A Plurality Atlas

Who is Puja Ohlhaver?

Co-author, with Glen Weyl and Vitalik Buterin, of the 2022 paper "Decentralized Society" (DeSoc). The paper proposed bringing into money-centered Web3, built around tradable tokens, a way to represent trust and relationships between people. Ohlhaver also took part in writing the book *Plurality*.

In the world of blockchains, tokens (digital tickets) can normally be bought and sold. But some things cannot be bought and sold, such as your education, your affiliations, or promises between people. This is one of the authors of a paper that turned its attention there.

In short

Puja Ohlhaver wrote the 2022 paper "Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul" with Glen Weyl (E. Glen Weyl) and Vitalik Buterin [1].

The paper proposed bringing a way to represent human relationships, "who trusts whom", into Web3 (services built on blockchains, that is, shared records of transactions), which had centered on trading transferable assets [1].

Connection to Plurality

One of the book's writers. The book Plurality records its contributors in the "⿻ credits". Ohlhaver is listed under "Writing", with a holding of 28.08 as of early April 2024 [2]. → ⿻ credits

Author of papers the book cites. Chapter 4-1 of the book, "Identity and Personhood", cites the DeSoc paper in its footnotes [3]. Chapters 4-3 (Commerce and Trust), 5-6 (voting) and 5-7 (Social Markets) also refer to this paper in footnotes [4][5][6].

Chapter 4-1 also cites another paper, "Compressed to 0: The Silent Strings of Proof of Personhood" (2024), which Ohlhaver wrote with Mikhail Nikulin and Paula Berman [3]. It is a paper on proof of personhood. The book cites it where it discusses a problem: schemes that protect privacy by using biometrics only for the initial registration of an account make accounts easier to steal or sell [3].

Affiliation (2022). In the author footnote of the DeSoc paper, Ohlhaver's affiliation is Flashbots Ltd. [7]

Moderating for RadicalxChange. On June 30, 2020, Ohlhaver moderated a conversation between Yuval Noah Harari and Audrey Tang in the RadicalxChange broadcast "To Be or not to Be Hacked? The Future of Identity, Work and Democracy" [8].

Main ideas

Soulbound tokens and a decentralized society (DeSoc). The DeSoc paper proposes tokens that cannot be transferred to others (soulbound tokens, SBTs). SBTs represent the commitments, credentials and affiliations held by an individual's account (which the paper calls a "Soul") [1].

According to the paper, SBTs represent the trust networks of the real economy and provide a foundation for establishing provenance and reputation. They can also be used for lending without collateral, for recovering a lost wallet (account) through one's peers, and for decision-making that resists impersonation [1]. The paper also lists, as one such mechanism, Quadratic Funding that discounts donations between closely connected participants [1]. → Soulbound tokens

These ideas connect to the book's discussions of identity and personhood and ⿻ Voting [3][5].

Further reading

  1. Vitalik Buterin, "Soulbound" (English, blog, 2022-01-26; a short piece that preceded the DeSoc paper) — https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2022/01/26/soulbound.html
  2. Ohlhaver, Weyl and Buterin, "Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul" (English, paper, 2022) — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4105763
  3. Conversation between Harari and Tang (English, verbatim transcript, 2020-06-30, CC0) — https://archive.tw/2020-06-30-conversation-with-yuval-noah-harari
  4. Plurality, 4-1 "Identity and Personhood" (English, book) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/4-1/eng/
  5. Ohlhaver, Nikulin and Berman, "Compressed to 0: The Silent Strings of Proof of Personhood" (English, paper, 2024) — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4749892

Sources

  1. Ohlhaver, Weyl and Buterin, "Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul" (2022-05) — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4105763
  2. Plurality, ⿻ credits — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/0-3/eng/ ［CC0］
  3. Plurality, 4-1 "Identity and Personhood" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/4-1/eng/ ［CC0］
  4. Plurality, 4-3 "Commerce and Trust" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/4-3/eng/ ［CC0］
  5. Plurality, 5-6 "⿻ Voting" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-6/eng/ ［CC0］
  6. Plurality, 5-7 "Social Markets" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-7/eng/ ［CC0］
  7. Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul (listing page at Microsoft Research) — https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/decentralized-society-finding-web3s-soul/
  8. Conversation with Yuval Noah Harari (2020-06-30) — https://archive.tw/2020-06-30-conversation-with-yuval-noah-harari ［CC0］
Related: What are Soulbound Tokens (SBTs)? ・ What is Identity and Personhood (⿻ identity)? ・ What is proof of personhood? ・ What is Quadratic Funding? ・ What is ⿻ Voting (plural voting)? ・ What are ⿻ credits (Plural credits)? ・ Who is E. Glen Weyl? ・ Who is Vitalik Buterin? ・ What is RadicalxChange?

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