ReFi

= "Regenerative Finance, a novel financial paradigm that integrates the goals of financial returns with a positive impact on social and environmental aspects". [1]

Context

Austin Wade Smith:

"We need to formulate a notion of prosperity which does not rely on a dualism of ecology and economy. What might we call that which stands outside this opposition?

Regeneration, as a philosophy and broader practice of systemic interrelation, offers a conspicuous path out. Long held as a core tenet of land stewardship and commonsing, the notion of regeneration has gained significant interest in the recent past among economic and decentralized finance circles. This movement, as well as the arguments of this piece, braid many lineages together, most notably the basic tenents of ecological economics. [[Regenerative Finance[[, or ReFi as many call is an attempt to reformulate our essential notions of value in order to leverage economic and market-based processes to heal a damaged planet.

We need to be talking about whether this is possible at all. If it is, we don’t have many chances to get this right."

(https://mirror.xyz/austinwadesmith.eth/1wdm8BNkLJWnnzwshtYEmHYlHaXxRF3bLEt4y4-9OE8)

Description

Joshua Davila:

"I think there’s a way to look at it very pessimistically and a way to look at it optimistically. For example, regenerative finance (ReFi) it’s generally more focused on finance as climate activism. It is not per se a new thing, but it is fairly new to the crypto world. It first started off really as: let’s tokenize carbon credits. They want to make carbon credit markets available to more people rather than just to corporations and their corporate responsibility, and then try to make it more of a market in order for people to drive up the prices of carbon and to make it profitable to do good. There is a certain amount of neoliberal ideology embedded in some of this that needs to be questioned, but there it has at least brought in a lot of people who are well meaning.

Since then, they are moving on to trying to do different things besides that. Some people who were involved in the beginning, realized it’s a little bit of a farce and they need to move on to other things that have been more interesting experimentations. Things that are perhaps more localized and looking at the difficulties with climate finance, which in many ways do come from regulation and basically using the technology to get around that. States are not really doing nearly enough to fight climate disaster, and so I can sympathize with the position that we need to do something now whether the law or regulations agree with that being done. If you can do it through technological means, why not just go for it?"

(https://networkcultures.org/moneylab/2024/04/10/you-shall-speculate-we-shall-coordinate/)

Discussion

A critique by Gregory Landua of the Regen Network

" ESG was elite ecology. ReFi became crypto cosplay. "

Gregory Landua:

" ReFi was supposed to be the alternative.

Instead it became:

1. Tribal blockspace warfare
2. Clout chasing
3. Vaporware ecosystems
4. Subsidized token flows
5. Zero curiosity about real communities or real finance needs
6. We “funded public goods” while building almost no user-facing goods.

Owocki’s critique is real — but the deeper issue is this: Optimizing for blockspace is backwards.

We should be optimizing for regenerative outcomes, increased evolutionary capacity, and financial flows to land stewards, not chain metrics.

Type 1 Ontological Error: Web3 kept asking, “How do we get users to use our chain?”

The real question is: “What do places, people, and bioregions actually need?”

Tools shouldn’t lead. Contexts should lead.

Another Type 1 Error:

We kept looking for nails for our blockchain hammers. But land stewards don’t need hammers. They need finance. Sometimes they need literally just cash in the bank.

ReFi became mostly vibes because we didn’t start from place-based necessity. If your solution doesn’t land in the soil, water, forest, or community — you’re not doing regeneration. You’re doing marketing."

(https://forum.regen.network/t/the-state-of-regen-2025/565/2)

More information

• CoFi