Hi everyone — Monty here.
I’m one of the CeloPG core stewards (since inception). I haven’t participated in this thread so far as I was heavily oversubscribed toward the end of last year and then took a full break over the holidays to properly recharge.
I’m supportive of clearer, shared guidelines around disclosure, conflict of interest, and reporting. I think it should be applied evenly across all initiatives but I also recognise that working in DAO contexts often comes with higher expectations of transparency and documentation than other roles. So I think it’s important that I respond. Not just to clarify facts, but to share how I see this moment for Celo, ReFi, and the work many of us are trying to do.
My org affiliations and roles
I think it’s pretty normal in Web3 and early-stage ecosystems for individuals to contribute across multiple projects in different capacities. CeloPG was never scoped as a full-time role for me; I’ve consistently operated as an ecosystem operator designing programs, incubating initiatives, and collaborating across teams. I accept the core principle raised in this thread that when people hold multiple roles, we need to be especially mindful about conflicts of interest and act with integrity, but I also think that in a small and emerging ecosystem it’s impossible (and unrealistic / undesirable) to eliminate all overlap.
Below is a disclosure of my core affiliations and role in each.
Celo Public Goods (CeloPG)
Role / Affinity: Core steward (since inception)
Co-designed and stewarded multiple ecosystem programs focused on measurable onchain outcomes, builder support, and ecosystem growth. Supported integration and coordination with ecosystem tooling partners (e.g. impact tracking, reputation, and program infrastructure). And much much more, see all CeloPG retrospectives from past seasons (H1 2024, H2 2024, Season 0 etc..).
Disclosure:
I have contributed as a core steward focused on ecosystem program design, coordination, and strategic development, alongside other ecosystem work.
ReFi DAO Global
Role / Affinity: Co-founder
Growing a global regenerative finance community spanning local nodes, builders, funders, and educators. Designed and coordinated ecosystem programs, events, and funding initiatives in the ReFi space. Produced public-facing educational content, research, and convenings advancing regenerative finance narratives. Acted as an incubation and coordination layer for multiple downstream ReFi initiatives and collaborations.
Disclosure:
ReFi DAO is one of my longest-standing commitments and where a significant portion of my time and energy has gone over the last several years. ReFi DAO Global has received no direct grants or payments from CeloPG.
Localism Fund
Role / Affinity: Co-founder
Launched Localism Fund in Q3 2025 as a place-based funding initiative. Designed and operated: Round 01 – Local Grant Programs: $125k allocated to 12 locally led grant programs across multiple regions, with 100% public, criteria-based evaluation coverage. Round 02 – Local Meetups LATAM (with Ethereum Everywhere): $30k supporting 10 grassroots meetup programs over 12 months. Established the Localism Fund Expert Network: 83 applicants → 36 peer-validated experts via TrustGraph → 14 active contributors. Produced open documentation, evaluation reports, and synthesis insights to support learning, replication, and accountability. 
Full details: Localism Fund 2025 – Initial Progress & Reflections Report
Disclosure:
Localism Fund received $35,000 from the CeloPG Season 1 Celo x Gitcoin budget bracket. This contribution helped catalyse a total of $275k+ in funding (all on-ramped and allocated on Celo), including co-funding from Gitcoin, Ethereum Foundation, Ma Earth, and $100k+ in local community co-funding. → This represents approximately 7.8× leverage on Celo’s capital contribution.
I have personally received 4,000 cUSD from the operational fee pool for launching Localism Fund and leading operations across two funding rounds which I believe to be materially below both the time invested and typical market rates for comparable program design and operations work.
Localism Fund had a specific evaluator conflict-of-interest policy and expectations, embedded in the Expert Network onboarding and review process (see Expert Onboarding Guide).
Regenerative .fi
Role / Affinity: Co-founder
Co-designing the strategic vision and architecture for Regenerative.fi as a combined ReFi Insights platform and market infrastructure, built on Celo. Authored and contributed to ongoing ReFi insights, blogs, and research publications synthesising trends across regenerative assets, Web3 public goods, localism, and capital flows e.g. State of ReFi 2024 and 2025 industry reports. Advanced thinking and experimentation around regenerative assets, liquidity, and capital coordination. Supporting early partnerships and integrations across the ReFi and Ethereum ecosystem.
