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Trust by Protocol

Article Jason Collins

Estonia's internet voting system represents a deliberate engineering of trust through protocol design, where digital procedures replace the legibility and visibility of traditional polling stations. By making the voting process itself a sophisticated yet understandable protocol, Estonia demonstrated that legitimacy in elections can be transferred from physical ritual to cryptographic procedure.

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Disentangling the State of Climate

Cory Levinson surveys the current landscape of climate protocols, tracing how carbon markets and DeFi have collided since 2023, with projects like KlimaDAO absorbing millions of carbon credits into blockchain form and Regen Network expanding into biodiversity markets. The piece examines how these protocols are attempting to create durable market mechanisms for environmental assets despite fundamental challenges in traditional carbon crediting.

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Salon VI: Fire Protocols & Attention as Autopoietic Space - 2024 Protocol Symposium

Natalia and Jordy present their wildfire protocol research, combining California prescribed burn management with cultural practices. They explore fire as both a practical governance challenge and a metaphorical concept, situating their work within the Protocol Institute's boots-on-ground protocol improvement projects focused on real-world fire management and Indigenous land stewardship.

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Good Death

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