Xavier Damman
Citizen, dad, entrepreneur, commoner, regen (twitter, linkedin, nostr).
Focus
I’m currently focusing my time, energy and resources on building tools for a regenerative future. How can we give citizens the tools they need to recreate community and rebuild resilience?
Investments
I’m primarily funding cooperatives (and digital cooperatives, aka DAOs) that contribute to the commons in the Brussels Bioregion. If you have a project on that theme, feel free to reach out (I’m xdamman on gmail/twitter/telegram/…).
Some ideas I’d love to fund and support
A local currency for Brussels, onchain
We need to reclaim our currency and use transaction fees, demurrage fees and yield to fund a transparent participatory budget. Part of it could be used for regular quadratic funding rounds (think Gitcoin), part of it could be used for Retroactive Public Good Funding (RPGF).
Current experiment: https://dao.brussels/zinne
I’d love to fund another experiment, to create a local stable coin (EURb) with a demurrage fee that would kick in after a year (i.e. money spent within 12 months is not taxed, but after, a 1% monthly fee for non using the money goes back to feed the participatory budget. This solves the issue of people losing their wallet, as money on those lost wallets would slowly go back to the main pool, but it also makes sure that we tap into the collective intelligence to allocate our common resources. If you have taken too much money from the pot, the community will (slowly) take it back and reallocate it collectively).
See the movie Shillings from Heaven / Wörgl’s Miracle and Bank of Dave.
👉update: we started https://pay.brussels
A Citizen Hub
We need a place to meet regularly, organise workshops. Ideally it has room for coworking, second hand shop, GASAP, Repair Café, podcast studio, co-living upstairs with regulars and guests who could stay.
It has to be super well located (location, location, location).
👉 update: we found a place! See https://commonshub.brussels
Citizen Eat (a local UberEats)
Why do I have to give 30% to Silicon Valley whenever I want to order food from a few kilometers away? That makes no sense.
See also: Peepl Eat in Liverpool (concept video).
A local blockchain for Brussels
e.g. Lugano’s plan B
Probably as an optimism fork (part of the superchain), but could also be a proof of Authority like they did in Lugano. This would be a piece of infrastructure on top of which other projects can emerge.
A local supermarket coop in Brussels city
A park slope style coop such as the Bees Coop in Schaerbeek.
Projects
Citizen Spring
I’m on Team Citizens. No politics, no bullshit. Just pragmatism. Doing the right thing for the community.
Citizen Wallet
Problems:
- It’s hard to create a community currency
- Web3 is obviously part of the solution, but existing crypto wallets are either designed for tech people or for traders.
Solution: An open source wallet for your community token.
👉 Slide deck: https://deck.citizenwallet.xyz
👉 Website: https://CitizenWallet.xyz
DAO.Brussels
How can we use the new coordination tools of web3 to create a more participative and regenerative city for all citizens?
Open Letter
Problem: open letters are a powerful way to bring about change. Unlike a petition, it’s not so much the quantity of signatures that matters (which favors popularity contests, populism) but the quality of them.
Solution: An open source website to create and sign open letters
Citizen Docs
Problem: how to quickly create a website for a new project with a few pages easily editable by anyone?
Solution: A google docs website generator
👉 https://github.com/citizenspring/pages
Examples:
Regens Unite
Bringing together climate activists, tech / crypto people, healers, platform coops, … everyone working towards a regenerative future with their own tools, their own piece of the puzzle. Time to unite 🔅
All for Climate
A shared non profit for climate movements and initiatives.
👉 https://dao.allforclimate.earth/results
Open Collective
Problem: how to quickly create a non profit organization for a group of people without all the bureaucracy?
Solution: Create virtual non profits on top of an existing non profit entity. Use a software platform to keep track of income and expenses of each virtual non profit.
Storify
Problem: how to give a quick snapshot of what people are sharing on social media about a particular event?
Solution: a platform to drag and drop tweets, instagrams, videos, and add a commentary to tell a social media story.
Started in 2010, sold in 2013, acquired and eventually shut down by Adobe in 2018.
Sports
🚴 Biking, 🏃 running, 🎾 padel, tennis, 🏓 ping pong, …
Inspirations
📚 Books
- Sacred Economics, Charles Eisensten
- Who do we choose to be, Margaret J. Wheatley
- Leadership and the new science, Margaret J. Wheatley
- Reinventing Organizations, Frédéric Laloux
- Work with source, Tom Nixon
- The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho