TL;DR 

1. A DAO is a diverse group of people, coordinating around a shared wallet and vision. 

2. DAOs like Flamingo DAO, PleasrDAO, Uniswap DAO, and Ukraine DAO point the way forward to a future in which all industries and all work can and will be on-chain.

3. Even so, DAOs also face challenges due to opaque organizational processes, the lack of an all-in-one solution for their daily and long-term operations, an average voter turnout far short of a simple majority, and nearly non-existent inter-DAO knowledge sharing. 

4. Through improving the governance and economic models that drive DAOs and ramping-up initiatives to educate the world on how they work and why they matter, we will draw closer to a future in which all work is on-chain. 
   
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Why do DAOs Matter, Really?

Fundamentally, a DAO is a collective coordinating around a shared vision and cryptocurrency wallet. 

DAOs, in the simplest possible sense, are meant to be the new skunkworks or innovation lab for redefining what collaboration and even just connection between a group, means. DAOs or coordinating on-chain have always been revolutionary because they allow for and champion community rule and automated rule enforcement, radical transparency since day one, and a redistribution of incentives to the collective who truly contribute work. 

Looking at the successes of a cross-section of leading DAOs today, it’s easy to see both the impact they’ve made so far as an organizational paradigm and how far they still need to go to reach their full potential and spearhead the future of work. 

Investing, Governance, Curation, and Social Impact

DAOs, as they are today, can be bundled into 4 basic use cases. 

Flamingo DAO, founded in 2020, represents an investment DAO that only allows accredited investors to buy-in for “Flamingo Units,” that allow them to participate in the collective’s investment decisions as the equivalent of a crowd-run investment fund. To date, the DAO is capped at 100 members, which have made 24 investments on behalf of the DAO in all sorts of startups and communities. Uniswap DAO is fairly self-explanatory, representing a protocol DAO, meaning that its members vote on all major decisions related to the future of the leading decentralized exchange and its ecosystem. 

PleasrDAO, with 96 members, represents the leading curation DAO, having invested in all sorts of digital and physical art, including the limited edition Wu-Tang album, the original Doge NFT, and of course, the Uniswap V3 NFT by pplpleasr herself, amongst many other pieces that are culturally significant for different reasons. In short, PleasrDAO is the next stage for art funds, with everything bought and curated by a collective of true experts from the space involved. 

Then there’s the social impact sphere, with Ukraine DAO standing out as a paragon, having raised $6.75 million from an NFT flag drop. Today, it still manages 38 trucks delivering crucial aid to Ukrainians around the clock and a major initiative fighting disinformation during the war, amongst many other valuable efforts. 

And the beauty of it?

Its day-to-day operations and major decisions are made by Ukrainians. 

As a group, these DAOs are paragons pointing the way forward to a future in which industries, including charity, can be re-defined by the power of the many, instead of the few. Still, to scale this effort and truly flip the traditional firm on its head, we need to address where we’re falling short in spite of all the lightning fast innovation being done. 

From Walled Gardens to…Walled Gardens?

Just as DAOs today are already showing considerable promise, they’re also experiencing significant growing pains. From opaque organizational processes to an over-reliance on various tools with no all-in-one solution to a lack of knowledge-sharing across DAOs to voter turnout that’s not even half of the average national election, we’re at a crossroads in which the future looks all too much like the off-chain present we’re trying to leave. 

Inside of our sphere, we’ve always believed DAOs will be the fairer, better structured versions of every sort of company and community in existence. In reality, however, we’ve got more walled gardens. 

The essence of the entire web3 movement lies in decentralizing the web and re-working the economics it is based on, in the process. To do that, we need open citadels, connected by superhighways, leading to a shared marketplace where all of the various citizens can meet, trade experiences, and build better together.

Where do we go from here?: A New Arena for DAOs

Together, we can reach that future, though it won’t be easy. With significant efforts towards finetuning the governance and economic models that drive DAOs and a ramp-up of initiatives to educate the masses on why they matter and how to make them, we will draw closer and closer to a day in which all work is on-chain.

Even more importantly, we need all of us.

Each DAO contributor has something truly special to offer to help us move forward. 

At Samudai, we’re building the hub for present and future on-chain work where we all can and will do that. Be a pioneer. Do not sleep on a better system. Become a part of our community now and network with fellow DAO-topians with Mainnet and a new Renaissance on the horizon. 

About Samudai

Samudai is the world’s hub for all on-chain work and collaboration, both design forward and dedicated to spearheading the future of work for all involved. Samudai stands for seamless coordination, pushing the boundaries of inter-organization collaboration on-chain, and helping DAOs scale to new heights.   

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