Progress of the BlockDam DAO
The creation of the BlockDam DAO seems to be moving at a steady pace forward. From my perspective there are quite a few lessons to learn already from this project which is still, like so many projects in crypto, in an experimental phase. I’m quite curious where it will be when 2019 is almost over. Hopefully we will make it through, but lets first try and finish this year in a good way.
Here are a few important things to consider, in my opinion…
Community is everything. Everybody must realise that without input from your peers, you are nowhere in this crypto-world, especially when making a DAO. It is very easy: the only way that anybody in the crypto-space can do anything is because you are building ‘on top of’ and are working with the work of others. You are using the knowledge and efforts of your fellow members and you are making use of their energy and input.
In my opinion a DAO only works if you preserve that community. To explore new ways of doing things, and to really make an effort with all these new digital tools, you need people around you (online and offline ; ) to contribute. To make a step forward you need other members to participate, and a lot of times that has to happen in a selfless way.
To make that possible, especially starting from scratch like we do at BlockDam, a community is needed for support and you have to work together with them and they would have to ‘.. want to..’ contribute. That is not always easy I can tell and of course most of us are still very busy with all kinds of other things too and rents and bills still have to be paid. We are not totally out of the old economy yet, by far, but what is pretty clear is: “You cannot built a DAO by yourself… so you need other people and of course in your community you preferably could use a few developers too.
Why developers are the ones who are really in demand at the moment? That’s because there is a lot of work to be done. The foundation of the blockchain and crypto-world is being set-up and you get almost nowhere without involving someone who has learnt the hard skills of coding. But I think developers have got to understand that the only way to really be successful is to incorporate people with soft-skills into their environment too. It is only with the input from the outside world that real progress can and will be made. I believe the BlockDam environment can provide a great way of testing what is being developed. It has been going very well so far. I hope that more developers will continue to see a opportunity here. Together we can go for mass adoption.
And besides that, developers themselves are rapidly producing tools which makes it easier for non-developers to do stuff. Once all the hard work is done, then the crypto-space will be able to take off because there’s room for the ideas of the rest of the world to be incorporated. The projects that have the lowest barriers and the most experience with the public will flourish in my opinion. That’s also why games are so interesting, and why Ethereum is the killer app at this moment! They did exactly this for developers… they figured out a way to get them involved and to let them contribute. Now it’s time for the rest of the world to follow…
Contribution. You gotta have people, developer or others, who are willing to contribute. Without that you are nowhere. Also… a lot of the times an effort over a longer period of time is required. No project in this space will be made in a day or a week. Because in crypto we deal with shifting mindsets and changing paradigms most things that are being developed right now need a lot of time and dedication. The advantages are not clear straight-away for many people, so you have to grind through… somehow… in many cases.
And sometimes experiments just don’t work out. You’ve got to be willing to start all over if it doesn’t make sense to go on. Thats a pretty hard risk to take and it requires some strong believes. Of course all knowledge gained will help you with the next project. If it does go wrong I would suggest to pick yourself up and try again, and mostly to share your experiences, so others can learn from your mistakes too. It’s a lot about sharing… this new world economy.
Sharing. If you are not willing to share I believe you are basically not in the right place in a DAO. How does a DAO take care of people who are not sharing enough? Thats what it needs to figure out, but in essence it just doesn’t work. You can share in many ways though. Either by making a donation, or by sharing your findings, or by being present and participating in presentations and discussions and meetups. Also, most people have a different take on what sharing really means and most of us are experiencing troubles sometimes to look through that quite difficult concept. Myself included! ;)
Quite often there are people where it looks like they gain a lot more than they are giving, but in the end I believe it will always come down to one rule…
“Wie niet deelt, die vermenigvuldigt niet!” Lange Frans.