Disclosure:
Regenerative.fi is an early-stage initiative I joined Luuk in co-founding. It is deployed on and explicitly aligned with Celo, focused on addressing structural gaps in Regenerative Finance (ReFi) research, market infrastructure, and capital coordination, with the goal of increasing liquidity, investment, and real economic traction for ReFi assets and protocols on Celo.
Ethereum for the World
Role / Affinity: Researcher
Leading applied research at the intersection of ReFi, Web3, and mainstream nature finance. Engaging with non-crypto stakeholders (foundations, nature-finance actors, institutions) to translate ReFi concepts into accessible frameworks. Developing research outputs intended to inform pilots, partnerships, and capital flows beyond the crypto-native ecosystem.
Disclosure: I am currently leading an externally funded research workstream titled “Bridging Worlds: Mainstreaming ReFi Web3 for Nature Finance.”
Additional Affiliations (Concise Disclosure)
The following are secondary or advisory / council roles, included here for completeness:
Prosperity Pass — Advisor (primarily in relation to CeloPG program design and ecosystem incentives)
Karma — Advisor (impact reporting, attestations, and program infrastructure)
TrustGraph — Implementation lead for Localism Fund Expert Network
Regen Coordination — Founding steward and council member (cross-network coordination layer)
Regen Commons — Elected as a council member (new role starting this year)
Income transparency
I file UK self-assessment and track income closely for reporting purposes so I can be concrete here. My income has come primarily from CeloPG and ReFi DAO, with smaller amounts from other work streams (e.g. Localism Fund, TrustGraph).
Tracking spreadsheet (income by source and year): Monty Consolidated Income
Summary:
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Tax year 2023/24: net income £31,045 (post-tax £27,831)
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Tax year 2024/25: net income £57,043 (post-tax £46,794)
For context, senior grants/program management roles in the UK typically sit around £50k–£90k, and Web3-native roles are often higher, particularly in US-remote contexts. While my time is split across multiple initiatives, I’m not drawing multiple full-time salaries.
It’s also worth noting that these headline figures reflect taxable income at the time of receipt, not realised personal gain. A significant portion of my compensation has been paid in CELO, which I have held rather than sold, and which has declined very significantly in value over this period.
A broader reflection: where I’m trying to take this work
I want to step back from the specifics and share the lens I’m operating from.
I know that ReFi cannot remain a small, grant-dependent crypto niche. If it’s going to matter, it has to become materially relevant to real communities and economies. That means surviving the current funding contraction and positioning aligned platforms, networks, and tokens to grow, attract mainstream partners, and generate durable economic value.
Achieving this requires demonstrating credible Web3-powered models, while also actively bridging philanthropic, catalytic, institutional, and public sources of capital that largely sit outside the crypto ecosystem today. A growing number of mainstream actors recognise that existing finance models are falling short, but Web3 remains difficult for them to engage with. Making the ecosystem legible beyond our bubble and creating partnerships is a core aim of my work.
A central through-line for me in this is Localism: the development and support of functional, place-based, Web3-enabled micro-economies where payments, savings, coordination, and reinvestment happen locally, retaining value in communities rather than extracting it via traditional intermediaries while also driving real blockchain adoption and measurable impact. This is also an area where Celo has a genuine strategic advantage through its ecosystem of regional stablecoins, mobile-first tooling like MiniPay, and demonstrated adoption across emerging markets — making it one of the few networks already positioned to support this kind of real-world, place-based economic activity at scale.
Closing
Celo is genuinely my cultural home in Web3. I share the view that we’re all riding the same bus and should be oriented toward making it succeed together. I’m keen to get back to the work of designing strong programs and delivering measurable outcomes in 2026.
If there are specific governance improvements (e.g., clearer network-wide CoI guidelines, standardised disclosure templates, etc..) that the community wants to adopt going forward, I’m supportive of working on that constructively, provided it’s applied consistently and without freezing ecosystem velocity.