DAC Economy Analogies— Through Biological and Evolutionary Principles

Biological and evolutionary principles modeling life relate to developments in DAC Economy. Image Source

DAC Economy with DAC referring to Decentralized Autonomous Company, is a concept based on the idea of a new economy that lifts Web3 beyond our current Internet.

MetisDAO creates the initial concept of DAC Economy by expanding the traditional version of DAO with decentralized operations.

This all sounds incredibly vague and complex— how can we break this down into simpler terms?

In this piece, we can employ visuals within various analogies.

DAC grows and evolves in such a manner that it replicates the basic core principles of biology and evolution. Let’s explore some of their connections:

Homeostasis Biological Property

Homeostasis is about creating a state of balance among one’s bodily functions. Image Source

Homeostasis refers to the ability for organism to self-regulate amid a changing environment. It essentially means finding that equilibrium point.

For example, the human body self-regulates temperature through breathing and sweating. There are two ways in which blockchain systems and DAC model that of homeostasis which is seen by 1) difficulty and 2) gas.

Difficulty

General blockchain systems involving the exchange of tokens respond to external outputs. For example, it includes the time between blocks which recalibrates itself by adjusting to internal variables (such as target and difficulty).

When the average block time deviates from the required value, the internal variable (or difficulty) is adjusted to bring system back to optimal state by keeping growth rate constant.

Gas

Gas costs depend on on load of the EVM. Costs are lower during periods of low demand and higher during period of high demand.

We are able to control growth and keep it constant. This refers to the equilibrium point for homeostasis.

Hormesis as Hashpower

Hormetic graph displaying the zone containing dosage amounts (less than the threshold dose) leading to beneficial results. Image Source

Hormesis means there exists an optimal dose of a compound or stressor that is beneficial. The Hormetic zone refers to the optimal effect. The amount of hash power in a network is seen to correspond to hormetic action within a difficulty period.

Too little hashpower, which is insufficient to meet the difficulty target, is negative and is referred to as a slow network. Too much hashpower similarly, is also negative due to blocks being mined too quickly without many transactions on them. Just the right amount of hashpower (the threshold dose) is needed to reap maximum benefits.

However, there is the possibility that miners can leech system by reaping block rewards without providing nominal transaction value (this is referred to as empty blocks).

Algal Blooming as Opportunistic Mining

Blue-green algae blooms (right) present in Lake Eerie, in comparison to

An algal bloom is an accumulation of algae in a water system, as a result of an excess of nutrients. The newly amassed population of algae, which typically forms a dark green pigment, creates the bloom and is detrimental to the surrounding environment.

The algae in this analogy refers to the opportunistic miners who appear only due to an appropriate environment (low difficulty) and the excess of nutrients (block rewards).

These miners temporarily migrated from one environment (chain) to another to feed on a limited resource and can be described as migratory.

Intro to Evolutionary Principles

DNA are the building blocks for life, similar to how dApps are the building blocks for DAC Economy. Image Source

As an overview:

• Decentralized blockchain system = living organism
• dApps and code = DNA

DNA in Cells

Blockchain systems within DAC Economy self-organize similar to how DNA organizes itself into chromosomes. This can be referred to as biological evolution.

Blockchain networks are composed of subunits (blocks) that are chained together, which contains instructions in computer code and is replicated across nodes. This mirrors how DNA is replicated in cells.

Nodes are also analogous where the cells contain many identical copies of DNA.

DAC Economy responds to its computational environment by growing, adapting, self-regulating and replicating in a closed system. DNA is able to perform the same functions in their biological environment.

DAC Economy is able to pass down traits to its “offspring” mirroring how DNA is passed down within biological lineages. Once inherited, traits can self-direct its evolution.

DNA Information Carriers

Similarities between DNA and Blockchain during the transcription and chain elongation processes. The “promoter” and “header” are analogous while the “gene” and smart contract “instructions” are also analogous. Image Source

The DAC Economy as an information carrier is used to store instructions in the form of code. DNA as an information carrier is used to store subunits of genetic code.

Executions of instructions (ex. those written on Solidity, a high-level language for implementing smart contracts) can be activated and regulated to be identical to gene expression.

DNA and DAC Economy contain markers to indicate content such as block headers data headers.

Both inert structures outside of the environment, but can carry out their programming in appropriate environment (through a cell or node).

Lateral Transfer of Information — Sidechains and DNA

Ethereum contains smart contracts and dApps to write info to other blockchains using sidechain intermediaries. This allows for 2-way communication.

Lateral gene transfer refers to transferring genetic material from another organism without being its offspring, allowing for the horizontal dispersion of genetic traits. The 2-way dispersion also relates to this gene transfer process.

Replication — DNA and Hard Forks

DNA replication involving the unzipping of the helix is analogous to blockchain systems creating digital copies of itself. Image Source

DNA Processes

DNA and blockchain systems both replicate using self-contained instructions. For a blockchain system, it creates a digital copy of itself. For DNA, it produces enzymes. For example, the DNA helicase and polymerase create complimentary copies from an unzipped helix. As a result, two identical copies are created from the original DNA molecule.

