In 2021, Ethereum has gone mainstream. DeFi protocols are rapidly maturing and mass NFT adoption is on the horizon. An emerging generational shift has demonstrated that people are seeking alternative means to value accrual and financial access a shift that has been accelerated by the digital-first consequence of Covid-19. People have discovered that they don t need intermediaries to interact with a financial product or intermediaries to lend, buy, or sell assets they simply need Ethereum. A comparable paradigm shift is occurring for creators; artists, musicians, and other creative workers are now able to sell their work directly to their audiences, bypassing layers of middlemen through the use of NFTs, social tokens, and decentralized protocols.
DAOs are natural fits to support the emerging and growing ecosystems of both DeFi and NFTs. DAOs rely on a hive mind, a group of interested members who provide their own capital and work together to sift through, evaluate, and highlight key trends and investment opportunities. They do not rely on an antiquated funding model dependent on a handful of experts who are given complete latitude to make investment decisions.
What s more, because DAO members operate at arm s length, they have a compounding investment and community impact effect. Members are not only able to support a project through a DAO, but also through their own direct, independent investments. In many ways, DAOs resemble better-organized versions of Wall Street Bets, giving members the ability to coordinate, learn, and act together while at the same time preserving the ability of members to make their own independent investment decisions.
The Internet is changing the way we live, work, and do business, including the way people make investment decisions. The native structure of the Internet is a swarm, and DAOs are its logical endpoint. Swarms form on Twitter to influence politics. Swarms form on Wall Street Bets to short-squeeze major hedge funds. Our bet is that DAOs will increasingly channel this hivemind energy by creating loosely affiliated groups that rely on smart contracts and transparent, hard-to-modify rules to structure and enhance group decision making.
