Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) is an imitation of cooperation built on the Ethereum blockchain. Unlike traditional corporations, it doesn’t have centralized management to govern the operations. These collective entities are governed by code, smart contracts and consensus mechanisms.
We are in a revolutionary era where blockchain technology rules the world. Ethereum is a leading blockchain platform, serving as a foundation for DAOs fostering decentralized governance, collaboration, and resource allocation. In this article, we will together explore how DAOs work and the top DAOs shaping the Ethereum ecosystem.
How Do DAOs Work?
As you know DAOs are organizations that operate without a central authority. They rely on smart contracts instead and the consensus of their members to make decisions and execute actions. Here is how they usually work.
Smart Contracts: The smart contracts are the backbone of a DAO. The purpose is to define the rules and functions of the organization, including how members will make decisions, interact with each other, and manage funds.
Token Holders: Each DAO has its own token that represents membership or ownership in the organization. Token holders enable voting power and participation in decision-making processes.
Voting: Every DAO has a voting process that enables members to make decisions. Each token holder has a certain number of votes as proportion to their investment. Any member can submit a proposal regardless of his share. Token holders can later vote on whether to approve or reject it.
Execution of Decisions: After approval of a proposal through a voting process, the smart contracts automatically generate the decision. For example, if the proposal is for fund sanction for a particular project, the smart contract will transfer the required amount of funds from the DAO’s treasury to the designated recipient.
Transparency and Immutability: DAOs operate on public blockchains ensuring transparency and immutability. Every transaction and decision is recorded on the blockchain and anyone can verify it.
List Of DAOs Built On Ethereum
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations built on Ethereum covers a wide array of categories. Each category of DAO serves different purposes and Functions. There are several categories of DAOs, however we will here focus on the ones built on Ethereum.
Governance And Protocol Management
The purpose of governance and decision-making DAOs is to create democratic, transparent, and decentralized systems. These DAOs provide a basis for community members to make decisions together and eliminate dependence on centralized authorities. Following are the few DAOs that fall into this category.
Aragon: Aragon DAO is an open-source software built on the Ethereum blockchain. It is used for creating and maintaining decentralized autonomous organizations.It operates on A code setup. Aargon mints and distributes tokens, authorizes wallets for voting, and set governance parameters without writing a line of code.
| The Aragon project has three main constituents: |
|---|
| Aragon Association |
| Aragon Client |
| Aragon Network |
According to Coindesk, ANT is the native cryptocurrency of Aragon. The Aragon price is $8.50, a change of -3.71% over the past 24 hours.
DAOstack: It provides tools, frameworks, and infrastructure to build the coordination and decision-making processes within DAOs. DAOstack’s purpose is to enable a more decentralized, efficient, and scalable form of governance for different decentralized applications (dApps) and protocols
DAOstack’s cryptocurrency token is known as GEN. Members use GEN within the DAOstack ecosystem for various purposes such as staking, voting, and governance participation.
As per Binance, the live price of Generation is $ 0.00011 per (GEN / USD) with a current market cap of $ 0 USD on March 19. The 24-hour trading volume was reported as $21.93 USD. The GEN to USD price is updated in real time. Generation is +0.03% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 0.
Governor DAO: Governor DAO (GDAO) is a decentralized autonomous organization built on ethereum. It enables other projects and networks to adopt decentralized governance principles in their own token models and communities. It is commonly known as DAO of DAOs. It provides:
| Commonly Known as DAO of DAOs |
|---|
| Proof of Existence |
| NFT Launchpad |
| Web3 Consulting |
| Democratic DAO Governance |
As of March 20, the price of Governor DAO is $ 0.050529 per (GDAO / USD) with a current market cap of $ 147,014.11 USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 35,173.67 USD. The GDAO to USD price is updated in real time. Governor DAO is -5.4% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 2.91M.
DxDAO: This DAO is known for developing and governing De-Fi protocols by using a unique governance structure based on reputation (REP) instead of tokens. Reputation (REP) is the backbone of DxDAO’s governance framework. It determines how much influence an individual has within the organization. It is essential to earn REP for participating in the decision-making process and contributing to the development of DxDAO’s DeFi protocols.
According to CoinMarketCap, the DXdao price on March 19 was $1,347.84 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $106.09 USD.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
De-Fi DAOs help in providing financial services to the members such as lending, borrowing, trading,, and asset management. To make the process smooth and cost-effective, these DAOs use smart contracts.
MakerDAO: MakerDAO is a cryptocurrency protocol that started in 2014. It is built on the Ethereum blockchain. The DAO issues a governance token known as MKR, which allows the token holder to participate in the governance and policy-making of the DAO as well as the DAI stablecoin.
