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I really hope DAOs will improve on that situation.

by k__ 5y ago

jjtheblunt 5y ago
What is a DAO ?
- aurelius12 5y ago
  decentralized autonomous organization (driven via crypto)
- k__ 5y ago
  A Decentralized Autonomous Organizstion. It's a bit like a company/cooperation/nation which rules are defined and enforced by smart contracts.
- rgbrgb 5y ago
  Decentralized autonomous organization. It’s a collaboration mechanism for forming an organization wherein you can define the compensation and governance structure as open source code. Moloch DAO is one of the better known and simple to understand instances of a DAO, though it’s scope is limited to managing membership and voting on projects to fund [0]. [0]: https://github.com/MolochVentures/moloch/blob/minimal-revenue/v1_contracts/README.md https://github.com/MolochVentures/moloch/blob/minimal-revenu...
  - majormajor 5y ago
    So it's a contract but "with code"/"with crypto"? I don't understand why you'd prefer to work in a structure governed by contract-written-as-code compared to contract-written-as-anything-else. Seems like you could put any arbitrary set of rules in a regular contract too.
    - k__ 5y ago
      I think, the fact that those contracts are enforced by themselves is the USP here. It removes overhead that made a huge amount of rules prohibitly expensive and slow in the past.
      - majormajor 5y ago
        But we're not talking about scams here, as far as I can tell. Contracts aren't being thrown aside and blatantly ignored. Just misunderstood, possibly even exploitative, rules. Or in the case of "go forward" comp like in the article, it's really just a negotiation thing, more than a contract thing. Exploitative, deceptive, or otherwise malicious contract rules are still possible, here, no? I have a hard time imagining an automated code checker that is smart enough to figure out "this is a more risky investment based on how the rules are set up!" in a way that a paper contract couldn't be similarly analyzed. After all, a public company is about as decentralized as it gets - decentralized enough that most of the owners have basically zero individual power compared to the people appointed to run it - and there have been plenty of shenanigans in those over the years (which is why they now have a lot of regulation as a result). Is this effectively just "corporations, now with less regulations because we haven't yet seen the ways this particular form can be used maliciously?" Consider "hollywood accounting" - if the smart contract says "profit is split 60% to 40% between the two of us" but I'm in a position to choose to classify expenses and various other costs in a way that means "profit" gets computed in the system as X instead of 5X, what happens?
        k__ 5y ago
        I'm not talking about scams. It's just that some things don't make much sense if they are actively managed by people. Like liquid voting rights instead of CEOs etc.
    - m_ke 5y ago
      Because it can be enforced without being tied to a specific jurisdiction, expensive lawyers and army of accountants. Imagine a company the size of Google/Alphabet organized in a similar way to something like https://dxdao.eth.link/#/ https://dxdao.eth.link/#/, where employees have more say in what they work on and don't have layers of expensive management. Or a Y Combinator or a DAO of indie hacker businesses working as a cooperative, investing in new products, sharing resources, etc. Or an open source alternative to Uber / Seamless / Instacart where users can vote and bid on features and reward contributors who implement them. I'm sure a product driven by customers and makers would look a lot different than the exploitative middleman businesses that dominate tech at the moment.
