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The DAO close to $100m in funding. Soon to be the largest crowdfunding ever
- toddkazakov 10y agoI went to their website, read a few pages of the content, and I still have no idea what is this and why they're close to $100MM funding.
- have_faith 10y agoI got a couple pages in and gave up.
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoIt feels like the Dharma Initiative or whatever the made up company on Lost was called. The web pages are crazily confused. My first thought was this is Spectre :-) I think what it is supposed to be is a way to make investments in a kind of non-centralized VC fund, and you buy money by transferring bitcoins or ether into dao token. Then a central committee figures out a list of ventures to fund. The members get proportional votes based on the size of their investments. If you search on youtube, you find some people discussing that part of the aims were to allow people to make pre-ipo investments without being accredited investors. In the US, you can't buy certain speculative investments without have a million bucks net worth (= an acc. inv.). So it's all these things together. Plus those crazy, no info web pages. Could they really have so many millions of investments? I've had this idea (not exactly original :-) that at some point technology really would accelerate out of the control of central authorities, whether you call it Ray Kurzweil's Singularity or ultimate cyber freedom. If we ever did get autonomous companies or foundations, controlled by computer code, could we allow them to exist without govt control? Suppose you had a company lead by say a Viv type AI which had 10 million in bitcoins and it was running in a 3rd world country, outside the US, and it's goal was to file lawsuits to stop the federal govt, or the EU or something?
- greenrd 10y agoHuh? Laws operate within countries. You can't file (or even defend against) lawsuits in a country without being "present" in that country.
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoSo open a fako office in a country (like they do for filing patent claims in west Texas) and then file the lawsuit. It's not like big companies can't make this work. And lawyers can make it work.
- rhizome 10y agoMakes you wonder who is contributing the 100MM and how they know what they know.
- daggerhashimoto 10y agoI'm investing $3500 So excited about this project.
- jaredtobin 10y agoI contributed, and I know what I know by virtue of playing with the technology, keeping up with the news in r/ethereum, etc. The usual kind of thing one does in smaller tech communities.
- zeven7 10y agoSame here. For those who have been keeping up with Ethereum developments, the DAO has been in the works for a long time, and people already have a general idea of what it is. There's been a lot of previous discussion about it dating back years[1]. I think the problem with the website is the people who created it are so deep into this stuff that they think it does a sufficiently decent job of explaining it. They've forgotten just how much of a learning curve there is for someone outside of the Ethereum community, much less anyone unfamiliar with blockchain technology. They may have not even planned for the website to explain it to such people, thinking they would be uninterested or unable to figure out how to participate anyway. [1] https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-an-incomplete-terminology-guide/ https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-...
- splintercell 10y agoIt's nothing but an investment medium on the blockchain (Ethereum specifically). The Ethereum community is very interested in seeing great things being built on its platform, so someone came up with this idea to create a blockchain app which allows it's members to direct funds towards building of other blockchain apps.
- kang 10y agoInterestingly, that someone is the company being funded (slock.it).
- m0se 10y agonop, there is no certainty that any company (including slock.it) will get any money from the DAO. Slock.it (like everyone else) can submit a proposal for a well defined project to the DAO and the DAO Token holder (people who put the money in the DAO) will vote on that proposal. If the don't see any benefit for the DAO/them-self in a proposal they will not vote for it and it won't get funded.
- splintercell 10y agoIt may sound a cruel thing to say, but I would not have funded a Slock.It-only crowdsale. I am sure there are quite a few people who think similarly. I'd rather the talented team behind slock.it work on the DAO full time than on slock.it.
- jgh 10y agowhy does this read like Zombocom?
- ivoras 10y agoOk, I have read the page at https://daohub.org/ https://daohub.org/ and I still don't know what "the DAO" is? Is it a blockchain-centred crowdfunding platform?
- opticalflow 10y agoThis looks to me like something on the order of convertible warrants based initially on bitcoin/Ethereum, which convert to DAO tokens. DAO tokens appear to be some sort of collective ownership of "crypto assets" whatever THAT means. The website reminds me of a horse with peanut butter in his mouth -- his lips are moving but not much is being said...