Who does not share, does not multiply. This is a statement by Dutch rapper Lange Frans who made his own way into the traditional economy and I cannot truly say this from my own decentralised experience yet. I hope one day to see all of my efforts rewarded when the BlockDam DAO might be a thriving environment where professionals are exchanging and sharing their knowledge. Where they are building together on projects and are making something that all people can benefit from and participate with. That would really come close to being a great reward. But this topic deserves a different article. Also I’m not the one in charge of setting the goals and vision for the BlockDam DAO myself. We are a community and together we have to move forward. BlockDam did decide to promote ‘open and public blockchains’ though and I’m really happy with that. I think it is really important.
Another problem with ‘sharing’ at the BlockDam DAO for now is that for making the criteria clear the framework still has to be put in place. It is not really evident yet what is expected from its members. This is also the hard part to figure out. When a new member walks in, will the DAO make an effort to educate him or her? Will he or she be welcomed and.. after a while, when it’s time to contribute, will he or she run off to another project… and is it okay if that would happen? I personally think a DAO should always be open to people, and that it wants to give a bit of freedom, but its pretty hard when people around you think otherwise. How to explain to them their efforts will be rewarded eventually? The BlockDam framework that we try to set-up will have to figure that one out…
If you exchange knowledge, then you are automatically involved in a joint effort. So when something comes out of that, you’ve got to be willing to give back to the people who have contributed to your idea or project. Really interesting ways of doing so are being developed. I can easily imagine this being a tool to contribute to a DAO community or to be a part of that new project you are investing in… whatever it is that you are investing in.
It’s also no problem if you share only what you can offer for now. It will just take some time and then you find out that people around you have adjusted to a new direction and you are no longer on a certain path. That’s the price you might have to pay. You can still be part of the DAO, its just that your position has changed and you will have to setup different projects, and maybe development in certain areas go slower. That’s okay. The same probably goes for respecting the ideas of others. It’s easy to think that an idea from a fellow community member doesn’t work, but how do you go out and prove it? And doesn’t the other person have the right to prove it also? Would it be possible to have two different projects in a DAO on the same subject and in the same line of work? I think that’s quite feasible, but it’s pretty hard to implement while still setting up the framework. Or can you find common ground to work on? That brings me to the next point.
Trust.
In setting up a DAO you’ve got to be able to trust on the input of others. If you are not willing to respect others for their input, it’s pretty hard to work on tackling problems and making progress. The difficulty of course is when others see a different path in front of them, or when they work with different fundamental values, or when of course they have a different way of doing things. Or maybe they just can’t be trusted? That always remains to be seen. Blockchain is working hard on solving that problem too and the DAOs of the future will have this part figured out. I’m quite sure of it.
This is also a problem that I have personally encountered a few times. Sometimes it is just hard to trust. Are we going in the right direction? Do we make progress in the right way? Will this project get anywhere? This is also where the biggest progress can be made in my opinion. When you setup criteria which aligns with most people’s input, then a DAO will really be able to expand and grow and make a difference. For BlockDam there’s a lot of work to be done in that area. It requires a big effort and a lot of communication and hopefully bit by bit we can make progress. Also. I think we will have to let each other have a favour here and there…
Help me out here... ‘gunnen’… is there really no word for that in English? Wow… a bounty of 10 BCD who comes up with the best English word for it! ; )
We are almost there. Bear with me…
Interaction. The only way to gain any traction for the BCD token ( or any token for that matter ; ) is when people are willing to exchange it for energy delivered by another community member. This energy can be in the form of goods, services, advice or connecting with somebody. This is not really taking off yet at BlockDam. It is like with Bitcoin, people at BlockDam are HODLers right now! ;)
I feel it’s actually kind of hard to get that economy running. In our current situation people are looking mostly for euro’s and not BCDs. Also it counts that most mechanisms where the BCD could gain value still have to be developed. This takes a lot of time, especially since there is not really anything at stake in our DAO right now. Staking mechanisms could really contribute also here, but of course, we would still have to develop those also! ;)
Yes. We are starting from scratch. To make all this stuff happen there is no means available other than the BCD-token and the personal effort of people, and a pretty cool location where everybody is welcome. That makes it really interesting, in my opinion. I believe if people are willing to contribute there are some core intrinsic motives to be discovered.