      - zepto 5y ago
        > Because it can be enforced without being tied to a specific jurisdiction, expensive lawyers and army of accountants. How exactly can it be enforced without using the law?
        cinquemb 5y ago
        Because the code determines how funds can/or not flow from one address to another and is viewable by everyone by default.
        zepto 5y ago
        Yes but the code doesn’t do anything to make users comply with agreements.
        cinquemb 5y ago
        The users cannot do anything with the funds outside of what is dictated by the contracts, and there are various forms of incentives for executing specific contract actions for varying amount of actors. I.e. if you want to borrow stablecoins against ones assets on aave, you must deposit up to 150% (and the limits of how much one can borrow are up to 100% of the value of the assets) of those assets and they will be liquidated if you do not pay back the debt before its due. There more complex examples than this. Law doesn't stop people from breaking laws or not upholding contracts in the same way that code on the evm doesn't force users to interact with it (people break laws and get arrested after the fact and get liquidated all the time).
    - rgbrgb 5y ago
      There's the enforcement aspect that other commenters mention, but what's maybe more relevant to the OP is that every member's contract is open source. You know exactly what everyone is making and the mechanism for making decisions at the governance level is totally transparent by design.
    - poetaster 5y ago
      Must admit it's the first positive framed use I've read. Reminded me of the GPL as my contract with other GNU guys. Sort a.
m_ke 5y ago
Yeah I'm usually very anti crypto anything but DAOs sound like a promising concept. Might be a great way to get rid of VCs and run international workers coops with initial funding though ICOs. A DAO based startup studio / incubator would be interesting too.
- k__ 5y ago
  Yes. Would probably be a nicer working environment fur uber- and onlyfans-like markets.
- vmception 5y ago
  How about a DAO that only transacts in DAI and has no token representation of its shares, just prorata ownership and voting weight from initial funding via that decentralized stablecoin The irony being that nobody would notice if these exist or are prevalent specifically because there is no token doing the advertising
  - omeze 5y ago
    OlympusDAO is doing something like this, but they do have a token - DAO members get paid and theres a staking process that lets them accrue more of the token. The token is backed by a treasury and is worth at least 1 DAI. https://docs.olympusdao.finance/ https://docs.olympusdao.finance/ Disclaimer: I own Ohm
    - vmception 5y ago
      Thanks for making me aware of that I’ve seen ohm and olympusdao mentioned before but not what they did
glitchc 5y ago
... how?
- k__ 5y ago
  Zero trust transparency by design, for example.
  - glitchc 5y ago
    Which part of the system is transparent? The smart contract? Despite the name, a smart contract is just a software program. It is not a legal contract nor is it recognized as such in a court of law. As such it has no legal force. When that changes, I’ll sit up and take notice. Until then, the crypto folks are just spinning their wheels pretending one is like the other.

