Crypto Sapiens - Reimagining DAO Governance | David Phelps, Cowlaborator at Cowfund, Core at JokeDAO, EcoDAO
Primer: David Phelps is the co-creator of numerous crypto projects. He is also a writer. In this episode of Crypto Sapiens, he shares his thoughts on DAOs, media consumption, Twitter as a proto-Web3 platform, memes, and how collaborations could be improved in crypto.
Background
Co-Founder of JokeDAO, a governance platform
Creator of Cowfund, a Web3 angels collective
Co-founded EcoDAO
Writes on Web3 on his substack
Do DAO Contributors See Themselves As Having A Lot Of Breadth?
Crypto attracts people who are highly associational
They tend to be interested in the intersection of things (e.g. economics, finance, politics, etc.)
Today, people are exposed to more information, privileging breadth over depth
Media And How We Consume Information
Living in an increasingly polarized culture
Populist figures go viral because of their grassroot supporters. This would not have been possible in traditional media
Crypto is part of this user-generated trend as well
Recently wrote a piece called Context Disruption that the people who understand the attention economy are theatrical people who perform for their audience
Polarization between Hollywood billion dollar productions and amateurish, relatable content
People can belong to multiple subcultures/DAOs
Cultish Behaviour In DAOs
The promise of DAOs is separate from the reality of DAOs
A lot of DAOs operate abusively:
DAOs that are not paying people
DAOs that are making people reapply for jobs
DAOs where the founders have all the power
“Many DAOs are much, much closer to tyranny and to feudalism than they are to even like a Web2 Corporation. Web2 corporations are actually much more democratic than most DAOs.”
- David Phelps
Voting In DAOs
The assumption is that people express themselves in a DAO through their votes
Voting on someone else’s idea is a massive constraint and does not unlock the power of Web3 to build small subcellular communities and have co-ownership
DAOs should be unlocking the creative potential of individuals, not subjecting them to a division of leaders
Why Is Twitter So Meaningful For Conversations About Web3?
No one answer for this. Twitter is essential for lots of industries
Crypto information moves very quickly and Twitter enables people to catch up to the latest news
“The informality of Twitter is very core to the kind of ethos of Web3.”
- David Phelps
Twitter is a conversation platform that’s unlike traditional news sources
Twitter is also a governance platform — shining light on particular topics/issues
Twitter As Proto-Web3
Made a tweet about every tweet should be an on-chain proposal
With enough votes, a transaction is executed
This creates an opportunity to surface and track on-chain data
“You should be able to like somebody's post and you're essentially putting on-chain data that is helping curate that content.”
- David Phelps
There’s a massive UI barrier:
Confirming a transaction on your wallet
People paying to confirm a transaction
Incorporating other protocols is not that hard as it’s all open source
Memes As A Way To Convey Information
Memes are the internet’s version of folklore
They are powerful because people are incentivized to distribute it, recreate it, perform it
For example, TikTok videos have 90% of the work done for you. You just need to recreate a new version of it
Viral tweets do not have original insight. They are the one that tell you something you already knew in a profoundly articulated way
“People respond to memes because it is the simplest reduction of the things they already know.”
- David Phelps
Collaborations In Crypto
Currently, collaborations is done by buying a token/NFT together
This is a lame form of friendship
Buying things together is the end state of a relationship, not the start of a relationship
What you really want is relationship building — activities such as playing board games, watching a movie together, telling jokes, singing songs, etc. These are things that have not been done in DAOs
More about giving people opportunities to collaborate rather than co-buying something together
Have to gamify everything to get people to build relationships
What enables people to work together:
They need to be paid well
They need to find people they genuinely relate to
They need to trust them
Gamification is missing from all these
DeFi summer took off because it is a game
Sometimes, the worst run DAOs create the best relationships. Because they are so contentious and there’s no coordination, people have to fend for themselves and build alliances
Where Can People Read His Writings?
On his substack
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