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Methodology
TL;DR: In our previous blog post, we explored DAOs, their definitions and uses. In this follow-up post, we’ll look at how the IOTA Foundation is increasingly involved in DAOs: by offering its open-source technology to DAO developers, by supporting its community to explore the DAO world, and through Touchpoint, its open builders program.
The IOTA community is embracing DAOs: the recent community vote on unclaimed IOTA tokens is the first DAO event in IOTA’s history. The IOTA Foundation has responded to this energy by launching the IOTA DAO Pioneers to support anyone interested in DAOs and web3. The program has already resulted in several projects being developed into DAOs and funded by the Foundation, with many more projects currently growing out of the pool of interested learners. The Touchpoint open builders program was launched in March this year to fund and support DAOs building on Assembly and Shimmer – more on that, later.
💡 The IOTA DAO Pioneers have collected a treasure-trove of resources on all aspects of DAO, which are linked to throughout both parts of this article: A YouTube playlist containing recordings of the weekly Sessions and session documents covering the essential elements of DAOs, with extensive links to additional content.
Building DAOs with IOTA tech
IOTA offers several tools and frameworks ideally suited to support DAOs. They include:
- IOTA Identity: Because you don’t need to share personal information to take part in a DAO, the question of how to prove identity is crucial. IOTA’s Identity Framework (based on Self-sovereign identity) enables people, organizations and things to have control over their online identity, offering a powerful governance solution for DAOs. Read more about IOTA and digital identity on the IOTA wiki.
- Tokenization on the Tangle: The IOTA Tokenization framework enables different kinds of fungible and non-fungible assets to be created, feelessely and with in-built specific attributes. From reward tokens to NFTs, DAOs building on IOTA can create a limitless amount of whatever tokens they need for governance, rewards, or voting. Read more about tokenization on the IOTA Tangle here.
- Multichain approach: The IOTA Smart Contracts framework (ISC) enables multichain DLTs to host parallel and composable smart contracts on the IOTA ledger. This sets the stage for the fluid exchange of the kind of assets mentioned above within the whole IOTA and Assembly ecosystem, and the introduction of ecosystem-wide reputation models based on tokens and NFTs – another useful tool for DAOs. Read more about ISC on the IOTA wiki.
- Feeless protocol: Thanks to the underlying feeless IOTA protocol, voting and payments in DAOs built on Assembly or Shimmer don’t incur charges, meaning it doesn’t cost you a fee each time you interact with your DAO. But you can deposit the DAO token to gain bandwidth on the platform.
- EVM-compatible smart contract chains that enable the usage of all DAO tooling from the ETH ecosystem, opening up endless features.
Touchpoint
DAOs that take up IOTA’s tools are encouraged to apply to Touchpoint, an open builders program. Touchpoint connects builders, experts, and investors and supports them to develop, launch and scale web3 decentralized applications and infrastructure on Assembly, the permissionless multi-chain smart contract network, and Shimmer, the official incentivized staging network of IOTA. Touchpoint has a growing community of experts in DAO-relevant areas such as design, smart contracts, token economics, legal, security audits, product management, community building, and more.
IOTA’s DAO ecosystem
Even at this early stage, there are several DAOs building on IOTA. Four projects are being supported by the IOTA DAO Pioneers (as well as receiving advice from the Bankless Consulting group):
- IOTA Content Creator: A service DAO that bundles creatives, writers, and designers in the IOTA community together to deliver content to projects. Follow them on Twitter here).
- DePa Pirates Party: Aims to use decentralized governance and feeless voting to transfer the existing union of the worldwide pirate political parties into a DAO. Visit their Soonaverse space here.
- The Fans Together: Transforming direct ownership and control over sports clubs into a fans-owned DAO and enabling the fans to directly participate in decisions and success of the clubs.
- WAGMI DAO: An IOTA ecosystem community fund that bundles funds to collectively invest them in IOTA community projects.
Other DAOs that build on IOTA include:
- DAOBee: Daobee is a gamified NFT-creation experience in which players collaborate on creating art, memes, and stories. The resulting artworks are auctioned as NFTs and all earnings are shared equally between the players and Daobee.
- Iotapes: A joint-investment DAO where the randomly-generated NFT makes you a shareholder in the treasury.
- HomeDAO: A DAO bringing together people, ideas, systems, and funding for sustainability projects.
- Soonaverse: A DAO creation, management, finance, and operational model designed specifically for the feeless L1 of the IOTA network. Read about it on the Assembly blog here.
- Tangle Sea: One of the first DEXs to enable a secure and fast decentralized trading experience on Assembly by leveraging the underlying IOTA protocol. Read about it on Assembly here.
- TangleSwap: A DEX that waives gas fees. Read about it on the Assembly blog here.
- VolksMythica: A myth-based game where NFTs can create their own NFTs. Read about it on Assembly here.
For more IOTA-based DAOs, visit the Touchpoint webpage.
Conclusion
DAO is a subject that is difficult to cover in any comprehensive way because DAOs are themselves a new development that will only evolve and play a bigger role in our work and even our social lives. At the time of writing, whether the DAOs and DAO characteristics mentioned here will stay the course, change beyond recognition or fade into obscurity is anybody’s guess. But if you’re intrigued to see how people can work together to shape the future of web3, or generally interested in the future of organizations and collaboration, we highly recommend keeping up to date with the IOTA DAO Pioneers discord channel at #iota-dao-pioneer.