đ The DAO Heard Round The World
Have you heard about ConstitutionDAO? In less than a week, the crypto community has created a brand new organization and funded it with cryptocurrency worth over $40 million. The objective: buy a first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution thatâs being auctioned off by Sothebyâs.
The Beeple auction showed that crypto sells, and it got people talking about NFTâs. Tonightâs auction will show that crypto coordinates, and it will get people talking about DAOâs.
Iâll admit it. I like the Constitution, I like numbers with meaning, and I own crypto. So I contributed Î0.1787 to ConstitutionDAO.
Here are 13 things I learned from the experience:
Thereâs nothing more powerful than a simple, beautiful idea. Like buying the Constitution to ensure itâs made available for public viewing.
DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization.
Donât let the name intimidate you. Itâs a reasonable approximation to think of DAOâs as digital organizations. Just as itâs a reasonable approximation to think of NFTâs as digital goods.
Donât let the name fool you. One day, some DAOâs might be Decentralized and Autonomous. But for now theyâre simply groups of people who decide to work together according to a set of rules that happen to be enshrined in code (as opposed to, say, parchment).
In DAOâs, as in other organizations, leadership matters. When figuring out whether I wanted to chip in, I didnât look at the code. I looked at who was involved.
Weâre in the early days of harnessing crypto to do good. ConstitutionDAO is showing whatâs possible, but I suspect weâll look back on it as a relatively small-scale initiative.
Just like other organizations, DAOâs can organize for good or evil. I think this oneâs doing something good. But it wonât be long before a DAO is created for a purpose that you or I find objectionable.
Crypto is still painful to use. The explainer video on how to contribute money to ConstitutionDAO is 6 minutes long.
Crypto is still expensive to use. It cost $50 in fees to contribute to ConstitutionDAO. (Payable to those who run the machines that keep the Ethereum blockchain secure â not to the organizers of ConstitutionDAO.)
Crypto is a legal minefield. What do you get in return for putting money into the DAO? A governance token â a digital thing that sits in your digital wallet. Is it an asset? Well, it kind of seems valuable, because it gives you a say in the decisions made by the DAO. Is it a security? Absolutely not! Because if it is, itâs subject to a lot of regulation.
There arenât many things that bridge the political divide, but the Constitution is still one of them. Join the discussion in the ConstitutionDAO Discord server, and youâll find people all over the political map.
Online communication hasnât changed all that much in the last few decades. Discord servers feel a lot like AOL chat rooms.
Crypto is new, but the motivations of people involved in crypto are not. Sometimes itâs about money. Sometimes itâs about doing good. And sometimes itâs about wanting to feel like youâre a part of something special.
Last night I was asked: âSo whatâs the latest? Are they going to buy the Constitution?â
âWe,â I quickly corrected. âWe are going to buy the Constitution.â