About

The Protocol Institute is an independent research, education, and scene-making organization dedicated to the study of protocols — the rules, procedures, technologies, and coordination infrastructures that shape how individuals, organizations, and systems interact and co-evolve. In particular, we are interested in the contemporary evolution of planet-scale intelligence through the interplay of AI, modern cryptographic technologies like blockchains, and their physical embodiments, as well as the human ecologies that emerge on top of them.

The Institute evolved from the Summer of Protocols, a research program funded by the Ethereum Foundation that ran from 2023 to 2024. The program brought together over eighty researchers across multiple disciplines — from philosophy and organizational theory to cryptography and urban infrastructure — to investigate the deep structure of protocols as a category. It operated across multiple research tracks, supported independent scholars, and produced over 270 published works spanning essays, papers, tools, datasets, and works of fiction. Materials inherited from this program, as well as new materials, are published on our media hub companion site, Protocolized and disseminated through our Substack newsletter.

Today, the Protocol Institute carries that work forward through ongoing research, publishing, events, and mentorship programs. You can learn more about the work on the Programs and Events pages.

PI is run by a small core Team supported by a larger group of Community Leads and an active Discord community. We are currently in the process of spinning out of the Ethereum Foundation as an independent entity, and will be looking for support starting in Fall, 2026. The Support Us page has details on the various ways you can support our work.

Research outputs from the Summer of Protocols 2023 are published under a CC+ license that transitions from CC BY-NC 4.0 to CC BY 4.0 on December 13, 2026.