The DAO

Browsing a list of podcast shows, I came across an episode called "ConstitutionDAO's Julian Weisser and Will Papper". Now, considering this podcast show was labeled under "Politics", I figured there was going to be a discussion comparing a political philosophy to a spiritual one. Well, let's just say my expectations were incorrect.

A DAO, in terms of the show, is an acronym for "Decentralized autonomous organization". Now, this is one of those new-agey terms that's entering the tech space. It's a community of people establishing rules encoded in a computer program. There's no central government in control, and the organization uses blockchain technology to keep track of its terms and members. As the rules are embedded into the code, no managers are needed, thus removing any bureaucracy. DAOs already exist and you can actually join in on one today.

Let's use Bitcoin as an example. Bitcoin is a decentralized financial money that uses a secure digital ledger to track financial interactions across the internet. It's hardened against forgery by trusted timestamping of transactions and the information is spread across multiple databases that are open to the public for review. In theory, a blockchain approach allows multiple cloud computing users to enter a loosely coupled peer-to-peer smart contract collaboration, using the online ledger as a record instead of using legal contracts like deeds and titles. Users are attracted to DAOs because those organizations aim to be open platforms where individuals control their identities and their personal data versus handing it to a centralized government. All the members of a DAO need to vote for any changes to be implemented in a democratized system.

Still confused? Well, let's take a look at a group of people that organized themselves as a DAO in order to buy a copy of the Constitution. Over 2,000 people contributed about $40 million to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby's auction. These people organized via Zoom and came up with the plan in about a week. Although they lost the bid, the power of this DAO gives us an idea of what's possible when people band together. A DAO has the potential to face major corporations head on.

But what happens when a DAO turns sour? It's possible. Coding used in DAOs can have issues , as one German startup shows us. in June 2016 hackers managed to siphon off $50 million from that DAO before it was stopped. Even though the fault was in code and not in the the concept of blockchain, the hack did show us what's at stake for DAOs. That was five years ago, and now the term and concept is becoming more common, with renewed interest fueling after the latest attempt to buy the Constitution.

People are excited by this concept because it shows the ability for mass amounts of people to organize for a concept or cause. The reason for wanting to buy the Constitution is unique to each person - either to join in on a social movement, to be introduced to blockchain technology, or to participate in a process that could be the future. People were driven to participate in a way where their voices could be heard equally. As this concept is introduced to wider spaces and audiences, could we see even more social movement DAOs? I'm thinking grassroot political campaigns, movements to free possible wrongful convictions, and even scholarships. The Constitution starts off with the words "We the people...." and as technology continues to open up new spaces, is a DAO our country's way of evolving that term to the 21st century?