What is a DAO?

In this episode, we talk about the fascinating world of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations or more commonly known as DAOs.  We discuss the incredible opportunities that DAOs offer, how they could be a lucrative investment vehicle, how advanced the technology is already, new jobs that may come from the development of DAOs and ideas for businesses.

MENTIONED IN THIS WEBSITE

Denctraland – https://decentraland.org/
World of Women – https://worldofwomen.art/
World of Women DAO – https://worldofwomen.art/our-community
Bored Ape Yacht Club – https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/
Horizon Worlds – https://www.oculus.com/horizon-worlds/?locale=en_GB
Hello Sunshine – https://hello-sunshine.com/
Sandbox – https://www.sandbox.game/en/
Colony DAO – https://colony.io/
Aragon – https://aragon.org/
Alchemy DAO Stack – https://alchemy.daostack.io/
Tribute Labs – https://tributelabs.xyz/
Flamingo DAO – https://www.flamingodao.xyz/
Maker DAO – https://makerdao.com/en/
Sister Snog – https://www.sistersnog.com/

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Sarah Amann – https://www.youtube.com/c/SarahAmannCodes
Tim Ferriss – https://tim.blog/
Noah Feldman – https://noah-feldman.com/

EPISODES MENTIONED
What is the World of Women Project? –
https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-the-world-of-women-project
What is the Blockchain?
https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-the-blockchain/

FEATURED VIDEOS
Sarah Amann – How build a DAO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFpEWATDego&t=10s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5ypcAFA8A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7gTfHlKqE0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFORxa_pQ0
Tim Ferriss & Noah Feldman – What are DAOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEN-rAE1UUw

We hope you enjoyed the show and that it inspired some ideas as we bring our most important episode.

If you have any questions, comments and/or want to become part of our community join us on our Facebook group and/or on Discord.

Or visit us here:
Website: www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk
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TikTok: @WOTMWorld

IMPORTANT NOTICE
This podcast is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not give any investment or financial advice and we strongly recommend you always DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Show Transcription

[00:00:00] Cheryl: Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. I am Cheryl Laidlaw

[00:00:07] Angela: I am Angela Harkness. We have been and are still on a journey to discover the Metaverse with 3.0 NFTs and anything that we are required to know to join this world 

[00:00:20] Cheryl: from. From this podcast, we will help you to unlock how the metaverse is going to impact your brand.

[00:00:27] Cheryl: Your business and even your personal life. 

[00:00:31] Angela: Join us as we take the mystery out of this new digital universe.

[00:00:39] Cheryl: Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. In this episode, we are going to be talking about decentralized autonomous organizations, or more commonly known as, Adal is essentially a board of people. They can be set up by a company or it can be a group of people coming together with a shared [00:01:00] interest and vision.

[00:01:02] Cheryl: What makes a DAO is the rules, the structure, and even the values are all written into the code. These are created in form of a smart contract that sits on the block. So while it is the members that can vote on changes to the rules or structure, it is the technology that runs the Dow. Sarah Aman has a couple of really good videos on dowels, and we are going to talk more about these later on in the episode.

[00:01:34] Cheryl: But she gives what I, what is probably one of the simplest definitions of a. It is an organization that is controlled by rules in a computer program that is transparent and can be read by anyone and controlled by the organization members rather than some. Central authority. 

[00:01:57] Angela: What I love about doing this [00:02:00] podcast is the way that Cheryl and I work is we decide on a topic, then we both go off and research it.

[00:02:07] Angela: We add our notes to a document, and then we come together and we sit and we chat about it, and we shape the episode for recording. And when we talked about doing DAOs, , I thought this would be a quick episode. We’ll pull it together. It’ll be factual and quick and it will give more people knowledge adding onto what we’ve already given you, what we’ve already recorded.

[00:02:31] Angela: So I just thought it would be a straightforward, factual show. 10 minutes and you know, we’ll tell you what it darris and we’ll be gone. 

[00:02:39] Cheryl: Yeah, because this, this episode gets better and 

[00:02:41] Angela: better. Yeah. And it’s not a short. So I thought I had a good understanding of what a doubt is, and I assumed it was a committee of people who ensure that projects such as decent land welder, women bor y club run as they should and remain within the [00:03:00] values of the company, but also the outline values of what the metaverse is all about, which is for it to be decentralized.

[00:03:07] Angela: and they’re not governed by law, large corporations. And then Cheryl mentioned a video she had watched where she started talking to me about technology and I was like, that’s not where DAO is. I don’t think that was the dowel, cuz she came much more from the technology side. And I was very much with this about the people.

