A living glossary for Ethereum Localism and cosmo-local collaboration.
This page is a collaboratively curated glossary of core concepts used across the Ethereum Localism and cosmo-local ecosystems. It exists to help us align language as we build together, because shared understanding is a form of coordination.
The terms collected here reflect an emerging field of practice, one that bridges decentralized technologies with place-based communities. Some may feel familiar, others new or evolving. Together, they form a working vocabulary for describing how global infrastructure can take root in local life.
Ethereum Localism is listed first as the anchoring concept. All other terms follow in alphabetical order.
Living definitions: This glossary is not fixed. It evolves with the communities using it. As language shifts through practice, so will these definitions. Contributions are welcome. Use the Edit on GitHub link at the top of the page to propose changes, or read the Contribution Guide to get involved.
For real-world applications of these concepts, see Field Reports and Implementation Guides.
Ethereum Localism
A movement to apply Ethereum’s decentralized infrastructure in service of locally grounded, participatory economies and governance. It uses programmable blockchains and peer-to-peer technologies to coordinate community-scale initiatives, fund public goods, and build transparent institutions, while resisting extractive, one-size-fits-all global systems.
Ethereum Localism is not about tech for its own sake. It is about using Web3 to deepen place-based relationships, enable networked mutual aid, and protect the right to self-organize. It treats Ethereum not just as financial infrastructure, but as a coordination layer that becomes meaningful when rooted in the lived realities of communities.
From the field:
“Ethereum as a substrate… localism is where that change really matters and needs to be rooted in place, in service of people and ecologies” -GFEL Boulder Opening
Bioregionalism
An approach to organizing human systems around natural ecological boundaries such as watersheds, landscapes, and climate zones, rather than arbitrary political borders. It centers stewardship of place, honoring the limits, cycles, and relationships that sustain local ecosystems.
Within a cosmo-local frame, bioregionalism is not isolationist but relational and networked, forming alliances across regions through shared learning, mutual support, and coordination.
Commitment Pooling
A community-led economic protocol in which people make, share, and track commitments to one another — often before any exchange takes place. These commitments may be for goods, services, time, or care, and can be coordinated through social agreements, local ledgers, or digital tools.
Developed by the Grassroots Economics Foundation, commitment pooling draws on longstanding traditions of reciprocity and mutual care, using modern tools such as mobile technology and blockchain to make these relationships more visible, accountable, and scalable.
It shifts the emphasis of economic life from transaction to relationship, and from profit to cooperative care, enabling communities to coordinate value through trust, shared memory, and collective responsibility.
Cosmo-Localism
"What is heavy should be local, what is light should be global and shared."
Cosmo-localism is a systems paradigm that combines local autonomy with global collaboration. It centers the local production and stewardship of physical goods—food, shelter, energy, and the like—while sharing knowledge, design, and coordination tools (open-source code, blueprints, cultural wisdom) globally through open networks.
The aim is to support communities in stewarding their own territories while participating in a shared global commons. In practice, this often takes the form of “design global, manufacture local,” where innovation is shared freely and adapted to local context. Local and global are not opposites, but interdependent layers of a single system, each strengthening the other through ongoing exchange and mutual support.
Read more: wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Cosmo-Localism
DAO
A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is a member-owned, member-governed group that coordinates decisions, resources, and actions without centralized control. DAOs use blockchain-based rules and smart contracts to manage shared treasuries, facilitate collective decision-making, and enable transparent coordination.
In Ethereum Localism, DAOs are often applied at the community scale, supporting local governance, mutual aid distribution, and place-based coordination. They combine Web3 tooling with real-world relationships, where trust, context, and accountability extend beyond the code.
In practice, many DAOs are evolving experiments in governance rather than finished systems, shaped by the communities that use them.
See also: Fun DAO for a low-barrier local DAO example.