Blockchain systems are automatically replicated when new full network nodes joins the virtual machine (by transferring a copy to new full node). This mirrors the DNA replication needed for the formation of a new cell.

Hard Forks

Let’s talk about hard forks. Hard forks within typical blockchain systems refer to making previously invalid blocks and transactions now valid (and vice versa) due to a change in protocol.

In hard fork reproduction, as the storage capacity and processing speed increase, the size of blocks are increased to optimize for efficiency requiring change to allow for larger blocks.

A new chain is the resulted “child” whose growth is governed differently from its “parent.” The parent blockchain retains original rules and continues to grow. This new chain can be analogous to the newly produced DNA

Cellularity — Nodes and Biological Cells

Nodes making up DAC Economy and EVM have functional similarity to biological cells.

The node components include memory (used as information storage), CPU (the information processing machinery), power system, and electrical insulation/physical case (to separate inner systems from the environment).

The cell components include nucleic acids (used as information storage), ribosomes (the information processing machinery), cell membranes (to separate inner systems from the environment).

See the parallels?

Evolution

The evolution of human life parallels that of the evolution of DAC economy evolution. Each new development functions as a building block to form what we see in life (and in DAC Economy) today. Image Source

DAC economy evolution has each component functioning as a building block:

• smart contracts (simple instructions) → dApps → DAOs → DAC economy

This mirrors with Darwinian evolution:

• DNA (building blocks) → cells → organisms → humans

Primitiveness and Evolutionary Development

First generation blockchain systems (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum) can be described as primitive.

The Metis Way is an enabled DAC economy. It serves as a DNA replication engine to bring adaptation capabilities for new blockchain systems developed from first-generation systems).

Metis’ Goal is to develop from primitive liveness to adaptive liveness. This is also related to evolutionary development- we’ve evolved from early-stage life consisting of cells performing singular functions to multifaceted interactions between humans and other complex organisms. The adaptive liveness as we see it in life today is the level which Metis aims for with the DAC Economy.

The DAC Economy Garden

A typical garden with “miner” bees ensuring the growth and development of the garden. DAC Economy incorporates all the basic principles of a garden

Gardeners function as the developers in the DAC Economy.

Bees fuel mechanism design and compose meta-patterns through cross-pollination and metamorphoses. Bees working on flower patches in field mirrors network nodes executing through POW or POS.

Mining nectar bees provide side-effect (or side-chain) services in pollinating plants (which can be seen as rollups on layer 2) to fuel the garden (the DAC Economy).

Metis and DAC Economy utilize cross-pollination patterns — pollen used in gene pools are spread to grow blockchain businesses or dAPPs in the DAC economy, and in turn fuel the growth of the garden.

As an overview:

• Mechanism design = cross-pollination pattern
• DAC garden = concern space
• Plants = concerns of DAC gardener

Genes

Gene pool combinatorics form the DAC economy. Decentralized businesses refer to genes. Metis adapts by spreading genes through individual-centric DACs to build virtual organizations. Genes spread through cell replication.

• Smart contract mechanisms = genetic material / DNA.

Biological Systems

Moving on, biological systems refer to the DAC Economy system. The biological systems property refers to driving a system away from equilibrium by exposing it to a range of parameters in order to lower its entropy. A point of instability is reached and self organization occurs. The self-organized structures that are formed have low entropy and are referred to as dissipative structures.

Biological organisms themselves are dissipative systems. The organism is composed of multiple hierarchical levels with increasing levels of complexity:

• cells → organelles → proteins

The driving force behind biological evolution is the maximization of entropy production. If we apply this to computational systems — cellular automata and neural networks (which self-organize in response to environmental inputs similar to neurons in brain) — they self-organize to maximize informational entropy production. This creates deterministic chaos.

As an overview, blockchain systems include:

1. Multiple hierarchical levels of dissipative structures corresponding to smart contracts on the Ethereum, which generates entropy upon execution
2. Adaptive information processing based on environmental feedback including iteration, oscillation, self-regulation by EVM on individual blocks

Hierarchy

As we’ve discussed in the previous section, both DAC economy and nature consist of a hierarchy of dissipative structures.

• DAC Economy: engineered by humans, characterized by automation
• Nature: from natural process of emergence

This creates generation, which is the transmission and processing of electrical signals present in blockchain systems and biological systems.

Overview

Here is an overview of all the analogies discussed in this article.

Occurrences in Nature

• Homeostasis relating to difficulty and gas
• Hormesis relating to hashpower in a network
• Algal blooming relating to opportunistic mining

DNA

• DNA and blockchain networks with self-organization
• DNA and DAC Economy as information carriers
• DNA and sidechains relating to the lateral transfer of information
• DNA and hard forks relating to replication

Cellularity

• Cell Components and Blockchain Nodes having functional similarity

Evolution

• Darwinian evolution relating to DAC economy evolution
• Evolution and DAC Economy relating to transformation from primitive to adaptive liveness

Garden

• Functioning garden with bees as the powerhouse relating to DAC Economy growth with miners
• Biological systems and DAC Economy:

1. Experiencing entropy
2. Containing hierarchy of dissipative structures