[00:03:24] Angela: So when I actually started to do research, I. Blown away by what I learned and the huge potential that understanding being part of and creating DAOs could have. So, Cheryl, do you wanna explain where they actually come from? Yeah, 

[00:03:42] Cheryl: yeah. Okay. So we came across a Forbes video. We were put the link in our show notes, so where they use the definition of a DAO as a group of people coming together with a shared vision and a bank account.

[00:03:55] Cheryl: They linked Dows to investment clubs back in the day where people would [00:04:00] put an equal amount of money and you would all come together and research and invest old school investment clubs where you had to read newspapers and finance magazines to get your information even before you could. even before you could even Google search some of, 

[00:04:17] Angela: for the show price.

[00:04:17] Angela: Some people are living a life that they’ve never not known Google. Can you imagine that?

[00:04:25] Cheryl: So in today’s definition of a Doo Doos are digital. The first digital Doo was created in 2006 16. after a rocky start because it got hacked. So it was 

[00:04:39] Angela: shelled for a while. Yeah. But So shows how new they still are. Any 2016. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:04:46] Cheryl: Absolutely. So as of, uh, 2022, There are over 4,000 recognized Dows, which as with everything is a result of evolution in technology.

[00:04:58] Cheryl: Not just to make the Dow work, [00:05:00] but also to ensure that they are secure. So the technology is better, but also the number of people who are skilled in this area has grown. Just much like Yes. Yeah. Knife up. So what is making Dows become increasingly more unpopular? From one Dow in 2016 to around 200 in 2020 to, as we said, 4,000 in 2022 is due to the increase interest in the blockchain and web free and investing in crypto and NFTs and the metaverse.

[00:05:35] Cheryl: The way to look at this and understand them more is that the Dow is the how and the crypto NFTs land in the meta. 

[00:05:45] Angela: of the what? So, as Cheryl said, the other thing that we’ve talked about, and we’ve talked about this in other episodes, is that when there is such an advancement in technology, actually using it seems to become a lot easier.

[00:05:58] Angela: So for [00:06:00] example, you can build your own horizon worlds. We’ve talked about that. You can create your own land and digital wearables in the central and sandbox. And I actually saw the other day, cuz Cheryl and I talked about 3D modeling a lot. You know how it can be quite complex. There was a piece of software that makes that even easier.

[00:06:19] Angela: So Cheryl, Cheryl mentioned Sarah Aman earlier in the episode and she’s got a really couple of such good videos on YouTube and we again, we put a link in the show notes where she explains how you can build your own Dow. This is like, this is the element that Cheryl loves, like the technology side. She’s like, oh, I can do this myself, , can I do it?

[00:06:42] Angela: How can I do it? When can I do it? So there are websites that give you the tools to help you easily create and build your own Dow Colony. Aragon and Dows stat alchemy are to name a few. There are also c. Then this blew me away that are acting as [00:07:00] Dow factories. So Tribute Labs is a perfect example of this.

[00:07:04] Angela: They run a number of DAOs, which specialize in different investments or purposes. For example, their Flamingo, Dow is focused purely on N F T investment. So this particular Dow is limited to a hundred members. You become a member by purchasing a minimum of a hundred thousand and up to 900,000, what they call flamingo units.

[00:07:30] Angela: Each 100,000 is a cool, is called a block, and you can purchase the block for 60 eth, which is about converted 81 and a half thousand K. So if you’ve got that line around. , you can buy a Flamingo unit. . 

[00:07:46] Cheryl: Oh goodness me, 

[00:07:47] Angela: thanks. Each block entitles you to 1% of the vote and 1% pro ratta rights to any proceeds made from the purchases.

[00:07:57] Angela: And you can’t just rock up and buy a flamingo unit. There is an [00:08:00] accreditation process and any investor needs to go through this. Neon is another one of their DAOs set up for the Metaverse Ready. Player is a Dow around gaming and noise is a Dow set up around music and sound and there are many more. And I really would recommend you go and look at a website, um, because it’s a really good website, and go and look at the Flamingo Dow because obviously not everybody has 81 and a half thousand just lying around to invest.

[00:08:28] Angela: But the information they give you about the Flamingo Doo. It just really shows you how it’s structured and what goes into it and what the rules are and everything. So it’s so, and then you 

[00:08:40] Cheryl: also notice as well that the, out of the creators, there’s only, there’s 38 creators and only two of them are women.

[00:08:47] Cheryl: Yeah. 

[00:08:47] Angela: Which is poor. And why we. Why we wanted to do this podcast and why we created the website is because we want more women to get involved and there’s definitely, um, opportunity for women in this area. [00:09:00] So, Cheryl, do you wanna just go through the, the different types of Dows? Sure. 