Maker (MKR) is the governance token of the MakerDAO and Maker Protocol. As on March 19, the value of Maker(MKR) is $2,918.0 whereas traded volume in the past 24 hours was recorded as $196,933,218.
MolochDAO: MolochDAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization built on Ethereum. It gained significant attention and relevance within the Ethereum ecosystem due to its unique approach to funding and decision-making.
MolochDAO operates through a system where members pool their Ethereum (ETH) into a smart contract, and proposals for funding are submitted. Members then vote on these proposals, and if a proposal receives enough support, the funds are released from the smart contract to finance the project.
The current price of Moloch DAO is $0.00004866.
There might not be a direct association between Moloch and the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The latter is a collection of unique digital art pieces (NFTs) featuring animal behaviors’ ape characters, gaining significant popularity in the NFT space. However, it can be possible that individuals or entities associated with MolochDAO may show their interest in NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club.
PieDAO: The PieDAO is dedicated to bringing market accessibility and economic empowerment through Pie Protocol and Tokenized ETFs governed by a DAO. It basically revolves around De-FI. Its token is known as $DOUGH in the market.
This DAO has certain characteristics mentioned below:
| Characteristic | Description |
|---|---|
| PieSmart Pool | A tool for Automated Market Maker (AMM) functionality. |
| PieDAO Vault | A secure on-chain repository for members to store their assets. |
The Dough price on March 20 is USD 0.11 with a 24-hour trading volume of USD 0.18.
Yearn Finance (YFI): Yearn Finance operates as a DAO focused on creating strategies for automated yield farming in decentralized finance (DeFi). It aims to automatically reallocate funds to different De-Fi protocols.
As per Binance, the current price of yearn. finance is $ 8,470.75 per (YFI / USD) with a current market cap of $ 281.88M USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 85.58M USD. Yearn finance is -1.17% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 33,276.39.
Community and Ecosystem Building DAOs
Community and ecosystem-building DAOs aim to foster collaboration, coordination, and growth within a particular community or ecosystem.
MetaCartelDAO: This DAO facilitates the development of user-facing Ethereum applications. A group of Ethereum developers founded this in 2018 to create a more sustainable and fair way to fund and support open-source software development.
MetaCartel DAO has played an important role in the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. MetaCartel funded several DAO projects including:
| MetaCartel funded several DAO projects including: |
|---|
| Uniswap |
| Aave |
| Balancer |
| Compound |
| MakerDAO |
| Gitcoin |
| ENS |
| Aragon |
| MolochDAO |
MetaFactory: MetaFactory DAO works in signature clothing drops. It functions as a service DAO in collaboration with other DAOs, protocols, and groups. It aims to maximize the collectibility and ownership-clout factor with many products exchanging between physical and virtual worlds. The current token price of Meta Factory is $0.9925 as of today.
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Venture Capital and Investment DAOs
Venture capital DAOs are decentralized organizations where members pool in funds to invest in startups and projects. Members make investment decisions collectively through voting based on governance tokens.
Investment DAOs work in the same manner, however, they cover a wider range of assets beyond startups, including cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and other blockchain-based ventures.
Alpha Venture DAO: Alpha Venture DAO creates a platform for builders, innovators, and users to come together to build and incubate new innovations. There are two parts of the Alpha Venture DAO ecosystem: Build and Incubate.
According to crypto.com, Alpha Venture DAO’s price as of today is US$0.1431, with a 24-hour trading volume of $10.38 M. ALPHA is -0.13% in the last 24 hours. It is currently -29.04% from its 7-day all-time high of $0.2017, and 7.90% from its 7-day all-time low of $0.1326. ALPHA has a circulating supply of 870 M ALPHA and a max supply of 1 B ALPHA.
Seed Club: Seed Club DAO aims to assist web3 community builders. The purpose is to let people seek value created by online communities rather than platforms. Seed Club gets this done through its accelerator, studio projects, and expanding network of contributors, collaborators, and members.
According to crypto.com, Seed Club’s price today is US$1.62, with a 24-hour trading volume of $N/A. CLUB is +0.00% in the last 24 hours.
Yield Guild DAO: It is owned and run by community DAO. Yield Guild Games is a platform where like-minded crypto gaming and NFT investors come together. Yield Guild Games DAO enables its members to rent a wide variety of NFTs used in popular blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity, Sandbox, and Splinterlands. The aim of the Yield Guild Games project is to facilitate crypto gamers with investment opportunities.
According to Coinmarketcap, YGG’s price as of today is $0.7153 with a current market cap of $ 239.22M USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 60.80M USD. Yield Guild Games is +6.7% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 318.36M.
