The DAO crowdfunding is live

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I tell you what, having some spare time on my hands recently, I also looked into the Etherium DAO idea and read its Manifesto……what a breath of fresh air! Just stick your head out of the forum window and take a deep refreshing lungful of this.

"Values

We, as a DAO, ascribe to the following values:

Transparency
Democracy
Decentralization
Voluntary participation
Non-exclusion
Privacy and the right to anonymity
Non-aggression

We as a DAO, both as a whole and as individual members, will adhere to the following code of conduct:

We will not seek profits through means contradictory to our stated values or the categorical imperative.
We shall respect free speech and encourage all opinions to be both voiced and heard freely, without persecution.
We will strive toward decentralization and autonomy whenever and wherever it is reasonably possible and beneficial."

This is the type of way I believe this community should structure itself - not like we have done so far… :smile:

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Like you say, this is what you believe ;-). I’ve seen that website as well and it all sounds great. But the way it works is more like a “democratic” seed fund. They have 150 million in a contract and people can write a proposal if they want money for a project. So let’s say you start a great project, then you go to the DAO, write a proposal and ask for funding. If enough people like your idea and proposal, you will get funded. So let’s say you get 1 million dollars in ETH. What’s next? Well, if enough people don’t like the way you run the project you came up with, they might vote you out and assign another one to run the project. Even while it was your project! Same for proposals, say some big investors from China make several proposals for you to change course. Even while you, excited about your own project are thinking you are doing great. That’s not democratic, that’s giving people with the most money the most influence a way of killing great ideas. So there goes the great idea of “Democracy”. It will be “Transparent” though, showing the whole community you were kicked out of your own project to see how others are killing your idea.

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Well, it is their money no? Should they not have the right to choose who manages their interests?

This sounds rather positive to me, not negative…

I suppose that depends what you think is more important, the project itself or the ego of the founder?

Great ideas have a way of shining through imo. If those big investors from China control the majority of the value then why shouldn’t they push through changes they think are in their best interests? The founder is still free to do whatever he wants, if he has great ideas he’ll find backers for them, it’s just that investors in his idea might have decided to withdraw their backing from him or his governance for their own reasons. If that happens it’s probably a good thing imo. If someone has a business idea and wants to retain full control and ownership of it he can go to a bank to borrow the money ;), the DAO will attract people who want to work in this way.

I like the sound of the DAO. I didn’t go mental on it, but I put a few hundred eth in on day one. As MrAnderson says, I look forward to the lessons we can all learn from watching the project evolve and seeing its strengths and weaknesses play out. One thing is for sure, it certainly has the strength of financial support. I thought it might break crowdfunding records, but I assumed it would slow down sooner. $160M and rising with 8 days left is pretty crazy.

Success or failure there will be a few big news stories about the DAO and it will be fascinating to watch it evolve.

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One reason why new tokens are good: the terms are simple. The founders create coin system. They are obviously incentivized to make the value of those coins as high as they can, likely through attaching those coins to the transfer of goods and services that the market values. If the investors like the founders’ plans of making that happen, they buy and hold the coins until they get their Yacht money or they no longer believe in the project. No exceptions, period. You only do this with new coins because you start with zero value instead of several hundred per coin, making the upside a lot easier to happen.

I won’t try to defend ethereum, but I’d say that simply settling disputes/setting up contracts instantaneously without dealing with any legal system or human arbitrator, is itself a huge use case. Add on top of that that smart contracts allow anonymous people to have at least some degree of contract enforcement in the real world and you’re golden.

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I think this is where we differ. The idea that a project is “someone’s” as opposed to all involved - with funding, ideas etc.[quote=“anon40790172, post:62, topic:8974”]
So let’s say you get 1 million dollars in ETH. What’s next?
[/quote]
You wouldn’t get the million dollars - it would be paid incrementally on completion of each agreed goal/target being met along the way. If a “maker” doesn’t meet the agreed target, then another will be contracted to do the work. Think of it like employing a builder on your house. You would agree that say all the kitchen extention foundations and brickwork were completed in a reasonable timeframe and to a good standard before shelling any more out. If not happy, then you’d get another builder to complete the work. What would you say to the rubbish builder that said to you, “But…it’s my project!” :smile:[quote=“anon40790172, post:62, topic:8974”]
That’s not democratic, that’s giving people with the most money the most influence a way of killing great ideas.
[/quote]
Not really following you…a contract is agreed, if broken then backers have every right to back out. So its more “Democratic” to let the rubbish builder continue to drain your money because his design of the extension was so great?

