Popcorn is a new paradigm for decentralized finance (DeFi) where yield-generating products simultaneously fund social impact beneficiaries at no additional cost to the user. These beneficiaries are nonprofits, charities, and grassroot projects working in the areas of environment, education, open-source knowledge, and inequality. Members of the PopcornDAO (POP token holders) are eligible to participate in all aspects of the DAO’s governance, including beneficiary nominations and grant elections. They determine which beneficiaries receive a percentage of earned protocol fees on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, and are incentivized to do so with POP rewards. Ultimately by virtue of using Popcorn, you are participating in positive global impacts.

In this article, you will discover what Popcorn is, how it works, the core initiatives it seeks to benefit, and how Popcorn stands as a nuanced model for the future of ESG investing.

What is Popcorn?

With philanthropy at its core, Popcorn takes ESG investing to the next level. Popcorn bakes social and environmental impact into the very foundation of the protocol through its extractive and composable DeFi primitives and products where basis points from users’ strategy allocations are used to fund social impact and non-profit organizations – Popcorn’s beneficiaries. Popcorn is engineering a new paradigm for DeFi investing, where earned protocol fees flow towards beneficiaries that fund environmental, open-source software, education, inequality and free press initiatives. Popcorn is aiding a revolutionary shift in global systems through accessible DeFi products that align financial wellbeing with positive global impact.

Along with directly funding community-selected beneficiaries, one of Popcorn’s key goals is to be a bridge between the social impact world and DeFi, help them onramp into decentralized finance, and educate them about the opportunities of DeFi and Web3 to achieve social impact goals through community-led and equitable means. Popcorn will not only introduce humanitarian organizations to DeFi, but all the benefits of decentralization.

Members of the PopcornDAO, or POP token holders, are stewards of Popcorn and share the common long-term goal of fueling the growth of the protocol, decentralizing the organization, and nurturing the mission of driving social impact for the public benefit in perpetuity.

How Popcorn Works

Popcorn offers multi-chain curated pools of DeFi strategies that generate yields while also funding community-selected beneficiaries without any extra costs to the end user. Popcorn’s fee structure is the core differentiator that allows users to benefit from yield-generating products at a comparable cost to existing solutions, while simultaneously making a meaningful impact for Popcorn’s designated beneficiaries. Users can generate yield with unique automated strategies based on staking, claiming, re-supplying, leveraging, and swapping crypto assets. 

POP token holders are eligible to participate in governance, specifically in beneficiary nominations and grant elections. They determine which beneficiaries receive a percentage of earned protocol fees on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, and are incentivized to do so with POP rewards. Token holders have the ability to vote on proposals that influence the parameters of Popcorn’s smart contracts and are also incentivized to run keeper nodes to maintain smart contract performance. Additionally, yield farming and staking incentives will be available for token holders who use Popcorn’s yield generating DeFi products.

Core Initiatives

Dedicated Popcorn strategy fees flow toward supporting projects that fund environmental and open-source knowledge, and initiatives tailored toward education, reduced inequality, and free press. 

Environment

• • Popcorn is committed to supporting activities that strengthen the conservation and protection of natural resources, advance ecological sustainability, and foster harmony between communities and the environment. We empower communities to access grants and other resources, embrace local solutions, and spur innovation in an effort to address the causes and reduce the effects of climate change and environmental degradation.

Open-Source Knowledge

• • Popcorn supports the development of free and open-source software that promotes fair and equitable access, creating opportunity in underserved and global communities alike.

Education, Reduced Inequality and Free Press

• • Popcorn strengthens the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education, and increase adult literacy. We support education for all children and literacy for children and adults.

Popcorn as a Model for the Future of ESG Investing

The PopcornDAO and smart contract infrastructure allows Popcorn to reimagine the capabilities of ESG investing with blockchain technology. Popcorn’s smart contracts offer a nuanced approach to ESG strategy construction, where instead of investor funds being allocated to companies who fit within ESG standards set by MSCI, SASB, or investment managers, the DAO determines the beneficiaries that are ultimately rewarded with earned protocol fees. This capital flow from Popcorn to their beneficiaries can be traced at any time via the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains which Popcorn is built upon at the moment, adding an additional layer of transparency for users looking to understand what their assets are contributing toward.

Likewise, decentralized finance offers several benefits that have the potential to elevate and unify global finance. DeFi welcomes anyone with an internet connection to access the global financial system, regardless of the limits that borders, personal history, or traditional banking pose. For the first time ever, DeFi offers banking for the unbanked, new approaches to sustainability and energy consumption mitigation, and a pathway to true democracy for projects whose token ownership includes voting rights.

In the PopcornDAO, every token holder has the opportunity to participate in governance, including beneficiary nomination and grant elections. When positive impact organizations are nominated for beneficiary status in the PopcornDAO, all token holders have the opportunity to vote on their acceptance as a beneficiary, and a majority vote will determine the organization’s acceptance. This feature fully democratizes the Governance aspect of ESG investing, where decisions are no longer raised and made by a centralized board or committee, rather, ideas are proposed to the DAO by token holders and decided by the majority vote. The nature of Popcorn as a decentralized entity removes the degree of centralized influence on organizational decision making and stands as a paragon for future organizations to follow suit.

For more information on Popcorn, visit https://popcorn.network/

Disclosures: Not investment advice. It should be assumed that Sarson Funds or its affiliated managers hold positions in all projects that are discussed. It is not possible to invest in any project directly through Sarson Funds, Inc. or its affiliated managers. Any investment product offered by managers affiliated with Sarson Funds should be assumed to be only available to Accredited Investors and subject to the individual terms and conditions of that offering including but not limited to those eligibility requirements associated with U.S. Securities Regulation D, section 506c. Talk with your financial advisor before making any investment decisions or have them contact Sarson Funds directly at info@sarsonfunds.com