One might also argue otherwise. It is pretty clear to see that putting something tangible at stake, or making a real investment with euros will increase progress rapidly. That’s a choice. I’m happy to follow along the line of our community here, but I kind of like the situation also right now...
‘I personally don’t really like the euro, rather give me BCDs!’
Disclaimer: this statement only counts if BlockDam will remain a project that I want to contribute too. To be honest, it’s pretty hard now and then. Then again… if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. I try to be as open as I can about all developments that are being made, which brings me too…
Transparency. In an open-source environment people need to be transparent about what they are doing and where they want to go. There can be no behind-closed-doors situation in my opinion. Why is that? Because in a DAO people need to know whats going on if they want to.. and they have to see where they can contribute. Also, they probably want to know whether they are willing to contribute or not. It needs to be clear what they can gain by doing so… and how much they will have to give back at the least, and where a project is heading. If you want to develop products in secrecy, there is no place for you in a DAO. It just doesn’t work in my opinion.
Of course there are exceptions to this rule. As always. There is no one who could argue that you cannot divide your attention. If you are contributing enough, then it shouldn’t be a problem. All in all I think it takes an ‘open mindset’ to be successful here. People got to be able to see that you are contributing and not only working for yourself. Or.. if you do work for yourself, where are then the benefits you leave for the community? Show them and be clear about it. Sometimes of course things are cooking in a kitchen somewhere and it takes some time to really show a contribution. It’s never black and white, but I think a DAO mainly is about getting people involved and helping each other out and being open about it.
Which brings me to…
Speed. Everybody moves at their own speed. The DAO will be developed towards the future but the pace of its development will go according to what the people interacting with it can handle. This topic also provides a place for regulators. You can observe it now with governmental organisations that want to tie down tokens with regulations. It is basically saying: “.. wait a minute, this is going to fast!” It needs to slow down a bit because people do not understand it and they cannot handle it. Things go wrong when the world is in a hurry. I believe the BlockDam DAO has its own pace, and probably I’m moving a bit too fast myself some of the time. I try to work on that though! ;)
These are the lessons I’ve got so far…
It might seem like quite a lot. A few of these are also surprising for me to read. My firm believe is however that the world is moving towards a place where all these values and a new way of doing things as described in this article will be more and more pursued. You only have to look at all the examples that already exist in society.
Look at Wikipedia for instance. A great project which is only possible because of a joint effort of a lot of people. More and more people are willing to contribute to the public good and less eager to take ‘..what they think is their fair share.. ’ out of it. And that is of course quite often still too much, especially in our traditional economy. It is quite obvious that Capitalism leaves the world a more unequal place, so it is good that we try and move away from it.
Conclusion. Basically you can view it like this. More and more people are taking back their sovereignty and are doing things differently.
The price of a coin will rise if more people are involved…
That’s why a system has to be open and it has to be clear about what the rules are. People will have to trust and interact with each other. The system has to provide this trust to make it possible for people to cooperate. For that it has to be transparent too. It also has to provide extra value and for that people will have to see where they can contribute to do so. How can they interact?
Everybody who is scaring people or possible new members away from their favourite coin is a menace to its own development and is contributing to its decline in price in the longterm! I think a lot of Bitcoin maximalists can learn from that one. If you are not welcoming other members to your community then you are basically setting up for your own decline in growth. Most of the times it goes wrong now is because we come from a traditional economy and a lot of us are so programmed towards old traditional values and standards that are really hard to let go off.
The youth gets this better by the way. They are already growing up in a world of abundance so there’s less need for gaining property or to own a toy to play with (phone, car, house and so on..). I think it will be really interesting to see the concepts that they will come up with in the years to come. Ethereum was basically developed by a really young guy also. ;)
The new world is a lot more about experiences, and sharing, and doing things differently… but more about that later. Thanks for reading and I am happy to hear your comments!
