Meet the Humans Behind the Commons Stack!
This story was originally published on Giveth on September 17, 2019. You can find it here.
Now that we’ve shared our vision for the Commons Stack and our strategy for implementing it, we thought it was time to introduce the people who will bring these plans to fruition.
The Commons Stack core team is made up of token engineers and decentralized governance specialists who believe we can use software to help us establish quasi-circular economies that support important causes.
But we can’t — and won’t — do this complex and groundbreaking work alone. A select group of extremely qualified advisors has graciously agreed to support us through the multiple iterations of this development process. We expect that their guidance and their extensive collective wisdom will be indispensable as we work to design the very best commons management tools that we possibly can.
So check out the list, and if you happen to see any of us or our advisors at Devcon 5 or Diffusion 2019, say hi!
The Advisors
Simon de la Rouviere
A cross-disciplinary thinker and veteran of several notable blockchain companies, Simon came up with the concept of the token bonding curve. Naturally, we’re thrilled that he’s advising us on how best to build the next generation of this tool, which we’re calling the Augmented Bonding Curve. Simon also co-designed the widely-used ERC-20 token standard and co-founded the blockchain-based music platform Ujo.
Eden Dhaliwal
The Head of Cryptoeconomics and partner at Outlier Ventures, Eden provides the Commons Stack with critical insights on token economies and the design of decentralized entities. He also has extensive experience with many projects in the Web3 field, including as director of the board at Haja Networks.
Jordi Baylina
Jordi’s list of Ethereum credentials is too long to fit into a short bio, but it includes: co-founding the White Hat Group, and helping rescue funds during TheDAO Hack and the July 2017 Parity multisig hack; co-founding Giveth; developing the MiniMe contract and other notable smart contracts, including a solidity implementation of the elliptic curve secp256k; leading the teams that audited many well known systems in Ethereum, such as the MakerDAO Stable Coin (DAI) system and the Aragon project; and, as the founder and technical lead at Iden3, making important advances in the use of zero-knowledge proofs to secure user privacy.
Trent McConaghy
Trent is the founder of Ocean Protocol, which acts as the backbone for a decentralized data economy. His storied career in AI includes publishing several books on the subject and using the technology to improve chip design. In addition to the Commons Stack, he also advises several national governments on technical matters, including Estonia and Germany.
Luke Duncan
Luke is a core contributor at Aragon, where he leads research initiatives related to decentralized governance. He also founded 1Hive, an organization dedicated to creating software for digital cooperatives that help open source contributors get paid for their work.
Abbey Titcomb
A versatile mind who gets involved in all kinds of boundary-pushing projects, most recently OScoin, Abbey has been instrumental in developing our concept of the Augmented Bonding Curve. She is constantly building amazing things and getting people excited about cutting edge ideas.
Patrick Storchenegger
Patrick is a member of our legal council, and the owner and manager of the PST law firm based in Zug, Switzerland. He specializes in matters relating to fintech and cryptocurrency as well as other topics, such as international tax law.
Raphael Bauman
Raphael is also a lawyer with PST. He specializes in matters relating to blockchain technology, among other areas. Additionally, he is a member of the Crypto Valley Association’s Regulatory Working Group and its Security Token Offering taskforce.
The Core Team
Griff Green
Griff is a well connected and respected leader within the Ethereum community and has been orchestrating the effort to make the Commons Stack a reality. As community manager for Slock.it and TheDAO, he led every angle of the cleanup effort following TheDAO Hack. He co-founded the White Hat Group, which secured the at-risk funds (10% of the total supply of ETH) during TheDAO hack and rescued $210 million dollars worth of crypto assets following the Parity Multisig Hack one year later. In 2016, Griff founded Giveth, a smart contract platform that radically empowers individuals and communities to affect real change in a transparent, decentralized way. The Commons Stack is the natural progression of Giveth’s efforts to build the future of giving. Griff has been involved in dozens of other projects as well, most notably DAppNode, Iden3 and ETHSignals, all of which he helped to initiate and continues to support in an advisory capacity.