Extitution
An organizational form that appears institutional such as a business, nonprofit, or government office, but is oriented toward open protocols and the commons rather than enclosure or profit. Extitutions repurpose existing structures to support shared, permissionless systems of knowledge, coordination, and practice.
They often operate at the edges of legibility, navigating formal requirements while maintaining openness and experimentation. In this way, extitutions balance institutional interface with protocol-native logic.
Extitutions are sometimes described as “hijacking instruments of enclosure” to protect and propagate free and open systems.
Key Sources: Primavera de Filippi, Jessy Kate Schingler; An Introduction to Open Protocols
Global Commons
The collective knowledge, resources, and protocols that are openly accessible and stewarded for the benefit of all. This includes open-source software, scientific research, climate data, cultural knowledge, and public goods infrastructure.
In cosmo-local systems, the global commons function as shared libraries of knowledge and coordination, enabling communities to draw from and contribute to a common pool while adapting solutions to their local context.
The health of the global commons depends on ongoing stewardship, contribution, and protection from enclosure.
Local Coordination
The human and technological capacity for self-organization at the community level. It includes how communities govern shared resources, distribute mutual aid, make collective decisions, and build trust in real time and place.
Local coordination is both a social and technical practice, shaped as much by relationships, culture, and context as by tools and systems.
Examples include:
- Neighborhood resource mapping
- Mutual aid logistics
- Local DAOs or co-ops
- Civic assemblies and relational governance protocols
Key Insight: Coordination is not just technical—it’s relational and cultural (GFEL Boulder Local Coordination Panel).
Mutual Aid
A practice of collective care and resource-sharing grounded in solidarity rather than charity or market exchange. Mutual aid networks organize horizontally to meet community needs, from immediate support in times of crisis to ongoing systems of care, while building lasting relationships of reciprocity.
In Ethereum Localism, mutual aid is both an outcome and a coordination challenge. It strengthens local bonds while inviting new tools for organizing resources, tracking contributions, and distributing support in ways that are transparent and inclusive.
Related terms: Commitment Pooling, Local Coordination, Networked Mutual Aid.
Mycelial Coordination
Inspired by fungal networks, this concept describes non-hierarchical, polycentric forms of coordination. Like mycelium, these networks connect diverse nodes such as people, projects, and regions through decentralized, adaptive, and trust-based pathways.
Mycelial coordination emphasizes resilience, responsiveness, and interdependence, allowing information, resources, and support to flow where they are needed without centralized control. It favors meshworks of care over rigid pipelines of command.
This pattern often informs Web3 governance experiments, regenerative networks, and ecosystem restoration efforts.
Learn more: MycoFi.earth
Narrative Shifting
The practice of challenging dominant cultural stories and co-creating new ones rooted in interdependence, sufficiency, and regeneration. It works by transforming the shared narratives that shape how people understand the world and their place within it.
Narrative work spans media, art, language, and myth-making, shaping what is seen as possible, desirable, and real.
See also: commonslibrary.org/narrative-change-start-here
Regenerative Infrastructure
Infrastructure, whether technological, social, or ecological, that restores, replenishes, and strengthens the systems it supports. Rather than extracting value, regenerative infrastructure is designed to circulate resources, build ecological resilience, and deepen social cohesion.
It operates in alignment with living systems, supporting long-term health, adaptability, and reciprocity across communities and environments.
Examples include:
- Community land trusts
- Local energy microgrids
- Distributed cooperative technologies
- Watershed stewardship models
See: the BioFi Project for bioregional financing applications.
Stakeholder Prototyping
A participatory design practice that engages all affected actors in imagining and iterating new governance, economic, or technical models. Participants may include local community members, organizers, builders, and other stakeholders connected to the system being designed.
It centers “prototyping with” rather than “designing for,” emphasizing collaboration, shared ownership, and learning through iteration.
This approach helps ensure that solutions are contextually grounded, inclusive, and able to evolve through ongoing feedback and real-world use.