Will The DAO go into Orbit or Crash Land?

It’s only a few hours to go and the DAO is going to be active. That means we’ll see the first formal proposals and frantic trading.

I’ve had numerous people asking me about buying in, trading out, and one or two asking me about looking at proposals too. I’ve also spent the evening on Twitter/Slack caught up in the debate about whether curators should block everything until (game theoretical) security flaws are fixed following a published paper from key industry representatives.

Although I still have some misgivings, The DAO is an amazing proposition. It’s going to change a lot in the next few months and it’s going to fund a range of projects, some good and some not so good.

However, I’ve started to see the workings of proposals that could be very interesting. I suspect The DAO is likely to get first pickings of high growth ethereum projects, from the time being at least.

I can’t tell you what a fair price is for tokens or whether you should buy in or sell out, but I will say that The DAO has huge potential. In the early days, with projects getting it good PR, I suspect interest in The DAO will remain high. Longer term it’ll need to start providing a return for a crowd not known for their patience.

A fair price for The DAO is whatever you’re prepared to pay. If you want to invest in ethereum in a way which benefits ethereum itself, The DAO is one way to do it. If enough people want that, The DAO will take head off into orbit.

Regardless, the DAO’s base price is essentially protected by the investment. I wouldn’t call it safe exactly, but it does have the intrinsic value of the ether it contains (arguably ignoring extraBalance). It isn’t going to crash land unless there is a serious smart contract or ethereum flaw. If that happens, we may have bigger problems.

May The DAO be with you!