Neighbourhoods, a project built using Holochain, is entering an exciting stage in their journey delivering local-first community alignment tools. Referring to it as their ‘Year of the Pilot’, later this summer they’ll be holding an IPO for Neighbourhoods Bazaar Ltd on Catalist, a New Zealand/Aotearoa stock exchange. We’ll discuss it, the swap $NHT holders can make for shares in the Bazaar, and how to participate in the IPO!
Here’s a little background (if you’d like to skip ahead to the news about the IPO scroll down to the bolded paragraph):
In November 2021, Neighbourhoods launched their ERC-20 $NHT token in a Community Offering that was filled within hours. Since then they’ve been further developing, building and testing their social coordination framework.
It’s designed to offer new coordination patterns to groups by harnessing what they value and feel is important in their digital neighbourhood. Organisations and communities can use Neighbourhoods' dashboard to define and create their own cultural online spaces. Use cases can vary from light-hearted social applications, to resource sharing and even commercial transactions like P2P lending and establishing supply chains.
Community Activators play a key role in coordinating the groups’ spaces by formally articulating 'resources' which can be any kind of data or media element. They help to build and maintain the space by layering assessments, building local algorithms, membrane controls and governance for the 'neighbourhood'. The Bazaar will host template libraries and connect folks so they can learn from each other’s experiences.
Describing Neighbourhoods’ unique proposition among the emerging Holochain projects providing groupware to communities Emaline Friedman, Head of Comms and Partnerships, said;
“Neighbourhoods’ focus is on feedback loops in social spaces. Its early functionality helps groups plug and unplug forms of feedback appropriate for the task at hand (e.g. priority ratings, votes, vouches, emojis, scales, etc.). In this way, coherence and shared attention on community initiatives enables groups to get more done together.”
Neighbourhoods’ Bazaar, the platform’s applet or module marketplace (discussed in our newsletter in September 2023), is designed to be a place third-party developers can offer their applets to Neighbourhoods platform users. Applets, like the apps on your phone, can perform all sorts of tasks. Some might be for messaging, or others social feeds, they could be trackers for time contribution, or even tools for coordinating commercial activity. All are cleverly integrated to the ‘Neighbourhood’ you share with your group and where your collective data is hosted using Holochain’s P2P framework.
To encourage the development of a wide variety of applets and true to their ethos of reaching a wider community groups around the world, the Neighbourhoods framework has radically simplified module development. Developers will be able to contribute to the marketplace with basic frontend framework skills, without familiarity with Rust!
Designed to be responsive to the platform users’ needs, the Bazaar uses $NHT as a settlement currency to galvanise the creation of applets. Developers and communities will be able to request a variety of currencies, though $NHT is favoured with no transaction fees throughout the platform. Rumours are they’ll also announce interesting innovations around this soon, so stay tuned!
The Neighbourhoods team are continuing to offer their high-touch pilot program for interested people who have a large or small neighbourhood group, organisation, etc., that they'd like to test on Neighbourhoods. Connect with the team on their Discord server if you’d like to apply! You can read more about how groups across the world are using Neighbourhoods here.
Stepping into this new phase, the Neighbourhoods team has been working to ensure their Initial Public Offering (IPO) reflects their commitment to growing as a community-owned and governed project. Neighbourhoods Bazaar Ltd will represent an evolution in the project, where funders will be able to vote on and steer the direction of the project alongside the Neighbourhoods Foundation and even access reserves.
$NHT holders will have the opportunity to play a more active role in this new phase of the project! Neighbourhoods are offering a unique swap mechanism where token holders can exchange tokens for equity shares in Neighbourhoods Bazaar Ltd at a ratio of 1,000 $NHT to 1 share.
In addition, it will augment Neighbourhoods’ credentials by operating within globally regulated markets offering reassurance to user groups. This considerable step, and all the auditing and reporting it entails, will help the entire user base have confidence in the platform, the Bazaar, the $NHT currency and connect them with a wide variety of funding and academic institutions worldwide.
Holding their decentralising roots close, the Neighbourhoods Team are blending their model of ethical locality and verifiable integrity with access to global ESG capital funds. Aiming to catalyse a more culturally sustainable investment model by operating in New Zealand’s regulated market, Neighbourhoods Bazar will activate engagement with more established jurisdictions and capital resources. By truly democratising sustainable development, communities and funding organisations can collaborate using the Neighbourhoods platform to meet real needs on mutually agreeable and verifiable terms rather than having to compromise their distinct identities or dismiss the enterprise entirely as unworkable.
To manage the IPO, Neighbourhoods are working closely with Catalist, a New Zealand/Aotearoa stock exchange with nearly $1bn under administration, that’s fully regulated by the NZ Financial Markets Authority. Founded by a previous chair of the Authority, Catalist was created to address the limitations that capital markets often present to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A feature of their marketplace is that sales are offered through periodic auction windows designed to offer all participants an equal opportunity to get involved. Secondary markets are also offered by Catalist, potentially allowing holders an exit mechanism in the future.
Share sales and swaps are not limited to individuals located in NZ or existing $NHT holders. New entrants and those who wish to supplement their existing holdings will be able to use Catalist to purchase shares too!*
If you’d like to participate in the IPO, Sid Sthalekar, Co-Founder of Neighbourhoods Foundation, recommends you register with Catalist in advance to ensure you have time to complete their verification processes. Ensuring their market is open to a wide range of investors, the team from Catalist have consciously included criteria that should include most people. There is no minimum investment level and participation is encouraged from all those who wish to; the team welcomes a diverse shareholder community!
In their IPO announcement the Neighbourhoods Team have stated:
“If you hold $NHT, you will soon receive an invitation link to register on Catalist. You will also have the opportunity to check your allocation based on our historical snapshot of NHT holdings, prior to exchanging tokens for shares. We will also provide support documentation (FAQs) to guide to $NHT holders through the process. Based on feedback from community members, this swap is being structured as an extended offer. This is being done to provide sufficient time for migration to the new platform. We urge you to take your time through this swap. Please note that trading and liquidity will migrate away from older exchanges to Catalist during this period.”
User-orientated cultural empowerment runs throughout Neighbourhoods approach, from their foundational ‘social sensemaker’ to the projects they’re actively engaging with. As they step into this new era, Neighbourhoods’ unique platform offers users open, collaborative ways to engage, scale on their terms and offer their verifiable, secure, data to global partners. Neighbourhoods are bridging the inherent mistrust in the trustless economies enabled by Web3. Now, with their IPO and swap mechanism, they continue to innovate with sensitivity and scale the organisation mindfully.
Remember, Neighbourhoods can also do the lighthearted stuff like sharing memes, or organising a book club - check out their demo!
Neighbourhoods is thriving! To find out more about their IPO, register your details using the form here!
Useful Links:
Neighbourhoods’ IPO Interest Form
What is Neighbourhoods? Guidebook
Neighbourhoods YouTube Channel
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