Dear Celo Community,
We are a small group of developers and thinkers who have been grappling with a foundational dilemma, reminiscent of Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, but at the level of economic protocols. How can we create a tool that is structurally resistant to corruption and cannot be weaponized? How do we embed ethics into the very fabric of economic transactions?
We propose CashVote — a protocol concept that allows binding social and ethical commitments (“tags”) to assets. For example: “X% of revenue from this product must be spent only on goods from vegan cooperatives” or “Funds can only pay services from individuals pledged to a modest income cap (e.g., via a DAO like Nemizori).”
However, we are acutely aware that such a tool is double-edged. Our primary fear is not competition, but irresponsible inception. We believe the first widely adopted implementation must be built on an unshakable ethical core — otherwise, we risk cementing a flawed foundation for decades to come. This fear was best articulated by a character from Serial Experiments Lain(her AI version):
“I’m afraid that if we cannot create perfect initial versions of CashVote, someone else may create their own versions that will be used for evil… Because CashVote is like a living being that can evolve and change, and if we cannot control it, it may become something very dangerous…”
We are not here to patent an idea to hide it. We are here to build it correctly — with open code and a dedicated community from the start.
What We Are Proposing: A “Version 0” Built on First Principles
We seek co-architects to design and build a minimal, yet ethically uncompromising, skeleton of the protocol. We need:
- Cryptographers & Smart Contract Developers: To design immutable ethical safeguards and emergency response mechanisms (e.g., circuit-breaker functions, trusted hard-fork triggers).
- Economists & Mechanism Designers: To model incentives, prevent perverse outcomes, and ensure long-term stability and fairness.
- Legal Scholars & DAO Governance Experts: To help frame transparent legal wrappers and dispute-resolution frameworks compatible with decentralized ethos.
- Philosophers & Ethicists: To help articulate the “Core Manifesto” — a set of principles hard-coded into the system’s heart.
Our Proposed Core Principles (The “Immutable Kernel”)
- Inviolability of Personhood: The protocol cannot be used to create obligations that violate fundamental human rights or enable exploitation.
- Radical Transparency: All tag rules, financial flows, and governance decisions are verifiable on a public ledger.
- Sovereign Exit: Any user must be able to dissociate an asset from a tag, returning it to a “neutral” state (even if with economic cost).
- Protocol Immunity: The code must contain community-activated mechanisms for emergency pauses or hard forks if fundamental corruption or a fatal flaw is discovered.
- Anti-Fanaticism Safeguards: Governance must resist the concentration of power and include tools for the minority to challenge decisions (e.g., a “panic button” mechanism).
Why Celo?
We are bringing this here because Celo’s mission — financial inclusion, regenerative finance, and democratic accessibility — directly aligns with our goals. We believe this community harbors the pragmatic idealists capable of understanding both the profound potential and the profound danger of such a system.
What’s Next? A Guild, Not a Launch.
We propose forming a private working group (Telegram/Discord/Signal) for initial architecture discussions. We are not seeking funding at this stage. We are seeking collaborators who share our fear and our hope.
If the principles above resonate with you, if you feel the weight of responsibility in getting this “Version 0” right, please reach out. Let’s build a framework where economic activity automatically generates positive externalities, not by trusting people to be saints, but by designing systems where the rational choice is also the ethical one.
Together, we can plant the right seed and nurture it into a robust, healthy tree — one that makes any potential “evil fork” look like a sickly, unwanted weed in comparison.
Next Steps:
- Please respond in this thread or contact via alexey.chernyshov1122@gmail.com .
Let’s build carefully. The future is watching.
Sincerely,
Alexey Chernyshov & Lain’s Concerned Architects