Syndicate DAO: Syndicate is a social network and decentralized investing protocol. It enables investors to create Web3-native investing DAOs. Members can pool funds in a multi-sig transaction and invest with their network. As it works on smart contracts, there is nothing complicated about distribution.
According to Coincodex, Syndicate’s price today is $ 0.137996 with a 24-hour trading volume of $ 0.370402, a market cap of $ 4.49M, and a market dominance of 0.00%. The SYNX price increased by 0.00% in the last 24 hours.
Media DAOs
Unlike traditional media, where Journalists create content as per hierarchical instructions, media DAOs create community-driven content.
Bankless DAO: Bankless DAO is a decentralized media platform to curates content revolving around financial technologies. It takes it decentralized approach to work around:
- Governance
- Guild
- Departments, and
- Projects
According to Binance, the current price of Bankless DAO is $ 0.002095 per BANK per USD with a current market cap of $ 0 USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 110.20 USD. BANK to USD price is updated in real-time. Bankless DAO is -7.01% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 0.
RUG RADIO: RUG Radio is decentralized digital media, which empowers hosts to create content choosing their own medium. Hosts seek benefit directly from the content in forms DAO token or rewards.
According to Coin Market Cap, the price of $RUG is $0.03802 with sales volume of 75.31% in the past 24 hours and total supply of 20,225,383 RUG.
Other DAOS
Following are some other DAOs with different purposes in the market.
Flamingo DAO: This DAO empowers its members to easily navigate their investments around NFTs. Unlike most DAOs, Flamingo DAO focuses on owning valuable NFTs rather than owning tokens. FlamingoDAO collected expensive NFTs from digital artists like Pak, Hackatao, XCopy, and CryptoPunk #2890 NFT, which was purchased in 2021 for $760k USD.
The current Flamingo price today is $0.103121 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $5,941,977 USD.
Developer DAO: This is one of the most famous DAOs in the crypto world. It has over 80K followers on Twitter. Moreover, the Developer DAO is composed of holders of DAO’s genesis NFTs, “Devs for Revolution.” It is a community of Web3 developers, designers, and marketers.
According to ByBit, the price of CODE is $0.287051, with a 24-hour trading volume of $172.23 as of today.
Sushi Swap: SushiSwap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol and automated market maker (AMM) working as a DAO. It empowers users to swap tokens, provide liquidity to pools, and participate in governance decisions through its native token, SUSHI.
The current price of SushiSwap is $ 1.641252 per (SUSHI / USD) with a current market cap of $ 387.52M USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 52.86M USD. SushiSwap is +0.72% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 236.11M.
Ape Yacht DAO: The Ape Yacht DAOfamous for its unique NFTs, aims to create an ecosystem where its token holders can participate in a fair and inclusive way.
Binance reported the current price of ApeCoin is $ 1.90147 per (APE / USD) with a current market cap of $ 1.15B USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 101.49M USD. ApeCoin is -0.01% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 604.90M.
DAOhaus: It is a platform for creating and managing DAOs on Ethereum. It provides customizable templates and tools for launching DAOs for various purposes, including community management, crowdfunding, and governance.
As per Binance, the current price of DAOhaus is $ 1.292068 per (HAUS / USD) with a current market cap of $ 0 USD. 24-hour trading volume is $ 0 USD. DAOhaus is +0.44% in the last 24 hours with a circulating supply of 0.
BuidlGuidl: BuidlGuidl represents a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that contains skilled Ethereum developers who create innovative products, prototypes, and educational tutorials for the Web3 ecosystem.
According to Coin Corp, Buidl price today is $0.5454 with a 24-hour trading volume of $503.73. BUIDL price is up 17.9% in the last 24 hours. It has a max supply of 42.56M.
Uniswap DAO: Uniswap DAO is built on the Ethereum blockchain. Its governance token, UNI, is an ERC-20 token. The Uniswap price is $11.67, a change of 4.81% over the past 24 hours.
Future Of DAOs On Ethereum Blockchain
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) on Ethereum can revolutionize the governance and decision-making processes. The future of DAOs on Ethereum looks promising, however it still has to undergo some challenging developments.
| DAOs Function on The Pillars of |
|---|
| Autonomy |
| Transparency |
| Collective Decision-making |
These pillars pose challenges for traditional ways of centralized governance. The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into DAOs is a radical shift that will redefine the operational aspects. Looking forward, we can see a world where traditional organizations will also adopt DAOs concept.
As you know every technology becomes more sophisticated over time, hence we might see the rise of ‘Meta-DAOs’. It will be the integration of multiple DAOs working in synergy, sharing resources, and making collective decisions. Nonetheless, the DAOs built on Ethereum blockchain are taking up more space in the business world with its earlier mentioned features.
Moving forward, we see industries adapting to DAOs infrastructure to ensure transparency.
