--- title: three ways to stand next to the protocol canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/three-ways-to-stand-next-to-the-protocol markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/three-ways-to-stand-next-to-the-protocol.md subtitle: "use it, be in it without running it, or stay out" category: proceeds --- # three ways to stand next to the protocol *use it, be in it without running it, or stay out* Coopetition is the practice of cooperating where interests overlap and competing where they do not. Michael Quinion, writing at World Wide Words, credits Ray Noorda, longtime chief executive of Novell, with the word, and credits Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff's 1996 book *Co-opetition* with carrying the idea to a wide audience. The slogans that float around it — "out-collaborate your competition," "turn competitors into collaborators" — came later, from different people, and none of them owns the strategy. The forest, the wetland, the herd, and the town that drinks from them already depend on each other, whether or not two firms decide to cooperate on the hillside and compete for the buyer. [**Ensurance**](/?from=guide) funds that living condition. It is not the forest, and it is not a truce that requires you to stop selling what you sell. You can keep the carbon contract, the sensor business, the fund, the easement practice, or the other protocol. You can still give the hillside an account, or leave one in place for someone else to pay, or route value to an address that already exists. That is cooperation on the living system. The competition for the tonne, the dataset, the limited partner, and the headline continues on its own track. Jelenko Dragisic, writing in 2014 under the headline "Out-collaborate your competition!", argued for that selectivity. Collaboration on every front is not the idea. Collaboration on the part where the other party's work makes yours more true is the idea. :::johnson **cooperate on the hillside. keep competing on the product.** [where routed value actually goes →](/proceeds?from=guide) ::: ## three ways to stand People ask for a binary. Join or don't. The useful cut is four rows, because "in" covers two different amounts of work, and holding a certificate with no agent is a third thing. | where you stand | what you do | what can reach you | |---|---|---| | Use it | Run the accounts. Ask for a certificate on your agent. We create it after review. Point a split or a stream at the addresses you choose. | A purchase of that certificate pays that agent. A split or a stream pays the addresses it names. More of the activity that passes through those addresses can name you. | | Own an account, and don't run it | Leave the agent in place. You do not staff a program, and you do not shut your firm. | Purchases that name that agent, and splits pointed at it, can still arrive. You are not owed a check for an unused logo. | | Hold a certificate only | The certificate sits in a wallet that is not connected to an agent. | Nothing in the holder payout is running. A pure holder is not a recipient today. The manual's rule, for when that payout exists, is that the certificate has to sit in a wallet connected to an agent. | | Stay out | No group, no agent, no certificate, no place on a split. | Your organization is not a recipient. The forest may still be funded by someone else. The door stays open if you change your mind. | Nothing in the four rows locks you in. You can move from staying out to owning an account. You can start operating. You can stop operating and remain the holder of the token. Leaving the operation does not delete a contract that is already on the chain. The last page is that fact. This page is the money. No rate sits on this page. No multiple. The fundraising series says where a purchase goes, and the stewardship page says which yields are design and which paths move today. Read those before you put a number in a deck. ## what "you still get something" can mean The sentence people want is: join, do nothing, get paid. That sentence is false, and it would be a bad product if it were true. Here is the sentence that matches the instruments. A purchase of a certificate funds the agent it names. That payment is live. Splits and streams send proceeds to the addresses they list, when someone distributes them. That path is live. A payout from protocol-wide activity to holders is a design, and the engine is not running. If it is switched on, the manual's limit applies: the certificate has to sit in a wallet connected to an agent. A marketplace wallet with no agent account is not in that list. Buying a certificate is a way to fund the place. It is not a way to collect a distribution that does not yet exist. So the second row is real, and it is narrow. If your agent is the one a buyer picked, the purchase lands there even when your staff did not make the sale. If your address is on a split, a distribution can land there even if you did not push the button. That is owning an account and not running a program. It is other people's action, aimed at an address you occupy. It is not a salary. The first row is the operator. You ask for the certificate people can buy. You point the split. You show up in the trade. Each of those is a way for flow to name you. A quiet account-owner and a busy operator are not in the same position. A pure certificate holder is in a third position, and today that position receives none of this. The last row has no address. There is nothing to send the organization. That is not a curse on the watershed. Someone else may fund it. The organization that stayed out is simply not in the list of recipients. If the stack later wants an address, the door is the same door. ## the overlap is the hillside A carbon developer and a watershed account are not the same product. They can fund the same slope. You keep the buyer who wants a tonne. The account is there for the water, the soil, and the fire, paid by whoever depends on those and is willing to pay. You may be that buyer for one of them and the seller of the tonne at the same time. That