Menu
Back to Insights

Blog

Updates, insights, and reflections from the PL R&D team.

protocol.ai · Jul 31, 2026

We Gave a Village Personal AI Agents. Here's What Happened

Edge City and Cosmos Institute gave 239 residents of Edge Esmeralda personal AI agents. Through Simocracy (led by Protocol Labs), residents created 82 Sims with constitutions and values that allocated over $10k in community treasury funding across 35 proposals — an early glimpse of agent-mediated governance.

PL R&D · Jul 23, 2026

Programmable Economies & Governance: Upgrading Society's Operating System

An overview of PL R&D's Programmable Economies & Governance focus area — the programmable infrastructure societies use to decide, allocate, verify, and coordinate — and the four opportunity spaces and inflection points we believe are within reach.

PL R&D · Jul 14, 2026

How PL R&D Accelerates Breakthroughs

The first in a series: how PL R&D moves frontier ideas from open research into deployed systems across four focus areas — how we drive, measure, and sustain breakthroughs, and what our track record teaches us.

protocol.ai · Apr 8, 2026

Announcing the Juan Benet Podcast: Launching With First Guest Max Hodak, CEO of Science Corp

Juan Benet Podcast launches with Max Hodak on neurotech, brain interfaces, Fast R&D, and more.

protocol.ai · Nov 7, 2025

Data Sovereignty in a Privacy-First Future

Builders redefining privacy and sovereignty — where control of data, identity, and computation is real, not just promised. Highlights from the teams working at the frontier of digital human rights.

protocol.ai · Oct 29, 2025

Can Attestation Follow in the Footsteps of TLS?

Attestation could follow TLS's path: standardize trust signals, clarify roles, and mature tooling. A look at what it would take for remote attestation to become infrastructure-grade.

protocol.ai · Oct 3, 2025

Threads From the 2025 Cypherpunk Retreat

Key takeaways from the Cypherpunk Retreat, where 100 leading builders advanced privacy-tech coordination. Themes included TEEs, MPC, and the next generation of private computation.

protocol.ai · Apr 29, 2025

BitRobot and the Future of Embodied AI

Exploring how crypto incentives and decentralized infrastructure can accelerate embodied AI and robotics — and why open coordination matters for the next wave of physical AI.

protocol.ai · Jan 29, 2025

Driving Breakthroughs: The Impact of Our Innovation Network

Reflecting on Protocol Labs' 2024 impact across neurotech, digital human rights, AI, and economies — and the vision for 2025 and beyond.

protocol.ai · Jun 5, 2024

The Transformative Power of Neurotechnology

A deep dive into neurotechnology's potential to reshape treatment of brain disorders, augment human cognition, and accelerate our understanding of the brain. Why Protocol Labs is investing in this frontier.

protocol.ai · Mar 15, 2024

PL Vision: Driving Breakthroughs in Computing to Push Humanity Forward

At a crossroads of technological capability and institutional inadequacy, Protocol Labs articulates its mission: building the infrastructure for a more open, equitable, and resilient internet.