If one were to take the Ten Commandments and turn them into positive affirmations for a future worth working for, then building a DAO would definitely make the list. A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is a collection of individuals coming together to make decisions without a hierarchical management structure and can have a wide range of use cases.
They allow a bottom-up approach to community management, built around a treasury accessible to members. Focusing on the Web3 world in terms of innovations, prioritizing creations and general attitudes of WAGMI is a great argument for revamping the commandments.
In a world that has been more exclusive than inclusive – controlled by a few rather than shared by many – people are waking up to new ways of thinking. Communities tired of the guilt passed on by old regimes with unequal attitudes are free to develop their own tokens, NFTs and now DAOs.
The beauty of DAOs popping up in all blockchain ecosystems today is that there is often an existing community waiting to step in and give back to the community project they may already be supporting with their time and investments.
Transforming gig economies into creative communities
The birth of the flexible economy DAO merges the best of the gig economy that revolves around flexible, freelance work and the creator economy into one. Web2 platforms such as Fiverr have given rise to instant access to a skilled workforce of freelancers. However, this came with some damage to existing labor structures, and often freelancers were underpaid or undervalued for their time commitments.
Then comes the advent of crowdfunding platforms like Patreon. This not only allowed the creative workforce to get paid, but also to interact with their fan base and build a valuable community around their creative work. Although they are innovative, not all players benefit from these ecosystems. Plus, the growing competition for attention can be exhausting for the project manager or creator who wants to focus on what they love.
DAOs attempt to change the status quo and create an ecosystem where project creators and community members are rewarded at the same time. Thanks to this model, everyone becomes a valuable player within an ecosystem centered around a subject that fascinates them.
Biconomy has set itself the ambitious mission of integrating 1 billion users into Web3. To drive this mission, they launched a $2 million grant program. The DAO will award grants and bounties to community members that will help them build dApps, educate the masses, improve Web3 infrastructure, and incentivize new users.
Ahmed Al-Balaghi, the founder of Biconomy DAO, said that there were two main reasons behind the development of a DAO ecosystem. The first is to engage and activate the existing community by giving people a clear way to contribute. The second is to start the process of incremental decentralization by allowing the community to decide where the $2 million grant goes. Biconomy will use its DAO to give people a voice. Al-Balaghi said:
“DAOs are an expression of the values of freedom, allowing people to have a voice, providing people with the opportunity to have their voices heard. This is a fundamental tenet of why DAOs matter and why people should contribute to a DAO ecosystem.
DAOs in action
DAOs bring like-minded people together to take action. There is no greater example of what is happening right now than Ukraine DAO where they raised over $8 million in tokens after the invasion of Russia.
The DAO gives back to this community, allowing participants to contribute their thoughts and actions, make decisions, and chart future paths for the project. The structure of a DAO is open, allowing anyone within the ecosystem to offer ideas, support, or proposals that could benefit the entire community.
“Ecosystem DAOs are purpose-driven and provide a way to engage the community, showing exactly what projects want and what members can offer the DAO. They also help people in the web3 world find people who share common values and goals,”
said Al-Balaghi. In doing so, they enrich DAO members by providing internal levels of power.
In addition to building the internal ecosystem, DAOs offer something tangible to proponents of the broader blockchain ecosystem. For example, Alien Worlds features 6 DAO planets using the Play to Win model in the Wax ecosystem.
A new system of governance
Many believe that the future of governance lies in the structure of the DAO. Working with DAO Treasury to provide ongoing support and resources to those already invested in your project should lead to a natural growth in awareness and ecosystem opportunities.
From determining the roadmap to designing the product, all elements of development can be supported by community incubation through the DAO. One of the crucial elements is that it provides better access to projects for anyone who is interested. You no longer need to be a top VC or influencer to get involved and start earning rewards as a contributor to a community project.
For Page DAO Founder, Thomas Dylan Daniel says:
“DAOs are not only completely interoperable with modern capitalism, but they also represent the most efficient solution to the problem of allocating resources to individuals, perhaps even the first truly rational solution ever ventured here.”
It is the belief that coming together with common values and shared motivation can almost guarantee the progress of an idea or project. According to Daniel:
“It feels like being on-chain grants us superpowers and makes our idea immortal. As long as the hope of the token lives on, we all have a vested but undetermined stake in the success of the network”
A win-win for a passionate ecosystem
Passionate people who choose to support each other around a core mission or value proposition. What’s not to like? As well as providing access to skill sets that a project may desperately need, you also get increased transparency in terms of what resources are allocated, where and to whom.
In a world of equal opportunity, the DAO is the University. He not only educates, he informs, offers support and is open to ideas. In addition, a project can hear new points of view. With decentralized autonomous organizations, those who would previously have been excluded from the decision-making process are brought to the table and have a voice.
“With DAOs being a new concept in creative communities, it’s fair to say there’s a lot of experimentation going on. The emphasis on transparent and open discussion may take some getting used to, but overall it has benefited our community’s ability to communicate. Most of this happens off-chain, but the fact that there is a record of official transactions allowed for a level of trust that can sometimes be difficult to achieve with a traditional record label collective. It’s still early days, but we’re really excited to see how our community can help guide the development of DAO technology to meet their needs in this ever-changing Web3 world!, says Vandal of DAO Records.
From DAO Grant to DAO Service and now DAO Eco System, it is safe to say that the DAO landscape is growing rapidly. DAOs are grassroots movements of people who come together around a similar mindset. The hierarchical structures of traditional companies have no place in the world of DAO.
Rather than operating in a tightly controlled environment where roles rarely change and learning opportunities are minimized, DAOs are loosely structured entities that allow for increased flexibility and new approaches to success or what success actually means.
And that’s only the beginning.