DAOstack: An operating system for collective intelligence
Change is constant, and we have seen this to true through the ages, as time goes on.
During the Paleolithic Era when men lived in caves, men always found a way to work together to fight common enemies and achieve set goals, as we can see from cave paintings.
Source: Clker, pixabay.com Millions or thousands of years later (depending on your starting point), we can pinpoint another event where men achieve great things, functioning as a unit.
According to the bible, during the time when men spoke one language, men came together to build a tower that would reach to the heavens. It took the intervention of God to destroy their purpose.
When everyone works as a unit, all voices count, great things are achieved and everyone is pleased.
With the creation of the very first blockchain in 2009, things were bound to evolve quickly. With this came new challenges, which left gaps to be filled. Ethereum blockchain answered some of these questions, and extended the use of the blockchain from a financial angle, to the running of decentralised applications.
However, one question or problem that hasn’t been tackled effectively is the issue of governance. A decentralised economy doesn’t mean there won’t be any form of order or guidelines set. How it is effected, is what determines if it is tilting back towards a centralised system or not.
While almost everyone is still trying to wrap their heads around a solution, DAOstack has come up with a very interesting proposal, with it being an operating system for collective intelligence.
The advantage of a DAO is that there is no single point of control, or a single point where failure can occur, rendering the whole system into a state of chaos. It’s also super-scalable.
Source: DAOstack To be clear, DAOstack is not just an application on the blockchain per se. It’s much bigger. It is the foundation on which groups of people or companies can come together to collaborate on, build upon and achieve set goals. This lead to tasks being completed more efficiently and effectively. Everyone has a voice, and all voices count. Standards can be set, and decisions can be made based on factors, such as reputation and stake in the ecosystem.
A Governance Protocol can take just about any form, but primarily suited to meet the needs of the smart company in question. This could oversee decision making as a whole, or just a part of it.
Some problems with and concerns with the blockchain governance system as it is now, are:
- What guarantees are there, that those who hold larger stakes will make the best decisions for all?
- In this system, there are no provisions for improvement on flaws internally, seeing it’s a rigid system.
- Concerns also exist about the possibility of recruiting a majority to vote on proposals.
To solve most of these problems and allay such fears, having a Reputation System goes a long way in solving these problems.
Having Reputation Scores in an Agency or Smart Company would enable them to vote and make decisions in a larger DAO( a DAO, being a mesh of linked sub-DAO’s). These Reputation Scores could also be applied directly within a sub-DAO to make decisions on specific things. Thus, leaving decision making to a specific reputation system, rather than the general or global system.
The DAO can also delegate some of its decision making to the smaller reputation systems that have a stake in the DAO(larger system). This brings about efficiency via delegation.
As much as this solves most of the problems, a Reputation System is not sufficient enough on it’s own, when scaling up.
Blockchain Governance Structure
Having a set of rules to guide the structure need to be set in place. Governance schemes
and global constraints could be set to be respected, irrespective of whatever might happen, or they could be set to be upgradable, if certain conditions are met.
An Agency deployed on the blockchain has the ability to perform activities such as:
Assigning Reputation: Based on contributions of members of a DAO or agency, members can be given Reputation Scores as we explained above. This would be a reflection of their reputation, and how much influence they have within the agency or DAO. Reputation scores are not transferable. To allow for flexibility, the agency might decide to have a kind of reset function, which would lead to a much more healthier ecosystem.
Token Distribution: DAO’s are free to distribute their own tokens, for whatever purpose they deem fit. Value and other criteria can be set by the DAO’s.
Allocate funds: As it is true elsewhere, funds can be gotten via token sales, and kept as reserves. When specific functions are carried out by members, these tokens can be allocated as a reward for those actions performed, such as a contribution that leads to advancement within the agency or DAO.
Other actions that can be performed are collective data curation (maintain database, processing of related data), external activity (actions within another agency), and governance upgrade. It could also be a mixture of two or more.
Source: DAOstack ARC:
When it comes to ARC, users can mix things up to build personalised government templates for their organisations. Schemes are building blocks which a user can use to achieve solutions. ARC is easily upgradable and parts of the system can be replaced when the need arises.
With this, it is easy for users to create elements to meet their needs. This also enables the implementation of governance systems that create the rules by which actions can and cannot be taken. Actions, such as the movement of tokens from one place to another are all subject to this.
ArcHives
Thinking about archives in the regular sense gives one a picture of what this is about. All DApps and DAO’s built on the foundation of DAOstack will have their data contained within this registry.
Arc.js
API’s ensure that integration of other applications is done efficiently and seamlessly (Think of all those third party apps and games you sign into, using facebook).
Smart contracts are usually built with the aid of Solidity, but with the use of Arc.js, developers will find it easier to create DApps without having to learn the contract-oriented language (Solidity). Being accessible to anyone, it is hoped that this would foster engagement,and in turn lead to mass adoption.
Alchemy
This enables users to create DAO’s/new agencies. This in turn fosters collaboration, and leads to development on the DAOstack ecosystem.
