The Ontological Question at the Heart of Programmable Money
We’re still discovering what ADA is. Some experience it as money. Others as investment. This isn’t merely semantic—it’s a question about how value and meaning emerge in decentralized systems.
What I’ve learned is that this ambiguity reveals something important: formal mechanisms coexist with social layers where shared understanding gets negotiated. When we can’t rely solely on code to determine outcomes, tacit capital—relationships, context, access to conversations—becomes part of how coordination happens.
This matters to me personally because understanding these dynamics is essential for making informed decisions about participation and contribution.
CIP-1694: A Number That Invites Reflection
The Cardano Improvement Proposal that became foundational for Voltaire—our governance era—is numbered 1694. The same year the Bank of England was founded.
I don’t know if this was intentional, but the resonance is worth contemplating. As we build decentralized governance, we might ask: what patterns from centralized institutions are we unconsciously carrying forward?
This isn’t a criticism—it’s an invitation to examine our assumptions about how power and coordination work.
What Civics Committee Taught Me About Information Flow
I ran for a Civics Committee seat because I wanted to understand Cardano’s governance more deeply. I value transparency as a foundation for informed participation.
What I’ve observed: Information moves through multiple channels—formal processes, but also relationships, conversations, and social contexts. This creates natural information gradients where some participants have more context than others.
I haven’t signed NDAs here, but through conversations and public spaces, I’ve begun recognizing patterns in how decisions get shaped before they reach formal governance mechanisms.
This isn’t necessarily problematic—all organizations have informal coordination. But in a system designed around decentralization, understanding how informal influence works is part of governance literacy.
A Recent Conversation That Surfaced Questions
In a public X space recently, I heard discussion about founding entity influence on network direction. The conversation suggested that some coordination happens through channels that aren’t fully visible to the broader community.
This made me curious about how we balance organizational efficiency with the transparency that legitimizes decentralized governance.
I’m not suggesting bad faith—organizational complexity naturally creates information asymmetries. But recognizing these patterns is the first step in addressing them constructively.
Understanding Why Contributors Transition Out
Cardano experiences regular transitions where talented contributors move to other ecosystems or step back from active participation.
The common narratives focus on market conditions or individual choices. I want to suggest an additional lens: people make rational decisions about where their contributions can have the most impact.
When informal networks significantly shape outcomes, contributors without access to those networks may find their agency limited. This isn’t about blame—it’s about system design.
If we want to retain talented people, we might need to examine whether our coordination mechanisms enable self-determination for all participants, not just those with established social capital.
Supporting people’s right to make informed choices about where they contribute—including choosing to leave—isn’t unethical. It’s respecting their agency.
Gimbalabs: A Learning-Centered Model
I want to increase visibility for Gimbalabs, a lifelong learning community that has supported me through personal transitions and crises.
What makes Gimbalabs resilient isn’t funding or governance structure—it’s their commitment to capability-building as the core value proposition.
They focus on helping people become more skilled and autonomous rather than creating dependency on organizational resources or relationships. This model creates different incentives: people stay because they’re growing, not because they’re locked into patronage networks.
Gimbalabs demonstrates that transparency and open learning can be sustainable strategies, not just idealistic principles.
The Executive Director Election as an Opportunity
Intersect is choosing an Executive Director. This is an important moment for setting direction.
As someone focused on governance education, here’s what I believe matters most: Can leadership help us understand and address the gap between our formal governance mechanisms and the informal coordination that also shapes outcomes?
This isn’t about finding someone to blame or fix problems immediately. It’s about whether leadership can facilitate honest conversations about how power and influence actually flow through the system.
An Executive Director who can name these dynamics thoughtfully—who can help the community develop shared language for governance literacy—would be invaluable.
Governance Education as Contribution
My value to Cardano is governance education. I’m trying to help us develop clearer understanding of how coordination actually works, beyond the formal mechanisms.
Here’s what I’m learning through Civics Committee participation:
- Informal coordination coexists with formal governance. Both matter, and understanding their relationship is essential.
- Information asymmetries are natural but consequential. They affect who can participate effectively.
- Pattern recognition is a skill we can develop. We can learn to see how influence flows even when it’s not explicitly documented.
- People’s decisions to leave contain information. They’re telling us something about system design, not just individual preferences.
- Transparency creates trust. In trust-minimized systems, visibility of coordination mechanisms is foundational.
A Different Frame for “Brain Drain”
When skilled contributors leave, we often frame it as loss or loyalty failure. I want to suggest a reframe: it’s feedback about whether the system supports self-determination.
If participation requires access to informal networks to be effective, and those networks aren’t easily accessible, then capable people will rationally choose environments where their agency is less constrained.
This isn’t about whether Cardano is “good” or “bad”—it’s about honest assessment. Do our coordination mechanisms enable diverse contributors to participate meaningfully? If not, how might we evolve them?
Supporting people’s right to make these assessments and act on them isn’t abandonment of community. It’s respecting that healthy ecosystems allow mobility and choice.
What Patterns Might We Examine Together?
The irony of CIP-1694’s number—matching the Bank of England’s founding—invites us to ask: what centralization patterns are we recreating even as we build decentralized systems?
The ontological question about ADA—money or investment—reminds us that meaning emerges through social coordination, not just technical specification.
The existence of founding entity influence alongside formal governance suggests opportunities to examine how we balance organizational memory and expertise with broad-based participation.
These aren’t problems to solve immediately. They’re patterns to understand together.
Moving Forward
I’m advocating for three things:
- Recognition of Gimbalabs as a model for learning-centered, transparent community building
- Reframing contributor transitions as system feedback rather than moral failure
- Leadership that can facilitate governance literacy, helping us understand and discuss how coordination actually works
The path forward isn’t about blame or radical disruption. It’s about developing shared language for the dynamics we all sense but might not have frameworks to discuss.
Real decentralization isn’t just a technical achievement. It’s an ongoing practice of making coordination mechanisms visible and ensuring they serve broad participation rather than narrow interests.
We can do this. The first step is building our collective capacity to see and name what’s actually happening.