The inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, believed the future of money should be free of control from entities who repeatedly prove they have their interests at heart.
For people to reclaim their sovereignty, the future needed to be decentralized.
Decentralization is a key word for blockchain enthusiasts but it need not be restricted to monetary systems - everything can be decentralized. However, it needs innovative thinking. Nexus is built using next-generation blockchain technology and creator Colin Cantrell believes the Nexus Social Stack is key to creating a new and unique worldwide social organization.
“Currently, we live under a top-down hierarchy which does little more than breed incompetence, nepotism, and internal corruption,” he explains. “Often, many at the top are not the best person for the role. They surround themselves with people loyal to them, and because they can’t maintain their positions with skill they resort to tricks and politics.
The social stack is fundamentally different; it’s a bottom-up structure where each layer represents greater merit and higher responsibility…where individuals are accountable to the layer below them rather than a perceived superior above. You don’t want the incompetent to rise. If you are competent, you should be response-able, you should be in a better situation to respond to an incident.
He goes on to say, “I’ve studied a lot of decentralized organisations where they want to do something without central leadership and CEO’s, most are flat or horizontal lattices which usually fail at around 1000 people because they don’t scale. It leads to miscommunication, deterioration of relationships, and hierarchies form as the environment implodes on itself.
To scale you need layers. Let’s say a single layer can handle 10 people, a double can handle 80, a triple 104, and quadruple 21,840 people. You can scale to the millions if desired.”
Each layer acts as a check and balance with the others in a Social Stack, creating social scalability. Fibonacci numerical sequences scale exponentially and Colin follows principles like Dunbar’s number, which states that the maximum number of stable relationships a single human can maintain is 144.
The inspiration for the design is all around us in the precision of our environment.
“Nature is built in layers of responsibility and less so of hierarchy, which is a construct. It doesn’t matter whether it’s infinitely large or small, we get repeating patterns over and over again. Your skeletal system is surrounded by your muscular system and then your skin and so forth. We are tapping into seeing humans as subsets, where a group of people form the whole cell and every aspect of the body is just as important as the other. If we think about our body, you could say that the neural transmitter between your heart and brain is the most important but if your lung cells rebel then you’re dead; it's over.”
Different people have different capabilities. It doesn’t make one person better or worse. It means that everyone has different roles. Nexus wants to create equal opportunity for everyone to flourish in the areas they excel, but those with the highest capabilities will rise the furthest.
Competence creates progression through the layers but it also brings greater accountability to every layer below them. That’s the design, it’s a true meritocracy where there is no entitlement. Merit is hard earned but easily lost in the cryptographically authenticated Social Stacks.
Nexus wants to bring a complete change of culture into the crypto space but Colin is convinced it won’t be all smooth sailing.
“We expect infiltration; the current system loves incompetence. They thrive on it. But our system will root out corrupt individuals and de-allocate their key. That’s what I love about it. For me mathematics is a higher principle and what we are building is guided by this higher purpose where code is law.
The right people can advance through every level, which begins at the grassroots community layer, through the creative layers, if that’s where they excel. But Social Stacks establish no ceiling and this meritocracy means no one is barred from progressing through Embassy or Ambassadors roles.
No one is assigned a function in organised societal groups. You can choose a role and the people you want to work with, allowing people to find that contentment that works for them.
The vision of Colin and the team at Nexus is massive. Their aim is nothing short of rebelling against the present system, which is not about to give way readily. They see little point fighting against a well-funded hierarchical system that wants nothing more than to keep the population in their place and keep the status quo going. Nexus wants to sidestep the current arrangement by building a better system alongside it right now. When the time is right, groups, towns, cities, and geographical areas will already have fairer systems in place as populations reject the existing order that doesn’t have their best interests at heart.
Nexus is for the disenfranchised, for people so trapped in the system that they can’t imagine a better life. The future is being built right now by people like you; it’s a place where your skills are essential for the whole community, and for you to find the use that helps make everyone the most fulfilled.
Nexus has a vision of a world inspired by innovation and responsible values. It aspires to see the development of expansive technology and the fundamental quality of connection being ubiquitous, free, and available to everyone. This project is developing technology designed to simplify lives, empower communities, and streamline business. It embodies the founding principles of Satoshi Nakamoto that returns power to the people.