Edit:
PS
Janitor, if you happen to be reading any of the forum, could I please implore you to come back. I know we are usually at odds with each other and disagree on just about everything, but I think it is massively important that all opinions and arguments are heard. I for one would welcome you back even though you talk utter garbage all the time……
(Nonchalantly rattles cage bars with hand whittled goading spoon – fashioned by a tofu munching, sandal wearing, community collective funded at the tax payers expense…… ) :smile:

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Something with your quote went wrong. I’m quoted a thing I never said.

Nope, I believe David and his team are the ones to put out the vision for Maidsafe for example, it’s a very technical project and they get it for the full 100%. In Holland we have some Chinese folks taking over a soccer club. They don’t have a clue about the Dutch people or soccer, they’re just taking down a club that’s loved for years. It’s awful.

Not ego, vision, qualities and insights. Think of Steve Jobs and investors not allowing him to start a project on a phone because these “democratic” voters thought Apple should focus only on a desktop. Glad he was in charge, not some shareholders.

you tell me, same point here as with the Chinese investor right now killing some soccer club here in Holland.

I like the experiment. But I think it’s overvalued and will fail. I would’ve gone in if they raised like 5 million or so and had some more exciting projects. Right now it’s not that much IMO. And you can’t go in half, if you’re in you’re in all the project, so when they have 100 projects in the coming years, be prepared for a lot of voting, discussions and one big mess. I was in a project some years ago with votes over counterparty and it was very confusing. But maybe I’m wrong and they’re gonna rock the venture capital industry.

I own some shares of Tesla, so here I have it both. One brilliant CEO with a great vision and ownership for everybody who wants to get in. But without all the voting and democratic stuff. And without being forced to back other projects as well. It’s just Elon, his vision and ideas as he’s able to build some great stuff for mankind. I’m glad it’s not a “democratic” organisation. This way it works, other ways it would probably fail.

Nice example, but hiring someone to build your house is different from investing in someone’s ideas and vision. Take our dear friends here one the forum with their projects. I’m glad they don’t have to beg for money every several weeks in the hope that people show up to vote. Believe me, I’ve been in a project with blockchain voting and I really didn’t like it.

I did my best here talking about the holy Elon Musk and the great Tesla. If this doesn’t work I’m out of options to poke him back in :yum:.

:joy::joy::joy: Gotta love this community.

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No, it is negative, very negative. In some cases. It has to do with what was said before: “it cannot fix the fundamental incompatibilities between individual self interest and community decision making”.

Let me try to give an example. Someone wants to build an electric car that can run 1,000 miles on one battery. He or she needs $1M and the project gets funded by 3 people: A invested $600k, B and C invested both $200k. The project has 2 milestones, each will pay out $500k. Now let’s say the first milestone was not reached because new techniques have popped up that can make a car run 2,000 miles on one battery. And management of the project decided halfway the first milestone to change the plan and go for the new battery technology. However, that decision means a delay in delivery of the car of two months.

Investor A who is a rather shortsighted short term profit taker type of person, pulls the plug, votes a NO and takes the $600k out, while B and C were quite happy with managements’ decision. However, the project is now at a complete stand still, and its future has become very uncertain, if not completely ruined.

In the shareholder model, this wouldn’t have happened. If you’re not happy, sell your shares if possible and leave. But the project itself will continue.

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Hmmmm…not really sure that it is. I think both your and my examples are both valid. The only difference is that you are using an example when everything goes well and according to plan, whereas I’m using an example where it doesn’t.
Tesla are a success story, but it might not have been, in which case you’d be screwed. The choice I suppose is a bit like Poker - is going “all in” the best strategy or do you have some insurance. Yes, if the vision works out, then great and if not then not so great. I get where you’re coming from, but believe both are valid.

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Oh in some cases for sure, but that’s kinda what I meant by this…

Some ventures will probably be better suited to it than others. That may be a big part of the lessons learned. The way they are structured and the potential for that contract to cause problems will also be learned through trial and error imo, so there may be some terrible situations that are expensive lessons for all involved. I could see something like slockit potentially working quite well though.

Time will tell I guess, but I still find it interesting and valuable regardless of whether or not it actually succeeds, so I will participate etc. :relieved:

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This is the difference though. You’re not investing. You’re hiring a contractor. They propose something sure, something you may not have even known that you wanted, but you’re still hiring them, not investing. How do you get hired? By offering something in return. If you’re going to make something that is directly usable by the DAO, you may not have to give any returning benefit (monetarily) because the dao can make use of your product directly. However, more often than not, you are going to make something else. Not directly usable by the dao, so in order to get “hired” you have to offer something in return in the form of longer term money income.

Its “kind” of like investing, but much much more like someone offering to do a job for you at a specific rate and you say yes or no. If you don’t like their job, you fire them. To me, there is a huge difference between investing and hiring, and that makes all the difference with me being okay with firing them if they don’t hold up their end.

