There’s no denying DAOs are on the rise within the Ethereum ecosystem. One only has to look to Metacartel’s MCON 2021 this week, where Covid restrictions meant a limited number of tickets. Tickets were quickly snatched up in a matter of hours, and many additional applicants were relegated to the waitlist and left with some serious DAO FOMO.
For those new to the concept, DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. The unique properties of blockchain facilitate DAO formation and governance, where policies, decision-making, bylaws, and coordination can all be codified and enforced by smart contracts. This results in clarity of purpose, transparency, & power decentralization. DAOs are a radical departure from the status quo, representing a whole new model for organizations and global communities.
xDai is a long-time supporter of DAOs, the consensus model itself speaks to this alignment (POSDAO: Proof of Stake Decentralized Autonomous Organization) where validators coordinate contract updates through decentralized processes.
To function well, DAOs need to organize and vote on proposals relevant to their constituents. Blockchains are used to record votes, and sending a vote to the chain requires a transaction. Sky high gas fees means each vote can cost quite a bit on Ethereum. This creates problems as voters can be discouraged to participate when fees are too high.
Voting on xDai removes this blocker and brings equality and fairness back to the voting process. In addition, new voting processes like conviction voting can be implemented for constant signaling based on reactive or evolving preferences. Many DAOs are actively using xDai for their governance processes during this season of high fees including 1Hive, DXdao, DAOSquare, RaidGuild, Peerion and so many others. → More DAOs on xDai
DAO tools and projects on xDai help with many aspects of DAO community setup and participation. These include Gnosis Safe for multisig execution (DAO fund management) Snapshot integration for voting, Colony DAO framework & DAOHaus for setup and coordination.
Several big announcements this week solidified xDai as a go-to environment for all things DAO.
Gnosis Guild announced zodiac, and expansion pack for DAOs. Modules within zodiac allow on-chain execution based on the Reality.eth oracle, bridging for cross-chain interactions (a DAO on one chain can interact with systems on another) and other exciting features.
BrightID announced the BrightDAO for organization and management of the growing proof of unique human ecosystem. The DAO is launched on 1Hive Gardens and a “Fairdrop” for previous BrightID users is in the works. , who can choose to claim it on xDai.
BoringDAO builds cross-chain bridges and tunnels. All tunnels are operated by the community managed DAO. This week they announced the oPortal, which allows users to move native USDT (without wrapping) between 9 chains including xDai!
As more projects shift to a DAO-based model (recent examples include Gitcoin and Shapeshift), new environments and tools will be needed to enable cross-chain functionality, coordination and execution. xDai continues to provide a broad and flexible ecosystem to support DAOs in all their current and future incarnations!
September 17 Weekly Highlights
🎉 🎉 🎉 Hurray for DAOs!! As mentioned above, several DAOs had big xDai related announcements this week.
BlockScout Ongoing Gitcoin Grant: Thank you if you are one of the 500+ contributors voicing support for BlockScout in the R11 Gitcoin Grant. If you haven’t donated yet, xDai is the flagship chain for BlockScout, so please consider funding the future of BlockScout. Each donation is matched using quadratic funding. Transparency is vital for block explorers, let’s help make BlockScout the #1 choice for the entire ecosystem!
The xDai user community has been active this week. A proposal for KPI incentives is available for voting and comments on the forum, and discussion around the upcoming brand refresh is ongoing on Discord. Get involved to voice your opinion about the future of xDai and Stake!
NiftyInk is an awesome example of a grassroots community forming around a shared set of interests, in this case creating art and NFTs for the love of it! It’s refreshing to see a community grow organically without slick marketing or financial incentives driving artificial growth. Nifty is about creating beautiful (or funny or crazy) art, and artists of all stripes are finding ways to connect and learn from each other.
Active members like @komosotweets are creating clubs, contests, and other fun things to express themselves and involve the community. If you haven’t tried Nifty yet, why not create your first NFT at https://nifty.ink/explore, checkout the amazing NFTs available for a few xDai and join their active telegram community.
Trust Wallet Integration: The xDai network is now available in Trust Wallet! Trust Wallet is a go-to mobile wallet for multi-chain interaction. You can easily switch between chains, store NFTs, purchase crypto on Ethereum and more. Download Trustwallet, then add xDai by clicking the manage icon, scrolling down alphabetically, and toggling the xDai chain. You can now view and send assets and manage NFTs from the wallet.
🙏 Thank you to the xDai projects, users, community members and DAOs helping make xDai a vibrant and community-driven network! See you on-chain.
- The xDai Team