Paper short abstract:

Synergy explores an alternative paradigm of cooperative financing where entities with common ethical and societal values network and transform their common clientele into a supporters pool. The funding mechanism is redefined as a shared common, governed by the network of communities.

Paper long abstract:

Cooperative operation is not driven by traditional investment incentives and cannot be understood through the profit maximisation objective. As ownership and operational goals are not connected to stock value, cooperatives are facing limited access to private funding. This is considered to be one of the main growth barriers for this alternative economic model, especially in an environment of economic stagnation.

A cooperative ourselves we worked with other cooperatives in Athens, Greece on developing a socio-technical infrastructure to assist us on facing these pressing issues. Following a co-design process we created Synergy, a Financial DLT Open Source toolkit for networks of communities offering Loyalty, Microcredit and Equity services while materialising a veiled cryptocurrency concept.

Synergy reconfigures and combines existing practices with innovative technologies in order to generate a new paradigm for cooperative financing: entities with common ethical and societal values network and transform their common clientele into a supporters pool. Supporters become involved, enjoy the rewards of their loyalty and fund the development of the community by acquiring tokenized future products. The funding mechanism is redefined as a shared common, governed by the network of communities.

Such a socio-technical intervention can be perceived as an alternative paradigm for financial operations in a post-capitalist world where investment is not regarded as means for wealth accumulation but as an act of mutual aid aiming for common prosperity. Valuable insights have been produced from the co-design, the development and the ongoing implementation process of the toolkit regarding technical, economic, socio-cultural and legal aspects.