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Felicitation to “the DAO” with it’s $ 132.32 M crowdsale. Funny that you can now send money to code and it can allocate funds based upon voting.

Again it has become clear, that at some point we’ll need stable currencies in the cryptosphere. At it’s highest point the DAO was worth 165 M, loosing 33 M due to Ether’s volatility is no joke. Think of the companies/projects that the DAO could have invested that money in (it could have built out the Ethereum infrastructure).

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On the other hand the DAO has two values

  1. Ether in it’s moneypool (currently 12.07 M Eth = $ 132.32 M)
  2. DAO token in the hands of token holders (currently $ 0.184157 * $1172.78 M = $212.86 M)

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I would argue that, that is a marketcap of $345 M. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Just hit Poloniex and Bittrex. Will be interesting to see what it does over the next 24hrs

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I dare to doubt that ;-). As far as I know you can claim your ETH back. So there’s a safe bottom which pegs the price of the DAO-tokens to Ethers. But, the moment Ethers are directed to projects, say 10% of the ETH to a populair project, you only get 90% of your ETH back when you leave the DAO. And when 50% is transferred to projects in the DAO you only get 50% of your ETH back, like expected. So what happens to the price of the DAO-Tokens? Well, it’s one big guess. But in the coming 2 years, we won’t probably see any income from projects, as they are spending money for the most part. So my prediction is, when some nice projects join the DAO, like an Uber or a Oculus-like we might see the price go up. If it fails due to a lot of average or non-profitable projects it could drop quite hard. I think the DAO-Tokenholders will need to do a lot of reading in the coming months, I think several hundreds of projects write proposals to get funding from the DAO.

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They peaked at 0.000335BTC, that was somewhere in the 190 million dollar marketcap if I’m right.

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These are 5 min. bars for DAO-Tokens on Poloniex.

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Oops! TheDAO isn’t legal… and it’s ability to profit from what it funds seems without legal foundation… and… well, take a look yourself. This is well worth a read.

Preston Byrne (founder of Eris Industries) “slocks” it :wink: to TheDAO:

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I am quite interested in seeing how this goes, its a hugely interesting concept althou i think the amount of money raised will be its ultimate downfall really .

You raise 1 million dollars , its quite easy to see a return if invested in 5 solid projects of around 200k each,

with 130 million , tied to a very unstable asset (ethereum) which was in a downtrend just before the DAO ipo , which ithink will resume now its over. even if you invested 30 million into a project, you gotta see a good 120 million dollars of profit raised to earn 100% profit for all holders, a 400% increase, as we have seen with all businesses and cryptos , the more money you are invested the harder it is to get even 100% profit . getting over 100% profit on any investment into a company or idea for 5 million will be extremely difficult.

It’s tied to ethereum , which from what i can gather from reading, can be claimed back if you swap your dao in for the ethereum, if ethereum raises more than dao people can trade their dao in and get their ethereum they invested back in relation to how much is left in the pot , then selling the ethereum you just got for more than the dao is worth , making profit and destroying the price of ethereum , which DAO is holding 100% as its assets. bringing both down.

Most big projects wont see returns to capital for easily 6-12 months , its very unlikely you will pay for a 5 million dollar proposal and it be up and running in 2-3 months and earning millions of dollars profits, this lowers the pot size , causes huge sell pressure in the asset that gives dao its value, while not replenishing for a long time , the more high priced projects the more sell pressure lowering the value of any remaining held assets.

The democracy run idea is quite a novel idea and interesting, but when 50-70 people own the majority of voting share for the direction of the company , how is it different than any other business or company?

There doesn’t seem to be many benefits currently , its just a business funded and controlled by those who put the most funds into it , like any normal company , they have just as much chance of failing as any other company, these odds could likely be increased considering it is built on an experimental platform , assets held in something not very stable and controlled by profit seeking speculation traders who don’t have company running experience

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And Kraken, who has many currency pairs also.

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Ethereum community suggested using 10% of the DAO’s fund to stake eth in order for it to have a steady income flow which i think is very interesting as the newly created money will be reinvested into the ecosystem.
I am very optimistic for the DAO’s future, when money is at stake people usually find solutions, especially in the crypto community which has a lot of smart people.

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that might help a little bit, but what 10% , 10% of total funds now or 10% of half the funds in 6+ months? or whenever POS is implemented .

No they don’t they don’t usually find solutions there are more losers than winners in this life, if anything when money is at stake there is far more to lose and it is much easier to lose it

It doesn’t matter how smart a person is if the foundation that an idea is built on is flawed on multiple aspects . Being smart doesn’t determine profit and success it is but a single attribute that can possibly lead to profit and success.

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TheDAO-coin arrived at coinmarketcap. It’s at spot 5, between Ripple and Dash:

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