- splintercell 10y ago> Is it a blockchain-centred crowdfunding platform? Yes. It's a blockchain powered crowdfunding platform. Except it isn't just a medium to pre-order cool projects online(like Kickstarter is).
- pen2l 10y agoThat's pretty impressive; especially for something I have never heard of before or even understand still what it is about.
- aerovistae 10y agoAnyone who can explain what this is, much appreciated. Judging from comments here I'm far from the only one without a clue despite reading the page.
- znt 10y agoI think DAO is a complicated abstraction layer over blockchain protocol, meaning that when you get hacked you don't know how much money you actually lost.
- sopooneo 10y agoThat sounds about right to me. Any insight on how it/they managed to get 100 million in funding? What do all the people sending money think "DAO" is or does?
- znt 10y agoIt says "107.21 M USD EQUIVALENT" without any evidence. I highly doubt that amount is legitimate. Or they may be laundering money as well, I wouldn't spend too much time thinking on this.
- simondlr 10y agoIt's done by taking the amount of Ether it has already raised * the current price of Ether. See it transparently on the Ethereum blockchain: http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO
- revelation 10y agoSo yes, not $100M at all. The market for Ether is about as liquid as that for my own imaginary currency.
- fefe23 10y agoThis is a good example of a completely useless web page. What is a DAO? Why should I care? Who is running this? Is this a for-profit enterprise? A non-profit? An NGO? A performance art collective? > The DAO’s Mission: To blaze a new path in business organization for the betterment of its members, existing simultaneously nowhere and everywhere and operating solely with the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code. This is meaningless to me. It means nothing. When I see web pages like this, I wonder how people can waste money on web pages like this. All style, zero substance. This could be "social experiment" by a bunch of pot smoking college students in a dorm somewhere, for all it speaks to me.
- splintercell 10y agoThe DAO is essentially a 'Smart Contract' (read: a computer program which runs over the blockchain) between the willing investors to collectively fund various projects (in exchange of a certain return). People are investing in this because they want to participate in the future blockchain/non-blockchain projects which will seek funding from the DAO. Others can submit proposals to this smart contract, and community can vote on it (in proportion of their investment).
- kang 10y agoThere are non-smartContract program that run on blockchain. That is not what a smart contract is.
- killerstorm 10y agoA concept of a 'smart contract' isn't well-defined, thus it's hard to tell if something is a 'smart contract'. But programs which run on Ethereum blockchain are officially called contracts.
- splintercell 10y agoYour criticism is like if someone said "Using cryptography you can securely store any information you don't want anyone else but yourself to see", and you criticize it by saying "You can also store information you want others to see using cryptography". That said, technically bitcoin is a smart contract too, a Smart Contract for a virtual currency.
- adrianbg 10y agoIs this a cult?
- askafriend 10y agoThat's the feeling I get too.
- linagee 10y agoOnly in so far as a traditional company, like Apple, might be a cult.
- street 10y ago[deleted]
- ZenoArrow 10y agoThanks for the explanation. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me. Is there any independent site that verifies how much funding they've already got?
- street 10y ago[deleted]
- m0se 10y agoYes, there are several independent sites where you can find all the information needed to verify. Here you can check how much Ether (ETH) was raised on two different block explorers (both not affiliated with the DAO): http://etherscan.io/address/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413 http://etherscan.io/address/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3... https://etherchain.org/account/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413#txreceived https://etherchain.org/account/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c7... ..and to convert that to USD or whatever you can even use https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1+ETH+in+USD&ia=cryptocurrency https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1+ETH+in+USD&ia=cryptocurrency or check the price directly at one of the exchanges that trades ETH/USD, like https://www.kraken.com/charts https://www.kraken.com/charts.
- smitherfield 10y agoSounds like a pyramid scheme. Edit: For the interested, the distinction between a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi scheme is that a pyramid scheme is relatively more upfront about how it generates returns, and relies on the investors themselves to recruit new investors, not the fund manager.
- stevecalifornia 10y agoWhere is the evidence of $100M?
- simondlr 10y agoIt's all completely transparent on the Ethereum blockchain. No other middlemen holding any funds, except the code. http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO
- fraserharris 10y agoDAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization (that's as far as I got)
- vasaulys 10y agoSo DuckDuckGo gives their site description as being "the first Decentralized Autonomous Organization on the Ethereum blockchain" for those who are curious. But my God, that site is horrendous.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoAll I understood from that page is that it has something to do with the cryptocurrency Ethereum. Is it an Ethereum coin exchange or something like that?