I really hope DAOs will improve on that situation.

by k__ 5y ago

I really hope DAOs will improve on that situation.

jjtheblunt 5y ago

What is a DAO ?

aurelius12 5y ago
decentralized autonomous organization (driven via crypto)
k__ 5y ago
A Decentralized Autonomous Organizstion. It's a bit like a company/cooperation/nation which rules are defined and enforced by smart contracts.
rgbrgb 5y ago
Decentralized autonomous organization. It’s a collaboration mechanism for forming an organization wherein you can define the compensation and governance structure as open source code. Moloch DAO is one of the better known and simple to understand instances of a DAO, though it’s scope is limited to managing membership and voting on projects to fund [0]. [0]: https://github.com/MolochVentures/moloch/blob/minimal-revenue/v1_contracts/README.md https://github.com/MolochVentures/moloch/blob/minimal-revenu...
- majormajor 5y ago
  So it's a contract but "with code"/"with crypto"? I don't understand why you'd prefer to work in a structure governed by contract-written-as-code compared to contract-written-as-anything-else. Seems like you could put any arbitrary set of rules in a regular contract too.
  - k__ 5y ago
    I think, the fact that those contracts are enforced by themselves is the USP here. It removes overhead that made a huge amount of rules prohibitly expensive and slow in the past.
    - majormajor 5y ago
      But we're not talking about scams here, as far as I can tell. Contracts aren't being thrown aside and blatantly ignored. Just misunderstood, possibly even exploitative, rules. Or in the case of "go forward" comp like in the article, it's really just a negotiation thing, more than a contract thing. Exploitative, deceptive, or otherwise malicious contract rules are still possible, here, no? I have a hard time imagining an automated code checker that is smart enough to figure out "this is a more risky investment based on how the rules are set up!" in a way that a paper contract couldn't be similarly analyzed. After all, a public company is about as decentralized as it gets - decentralized enough that most of the owners have basically zero individual power compared to the people appointed to run it - and there have been plenty of shenanigans in those over the years (which is why they now have a lot of regulation as a result). Is this effectively just "corporations, now with less regulations because we haven't yet seen the ways this particular form can be used maliciously?" Consider "hollywood accounting" - if the smart contract says "profit is split 60% to 40% between the two of us" but I'm in a position to choose to classify expenses and various other costs in a way that means "profit" gets computed in the system as X instead of 5X, what happens?
      - k__ 5y ago
        I'm not talking about scams. It's just that some things don't make much sense if they are actively managed by people. Like liquid voting rights instead of CEOs etc.
  - m_ke 5y ago
    Because it can be enforced without being tied to a specific jurisdiction, expensive lawyers and army of accountants. Imagine a company the size of Google/Alphabet organized in a similar way to something like https://dxdao.eth.link/#/ https://dxdao.eth.link/#/, where employees have more say in what they work on and don't have layers of expensive management. Or a Y Combinator or a DAO of indie hacker businesses working as a cooperative, investing in new products, sharing resources, etc. Or an open source alternative to Uber / Seamless / Instacart where users can vote and bid on features and reward contributors who implement them. I'm sure a product driven by customers and makers would look a lot different than the exploitative middleman businesses that dominate tech at the moment.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > Because it can be enforced without being tied to a specific jurisdiction, expensive lawyers and army of accountants. How exactly can it be enforced without using the law?
      - cinquemb 5y ago
        Because the code determines how funds can/or not flow from one address to another and is viewable by everyone by default.
        zepto 5y ago
        Yes but the code doesn’t do anything to make users comply with agreements.
        cinquemb 5y ago
        The users cannot do anything with the funds outside of what is dictated by the contracts, and there are various forms of incentives for executing specific contract actions for varying amount of actors. I.e. if you want to borrow stablecoins against ones assets on aave, you must deposit up to 150% (and the limits of how much one can borrow are up to 100% of the value of the assets) of those assets and they will be liquidated if you do not pay back the debt before its due. There more complex examples than this. Law doesn't stop people from breaking laws or not upholding contracts in the same way that code on the evm doesn't force users to interact with it (people break laws and get arrested after the fact and get liquidated all the time).
  - rgbrgb 5y ago
    There's the enforcement aspect that other commenters mention, but what's maybe more relevant to the OP is that every member's contract is open source. You know exactly what everyone is making and the mechanism for making decisions at the governance level is totally transparent by design.
  - poetaster 5y ago
    Must admit it's the first positive framed use I've read. Reminded me of the GPL as my contract with other GNU guys. Sort a.

m_ke 5y ago

Yeah I'm usually very anti crypto anything but DAOs sound like a promising concept. Might be a great way to get rid of VCs and run international workers coops with initial funding though ICOs. A DAO based startup studio / incubator would be interesting too.

k__ 5y ago
Yes. Would probably be a nicer working environment fur uber- and onlyfans-like markets.
vmception 5y ago
How about a DAO that only transacts in DAI and has no token representation of its shares, just prorata ownership and voting weight from initial funding via that decentralized stablecoin The irony being that nobody would notice if these exist or are prevalent specifically because there is no token doing the advertising
- omeze 5y ago
  OlympusDAO is doing something like this, but they do have a token - DAO members get paid and theres a staking process that lets them accrue more of the token. The token is backed by a treasury and is worth at least 1 DAI. https://docs.olympusdao.finance/ https://docs.olympusdao.finance/ Disclaimer: I own Ohm
  - vmception 5y ago
    Thanks for making me aware of that I’ve seen ohm and olympusdao mentioned before but not what they did

glitchc 5y ago

... how?

k__ 5y ago
Zero trust transparency by design, for example.
- glitchc 5y ago
  Which part of the system is transparent? The smart contract? Despite the name, a smart contract is just a software program. It is not a legal contract nor is it recognized as such in a court of law. As such it has no legal force. When that changes, I’ll sit up and take notice. Until then, the crypto folks are just spinning their wheels pretending one is like the other.