At first glance, humanDAO looks like another gaming guild turned DAO. Another DAO trying to tap into the $300B gaming industry and capitalize on the P2E movement. Similar to YGG and Merit Circle. Given YGG raised $12.5M in 30 seconds and Merit Circle raised $105M in 72 hours, wouldn’t it make sense to just copy and paste? Sure, with a community of 15,000 gamers already, humanDAO is incredibly well positioned to capitalize on all of that potential. But if you look a little closer, you’ll see humanDAO is completely unique. In fact, it’s unique even if you look over the entire landscape of DAOs.
The truth is most DAOs currently drive wealth to those at the top of the socioeconomic ladder because that’s who populates crypto at the moment. Yes, if you are in crypto right now, there is a 95% chance you are top of the ladder folk, globally speaking, of course (chart below).
There are more than 100 DAOs managing over $10B in assets. And how many of those are actively creating community participation & ownership opportunities for newbies or the underserved? Those at the “bottom of the ladder” (low to no income demographic) are the ones who stand to benefit most from crypto and web3. Including these demographics not only creates a more equitable future but is the key to making crypto grow exponentially. So why aren’t we more focused on this?
The humanDAO is the world’s first DAO set up to drive long-term social impact and provide investors with a new profound revenue stream. A public good and a way to accrue wealth. A community that creates opportunity for those at the top, middle AND bottom of the ladder to gain equity and have a say. We’re talking about growing a global middle class by pulling the 61% up through opportunities in crypto and web3. We believe there are two keys to setting up a DAO that can genuinely drive long term social impact:
- DAO structure that creates equity opportunities for the new members, undeserved, and emphasizes broad community ownership and participation
- Underlying revenue stream that is scalable enough to create wealth for everyone involved as the community goes from 1 → 1 million AND flexible enough to ride the waves of the always evolving crypto space
Most DAOs only create equity and participation opportunities for those at the top of the ladder and are focused on short term returns
If you dig into the fine print of most DAOs you’ll see that power and equity are mostly reserved for those at the top of the ladder, especially VCs with privileged access. Let’s look at some other players in the space humanDAO is entering- PathDAO, Merit Circle, and YGG. This is not to throw shade at anyone specific, and we think these are great teams/communities. This is to demonstrate what a DAO must do to position itself to drive long-term social impact. To be clear, none of these DAOs claim to be social impact. But we want to dig into three critical components of how they are structured: issuance/allocation, vesting, and treasury.
Token Issuance & Allocation Model
Path:
- 40% to founding team and private investors
- 20% to community
Merit Circle:
- 34% to founding team and private investors
- 29.4% to community
YGG:
- 40% to founding team and investors
- 45% to community
YGG is the only group that issued a higher percentage of their tokens to the community than the founding team and private investors (by a small %). This means that, in general, more tokens have been issued to a small handful of people than are available to potentially 10’s of thousands of people who will join and contribute to the community. And this doesn’t even take into account the 5–20% public distributions. All of this benefits the top of the ladder. Think about it. For the gamers who are the backbone of any gaming guild, the gas alone is prohibitive to them participating in the IDO.
Of course, at first, all DAOs are skewed towards the centralization of top token holders. As the tokens are distributed, ownership should diversify. But when you double click into some of these issuance models, it’s clear that the founding teams and investors are looking to maintain control. That’s fine. But suppose you are actually trying to drive social change. In that case, the issuance model should reflect broad, long-term community involvement & participation. Even with the risk the community decides to sway the DAO to benefit the community and not the founders/investors.
Vesting
The next thing to double click on (when considering “is this a DAO set up to drive long-term social impact?”) is how the vesting schedule is structured. In the case of YGG, almost 90% of all tokens will have been issued within four years. For Merit Circle, it’s even sooner- within three years. Why does this matter? If 90% of your tokens are issued by 2024, you’re not saving tokens for future users and participants. You’re opening the door only for founders, VCs, and early adopters and closing the door on the next wave of crypto users to participate.
Keep in mind, these DAO’s business models depend on the lower ladder folk to drive their revenues, same as humanDAO, which is why we feel social impact/ownership should be prominent. We are essentially yield farms that provide jobs to the lower ladder. Shouldn’t they also receive equity?
Also, in our opinion, there is a social responsibility of these DAOs (humanDAO included) to educate P2E gamers on crypto. That takes time, especially as you move past the early adopters. If you are just focused on creating wealth for early adopters, then this model works. But if you want to develop long-term social impact, this model is prohibitive. To really scale crypto and to truly drive social change, we can’t continue to think short-term.
Treasury & Governance
The last piece we want to look at is governance and its relationship with a DAO’s treasury. Naturally, we want to double click on a few things: has governance actually started? Is there a multi-sig, and is it publicly available? Is the multi-sig made up of just early investors and founders? Also, it goes back to the issuance topic. If the “top of the crypto ladder” holds majority tokens, then the treasury is a treasure chest for them to play with. This is clearly highlighted by the fact that the top DAOs only spend around 1% of their treasuries per year (as DyDX founder Antonio Juliano says- a completely insignificant amount).