Michael Zargham
Zargham is the founder and CEO of BlockScience, an engineering R&D, and analytics firm focused on the design of complex systems. As the Ecosystem Architect of the Commons Stack, he is leading the process of designing its components and will also play a crucial role in designing the different ‘field test Commons’ that will be launched as we reach different stages of the development process.
Bernd Lapp
Our president Bernd (a.k.a Coach B) comes to us with extensive experience in the blockchain space, including a stint as an advisory board member to the Ethereum Foundation. He’s also the president of Swarm City for the last several years, co-founded the Blockchain on Tour Latin America Conference, and is involved in AVADO, among many other projects. His grounded perspective and deep knowledge base make him an ideal choice to head up the Commons Stack Association.
Jeff Emmett
Jeff is without question one of the catalyzing forces behind this project. His research and writings, which were largely inspired by Simon de la Rouviere and Michael Zargham’s early research on cryptoeconomic primitives, caught Griff Green’s eye and sparked the collaboration that has crystallized into the Commons Stack. He continues to shape our ever-evolving vision, translating the latest token engineering research into open-source public goods.
Max Semenchuk
Max has one of the longest lists of projects in the Ethereum space, and has founded or is involved in running several organizations, including the DGOV Foundation, ETHSignals, and 4ire Labs. He single-handedly produces the DGOV Newsletter, a vital and remarkably thorough resource for the decentralized governance community, and frequently participates in events such as the 2019 Web3 Summit, where he ran the decentralized governance node and packed the program with an incredible list of speakers and panels. In addition to his focus on DAOs and decentralized governance experiments, Max also embraces the holacracy methodology, which informs his work with the Commons Stack.
Stefaan Ponnet
Stefaan is a Solidity expert who contributes to a long list of blockchain projects, including Swarm City and AVADO, which he co-founded, and Giveth, among others. He has several years of experience experimenting with DAOs, and will therefore be offering the Commons Stack not just his coding prowess, but also his insights on matters relating to decentralized governance.
Lorelei Loie
While continuing to hold down the fort at Giveth, where she facilitates team governance (among many other responsibilities), Lorelei sits on the Commons Stack Board. In this capacity, she does the bulk of our administrative work and helps guide important decisions about our direction. Her background as a community manager also makes her a natural mediator when questions about internal governance arise.
Kris Decoodt
As the Commons Stack communications lead, Kris is very much the driving force behind our public outreach efforts, just like he is at Giveth, where he simultaneously holds the same role. His previous work experience includes communications positions at Swarm City and Microsoft, where he was Digital Marketing Lead. An empathetic communicator and a curious mind, Kris brings a vital passion that helps us constantly refine both our message and our mission.
Kay Gertler
Kay is handling deployment and sysadmin tasks, as well as doing frontend development for the Commons Stack. He’s been part of the project since the beginning, and before that, he worked with many of our other core members at Giveth, where he was also one of the first people to join the team. Before joining Giveth, Kay earned a long list of credits working in professional film production. He’s a lifelong hardcore computer nerd and deeply original thinker who brings a wide range of carefully considered notions about the world to bear on the software he builds.
Adam Reese
Adam contributes to Giveth, DAOincubator, and the Trojan Foundation, among other projects. In a 2019 book published by MIT Press, he argues that the blockchain space needs more non-technologist voices to help the technology mature in a healthy way. He believes that among other benefits, the types of ‘cyber-physical commons’ we’re working to build could open up the space’s doors to people with more diverse forms of experience and expertise.
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To learn more about the Commons Stack, check out our article series on medium, where we describe our overall mission and the specific tools we are building.
Join Us
👉 By applying to become a Member of the Commons Stack you will help us help you realign our economies to re-prioritize people and the planet. You can do this here: commonsstack.org/apply.
- Read more about what the Commons Stack is building
- Join the Commons Stack community on Telegram or Riot
- Follow the Commons Stack on Twitter
