Over the last few years, the DRC has gained a reputation for creating full stack responses to the decentralization issues of the day. We’re still working on that. That central concept, to create a throughline from concept to advocacy, is an approach that we would like to foster across the community. And so we started the DRC Grant, currently in its inaugural year. This blog post is to give some background on us and what we do, why we think this grants program is the natural next step, and some examples of projects that align with what we’re looking for. Hopefully, this will be helpful to applicants and other organizations considering the same issues. 

Who We Are and Why a Grants Program

The Decentralization Research Center (DRC) is a 501(c)(4) social welfare non-profit that advocates for decentralization as a fundamental characteristic of emerging technologies. This includes the development of blockchain protocols and applications that are immutable, censorship-resistant, transparent, secure, and enable data self-sovereignty. That’s the formal definition of what we do. Our main job is connecting stakeholders and creating opportunities for innovators to collaborate, gain momentum, and guide the ownership, governance, and regulation of emerging technologies towards decentralization. Having the right policy in place is what can give builders the space and incentives they need to do their best work. We’re here to advocate for that policy.  

So, along with our continuing in-house work, this grants program feels like the right next step. We believe that this program can help us: 

a) increase the production of research we find valuable,

b) provide support for the community already working on these issues, and

c) broaden our advocacy efforts.

Simple as that. 

Examples of Research and Advocacy

So, what might an example of such a project look like? We have written a number of papers that connect technology, governance, and policy. In Toward Equitable Ownership and Governance in the Digital Public Sphere, we looked at DAOs as natural digital allies to traditional co-ops, two organizational forms that have member voting rights as central to their governance. We explored the ways in which blockchain technology was being used to experiment with and modernize how member-owned organizations operated, and advocated for policy that clarified the legal status of DAOs and allowed for their continued experimentation.

In AI and Democracy’s Digital Identity Crisis, we looked at the threats that AI poses to digital identity, advocating for decentralized identity attestations and systems that protect people from AI impersonation and disinformation campaigns while protecting their identities. Our fear was and is that governments would reach for centralized versions that would not only fail to solve the problem but make people’s digital identities even less secure. 

Designing Policy for a Flourishing Blockchain Industry offers a narrower, more targeted example of our policy work. In it, we advocate for a control test for decentralization as part of CLARITY. It focuses on blockchain technology, its control and governance, and very specific policy recommendations. We continue to use this as a central reference point for our advocacy on the Hill and our discussions with the SEC and CFTC. For those of you applying from the policy/legal side of research, this document could be particularly helpful. 

Next Steps

For us, the work continues, and we will continue to expand our own portfolio by tackling decentralized AI, digital identity and privacy, and how blockchain-based organizations are owned and regulated. These papers and our ongoing efforts are there to demonstrate the type of work we do, but applicants should not feel limited by their approaches or scope. We are looking forward to a spectrum of applications and applicants, long-established teams and new collaborators. And we look forward to learning from you and your approaches so that we, as a community, can continue to get better at researching and advocating for the decentralized technologies that, we believe, offer distinct advantages across a broad swathe of emerging technologies. Thanks for applying and, whether or not yours is a project we end up supporting, all the best and good luck.

Application here.