Original author: cybercaf.eth, 0x123, pb.lookme, tovarishch.eth

Original source: SeeDAO Investment Research Association

Messari, a well-known blockchain research institution based in New York, believes in its report:"2020 belongs to DeFi, 2021 belongs to NFT, and 2022 will be the year of DAO". It is undeniable that the disruption of the epidemic to people's normal work and life, and the rapid development of the blockchain gave birth to DAO. The governance principle of DAO is based on the basic philosophy of smart contract "code is law". Its ultimate goal is to break the existing pyramid-style centralized management without authoritarian hierarchy, and finally realize an organization that operates autonomously.

Each individual participating in DAO owns part of the rights and interests of the organization according to the rules, is the governor of the organization, and can participate in voting. Currently, DAO's decentralized community collective governance model has been adopted by more and more organizations and institutions, and many institutions including Sequoia Capital have also paid great attention to this new organizational form of DAO.

Although in theory, DAO has a decentralized consensus, but each DAO is like an independent social experiment.Various organizational concepts and governance schemes emerge in endlessly, and the practice methods based on DAO are also very different. Therefore, SeeDAO, which is committed to "introducing Web 2.0 creators into the Web 3.0 world and helping content creators and content consumers explore better production relations and organizational forms", is based on its own highly inclusive and open creators. While the community is exploring DAO governance, it will continue to observe various DAOs around the world, in order to provide inspiration and reference experience for pioneers who are also exploring in the new organizational model of DAO. This issue of DAO Ecological Observation Report mainly coversBanklessDAO、DAOrayaki、Friends with Benefits、People DAO、Seed Club、YGGSix relatively mature DAO organizations, and analyzed three emerging DAOs, Vector DAO, Padawan DAO and Meta Gamma Delta.

We except for each DAOProvide observation recordsimage description

DAO Ecological Situation Summary

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Bankless DAO

organizational structure

organizational structure

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Member level settings

BanklessDAO community members have different levels, and the ID colors in Discord will be different according to different levels. As can be seen from the figure, the personnel level is directly linked to the BANK tokens held. For this design mechanism, we believe that it has the following advantages:

• Increased the value of BANK tokens;

• Bind community members' own interests with DAO, and indirectly promote members' contributions to the community;

• Pay attention to the contribution of members to the community;

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Bankless DAO member settings (Fig 1)

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project management

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Insight

As the object imitated and learned by most DAOs, we believe that the Bankless DAO model can be called:"goal-orientedorganizational structure

organizational structure

The three-level structure of Bankless DAO is established to realize the output of the project. As the pioneer of this model, what Bankless DAO is most worthy of our reference is:As highly involved DAO members, the relevant personnel of its functional departments have perfect responsibilities and clear division of labor, which can greatly improve the work efficiency between various trade unions and between projects and trade unions.The most fundamental difference from traditional flat enterprises is that most of DAO's decisions are bottom-up. This means that DAO is often prone to the problems of slow decision-making efficiency and weak response ability. We believe that the reasons for this problem may be as follows:

• Slow information transmission: In a distributed organization, it is impossible to guarantee that everyone receives information at the same time;

• Slow unification of opinions: Everyone has their own ideas, and it is difficult to eliminate them in a short time after differences arise;

• Governance structure design issues;

• Power is not properly distributed.

By observing the organizational structure of Bankless DAO,We believe that when a DAO has a clear goal orientation and aims at project output, proper top-down workflow and centralization of power are feasible and necessary.in addition,

in addition,The functional members of these special roles are also key nodes in the process of information transmission.secondary title

Rights and obligations

It is undeniable that due to the loose state of decentralization, Freeriders (free riders) are prone to appear in DAO. It is also not ruled out that this group of people may use decentralization as an excuse to encroach on collectively owned resources in DAO. Therefore, before positioning any member, we should carefully consider a question: rights and obligations.Rights and obligations are an equal relationship, which should not change in the context of DAO.DAO is an organization adhering to decentralization, but this does not mean that this concept can be relied on to distort the more universal principle of reciprocity of rights and obligations.

