMA**!

## UDO Research
### Why do we want to research the UDO?

In case you haven't heard about our idea of the User-Defined Organization (or UDO for short), here's a quick explanation. The UDO is a governance model we have been working on as a response to [the problems of coin voting governance](https://wildland.io/2021/12/16/udo1.html).

As we explain in [our introductory post](https://wildland.io/2021/12/16/udo2.html) to the concept of the UDO, "The central assumption behind it is that there should be a strict tie between the platform’s governance and its usage. Only those who actually use the platform should have decision-making authority over it, and their influence should reflect the level of their commitment to the project. This means that if a platform is to utilize governance tokens, these tokens: A) should first and foremost attest that someone has completed a certain action within the platform, and B) should not be tradable."

We are excited to see to concept come to life as part of Wildland, and equally so to see it being used by other projects which could benefit from tying governance with usage. It's a novel idea, which obviously will require some trial and error and learning along the way - that's why we're really glad to be partnering up with Blockscience and RadicalxChange to get some experts' views and constructive criticism.

### BlockScience Research Plan

The BlockScience team, made up of [Kelsie Nabben](https://substack.com/profile/1619235-kelsie-nabben) (Senior Researcher/Project Lead), [Dr Eric Alston](https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=iQt1Z7oAAAAJ) (Senior Researcher), Burrata (Researcher) and [Michael Zargham](https://twitter.com/mZargham) (Chief Engineer), will run a two-track research plan. It will look at the tokenomics of the [Proof-of-Usage (PoU)](https://wildland.io/2021/12/16/udo2.html) token, as well as the UDO as a governance framework. The research will be published in the form of lite, blog-length reports with hyperlinks to relevant references.

### The RadicalxChange Foundation Report

The RxC team, led by [Matt Prewitt](https://twitter.com/m_t_prewitt), [Paula Berman](https://twitter.com/_paulaberman), and [Alex Randaccio](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-randaccio/), will produce a report canvassing design options, presenting novel ideas, and making recommendations for the governance and token economic features of the UDOs, also exploring how to mitigate possible risks and attacks.

To find out more about both projects head to our [blog, where we discuss them in detail](https://wildland.io/2022/04/13/UDO-research-WL.html).

### Research Grants

Both of these projects are made possible thanks to [our grant program at Golem Foundation](https://golem.foundation/projects#grants). We are open to working with others in the space to further exciting ideas, especially those around the tokenomics of the UDO and the idea of decentralized governance.

[Reach out to us]([e-mail]) if you believe that what you do can help our efforts to create additional use cases and foster adoption of Golem and GLM or otherwise contribute to Golem Foundation’s projects, including enriching and building on the concept of the User-Defined Organization.

## News from the ecosystem

- [The European Parliament and the European Council has agreed upon the text of The Digital Markets Act](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/eu-to-regulate-gatekeepers-in-crackdown-on-google-apple-amazon-facebook/) - new European legislation that takes aim at Big Tech companies and introduces interoperability requirements for the so-called gatekeepers (a category defined by the legislation as firms with a market capitalization of at least €75 billion, at least 45 million monthly users, and a “platform” like an app or social network). The proposed law is expected to come into force in October this year. However, the targeted companies get up to 4 years to prepare the interoperability of various features. The act also lets the gatekeepers choose the interface/protocol for interoperating, which may significantly dull DMA's edge. Some experts also worry that the interoperability requirement [may weaken the security of popular messaging apps, as it hampers the use of end-to-end encryption](https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/28/23000148/eu-dma-damage-whatsapp-encryption-privacy). Check Cory Doctorow's post at [OneZero](https://onezero.medium.com/) for [an interesting perspective on this new law](https://onezero.medium.com/when-automation-becomes-enforcement-677461a78e62). An earlier Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis (written before the text of the new law was finalized) is [also worth reading](https://www.eff.org/id/deeplinks/2020/12/eus-digital-markets-act-there-lot-room-improvement).

- Another new European Commission sweeping legislative initiative, the [Data Act](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_22_1114), proposes new rules on who can use and access data generated in the EU. The proposal focuses on Internet of Things (IoT) providers but has broader implications. Head over to the RadicalXChange blog for a good [overview of the act and some commentary on its strengths and limitations](https://www.radicalxchange.org/media/blog/a-comment-on-the-data-act/).

- Much more worrisome is the new [EU proposal aiming to extend the KYC/AML requirements to all transactions involving non-custodial wallets](https://www.protocol.com/fintech/eu-crypto-kyc). If enacted, this new rule would essentially prohibit anonymous cryptocurrency transactions.

- Speaking about (not so) anonymous crypto transactions, [Wired posted a long excerpt](https://www.wired.com/story/tracers-in-the-dark-welcome-to-video-crypto-anonymity-myth/) from an upcoming book by [Andy Greenberg](https://andygreenberg.net/), *Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency*, available November 15, 2022, in which he describes a crypto tracing case that took down the largest known child sex abuse site ever. (Andy is the author of two excellent books *This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information*, and *Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers*, which we highly recommend picking up.)

## Wildland AMA

We're excited to invite you all to our **first AMA of 2022! It will take place on Wednesday, April 20th at 6 PM CEST, on our Twitter (https://twitter.com/WildlandIO)** - we're looking forward to testing out the Twitter Spaces feature. We plan for Joanna, Julian and Andrzej to be there to talk about Wildland, the UDO, our plans for the future, and answer your questions. See you there!