- songzme 10y agoI was confused as to what the DAO is, so I googled around and came across this article that explains it pretty well: http://www.coindesk.com/the-dao-just-raised-50-million-but-what-is-it/ http://www.coindesk.com/the-dao-just-raised-50-million-but-w...
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoEthereum lets you have simple scripting over ethereum transactions, and I think Slock.it is an meant to be a "locking mechanism" on top of that, so one can only guess (because they have no-info web pages too, just like dao!), that this is a more comprehensive and sophisticated block chain programming model and higher level services than ethereum, but I can't really tell for sure.
- olh 10y agoWikipedia to the rescue (give or take): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)
- linagee 10y agoIf you're still trying to figure it out, this is what "The DAO" is, in programming code. No more, no less. Money in, wonderful things out. :) It will seem like magic to most. https://etherscan.io/address/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413#code https://etherscan.io/address/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d...
- thomasfoster96 10y agoMy best guess is that this is the cryptocurrency version of brownie points. Other than that this is the most information sparse webpage I've visited for a long time.
- kuschku 10y agoSo, kinda like a cooperative, but based on a cryptocurrency? I’m not sure I understand it, my buzzwordish is a bit rusty.
- ChuckMcM 10y agois DAO an acronym? "Does Anyone Object" ? "Diabolical Ant Organization"? "Donuts And Onions" ? This web site reads like some of the really bad TEDx talks "its going to revolutionize the world" but what it is, well that is a mystery.
- asadimatsu 10y agoDon't Act Obtuse
- strgrd 10y ago> Each DAO Token Holder is granted voting rights and complete control over The DAO's digtal assets (ETH to begin with) proportional to the amount of DAO tokens they hold. It seems like they're going to raise a bunch of money, and then vote on what to do with it. The premise I guess is that it's a "distributed autonomous organization" but I imagine the initial investors have a large stake in the amount funded so far, and their politics will decide what happens to the majority of investors who hold virtually no votes in comparison. This seems like a certain type of investment scheme...
- simondlr 10y agoWho are the initial investors? There's no privileged position.
- zaroth 10y agoDAO stands for 'decentralized autonomous organization'. 'TheDAO' is an instance of a DAO, in this case their stated mission is to fund various projects related to IoT and the sharing economy that its members vote for. Apparently this is for-profit and proposals are expected to provide some kind of ROI, perhaps financial returns or physical delivered product. Ethereum provides the decentralized infrastructure to support the voting and disbursement of funds from 'TheDAO' to the winning proposals. I don't know enough about ETH to understand the high level view of how it really works. It seems like all the websites devoted to Ethereum/DAO write in this entirely-devoid-of-substance style which is so breathless about how much it will change the world, it can't seem to actually tell you what's really going on. Crucially, I'm not sure it's quite fair to describe this as $100m in funding. You can get your share of ETH back at any time, minus amounts that have been committed to approved projects. Ethereum must somehow guarantee this property.... It is amazing what a large percentage of all ETH (currently stands at 13%) has been committed, but I assume the refundable nature of it all is what's driving such large involvement. One thing I found interesting is that the first 'Proposal' on TheDAO is for Slock.it, which itself is run by a team which was highly involved in starting Ethereum. If you read Slock.it and try to understand what they are doing, you will find it's exactly like trying to read and understand TheDAO -- so many words which just totally fail to make any kind of discernible point. [1] - https://daostats.github.io/tokenvol.html https://daostats.github.io/tokenvol.html
- ddxv 10y agoI clicked, read the webpage, went back to HN for an explanation in the comments. Unfortunately there just other human beings as confused as I am. So I googled it and found this: “decentralized autonomous organizations” (DAOs) https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-an-incomplete-terminology-guide/ https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-... The way I understand it, it is for building an organization that is somehow "autonomous" and decentralized. I put the autonomous in quotes because I am still not sure what that means, though I understand the decentralized part. Two other descriptions, from slightly skeptical observers, were: Decentralized Corporation Decentralized Venture Capital
- a3camero 10y agoAlthough intended as a critique, a blog post I wrote earlier this week might help explain some of it: http://www.cameronhuff.com/blog/slock-it-dao-paper/index.html http://www.cameronhuff.com/blog/slock-it-dao-paper/index.htm.... And the original proposal for "The DAO" can be found here: https://download.slock.it/public/DAO/WhitePaper.pdf https://download.slock.it/public/DAO/WhitePaper.pdf.