In order to prevent this phenomenon, the membership system of Bankless DAO ensures that if you want to enjoy the rights, you must fulfill the corresponding obligations. Referring to its mode of operation, we make suggestions to DAOs that have not yet issued Token but have similar development plans,Members and positions that play a key role in DAO governance and operation should be recorded in detail on the notion.secondary title

The importance of transparency

A lot of information about Bankless DAO is published on the Wiki, which can be viewed by anyone who can use notion. Compared with the governance of traditional companies, this is a major feature and advantage of DAO. In traditional enterprises, outsiders cannot view the records of the general meeting of shareholders, and even shareholders need to apply in advance to view them.For the pyramid structure, this method can effectively bring about a gap in information, thereby ensuring that the core group of power can obtain more benefits.

On the contrary, the transparent governance of DAO allows members inside and outside the community to easily view most of the information about the entire development process, organizational structure, and project status of DAO, which is very helpful for building consensus. For those who are willing to join DAO, they can fully understand the ecology of DAO through the wiki, and decide to join DAO after acknowledging its concept and willing to make contributions to it.At this time, a consensus has been initially established.

But at the same time, we also keep observing the negative effects of information transparency.With the development of the entire Web3.0 DAO ecosystem, DAO 2 DAO exchanges and competitions may become more common, How does a DAO ensure that the interests of all members in the DAO are not damaged when it discloses information,How to strike a balance between centralization and decentralizationfirst level title

FWB

In addition to Bankless DAO, FWB is another important existence that cannot be ignored in the current creator DAO. A16Z explained why it invested in FWB:The best creators master NFTs, the best NFT projects evolve into DAOs, and the best DAOs use DeFi.It compares FWB to Venice of the Renaissance and Homebrew Computer Club: it realizes the integration of resources and bottom-up creativity, and it is the best incubation state for creators. Secondly, most of the FWB members come from the field of music and art, and have nothing to do with the Blockchain industry, and this part of the resources is the easiest to achieve out of the circle. After the research on FWB, we summarize the characteristics of its model as: highlighting social interaction, comprehensive training, and complete export "image description”。

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Highlight social

According to the agenda-setting theory,What is set on the agenda in an organization, what is set at the front of the agenda, and where it is more accessible to members, then what agenda is more likely to be adopted by the group, and the group is more likely to be shaped into a corresponding model.image description

We believe that,

We believe that,Such a model is actually closer to a relaxed state of "underfitting", which may be more conducive to the generation of creativity.secondary title

comprehensive training

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export complete

FWB has a relatively complete output system. Including paying for Editorial articles on the website, tickets for online and offline events, Gallery auctions for works by community creators, and expensive access to Discord. For FWB, relying on a high-quality community, it can almost be considered that the community itself has been transformed into a product that can be directly exported. We believe that,On the one hand, FWB has explored an incubation model different from Bankless DAO.image description

Screenshot of FWB official website

But it should also be noted that creator-type DAOs can also have impressive output results without being project-oriented.On the other hand, a problem that has plagued the creative community for a long time is that if its internal intellectual value cannot be precipitated and turned into a product that can be exchanged with the outside of the system, then its short-term operation can rely on the enthusiasm of its members, but in the long run It looks like the engine is running out of fuel.secondary title

Insight

Emphasis on brand building

In the process of analyzing FWB, one detail left a deep impression on us. In the conspicuous position of FWB's website, you can enter the network disk folder of its full set of brand resources, including FWB's brochure, official fonts, slogan logo and other files. From this point, we can see that the overall thinking of the FWB community is consistent with our analysis above:image description

FWB brand resource network disk folder

TOKEN: Open up internal and external circulation incentives

In addition, we think it is unreasonable for some voices on the Internet to criticize the FWB joining mechanism. First of all, we do not deny that the current payment of 75$ FWB Token to obtain access to all functional products of FWB for 3 months is indeed not a small amount, so many people are turned away. But at the same time, it should also be noted that the main questions that FWB needs to answer when applying for membership are their own Web3.0 experience, what they want to achieve in FWB, and what they can contribute to FWB. This process is very strict under the review of 15 members of the community, and applicants will be asked to modify their application content by email.image description