[00:09:05] Cheryl: So the different types of Dows relate to what they’re trying to achieve because styles are very flexible and new, and over time there will be many more types created.

[00:09:15] Cheryl: If you have an idea for a. That you don’t think fits into one of these boxes, then you can simply create your own category. We talked about this many times. Don’t limit yourself in this area. Absolutely. So here are a few. Hmm. So here are a few recognized categories. So we got the protocol now, um, at the moment is the most popular.

[00:09:36] Cheryl: The focus is really on. Uh, usually around borrowing and lending. For example, the Maker Dow uses smart contracts to help people borrow and lend cryptocurrency. We’ve got the collectors Dow, such as Tribu Labs, uh, Flamingo Dow. They are set up for the reason of collecting a certain type of digital [00:10:00] asset such as NFTs or specializing in niche types of NFTs such as that digital wearables.

[00:10:07] Cheryl: We got the investor Dow, um, using technology and smart contracts to create the old investment clubs. Then we’ve got Grant Dows that can be used to fund new projects, investments, inventions, and one of the least common Dows, but will probably grow as the use of Dows become more popular is around charity work.

[00:10:29] Cheryl: Dows. Social responsibility is key to the values of the Dao. So as you can tell, there are actual lot of similarities between them. But the overriding factor is that a group of people form or a, uh, join a membership where the rules are coded into smart contracts and sit on the block. . Angela, it’s time for ideas.

[00:10:56] Cheryl: Round. Okay, . So do you wanna give us some ideas of how [00:11:00] people can use this in their businesses, or how groups of people 

[00:11:03] Angela: could use styles? My head has been spinning with this since I started to read it, but idea after idea after idea. So immediately when I started to do research, I know that Sharon and I have mentioned this before, we used to belong to be this business club.

[00:11:16] Angela: In fact, it’s where we met at this business club called csn for. And neither of us are not members anymore, but for various reasons. But we still love Sister Snug and through the, through the start of values we’re very, very strong. And again, it’s a membership club. You can’t just. Join it. You have to be interviewed and you, they have to know that you’re gonna fit into the values of the club.

[00:11:41] Angela: And I was thinking about this for them because over time it’s had to change obviously because of the lockdown and members have joined and left and they, they do it slightly different, SI differently than when Sharon and I joined. But this would be a perfect place to have a Dow, a board of people. that make sure that the [00:12:00] values that make sure the smart contract meet the values of the, of the membership club, but it also then could be used for investment, maybe investments to create online courses or online documentation for women who might not necess.

[00:12:15] Angela: Necessarily be wanna join Sister Snog, but wanna know about connecting and building businesses. It could be used to create an N F T collection and even maybe people like Cheryl and I that maybe are no longer members, but could be, could become part of a DAO if we wanted to invest. So something like that would be, Perfect example of what a DAO could be.

[00:12:39] Angela: You could create, like Cheryl talked about types of Dao if you have a charity or a foundation. I was actually watching a video about Tim Ferris yesterday, the four Hour Work Week and Tribe of Mentors, and he was talking with somebody else about DAOs and he was saying he has a foundation and it. A [00:13:00] bull lake is the way he described it, because he’s constantly having to speak to LA to lawyers and sign documents.

[00:13:07] Angela: Anytime somebody wants to invest some money, he has to. It’s just a constant round of paperwork with lawyers and he was saying if he could just have a Dow that controls the foundation and controls the money coming in and a smart contract that controls all of this, it would make his life and also, Reduce the cost within having to constantly speak to lawyers and to control the foundation.

[00:13:31] Angela: He was really looking into that. You could have a property development dow, so you know, I would imagine you could do property development. With real life, um, houses, buildings, but also buying land and buildings in the metaverse, you could create a dow for that. So in its simplest form, we talked in episode.

[00:13:55] Angela: 14 about the incredible world of women collection and both Cheryll and I [00:14:00] own a world of women. Galaxy. We may mention this a lot cuz we’re very proud of the fact that we have galaxies, each , um, . But currently when I checked, so I checked yesterday, just before we recorded this, the cheapest world of women was around 5,000 pounds.

[00:14:17] Angela: If you include all the Ethereum gas prices, gas fees, If you wanted to start to invest in NFTs, but you don’t have 5,000 pound line around, you could get a group of five or 10 friends together, agree to put in an equal amount, agree the rules, and from the ready made software that is freely available.

