Here’s a beginner’s guide to the tools and apps you need to start a Decentralized Autonomous Organization.
The term DAO (short for “decentralized autonomous organization“) became a crypto buzzword in 2021, but the concept has real value. As of June 2022, the DAO ecosystem has a combined treasury value of $8.7 billion, according to the analytics site DeepDAO.
DAOs continue to grow as a community organizing model, a means of quickly raising and distributing money for social causes, or decentralizing blockchain-based protocols.
Here are the basics on how to start one. (This explainer is not financial or legal advice.)
What is a DAO?
Decentralized autonomous organizations use a shared treasury, smart contracts (programs that execute once criteria are met), and tokens for voting.
The first DAO, called “The DAO,” launched on Ethereum in 2016. While it is possible to establish a DAO on any blockchain that supports smart contracts, most of them run on Ethereum.
Forming a DAO requires several steps:
Name the DAO
Create a mission statement
Spin up a Discord server
Set up a Twitter account
Invite people to join
Launch a governance token
Create a funding mechanism
Set up Snapshot or other tools for voting and logging member contributions