- killerstorm 10y agoAutonomous means that it is able to act on its own. E.g. suppose that at some point organization members decide that it should pay do monthly payments to some address to pay for certain work. A DAO noted this decision and started to execute it. At a later point members might change their mind, they no longer want this payments to be made. But DAO will keep making them if there is no way for members to cancel this execution. Thus DAO members do not have a complete control over the thing. It is autonomous.
- greenrd 10y agoThat's a hypothetical though, I'm guessing. Does The DAO actually use uncancellable payments, and if so, what for?
- fraserharris 10y agoDAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. This seems to be an experiment in democratic group action. The "process" is: the community approves or declines plain English Proposals backed by smart contract code aimed at building products or services for the benefit of its members. All operational elements are programmed into the Proposals submitted by Contractors. The Proposals submitted will give day-to-day operational control over to the Contractors, while enforcing strict payment schedules executed in predefined instalments.
- natch 10y agoThis is just bonkers: >By Creating DAO tokens through interaction with The DAO’s smart contract code, you expressly agree to all of the terms and conditions set forth in that code. If you do not understand or do not agree to those terms, you should not Create DAO tokens. They are saying you need to fully understand all the code, in order to responsibly decide whether you should click a button. But the code is off somewhere else, with no links to it in the shrink-wrap license. For all I know some of the code is buggy or impossible to understand. How many people putting in money have read all the code before doing so? Does all the code even exist yet? Are they agreeing to contracts now that will be hammered out in the future, by a democracy? Tyranny of the majority, anyone? Tyranny of the majority enforced by code sounds even more scary. Then: >The use of The DAO’s smart contract code and the Creation of DAO tokens carries significant financial risk, including using experimental software. The risk part I get, that's pretty standard. But I'm to agree to abide by contracts set out in code I can't see, probably can't understand, and running in experimental software? What could possibly go wrong?
- pdaian 10y agoThe code is here: https://github.com/slockit/DAO/blob/master/DAO.sol https://github.com/slockit/DAO/blob/master/DAO.sol Also pretty much entirely contained in the whitepaper.
- natch 10y agoThe fact that you can post a github link here tells me nothing. And that code is atrocious, but that isn't even the point. The point is there's no way people are vetting this code that they are signing up to be bound by. It's utterly insane to hand money over to this thing.
- DennisP 10y agoIt's basically legalese that says you agree with what's inevitable on the platform anyway. The code governs what happens, and there's no recourse if you don't like it. Every full node on Ethereum makes sure that the code runs the way it's written to run. My understanding is that this code is written, deployed, and verified by third parties. The ecosystem has tools to let people check sourcecode against deployed contracts.
- chejazi 10y agoA DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Participating in the governance of a DAO can happen from anywhere that can read/write to the blockchain, and the rules are autonomously enforced across all participants because they are encoded in the blockchain. The DAO is a DAO specifically designed to raise money for other DAOs. The unique thing about it over other crowdfunding platforms is that voting rights are implemented in an Ethereum contract hence enforceable with no central authority.
- chamza 10y agoI agree that the website is terrible. Over the past few weeks I've dug deep into it and think it is a really awesome experiment, although a very risky 'investment'. I will attempt to explain it below: The DAO is a group of people putting together their money to manage it and make more. This is done through proposals and members voting on passing them. Based on the proposals that are accepted, the DAO can be anything really: a hedge fund, VC fund, lottery-system, gambling pot, etc. What it becomes is still undefined and we can only see with time based on proposals and how the members vote. That alone is really interesting and exciting to me: will members actually make intelligent decisions or will it crash and burn? The DAO also shows the power of the underlying crypto, Ethereum, on which this was built.
