2 min, 45 sec reading time
We understand if your eyes immediately glaze over in confusion when you hear the term DAO, but we think this overview is worthwhile.
Web3Lit DAOs are still very, very new, but we can only imagine what they can offer to authors and readers over the long term.
In all honesty, we believe DAOs can help web3 disrupt and redefine the publishing industry.
Because this is a bit of an “out-there” topic, we’re going to do a quick intro to the idea of DAOs today with the promise to do a Deep Dive next week.
Background
There are two high-level views of DAOs right now:
1) They are “group chats with bank accounts”
OR
2) they are an “essential tool in the new set of crypto-economic primitives that will change how humanity coordinates capital and resources.”
While they differ in scale, both describe the idea of a “web3-native” business.
And based on what is taking place in the crypto-marketspace, that seems to be about right.
While some of these businesses are smaller – more like collectives or co-ops – a number of them are big businesses that have millions or even billions of dollars in their bank account (treasury).
They work in very different ways than traditional companies as well. Instead of a traditional hierarchy of processes and rules, DAOs are much “looser.”
DAO members can decide what projects to fund, what decisions to make, and even how much contributors are paid.
And lastly, DAOs are being found across almost every industry.
This DAO Landscape graphic shows a bit of the complexity – and it was completed in the summer of 2021 – BEFORE DAOs really became popular.
Now you can easily find DAOs that:
1) Run Podcasts (we are part of this!) – https://www.rehashweb3.xyz/
2) Launch Wall Street style investment tools – https://indexcoop.com/ https://syndicate.io/
3) Fund big projects that benefit the Open Web – https://gitcoin.co/
4) Are trying to buy a professional sports team https://www.krausehouse.club/ or a country club https://linksdao.io/
5) Fund BioTech Longevity research https://www.vitadao.com/
6) Create a crypto-media network
7) Literally anything…there is a DAO for basically everything now!
(We even joined a DAO that tried to buy a copy of the US Constitution so that it could be kept in a museum for everyone to see…that didn’t work out so well.)
Overall, DAOs create a super democratized approach for how people work together to develop businesses within the crypto/web3 space.
It can get MUCH more complicated than what we’ve described, but we’ve promised not to go too deep here.
If you want further reading, feel free to dig into these articles:
- https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-promise-of-daos-the-latest-craze-in-crypto
- https://gabygoldberg.notion.site/A-Beginner-s-Guide-to-DAOs-e6dbbe26746f4544bcbd5888fa71f314
- https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/the-ultimate-dao-report?s=r
With all that said, what do DAOs mean for web3lit?
Glad you asked!
Get excited for next week when we dive into StoryPrima DAO and what that could mean for the future of publishing.
This space moves quickly and you won’t want to miss a thing!
We put out new web3lit articles every Friday.
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