Furthermore,

Furthermore,On the premise of realizing that FWB itself is a product, setting a high enough threshold for applicants is actually controlling the quality of DAO products.And for qualified members, FWB will detect their discord activity through tools such as sourcecred.io. For active members, the membership fee for the next season can be reduced, and for members who have made contributions, Token airdrops will be given. therefore,secondary title

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View $FWB in Nansen

We also found in our research that there are currently 2041 Token holding addresses in FWB, of which 20% addresses and 68% of tokens are held for a long time.It can be seen that the internal viscosity and centripetal force of its DAO are extremely strong.first level title

DAOrayaki

Although we classify DAOrayaki as creator-type DAO, it actually focuses on a relatively narrow field. DAOrayaki defines himself asA decentralized research organization and decentralized media.secondary title

organizational model

For the centralized media of Web 2.0, its workflow is usually determined by the editorial department or the publishing house to determine the theme and research direction, finalize the type of article, and then hand it over to the editor to write. After the article is written, it will be submitted to the editor for review and publication. The early members of DAOrayaki are some serious DAO researchers. DAOrayaki was established after receiving financial support from DAOfactory. For a long time, DAOrayaki has attracted a large number of creators to conduct various researches on DAO governance related content by issuing bounties, and has produced many in-depth articles. We believeimage description

DAOrayaki Org Model Overview

DAOrayaki not only researches DAO, but also iteratively implements the concept of DAO in its own governance model. According to its roadmap description, DAOrayaki is currently transitioning to dMedia 2.0. DAOrayaki can be divided into four sections:Bounty, governance, community events and discord.image description

token economy

Governance within DAO based on YakID

As a non-ERC20 Token, YakID has two main functions: When members apply for positions in DAO, they need to hold a corresponding amount of YakID. Secondly, YakID can be exchanged in the future, which also gives members an expectation, giving them the motivation to obtain more IDs, and at the same time make more contributions to DAO. Through the integration of YakID and the future DAO Token, DAOrayaki has realized such an architecture system as shown in the figure below.image description

DAOrayaki Governance Model

When a DAO member completes an article or other output, its editorial committee conducts a review that is visible to all members through Snapshot. At the same time, DAO members can also use YakID to participate in prediction-based governance. This governance includes content market and hot spot prediction. Taking the content market as an example, assuming that DAOrayaki has an article to be published, then DAO members can bet on the reading volume of this article within a certain period of time.Regardless of whether the betting is successful or not, members will receive incentives to participate in governance, and members who bet on winning will receive more positive incentives.So we can see that in the DAOrayaki community, the overall members have a high enthusiasm for governance participation.

By observing DAOrayaki, we think that its composition structure has a total ofEditorial Board, Content Contributors, Readers and Sponsorssecondary title

Insight

For DAOrayaki, we thinkIts early stage 1.0 relying on the review of the editorial committee is a neutral governance model. At this stage, it does not yet have an editorial board rotation mechanism, and the review of content is also the responsibility of the committee. However, this neutral approach makes DAOrayakiQuickly obtained a robust organizational framework and high-quality output. After entering the 2.0 stage, DAOrayaki's game-based community activities can effectively increase user participation, and its roadmap also clarifies the future points redemption method. Therefore, we define the organization of DAOrayaki as"Regular Expected Traction"。

Psychological Expectation & Strength Model

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Positioning based on DAOrayaki theory of psychological expectations and psychological power

Based on the above theories, we think through the analysis of DAOrayaki,Through the editorial committee, Bounty and quiz governance, it has created a rule-oriented + strong sense of self-power organizational atmosphere within DAO.We believe that the self-interest-oriented organizational model is certainly not desirable, but the caring-oriented organizational model may also be unsuitable in terms of the long-term ecology of the organization because it may breed favoritism, malpractice and structural distortion. It is worth promoting. So we propose,The rule-oriented type with a strong sense of power is one of the most suitable organizational modelsfirst level title

People DAO

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Constitution DAO official website