- tonyswish 10y agoI agree completely. I'm a part of a different project on Ethereum (Augur) and we went out of our way to simplify everything so that anyone, regardless of sophistication can understand. We had the first big crowdsale on the platform and did quite well in a very bear market, I credit much of that to simplifying the idea as much as possible. This is a huge problem with Ethereum projects as there are so many cool ideas but they are so developer-centric that they lose anyone with unnecessary big words and weird language. With all that said, the DAO seems to be a very cool project and has found a huge level of success with this major flaw, which says something. I just wonder what they could be doing if the message was something that could be figured out by a newbie in under 3 minutes.
- daggerhashimoto 10y agoI'm in the hacker news borard ya? Cuz yall sound a bit illinfoemed.
- balaa 10y agoThe DAO represents, at this time, an altruistic profit driven organization. That organization is comprised of people who have combined their financial resources to facilitate the autonomous expansion and decentralization of goods and services for the purpose of providing equitable financial benefit to all members (DAO token holders). Anyone can become a member by contributing Ether to the DAO during its creation phase or purchasing DAO tokens from someone who has them (an exchange). The DAO prides itself on transparency, collaborative engagement, and the focused wisdom of the crowd. The DAOs capabilities are strictly defined in computer software that executes on the Ethereum blockchain, and is deterministic based on its interactions with its members and other smart contracts. Fundamentally, the DAO facilitates collaborative financial interactions between its token holders and the entities it funds in a largely trustless manner. I say largely because it is still under active development as its community is constantly working to optimize its autonomy and decentralization. Members vote on proposals that decide on how the organization will spend its money. Generally, active member participation is(not?) required for a proposal to be successful. A member can, at anytime before a proposal in which they do not support is approved, withdraw all remaining Ether sans the Ether previously approved for the funding of a proposal (a process called splitting). In return for funding proposals, DAO members are issued "Reward Tokens" which can be used to redeem a proportional amount(their contribution) of the DAOs profits. Where did it come from? The DAO's development was initially lead by a German company called Slock.it (former members of the Ethereum foundation) but it is now being adapted and evolved by the community that has risen around it.
- asadimatsu 10y agothis should help you guys understand it a bit better. http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/ct-crowdfunders-decisions-venture-capitalists-20160514-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/ct-crowdfunders-decisi... the DAO is basically a decentralized kickstarter that for now, is going to invest in blockchain startups, but it can fund whatever it wants :D
- donaldmcintyre 10y agoHowever crazy, and whatever happens to this specific DAO, this is a breakthrough event in computer science and human organization IMHO.
- typeIIA 10y agoBased on existing proposals, the DAO offers a new type of investment mechanism. Regular crowdfunding allows accredited as well as non-accredited investors to lock their money in with a start-up in exchange of various type of securities (preferred equity/convertible debt etc...). In this scheme the investors have most of the time absolutely 0 liquidity to exit their investment until the start-up goes public. The DAO proposals in contrast offers a revenue sharing proposition. The startup can receive a lump sum or stream of payments in exchange for a promise to execute on their business plan. Once the company gets revenue (on the blockchain) a piece of it (like 1%) will be redistributed to token holders (as a form of dividend if you want). In contrast to illiquid/bottom line offer available in regular crowdfunding platforms, the DAO offers a topline/liquid investment. The liquidity comes from the fact that although the DAO technically "locks" its investment with the startup, the DAO token themselves are a tradeable assets which can be exchanged against other cryptocurrencies (BTC mainly) as soon as the DAO is officially created. In this light the DAO is akin to some kind of decentralized investment firm because the token holders are not directly owners of any share in the beneficiary business. On the other hand it is a transparent investment firm because no portfolio manager takes discretionary decisions about which startup funds will be allocated to. the fund allocation logic is organized as "proposals" that can be voted in a secure and transparent fashion on the ethereum blockchain through a smart contract. hope this clarifies some aspects of that project!
- grifffgreeen 10y agoWhat is a DAO... ? What is The DAO? It is answered really well in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn_7fdmfZY8&feature=youtu.be&t=348 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn_7fdmfZY8&feature=youtu.be...
- nerboda 10y agoYou not understanding something != It doesn't make sense
- cordite 10y agoI got way more information out of the title of the white paper than the twenty minutes I spent scanning this website. Automated governance is what I needed to get a handle on what this is.