Stag DAO Origins: FoxFortyTwo
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A brief exploration of the Stag DAO genesis
In the beginning
When I was a teacher I heard an aphorism stating that we were preparing our students for a life that didn’t exist yet, for jobs that weren’t created, in areas that seem fantastical. While this sounds all very romantic and self-congratulatory, with the speed of technological progress we’ve witnessed since the turn of the century, it is, quite simply, true.
As a child, I remember we had a sole computer in my classroom, and an Atari at home. We looked at word processing and spreadsheets in high school, and had to have a ZIP drive for university. Now we have digital currencies, metaverses, “influencers”, passenger spaceflight, IoT, MachineFi, genetic engineering and countless things I’ve not even heard of, let alone understand when I do come across them.
As previously explained by Stag Witcher in his first article, the concept for Stag DAO flowered from his observations of and participation in OHM/OHM forks and his confidence in the remarkable technology being developed by Baal and his team at Elk Finance. My introduction to Stag DAO came about following a discussion within the Elk team one Sunday where I outlined an opportunity for Elk to utilize the Protocol Owned Liquidity model and apply it to improving the liquidity for the myriad chains the ElkNet bridge covers.
Whilst my idea for an Elk-supporting POL/PCV protocol wasn’t a carbon copy of SW’s (that would just be too unsettling) it was clearly close enough that Baal immediately connected the two of us, and we started to explore the concept in its fledgling form. Roland joined us, Beastly too, and before long the kernel of Stag was complete. Not the technical side, that’s Beastly’s domain, but the mechanics and opportunity, the vision and the motivation to create something that worked in symbiosis with Elk. Furthermore, Stag has far wider-reaching potential, much of which is admittedly still unknown.
Crypto, DeFi, Real life
How did we get to this point? Before Stag I worked alongside several projects in DeFi since first stepping into cryptocurrencies. I’ve bought and sold on CEXs, got rekt, caught some lucky breaks, had some disappointments. Haven’t we all? The single defining change in fortune for me came with DeFi. I started to see the digital currency space as more than just greed, with the narrative of financial ownership, data ownership and equality often lost in the frenetic bull runs and brutal bear markets.
DeFi seemed to have a purpose beyond the speculative. It was and is still hugely speculative for many, but others, so many others, are seeing it as a way to move the power away from centralization and into trustless personal data (and therefore financial) freedom.
Our assets haven’t been in hard currency for a long time now. Our property, vehicles, salaries, books, videos, letters, photo memories, and communications are controlled and managed by corporations and turned into 1s and 0s. However, these can now be controlled by us, managed by us, owned by us. All the time. But they are not. Not yet anyway.
In my personal DeFi adventure I have, as mentioned, worked with different entities (FilDA, CreDA, Elastos, Elabox, Elk) and formed relationships with developers, designers, marketers, and business development teams (Glide, Elacity, Elastos Essentials, Raven Moe to name but a few). The single most important part of my journey is the interactions between the people within these projects. For all that we’re trying to create a trustless ground zero, we’re doing so as human beings, as social and creative people.
So, while the automation and decentralized nature of blockchain technology is solving many of the problems of inequality and corruption, the underpinning nature of creativity still remains in our hands: the connections we make, the people we meet, the mutually beneficial partnerships and deals that are brokered. I am not, by nature, a particularly wealth-driven guy, I was a school teacher for heaven’s sake!
To find so many like-minded people in DeFi building projects as best they can, and working with others doing the same, without anyone looking to “beat” or “get one over” their opposite party has been truly refreshing. Without this ethos being interwoven throughout the networks I am part of, Stag wouldn’t have the secure foundations in place for its future. A sentiment mirrored by the actions and discussions underway between Stag’s prospective community leaders and strategic partners each day.
Stag DAO has this feeling, the same attitude, but amplified. Community, partners, technology; working together to make a better world for all three. We have looked to start Stag DAO as a community, to build the DAO, and to most certainly let it exist without us. As for finding an initial partner, a raison d’etre, Elk was an obvious choice.
The Elk Effect
Our team has a deep and respectful relationship with Elk, and Stag solves a practical problem that Elk faces. If we can help Elk, then why not grow and use the treasury and POL to help the next project, and the next? And not on the whim of the Stag founding four, through the DAO.
Stag DAO will always need people, and those people can be anyone from the community if they show willingness, determination, and an ability to convince voters they’re up to the job. Luckily we didn’t need to be voted in! Thank goodness. Simply by dint of starting the ball rolling. Those who come after us will make it better and stronger I’m sure.
Stag DAO: Utility in liquidity, an adventure fund.
