05-31, 14:00–14:25 (Europe/Prague), Flower Stage
This presentation explores the need to decentralize the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to enhance economic transparency. Through D-FACTO, a decentralized framework, I'll discuss mitigating biases and improving trust in economic metrics. It proposes a transparent measure of inflation.
The CPI methodology faces age-old criticisms:
1) Substitution bias occurs when consumers switch to cheaper items during budget constraints.
2) Lagged inclusion of new items results in outdated measurements.
3) Quality changes aren't adequately considered.
While efforts to address these persist, a more significant issue arises:
4) Conflict of interest, as seen in Argentina, where governments manipulate CPI for policy objectives. Centralization and lack of transparency exacerbate this. Open networks offer a solution by allowing for transparent data access and verification.
I'll introduce D-FACTO as a framework for a decentralized CPI, exploring the potential of open networks, decentralized oracles, and transparent data collection. The talk will highlight the benefits of data and methodology transparency, utilizing decentralized networks to mitigate conflicts of interest. By sharing insights into D-FACTO's structure and incentives for decentralized oracles, data scrapers, and AI automated product classification, I aim to provide a roadmap for creating a decentralized CPI. This talk not only exposes the limitations of the current system but also outlines a revolutionary approach to a more transparent and accountable measure of inflation, fostering economic trust and informed decision-making.
Brenda is the CEO and Co-founder of Tellor, a decentralised oracle network. She is a self-taught solidity developer and formerly, a supervisor with the U.S Federal government, developing and leading teams to develop statistical software and produce Principal Federal Economic Indicators, such as the Producer Price Index, State and Area and National Employment statistics, and Unemployment Insurance statistics, and methodology research. Brenda has a Master of Arts in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University.
What really drew Brenda into crypto was Ethereum. She became obsessed with the technology and the freedom it could bring. As a Statistician/Economist she had been programming for years so the transition to Solidity was smooth. Brenda’s first full-time endeavor in crypto was Daxia, a protocol to do long/short tokens (e.g. long/short BTC) (similar to a dy/dx). The issue you quickly run into with derivatives is the oracle problem (how do you get the price to settle to). The companies then were just inputting it themselves, which is not secure and not in line with the ethos of decentralization. Brenda and her team wanted something better so they started building out Tellor internally. And it turned into a full time thing when other projects/investors became more interested in Tellor than Daxia.