We recognize that DAOs naturally can’t start fully decentralized. Capital needs to flow in, and the community needs to grow, and the hope is that the DAO gets more decentralized over time. But we look towards the initial structure as a signal of how things look to unfold. When control is being held at the top of the ladder in the form of issuance or governance, it becomes clear that a DAO isn’t out to drive social change. And that is ok. That may not be the ambition of the group. But then, it’s essential to recognize that it may just be a gaming guild working to adopt a DAO structure with slightly better tokenomics than the ICO era. And that begs the question of where you want to put your time and money?
Teams striving to build social impact projects through crypto have been unable to identify solid revenue streams for sustainability/growth
For any group (be it a DAO, charity, or a corporation) to have a real social impact, it needs stable and scalable revenue. People want to invest time, energy, and resources into projects/communities that they believe can have longevity. It’s a pity to put your heart (or money) into something only to see it putter out a year later. The lack of stable revenue models in crypto is why we haven’t seen many success stories in this space.
As new revenue models like P2E (which taps into the $300B gaming industry made up of over 3 billion gamers) are unfolding, suddenly, the idea of creating a scalable social impact DAO becomes not just a possibility but an inevitability. Social impact DAOs are a public good and will become one of the most attractive vehicles to create flourishing communities and bring crypto to the mainstream.
Enter humanDAO: building a foundation for long term social impact
HumanDAO is the world’s first DAO with a concrete mission to create new opportunities for the underserved, provide ownership capabilities, and participate in an equitable future. Again, we want to grow a global middle class by pulling the 61% up through opportunities in crypto and provide new profound revenue streams to those at the top.
We are ensuring this through ways in which the DAO is structured and uniquely positioned to capitalize on new and future crypto revenue opportunities…
55% of Tokens Issued Go Directly To Community
How is HumanDAO going to stay true to its core value of creating social impact? How can HumanDAO develop opportunities for the lower part of the economic ladder? It all starts with the issuance and allocation model. A majority (55%) of tokens issued will go directly to the community. This is profound.
On top of that, the community will be diverse. It won’t just be crypto adopters. HumanDAO has set up an allocation model that incentivizes education for those new to crypto and onboards community members into the broader crypto world. We are teaching the next wave of crypto users AND giving them equity in return for coming onboard.
This issuance model becomes easier when you don’t have sweetheart deals with venture capital. In addition to that, the founding team will be taking only 10% (compared to an average of 20% for the 3 DAOs mentioned above). And by giving 10% of all tokens to core builders, it’s clear that humanDAO is on a mission to create a profound community.
10 Year Community Token Vesting Schedule
Those 55% of community tokens going to the community will be locked in a 10-year vesting schedule. This is also a profound move and something most will overlook in the fine print. But this is the bread and butter. This is a crucial difference. This is how humanDAO is in a position to build a massive community. HumanDAO is thinking long-term. New and existing community members will look towards the incentives to stay motivated and help the DAO grow. Instead of pushing all tokens into circulation in the first 2–4 years, we’re positioned to incentivize not just the early adopters but the masses to join this community.
As new crypto revenue models emerge, we will be able to educate each new wave of crypto participants joining to utilize these new models like they are today with P2E. Most of the communities we want to impact aren’t here yet. This creates a continuously evolving and scaling revenue stream that benefits the community as a whole. And if you’re an early investor, we’re taking care of you too. By keeping 55% of tokens locked up in a 10-year vesting schedule, we’re keeping the float low and steady.
Scalable and Flexible Revenue Model
If you’re attracted to the revenue models of gaming guilds like Merit Circle and YGG, then you’ll be drawn to humanDAO too. HumanDAO will be buying the same assets and participating in the same P2E models. HumanDAO has already amassed a community of 15,000 gamers, all ready to capitalize on the P2E movement. And by looking at the success of YGG and Merit Circle’s launches, it’s clear that this space has been validated by investors and communitarians alike.
But here’s the thing — humanDAO is not just a gaming guild. Our mission isn’t to build out the metaverse (although we will by default). It is to improve lives through crypto. And through our 55% community token allocation and 10-year distribution schedule, humanDAO is in a position to educate and mobilize a massive community of end-users who will be positioned to take advantage of any revenue-generating opportunities in crypto, expanding and diversifying our revenue stream. As assets under management grow and these virtual economies expand over time, so will the HDAO token’s value.
If digital asset ownership is really the paradigm shift we think it is, let us make sure to include the entire ladder with ownership opportunities. The tools and ability to do so are already here, as well as considerable demand incoming from the underserved communities. Here is your opportunity to be part of something big. Something that has the potential to create real social change and provide you with lucrative number go up potential. This is gentleman. WAGMI🤝
Because we are not VC funded we could use your help in spreading awareness of the humanDAO 🙏
