DAO’s Are Closer Than You Think: About Blankless Dao

03 March 09:49

[TL; DR]

1. As Web 3.0 and the metaverse were becoming hotspots, Decentralized Autonomous organizations also achieved explosive growth last year.
2. As a new organizational governance model, DAO can be said to be an upgraded version of modern companies. Compared with traditional organizations, DAOs are more transparent and have rather flat management.
3. Bankless DAO, with BANK as the official governance token, was launched by the encrypted media Bankless on May 5, 2021.
4. In terms of participation experience, DAOs are often more like ordinary Internet communities such as forums. This is exactly the case with Bankless DAO, which mainly carries out activities on the platform Discord.
5. In the form, Bankless DAO is a discussion board with a token incentive mechanism, where a large group of enthusiasts with the same goals gather to brainstorm, propose new ideas, and carry out various tasks.

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As Web 3.0 and the metaverse were becoming hotspots, DAO, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, also achieved explosive growth last year. In 2021, the total number of DAO participants, according to data from DeepDAO.io, grew from about 13,000 to over 1.6 million, an increase of 130 times; the total DAO assets also increased from $400 million to $16 billion, an increase of 40 times.

Source：DeepDAO.io twitter

Bankless DAO is a typical representative in a series of DAOs with different goals and different organizational structures. In just over 7 months since its establishment, Bankless DAO has morphed into an excellent case of community cooperation in the crypto space. Bankless DAO can be used to answer questions such as "what is a DAO" and "why it is DAO".

The Past And Present of DAO

As a new organizational governance model, DAO’s are inseparable from the blockchain and its core idea - decentralization. The blockchain solved the problem people faced with trusting each other with codes. DAO’s can organize a large number of members worldwide on the basis of the blockchain. By virtue of pre-created smart contracts (Code is law), DAO’s are able to encourage organizational members to actively contribute value through incentives, making organizational management an "automated" process that does not require a center. This, as a result, greatly reduces the management cost of the organization and improves operating efficiency.

DAO can be said to be an upgraded version of the modern company. Compared with traditional enterprises, DAOs are more transparent and have rather flat management. The operation of the DAO is completely transparent because the relevant regulations and balance sheets are published on the blockchain. In addition, compared with traditional enterprises, DAO’s have a lower threshold for participants from all areas in the world.

The earliest well-known DAO may be “The DAO” created in April 2016. The organization was initiated by the blockchain company Slock.it. Essentially, The DAO was a decentralized venture capital fund where organization members would contribute ETH to the DAO in exchange for its official token, the “DAO”. Members got voting rights based on the number of tokens they held, and members voted to allocate all of the organization's funds to those projects. At the time, The DAO raised 11.5 million ETH from 11,000 members or about 14% of the total ETH supply at the time. Unfortunately, The DAO was hacked on June 17 of the same year, and over 1/3 of the project's Ethereum assets were stolen. In the end, Ethereum also had to roll back the transaction through a hard fork to recover the losses. Although The DAO ended quite tragically, its creative organization provided a reference for future DAO’s.

Bankless DAO

Bankless DAO, with BANK as the official governance token, was launched by the encrypted media Bankless on May 5, 2021. The total number of tokens issued was 1 billion, of which 30% was allocated to the early supporters of the project, and 30% was allocated to the early supporters of the project at the time of creation. The remaining 40% would be distributed linearly to the project treasury within 3 years. Bankless did not hold BANK tokens at the beginning, and later obtained 1/4 of the total amount that was allocated to the project treasury at the time of creation through a proposal.

Cooper Turley, co-founder of Friends With Benefits, called the DAO “a shared equity structure” and “a kind of internet community with bank accounts.” In terms of participation experience, DAOs are often more like ordinary Internet communities such as forums. This is exactly the case with Bankless DAO, which mainly carries out activities on the platform Discord. Anyone can join Bankless' server through Discord and browse most of the public information and historical documents. If users want to become a full member to participate in Bankless discussions, they need to stake 35,000 BANK on the website. These required tokens can be purchased from others in the open market or can be earned slowly by completing tasks. If users just want to have a try, they can apply for a 14-day temporary participation qualification on the discussion board, multiple times.

The discussion board of Bankless DAO is divided into more than a dozen "unions" in different directions in terms of the field. These boards include writing, marketing, translation, design, research, data analysis, etc. After obtaining the participation qualification, members can freely join the corresponding union consistent with their interests. Specifically, they fill in their personal information such as nicknames and skills into the Notion database created by the corresponding union. These unions have real functions within the Bankless DAO and are responsible for tasks in their respective fields. Meanwhile, these unions also share the same vision of achieving the so-called "go bankless".

Members freely discuss the topics of each trade union. Some topics in the discussion will eventually be made into proposals, which will be voted by trade union members to decide whether to pass. However, a vote will be held seriously in the entire DAO to decide on whether to pass those major proposals related to the running of the entire organization. In addition, the union will publish the tasks on the discussion board, and reward those who complete the tasks BANK tokens.

In the form, Bankless DAO is a discussion board that executes a token incentive mechanism, where a large group of enthusiasts with the same goals gather to brainstorm, propose new ideas, and carry out various tasks.

Conclusion

Organizationally, although Bankless DAO is still in its infancy, many DAOs have followed suit in terms of the organizational model. In this category, Bankless DAO belongs to media DAO. In addition, there are also Investment DAOs, Grants DAOs, Collector DAOs, Protocol DAOs, Service DAOs, Social DAOs, and Media DAOs. The topics that DAO’s discuss also keep pace with the times, for example, the DeFi topic discussed in 2020, and the NFT topic talked about in 2021.
As Web 3.0 is coming, DAO, as part of Web 3.0, may change our lives.

Author: Gate.io Researcher：Ashley H.; Translator: Cedar. W
*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all other cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.