Traducción en español abajo.
This is the first grant that we proposed to form the queer bank.
Team summary
The hackerspace from Costa Rica is a laboratory for experimenting with free technologies.
We have a virtual bunqueer in https://bunqueer.jaquerespeis.org and a non-virtual bunqueer in Barrio Escalante, in the center of San José. In these spaces we collaborate with our friends who bring varied skills and ways of knowing, we are always making remixes with everything and everybody that shows up. We hack technology, we disassemble, redesign, build, remix, and repair it to support our local non-digital interests, from music to agriculture, territory, language, and healing.
Project name
Banqueer: geographic diversity, censorship resistance, and UBI in Ethereum
Previous work
We have been working for 15 years promoting free software, free hardware, and free culture in Central America.
Currently we have active projects (tagged as “proyecto” in our bunqueer) focused on collaborative maps, the right to repair, book sharing, bartering, farmers markets, learning about technology and magic, translations and local radios:
https://bunqueer.jaquerespeis.org/tag/proyecto
What is the project
In the banqueer we share our abundance in small local spirals grounded in the history and economic cycles of the south.
This is the first part of the project. We will start running Ethereum validators from our homes and data center in order to be present and loud on this new global economy being built, to share the knowledge of the technical aspects of cryptocurrencies, to make sure that the system is geographically decentralized, and to spread the earnings with our community.
This grant is for getting one low-budget arm device to run one validator node in the Sepolia testnet. We will base our work on https://ethereum-on-arm-documentation.readthedocs.io/, we will document all our work in Spanish to be replicated by our friends from hackerspaces in Latin America, we will share the knowledge with the members of our hackerspace and form a core team interested in building the queer bank.
Phase 0, testnet
1 month
Test ethereum on arm. (this is the scope of this grant)
Once we have the validator stable and producing blocks, we will continue the next phases. We will ask for more grants, contributions and investments to support this work.
Phase 1, mainnet
3 months
Build 5 arm devices, spread them in different places in Costa Rica for geographic diversity, with different bandwidth, power supply, and technical experience for accessibility. This cluster will be one Ethereum mainnet validator using distributed validator technology for resilience, all possible combinations of client software for diversity, and proposing transactions from the mempool for censorship resistance. We will collaborate with open collective to make sure that we can receive funds and use them in a transparent and legal way.
Phase 2, rosca
9 months
The profit from operating the validator, plus donations, plus the resources from the team will be pooled for circular credits without interest. We will experiment about banking for well-being, will learn from ancient economic practices that resonate with the cycles of this land, will focus on healing our relations with all the vibrations that support us. We will collaborate with Ethereum to make sure that the protocol is inclusive and decentralized.
Phase 3, ubi
1 year
Share the abundance, turn the circle into a spiral. Start a universal basic income for all the contributors of the jaquerespeis. We will work with https://circles.garden/, expand our bartering market, make workshops in the communities of our friends, learn from their ways of existence, promote more validators seeded by the Latin American hackerspaces.
Phase 4, liquid
5 years
How do we relate with the global economy outside of our trusted spiral? How do we relate with the people who inhabit our non-virtual communities, or who have been dispossessed from their lands?
We can run more validators and mint a liquid token to reward investors. We will collaborate with rocket pool, lido and ethstakers. We can run nodes, sequencers, relays, builders, searchers, connecting to other chains, extract more value, and replicate the model.
What problems are being solved?
Validators are all in the north, all in a handful of corporate data centers, 2/3 controlled by Lido and Coinbase.
We will start a project to have low-budget validators in many houses in the south.
The first question: is the technology ready? That’s what we will explore on this grant. Collaborate with the client development teams to make sure that nodes can run in raspberry pis and similar devices.
Following questions: how can we fund the 32 eth? how can we spread and multiply the abundance that results from operating the node, how can we share our learnings about cryptocurrencies and the opportunities that result from not being enslaved to a local bank, to local capitalistic corporations, to patriarchal governments? how can we connect to local economies that are based on trust and do not require complicated cryptography? how can we connect to the global economy without replicating its violence? how can we do it without extracting every possible profit for individual gain? how can we do it without disconnecting ourselves from our land, our past and our future?
Why is your project important?
The ways of the north have been imposed on the south for 500 years. It has not worked. This land resists, it is generous, its cycles keep renewing it, its people resist and rebel. There is so much to learn from these ways of being. It is fundamental for a global economic system to be decentralized and allow others to participate. It is critical for the evolution of the system to integrate what these others have to teach us.
How does your project differ from similar ones?
ethstaker, eth on arm, lido, rocket pool, flashbots, ethereum foundation, client development teams will all be allies. We will start by testing their software, following their guides, and providing feedback based on the limited constraints of the operation from homes in the south. The following phases will be about integrating global crypto economies with local trust-based ancient economies.
Requested amount
USD 2000
Is your project a public good?
Yes. Everything we do will be publicly documented. We will contribute back to all the free software projects used. The node will be active in the Ethereum sepolia test network. The rewards will be shared with our community. We will support others who want to replicate and adjust the model to their context.
What are your plans after the grant is completed?
After making sure that the software and hardware are ready for mainnet, we will need to get $2500 for more devices, and 32eth for the stake. We will get more grants and open the project for donations for this phase.
After we have one node operating, it should be self-sustainable and a little profitable. To continue with the next phases, we will need more people to join the project.