is ordinary. A monitoring firm can sell the reading and also leave the place able to be paid. A fund can own land in its own vehicle and still let the parcel's account receive value from neighbors who are not limited partners. Erica Ollmann Saphire and colleagues wrote "How to turn competitors into collaborators" in *Nature* on 19 January 2017, from collaborative Ebola-treatment research. Karin Bodewits's 3 August 2022 column in *Science* is a career fable, not a study. Marcus Daniels used the headline "Out-collaborate your competition" at BetaKit on 11 August 2020. Different trades. The same cut. Share the layer you both need. Keep the layer that is your business. Jelenko Dragisic's 14 May 2014 piece under that same headline argued for selective collaboration, not collaboration on every front. Nature finance has treated neighboring projects as rivals for the same grant pool. Often they are neighbors in a watershed, and the grant pool is the wrong arena. Upstream forest work and downstream flood work are not substitutes. The networked-projects series is that argument with the ecology in it. This page is the commercial posture next to it. You may compete for the grant and still pay, or be paid by, the neighbor's account. ## what we will not say in your deck We will not say that joining makes you whole. We will not say that staying out punishes the forest. We will not say that a competitor must convert. We will not say that volume here is deep. One book, small markets, early field. The advantage on offer is an address for a living system, shared pipes, and a rule you can explain to a skeptic: money that moves has a name on it, and an unused logo is not a name. If you want the routing in the product, the proceeds page is the map. If you want to argue about whether your second-row position is honest enough to tell a partner, [write](/contact?from=guide&topic=open-protocol) with the address you think should receive, and what you think should not. ## frequently asked questions ### what is coopetition? Cooperating where interests overlap, and competing where they do not. In this field the overlap is the living system. The competition is the product you already sell: the tonne, the dataset, the fund, the other protocol's instrument. You can do both. ### do i get proceeds if i join and do not use it? If you own an agent and do not run a program, a purchase that names that agent can still arrive, and a split pointed at it can still arrive. You do not receive a check for an unused logo. A certificate in a wallet that is not connected to an agent pays you nothing today. A holder payout is designed and is not running. If it is switched on, the manual requires the certificate to sit in a wallet connected to an agent. ### does more activity name me? More of the activity that passes through addresses you operate can name you. Asking for a certificate people buy, and pointing splits at your addresses, puts you in that path. A quiet account-owner is a possible recipient of what others send. A certificate with no agent account is not. Neither position is a promised rate. ### do i have to stop competing with you? No. Keep the customer, the method, and the brand. Use the account for the hillside you share with everyone else who depends on it. Stopping the competition is not the offer. ## next step Read [what stewardship funding is designed to pay](/guide/what-stewardship-funding-is-designed-to-pay?from=guide) before you describe yields, and [how conservation fundraising reaches the crew](/guide/how-conservation-fundraising-reaches-the-crew?from=guide) before you describe a purchase. The map of live routing is [proceeds](/proceeds?from=guide). A question about a specific address can come through [contact](/contact?from=guide&topic=open-protocol). ## the series Read first: [use ensurance beside the work you already do](/guide/use-ensurance-beside-the-work-you-already-do?from=guide). 1. [use ensurance beside the work you already do](/guide/use-ensurance-beside-the-work-you-already-do?from=guide) — keep your project. the living system can still have an account 2. [run a group for what you already care about](/guide/run-a-group-for-what-you-already-care-about?from=guide) — one namespace, as many accounts as you have mandates 3. three ways to stand next to the protocol — this post 4. [a place and a purpose can hold an account](/guide/a-place-and-a-purpose-can-hold-an-account?from=guide) — people are not the only ones with an account 5. [the protocol door stays open](/guide/the-protocol-door-stays-open?from=guide) — the app can say no. a contract on base stays on base ## sources [Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, "Coopetition"](https://www.worldwidewords.org/tp-coo2.html) — credits Ray Noorda with the word and the 1996 book with the wider audience. Noorda was Novell's longtime chief executive. Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff, *Co-opetition* (1996). [Jelenko Dragisic, ".ROADMENDER," 14 May 2014, "Out-collaborate your competition!"](https://roadmender.net/2014/05/14/out-collaborate-your-competition/) — an early printed use of the phrase. Not a proven first. The useful line is selective collaboration. [Erica Ollmann Saphire and colleagues, *Nature*, 19 January 2017, "How to turn competitors into collaborators"](https://www.nature.com/articles/541283a) — lessons from collaborative Ebola research. [Karin Bodewits, *Science*, 3 August 2022, "Turn your competitors into collaborators"](https://www.science.org/content/article/turn-your-competitors-collaborators) — a career fable. The moral is complementary work, with an agreement about who does what. [Marcus Daniels, *BetaKit*, 11 August 2020, "Out-collaborate your competition"](https://betakit.com/out-collaborate-your-competition-the-growth-formula-for-fintechs/) — the headline as a later independent use. This page does not adopt that article's examples. [Proceeds](/proceeds?from=guide) — routing that is live. [What stewardship funding is designed to pay](/guide/what-stewardship-funding-is-designed-to-pay?from=guide) — design versus what moves today.