A powerful winnable issue has emerged from the Lisbon Circle that could benefit from collaboration across the Logos community.
The Cape Verdean neighbourhood of Talude, in North Lisbon, is a largely self-organised and informal community. It’s currently hosting a summer residency by the local art collective Mais Uno +1, in partnership with AMRT, a grassroots cultural group working out of a small community centre in the area.
While visiting, we connected with a local Grogue distillery (Cape Verde’s traditional rum). It’s a small family-run operation with deep roots in the community. The founder was warm and open to support. As you can imagine, their operations are entirely informal: no clear brand, no compliant bottling, and certainly no easy route to market.
This visit uncovered a clear opportunity:
Build a decentralised, privacy-preserving marketplace that supports informal entrepreneurs like this one, starting in Talude.
This would directly respond to:
- The income inequality challenges posed by Portugal’s large informal economy.
- The need for safe, community-owned tools for marginalised groups to access economic opportunity without exposure or surveillance.
- A real-world test case for Logos infrastructure applied locally and in partnership with trusted community actors.
Proposed Tech Stack & Marketplace Specs:
Core Needs
- Easy-to-use listing + discovery system for local products/services
- Reputation layer (pseudonymous but verifiable via trusted intermediaries)
- Private peer-to-peer messaging and coordination
- Optional escrow or trusted intermediary for payments
- On/off ramp flexibility (cash, crypto etc.)
Suggested Tech
- Waku for encrypted messaging between buyers and sellers
- Codex to store listings and reviews in a decentralised way
- Pseudonymous credentials TBC
What’s Next
This could be a powerful and tangible use case for a Logos-aligned Circle to prototype locally.
We’re aiming to gather a small team to:
- Co-design with the community
- Explore branding and packaging support for the distillery
- Build the marketplace MVP or test environment
- Host a music/culture event as a launch and first sales opportunity
Below are some ideas for how you could contribute, although any collaboration is welcome!
Tech & Product
- Help define the technical specs for the marketplace MVP — what features, flows, and safeguards we need
- Build the MVP using Waku, Codex, or other decentralised tools (front-end + back-end dev welcome)
- Design lightweight onboarding flows for sellers who may be low-literacy or new to tech
- Explore credentialing systems for local trust
Branding & Creative
- Design a brand identity for the Grogue product that reflects its Cape Verdean roots and community values
- Create bottle labels and packaging suitable for market-ready distribution
- Help visualise the marketplace UI/UX, posters for local outreach, and event branding
Please leave a comment if you would like to help contribute in any way!
