This Week in DAOs - November 18, 2021
Boardroom Adds NounsDAO, the week of ConstitutionDAO, FEI DAO <> Rari DAO Merger?, and Index 2.0.
Keep scrolling to get caught up on this week in DAOs.
Product Update 🚀 - Boardroom Adds NFT DAOs
With the addition of NounsDAO to Boardroom’s platform, we are excited to announce that we now support NFT DAOs.
As we’ve discussed in this newsletter, NFT projects like Nouns DAO are an innovative and elegant way of spinning up a DAO. And, now, Nouns holders can now use Boardroom to participate in governance just like they would with ERC-20 governance tokens. We’re excited to support this growing part of the DAO community with governance tooling and data.
Reminder:
Are you a governance enthusiast? Aspiring Delegate? Want to find a way to work for a DAO? Learn more about Boardroom’s Governance Scribe program and apply.
📊 This Week’s Stats
Governance Activity - Last 7 Days
🗳️ 10,739 ballots cast on 105 different proposals 🗳️
👥 4,822 unique voters 👥
🌐 31 DAOs with active voters 🌐
✍️ 65 new proposals created this week ✍️
📰 This Week’s News
ConstitutionDAO (📜,📜)
What a week it has been. If you’re on Twitter, chances are you’ve seen the news about ConstitutionDAO. In fact, if you read the New York Times, chances are you’ve seen the news about ConstitutionDAO.
It is Thursday, November 18th so that means the Sotheby’s auction to sell one of the thirteen remaining original copies of the Constitution is today at 6:30 pm ET.
The ConstitutionDAO website has stopped displaying the total amount of funds raised for strategic reasons related to competing in the auction, but the Juicebox page’s last displayed count is $46,708,103 / 11,491 ETH. Raising that much money in less than a week is a truly incredible accomplishment.
There is so much to talk about when it comes to ConstitutionDAO.
Perhaps the most important part of the project is that it is a true cultural onboarding moment for DAOs. Mainstream news coverage includes the above NYT article, the Wall Street Journal, 3 minutes on CNBC Fast Money, Bloomberg, CNBC online, and so many tweets. People around the world are learning what a DAO is and imagining the possibilities of a bunch of internet friends with a group chat, pooled financial resources, and a mission.
Indeed, Constitution DAO is bringing lots of new people into crypto (or, at least, off exchanges and into wallets):
Given the attention and the success, however, there are other interesting narratives forming with this story that are worth highlighting in case ConstitutionDAO manages to win the auction.
First, ConstitutionDAO tokens - $PEOPLE - are supposed to be for governance and membership only. From the website FAQ:
You are receiving a governance token, not fractionalized ownership. Governance includes the ability to advise on (for illustrative purposes) where the Constitution should be displayed, how it should be exhibited, and the mission and values of ConstitutionDAO. ConstitutionDAO is taking donations and donors are receiving governance tokens with no expectation of profit.
Yet, these are crypto tokens. They’re going to be traded. And meme tokens are doing well these days. So, if ConstitutionDAO wins the auction, the circus is just beginning.
Will all of the attention on ConstitutionDAO bring increased scrutiny from regulators and the public?
I think it’s safe to say the answer to that question is yes. And there are a lot of things that could go wrong. For example, what happens if there is a 51% attack on $PEOPLE tokens? Could someone accrue enough voting power to burn a historical artifact of immense national importance?
We’ve just managed to get the world to find about DAOs; if ConstitutionDAO wins the auction, then we have to show them that they’re an innovation worthy of not only attention but recognition. The themes we highlight in this newsletter - DAO operations, governance drama, tools for DAOs, the interaction of “code is law” and human input - will all play out in the context of ConstitutionDAO before its story is over if it ever is over. Will we make it in a cultural institution that effectively manages an important piece of history? Or will it be a lesson in why democracy isn’t always the answer?
Fei DAO <> Rari DAO Merger?
DAO mergers are always exciting but this one would be a significant merger in DeFi / DAO history. A previously covered example in this newsletter was the merger of Keep Network and NuCypher earlier this year. The current Yearn.finance ecosystem is the result of DeFi projects merging as well.
The proposal kicked off with posts from Fei founder Joey Santoro and Rari founder Jai Bhavnani simultaneously posting in the other project’s governance forums.
From Jai’s post in Fei:
I propose we bring RGT into the Tribe family and unify our efforts in creating the future of decentralized finance. Together, we will create a DeFi capable of scaling to trillions of TVL and truly revolutionizing the way we (DeFi users today and tomorrow) interact with money and finance.
I propose:
$1:$1 conversion of RGT to TRIBE, created from both the existing treasury and newly minted TRIBE
Fei creating proper contributor incentives as a mechanism to scale Fuse / yield aggregator
Fully pay back the Rari DAO’s debts from the ETH yield aggregator exploit (to REPT-b holders) in Fei (full compensation in Fei, at Dai price at hack time)
Keep independent communities (Fei, Rari) building together under a shared Tribe family
Reactions from the communities thus far have been mixed, with most focusing on the need to get more information and granularity about how exactly the merge would work.
The full forum threads are well worth the read.
Index 2.0
Index Coop continues to be a leader with regard to DAO operational refinement and professionalism. Their incredibly engaged community continually is looking to improve its functioning.
This past week, Index contributor Pepperoni_Joe proposed a restructuring of Index’s governance and operations in a post titled “Index 2.0 | Leadership, Governance and Decision Making (Pods, Nest and Wise Owls)”.
The core purpose of the proposal is to empower contributors to make decisions quickly and with input from proper stakeholders.
The proposers hope to ratify this organizational change in a couple of weeks and hold elections for more senior ranking positions immediately after its passage.