There have been many studies on the development and operation of People DAO, but we think the most noteworthy thing is the Juicebox protocol, the fundraising tool behind it. We will not elaborate on this, butFriends who want to get outside help to quickly start the project should pay more attention to the Juicebox protocol.secondary title

Insight

What attracts our researchers most about People DAO is its innate meme attribute, and the possibility of people’s DAO inspired by the story itself, and the future life.infinite reverie。

meme category

The term meme was first used by the famous Oxford University biologist Dawkins in his "The Selfish Gene". Dawkins coined memes, based on the Greek root word "mimeme", in imitation of "gene", which refers to a "unit of cultural inheritance". Meme is an idea, belief or attitude that can be spread among people. It can be divided into three types: characteristic meme, strategic meme and associative meme. Feature memes are mostly spread due to their different nature from other things. Strategic meme is thinking about cause and effect. When manipulated by strategic meme, the subconscious will think that a certain behavior will bring corresponding results, and a certain behavior may lead to a series of events, and this meme will be spread. The third is associative meme, its cause and transmission mechanism is due to the association of two or more memes in the brain. When individuals are manipulated by associative memes, one thing will trigger their views or feelings about other things, which will affect their behavior, and finally transmit the meme to other people's brains.

meme propagation mechanism

We believe

We believeSocial motivation theory can explain the meme propagation process of the original Constitution DAO.First of all, in the post-epidemic era, due to the lack of traditional offline social interaction, peopleThere is generally a strong need for a sense of belonging.Second, linking the auction constitution to such noble qualities as democracy and freedom gives participants a sense ofself-improvement satisfaction. Furthermore, attention, as the only scarce resource, when people are initially attracted to join this group, whether it is due to spiritual demands or material rewards after the successful auction of the constitution,Its attention resources will be covered by the "whispering wall" formed by the information channels it chooses to contact, and then affect its understanding and form control, and finally transform into a node of meme propagation.

The meme attribute of People DAO

After failing to bid for the constitution, the founders abandoned the project, and its ownerlessness truly achieved decentralization, and Constitution DAO was transformed into People DAO. The community and its participants have the opportunity to redefine the DAO with their actions and support. Our interest in its research has also shifted from a meme to the possibility of a DAO. We believe that,Consensus is the philosophical basis of DAO, and its level of abstraction determines the size of the imagination.first level title

Seed Club

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Incubation mode

The main business of Seed Club is Accelerator.The project organizes 4 phases a year, and each phase incubates about 15 Web3.0 projects. The incubation time of each period is 6-8 weeks, 2 times a week, 1.5 hours each time. Seed Club will provide community management, social token economics construction and other teaching for the project. When the incubation project issues tokens, 3% of the incubation project tokens will be used as an incubation fee paid to Seed Club, and the project will receive a certain amount of Seed Club token $CLUB to obtain subsequent support from the Club. Seed Club will profit from the growth of the project's token value.image description

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membership system

Seed Club has a member application mechanism similar to FWB, but because its applicants are mainly task-oriented, it does not have as high a threshold as FWB. Seed Club has three categories of membership registration:

• @Sprout: Obtained after self-introduction, can access and speak in some channels;

• @Seedling: Fill out the application form on its official website and get it after review. Members with this status can receive jobs on Discord to earn $CLUB;

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Seed Club membership settings

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Insight

We think that what Seed Club is worth learning and thinking about is its friendly and complete newcomer guidance mechanism and the software construction required by DAO as an entry ecological niche.

Newcomer Guidance Mechanism

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Seed Club's newcomer guidance mechanism in Discord

Software Construction & Token Economy

As a DAO that incubates new Web3.0 projects, Seed Club fully recognizes its ecological position. As the DAO grows,It will inevitably require strong support and assistance in both hardware (such as voting and treasury tools) and software (such as ideological consensus building, economic design, auditing, etc.).At present, there are relatively many solution suppliers in terms of hardware, but most of them are still in the exploratory stage in terms of software. There is no doubt about the importance of the token economy design that Seed Club focuses on. Olha Hlebiv (Olha Hlebiv) believes that an excellent representative economic system should have the following characteristics:

• have utility in the ecosystem;

• resistant to inflation;

• is scalable;

• High value, tradable;

• From this it can be seen that

From this it can be seen thatWhen designing a token economy, not only a token is created, but also a complete ecosystem needs to be created.Its designers need to plan for the future and ensure that users are motivated to continue using the platform with the help of tokens. Therefore, we believe that when designing a token economy,Network effects need to be considered first(Network effects). The network effect means that the increase in the number of users will bring about an increase in the value of goods or services, and this effect exists widely in economic activities. Therefore, in a well-designed token economy, due to its open, peer-to-peer, and decentralized nature, the value that increases with network effects should not be captured by traditionally centralized owners. Designers of a token economy should enable people to hold tokens not only for speculative reasons, but also for the growth in value of a utility or interest in a network or system in the foreseeable future. In other words, token holders should benefit from network effects in the long run. In this case, more people will spontaneously participate in the ecosystem.

Second, designers need to consider the system design of tokens.Although there are many types and functions of tokens, the current practice can be roughly divided into single currency system and dual currency system.Under the single currency economic model, although the system is simpler, the value of tokens increases continuously as holders exchange tokens for goods or services. On the one hand, this is desirable for the overall economic system. Because the increase in the value of the token will make people more motivated to hold the token and join the network. But on the other hand, some holders who do not care about the utility function of the token may take the opportunity to sell the token in exchange for profit. Such speculation will lead to a decline in the price of the token, thereby increasing price volatility and undermining the financial utility and soundness of the token economy.

In the dual currency system,first level title

YGG

As the most well-known game guild, YGG came into being attached to the Axis infinity game. Initially, it is closer toNeutral, company-like organizational structureimage description

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Initial stage characteristics

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Insight

We believe that YGG showed the following very obvious characteristics in the early stage:The first is the technical advantages that allow YGG to quickly take the initiative in Axis Infinity and attract a large number of users through contracts.As the first organization to make an out-of-game rental contract, almost all the people who do not have the development ability and want to play this game gathered in YGG. Thanks to the constant blood flow, YGG's model can continue to operate.Secondly, excellent layout and vision.YGG didn't stop at Axis after their early success. They immediately launched the second project, and also used their own development advantages to find pain points in the game mechanism that can be adapted with smart contracts.Third, YGG pays special attention to the reserve of production materials in the game.In addition to the small pets in Axis, YGG began to hoard sandbox virtual plots in 2020.Fourth, tokenization of NFT assets.YGG organized members to raise funds to purchase the highest-level plots in the League of Kingdoms game, and divided the plot revenue according to the contributor's contribution.Fifth, with the growth of YGG's business and volume, it is constantly trying to issue tokens.This measure first arose naturally in the league of kingdoms in order to distribute income to fundraising members. Then YGG's tokens began to consider having governance rights, so that members were willing to spend money to run a game with the union. So far, YGG has gradually transformed into a game guild DAO.Sixth, YGG distributed NFT to early contributors when its discord reached 1,000 people, which consolidated the early members and realized the initial organizational structure.

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Emerging DAOs

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Vector DAO

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Padawan DAO

Padawan DAO is a DAO organization initiated by MetaCartel, a decentralized autonomous organization, with the purpose of subsidizing high school and college students with insufficient financial strength to participate in the North American hackathon encryption conference. The organization identifies funders through self-directed applications and reviews. At present, Padawan DAO is an education and public welfare DAO with pure motivation and clear goals. It has received donations from Vitalik and The Graph.

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Meta Gamma Delta DAO

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Summarize

Summarize

In this issue of DAO Ecological Observation, we introduce and analyze the ecological characteristics of ten DAO organizations, and provide our Insight. It can be seen that different DAOs do have great differences and characteristics in terms of long-term goals, practical methods, and organizational forms. We believe that this is where the new social form of DAO embraces innovation. We believe that in the future we will see more DAO organizations that bring transformational power to society.

* This report does not constitute any investment advice or reference.

** Thanks to RebeccaWONG, ColdRainNight and other partners for their hard work and assistance.