[00:14:36] Angela: Create a Dow. You can either sit on your N F T and wait for it to go up in value. They will go up in value or you could create a brand for her, your world of women, N F T. You could license that N F T and create some income. And if you listen to episode 14, and if you haven’t, we suggest you do it cuz it’s one of our favorites.

[00:14:59] Angela: You will [00:15:00] remember we talked about the partnership that has been signed with Reese Witherspoon’s Media Company. Hello Sunshine, and the plans are to create TV series and movie franchises from the world of women characters. You could license your character to Hello Sunshine. You could act as an agent for your N F T and that one step could garner you income for a long time, or you could invest in more NFTs.

[00:15:26] Angela: and even as simple as my dad. My dad has been paying into this lottery syndicate for decades now, and every so often one of my dad’s lovely friends will text me and say, can you put some more money into the pot going forward? Even that could become a Dow. In the same way that people set WhatsApp groups for every little thing that goes on in their life, you will be able to set up a doo.

[00:15:50] Angela: In fact, it’s a business idea. You could simp. Create the capabilities for, for Dow templates that anyone would be able to set and get [00:16:00] going in 10 minutes. But it isn’t about running a business. As with all advances in technology, despite people’s fears about it, it creates new jobs. Jobs we cannot even imagine, potentially the words for these don’t exist yet.

[00:16:14] Angela: So, Cheryl, do you wanna just, what new jobs could come out? Creating a Dow that we could think of. 

[00:16:22] Cheryl: Sure. So there, so there are ones, the ones that we could think of from the top of our heads were like Angela says, we don’t know yet what the jobs the Dow industry is going to create, but. , obviously we’ve got the Dow developer.

[00:16:35] Cheryl: Many people were leaving their current day tech industry jobs to work and developing Web three. Mm-hmm. . It’s a no-brainer really, isn’t it? Yeah. This is certainly one area where you could increase your skills, learn to code Dows smart contracts and understand the blockchain technology. when we looked.

[00:16:52] Cheryl: There are a ton of courses out there, and 

[00:16:55] Angela: most of them are. Yeah, I think if I’m right, doesn’t Google give away all its co courses for free? [00:17:00] I think it’s like, yeah, Google 

[00:17:02] Cheryl: does. Um, I wouldn’t say they’re the most amazing courses, 

[00:17:06] Angela: but, um, yeah. You started though, right? Yeah, Google. Absolutely. 

[00:17:10] Cheryl: Absolutely.

[00:17:11] Cheryl: There’s plenty out there. There’s so much. I mean, if you can find a, you know, a YouTube video on how to create a doo, you’re halfway. There aren’t. We’ve got the, the, the lawyer, a Dow lawyer or contract specialist. You could niche in that area of DAOs. The demand for these skills over the next dec, dec, blah, excuse me, the dec next decade will explode.

[00:17:35] Cheryl: Yeah. So whether you create a Dow contract templates that people could purchase for you or specialize in larger companies, startups, charities, or niche in particular types of Dows, 

[00:17:45] Angela: that’s definitely option I get that’s gonna be. That’s like, so actually, yeah, definitely pull together what the smart contract and the rules should be, even sort of organizational structure.

[00:17:56] Angela: you could go into a dao. So that definitely, [00:18:00] yeah. I think, 

[00:18:00] Cheryl: I don’t, I actually think the way we actually disintegrate this will be the way. Yeah, I agree. I don’t think having big drawn up contracts that are written and signed, it will just be 

[00:18:10] Angela: on DAOs in the future. I completely agree. 

[00:18:13] Cheryl: Yeah, definitely. So we’ve got the Dow consultant.

[00:18:15] Cheryl: Um, you can specialize in consultancy and help people to set up DAOs, whether it’s startups or more established companies that want to move more into DAOs s. Again, the need for these roles over the next decade could put you in high demand. We’ve got down marketing specializing in this area, understanding DAOs and how they could be marketed compared to other assets or entities.

[00:18:40] Cheryl: Uh, this incre, this industry could become massive and we’ve seen this. from the growth of popularity of DAOs already. In most basic terms, there will be the need for ideas, consultancy development, and backup support. What skills do you have that could transition [00:19:00] into 

[00:19:00] Angela: this field? Yeah, it’s massive, right?

[00:19:02] Angela: Yeah. I 

[00:19:03] Cheryl: mean, they’re just a few that we pick off the top of our heads head. 

[00:19:07] Angela: It’s, I mean, marketing is always such a specialized one. If you think, you know God, The turn of this century, there was no social media marketing. And now look at the role and how many videos you see on how to make your TikTok more popular or the, the specialization of Doos I think will be mammoth to try and, um, yeah, try and market.