Decentralised Apps(DApps)
Decentralised Apps are what the everyday user sees and interacts with within a particular ecosystem.
It is the “finished product” on the DAOstack ecosystem. When DAOstack is populated by DAO’s and DApps, the ecosystem will thrive, leading to an increment in value for all stakeholders in the DAOstack ecosystem.
When any user contributes or carries out an action that leads to development within the ecosystem, such users can will be rewarded with tokens. Being rewarded is made possible by the use of GEN tokens.
GEN Tokens
As it is with all tokens, as it goes mainstream and is adopted on a massive scale, the tokens become more valuable.
In this case, the token used to reward contributors and drive the ecosystem is called GEN. Thus, users can have a stake in ecosystems, with the aid of GEN tokens. As it is to be expected, all transactions on DAOstack are carried out using the GEN token.
Source: DAOstack USER CASE SCENARIO
Real Madrid, the greatest football club in the world is run by fans who pay an annual membership fee, and have the right to vote on issues. The club needs to make strategic partnership decisions on who will make the club apparels, going forward. They have received better proposals from Under Armor and Nike, but the feeling within the club is that sticking with Adidas might still be the better option, all factors being considered.
Some members are worried that two Vice-Presidents might have been compromised, and will make decisions in line with their personal interests. There is also the lingering feeling that if two top officials are compromised, what are the chances other high ranking officials aren’t?
With the DAOstack being incorruptible, Real Madrid C.F decides to run as a DAO on DAOstack, with every local chapter or affiliate being a sub-DAO. Depending on the decisions that need to be made, the sub’s can make inputs or in some other instances, certain decisions can be delegated to them, based on set rules (protocols).
On the other hand, a minority can make decisions on behalf of the majority. However, this will be in harmony with the will and thoughts of the majority.
Each vote cast also factors in Reputation Scores, and this leads to actual fairness, seeing it is decentralised and open/transparent. It will also be incorruptible, due to the fact that the club is now a mesh of several DAO’s, and not one person would be able to alter decisions on a large scale that would have a huge negative impact on the club. This is how companies and organisations can benefit, thus leading to a change in the way they are run.
Other advantages DAO’s have over traditional organisations are that additional transaction costs, middle men, are rendered void in this instance (legal firms, expensive management software's). Legal work is recorded by smart contracts, and payments also become automatic. It also fosters more productivity as contributors are rewarded or made to feel important, leading to better end results, as compared to traditional organisations.
Resources to make huge decisions, is also a problem for organisations that aren’t massive. With the aid of a DAO, scaling up is no longer an issue, as it becomes more cost effective.
Also, in a traditional setting, a low level employee might have a proposal that would be of immense benefit to the organisation, but bureaucratic hurdles might be a hindrance to listening to what the proposal is all about. On the other hand, the key points of the proposal could be diluted as the information is being passed from one level to the other. In a DAO, this is no longer a problem.
The use of DAOstack is not only limited to collaborative endeavours, like in the scenario above. It could also be applied with regards to asset management and curation (news, feeds, getting information out.)
The pros, possibilities and benefits are endless, and we could go on and on.
Source: DAOstackDAOstack would help companies work more efficiently. Seeing everyone is working in sync, co-operation will be at a high level, as everyone’s interest is at stake. Companies will be able to deal with problems that might arise as a result of scaling up, thanks to this ecosystem.
Scaling rapidly would no longer be an issue for smaller corporations, as the cost of managing huge teams, and additional fees are done away with. Information is much more concise, and there is no chance of distortion.
The voice of the people is as the voice of God. An ecosystem where all can feel included and they can all can thrive is what DOAstack is about. Putting the power of the people back where it belongs-in their own hands is the way forward. The collective will always be stronger.
Would the scalability of Ethereum be an issue? It would be interesting see how DAOstack handles this, if this becomes a problem, sooner than expected when it goes mainstream.
Perhaps, more partnerships should be explored, if they aren’t already in the works.
Better Ways, Better World. Source: Prawny, Pixabay.comMatan Field (CEO) has been a DAO architect and blockchain entrepreneur since 2014.
Adam Levi Ph.D (co founder and CTO) is a former IDF radar engineer.
Oren Sokolowsky (Lead Developer) is an ex-Verifone Software team-lead (12 years), and spent the last few years working on start up companies.
- DAOstack is powered by Ethereum.
- The system is currently on chain, and there are plans to also take it off chain, in the near future. This will be of great benefit to many, as it will help to simplify the process, and get more people involved.
MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES:
To learn more about DAOstack, kindly visit their website here
A summary about DAOstack can be found here
DAOstack's WhitePaper can be found here
To join the DAOstack community on Telegram, click here
To follow DAOstack on Twitter, click here
To follow DAOstack's progress on Reddit, click here
To follow DAOstack's Medium blog, click here
To follow DAOstack's YouTube channel,
click here
For more information about DAOstack's Token Sale, click here
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Change is constant. That's a great way to start this post @solcross
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