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$5.49 per hour. That’s how much, on average, rideshare drivers in the Boulder-Denver Metro area earn, per hour, after accounting for expenses. In contrast, the minimum hourly wage in Denver is as of 2022 is $15.87. Rideshare drivers, unlike minimum wage workers, are independent contractors which means that they are...

What be learned from crypto projects that failed in practice but bear important lessons for future designs? Life in the world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies moves quickly. Projects come and go. In markets full of volatility and speculation, success or failure is not always the clearest indicator of the quality...

We at MEDLab are proud to have had the opportunity to produce the 2022 Public Benefit Report for the Colorado Sun, a pioneering, journalist-owned news organization that is strengthening the information ecosystem statewide. This report helps fulfill the Sun's obligation as a Colorado Public Benefit Corporation, an incorporation structure that...

Background Last year, Smart Contract Research Forum provided a grant to CommunityRule, an open-source Web app led by MEDLab at CU Boulder meant to serve as an interface for community governance design. The project was led by Deacon Rodda at SQGLZ , and I have already shared Deacon’s brilliant reflections...

In February, we announced an open call for Sacred Stacks, an invitation to " Bring Decentralized Tools to Your Community ." We were astonished by the response. Around fifty communities applied for only three available slots. Clearly, there is a widespread need and curiosity for support in exploring emerging technologies...

Everyone seems to have an opinion about blockchains and cryptocurrencies these days; we have lots of them ourselves. Above all, we see these technologies as an open question, where organizational designs of the future are being invented—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. One Colorado-based blockchain project we have worked with...

What are the consequences of relying on tools controlled by someone else? Often those in control are corporations whose values may differ from those of the communities that rely on them. Debates are escalating among artists, activists, and technologists about buzzwords like "decentralization," the "metaverse," and "web3," but can any...

The Exit to Community Collective (E2CC) is working to further the implementation of Exit to Community (E2C) initiatives—efforts to enable startups and other organizations to evolve toward ownership and control by their closest stakeholders. Since 2019, MEDLab has been advancing the E2C idea , particularly in collaboration with Zebras Unite...

CommunityRule is a Web app we've been building at MEDLab to help communities design, edit, and share their own governance systems. You can think about it as an effort to re-think the idea of bylaws in an Internet-native way. It's something that could be useful for all kinds of virtual...

Modpol is a self-governance toolkit for communities in online worlds. We are creating the first implementation in a multiplayer game called Minetest . Consider a group of friends meeting for a picnic in the park. How do they make decisions, such as where to lay down their blanket, or when...