[00:19:30] Angela: It’s just nicheing, 

[00:19:31] Cheryl: isn’t it? And um, uh, I mean, and I’m sure people are listening to this episode and thinking, well, I really don’t have the clue on how I. Or you know, how I’m gonna use the down in the future or you know, it could be just you signed up to your friend’s Hendu and you’ve gotta pay your Yes.

[00:19:48] Angela: Yeah, I mean, cuz how annoying are those? There’s always one at then. Oh, that’s so annoying. There’s always one there that’s like trying to do everything. But you know, if you, Sandra hasn’t paid yet, Sandra [00:20:00] hasn’t paid, or, or she’s pulled out or she doesn’t wanna do the rock climbing or, you know, all of that is just like even before you go out for a meal where you have that, she just pay for what you have or, you know, people who don’t drink.

[00:20:13] Angela: Yeah. Like I don’t really drink, I don’t want it like just everybody paying equal with like, This is the Dow before we even walk through the door. The restaurant, I mean,

[00:20:24] Angela: you know, it could be as simple as that. Let’s just pull this together. Look, put it in the WhatsApp group. That’s it. No changes, you know? Yeah. We don’t have to 

[00:20:32] Cheryl: overcomplicate this, do it. No, this is just a simple, you know, no 

[00:20:36] Angela: analogy. So DAOs, as with all this new digital universe are. The concept for them comes from a good place.

[00:20:46] Angela: It is to create a community. We can talk about community all the time. I think in every episode we must mention communities within organizations. They are in effect to create decisions from the bottom up and try to lever out [00:21:00] hierarchy. That’s really where they come from. This whole decentralized, not needing a third party.

[00:21:05] Angela: They are creative, so only a collective can make a change. So the way in which Dow’s work. Cause as we have said in what is blockchain, episode seven, the blockchain is transparent, smart contracts and therefore Dows are transparent. So everyone can see the dow, the rules, the structure, the value. So whatever is coded into the smart contract, one simple person cannot make changes to the rules.

[00:21:33] Angela: It has to be agreed by the Dow. But the. Idea of DAOs are very idealistic at the moment. People are treating them as the perfect solution. And as I said, I was watching this podcast with Noah Feldman, who’s a Harvard Pro professor with Tim Ferris. and he was talking about the reason why someone is given the role of president or CEO O is because sometimes [00:22:00] somebody has to make a tough decision.

[00:22:02] Angela: And getting a group of people to do that can be really hard Sometimes when you involve people in anything, then the problem start. Yeah. So. , Izzy Gomez, I may have butchered. That was the designer of the mini car, and he famously said, A camel is a horse designed by committee. He was knighted because of his creation of the mini, and he very much put that down to the fact it was not designed by a committee, but by one person.

[00:22:34] Angela: So there will be flaws and there will still be inequality in DAOs. So take for example, Flamingo Dow. So Cheryl’s already mentioned that the curators only two women, 38 men. And if you invest, if 20 people brought nine blocks of flamingo units, so remember that’s 900,000. Um, Units or whatever they called, and the other 80, all owned one [00:23:00] each.

[00:23:00] Angela: The 20 have a massive voting power. So there are flaws and they are not per perfect, but the underlying purpose and vision for DAOs is for good. But as always, the. You need to do your own research. We say this all the time, but do your own research. There is so much more we could have talked about, but this episode is already quite long, but we will talk about a ton on other episodes or maybe we’ll do an episode on a single Dow for now.

[00:23:29] Angela: But Cheryl, do you wanna close out with some final wise words? 

[00:23:36] Cheryl: Problems. So as we are heading more and more into web three, you will notice that everyone will have access to investment opportunities. And the class system that was once so important won’t be anymore. Everyone will have access to DAOs, new Metaverse projects.

[00:23:55] Cheryl: They can create their own N F T projects. Connections are [00:24:00] easily reachable and education on web. is mostly free. So whilst everyone is worried about losing their children in the Metaverse gaming industry, think about the opportunities that are going to be open to them that we didn’t have. The New World is going to be a game changer for the next generation and yourself if you allow it to be So, I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode about DAOs.

[00:24:29] Cheryl: We will see you next week for more Metaverse Educat. See you then. For now,

[00:24:37] Angela: thank you for listening to this episode of Women of the Metaverse. 

[00:24:42] Cheryl: You can find all information, links and people we talked about in the show notes on our website. If you have 

[00:24:48] Angela: enjoyed this podcast, please comment and subscribe. 

[00:24:52] Cheryl: Join us again in the next episode as we continue this exciting metaverse journey.[00:25:00]