The Metaverse Podcast - DAOs (for Collaborators), with Will Papper of SyndicateDAO
Primer: In this episode of the Metaverse Podcast, Jamie speaks with Will Papper, Co-Founder of SyndicateDAO and creator of Adventure Gold. He discusses the concept of DAOs and the Metaverse with references to novels like Daemon and Snow Crash. He rounds off the discussion by talking about Loot and projects that build on top of it like Adventure Gold.
Background
Co-Founder of SyndicateDAO, a platform to spin up investing DAOs
Creator of Adventure Gold, a Loot derivative
Entered the decentralization space in 2013 while doing research on peer-to-peer mesh network and software at MIT Media Lab
In 2014/2015, he launched his own Bitcoin forks as a side project
Participated in the Ethereum pre-sale. Have been tracking Ethereum since 2014
Worked with IDEO CoLab Ventures in 2018. Met Ian, his Co-Founder there
In January, they launched SyndicateDAO
Importance Of DAOs To The Space
DAOS are a grand experiment in human collaboration
DAOs enable the community to fund new ideas and allocate capital without the need of relying on centralized entities
"I think we kind of resumed this grand experiment and how we build a better society. That's really exciting to me. That's what got me into the space initially in the presale, and that's what I think is the ultimate vision of crypto." - Will Papper
What Defines A DAO
The idea of DAO came from a science fiction book called Daemon by Daniel Suarez
The book envisions decentralized autonomous agents that are interacting both in the digital world and the physical world
The book touches on the positive and negative aspects of DAOs
The book was referenced in the Ethereum Whitepaper
What many people call DAOs do not qualify as DAOs. Many DAOs are not autonomous and they require intervention by people
He thinks that DAOs are more of a spirit of collaboration and a way of operating than a strict definition of what it entails
"I think that what makes a DAO is a desire for really broad community development, a desire for bottom-up participation and a desire to have accessible participation, which in my opinion, the accessibility is the most important aspect." - Will Papper
Protocols are the truest versions of the definition of a DAO
Conceptions Of The Metaverse
In the Snow Crash novel, the characters are, in a way, working for a DAO
Snow Crash's definition of a Metaverse is strict, a virtual reality that people can enter into
He thinks that it should not be limited by those definitions, but serve as an inspiration for us
There's many examples of collaboration that are taking place on the internet, but not in virtual worlds. Hence, a Snow Crash definition of the Metaverse would exclude the Genesis project for Loot, but include players collaborating in World of Warcraft
In his mind, he does not differentiate between the two
Loot
Created by Don Hoffman
Loot was free to mint and entirely on-chain, making it easy for projects to build on top of it
Items in a Loot bag were RPG items (e.g. weapons, armor, helmets, etc.)
People created Discord servers that were guilds for specific items
People started using the data inside the Loot bags in their own smart contracts:
Lootmart turned the items into generative NFTs with images associated with them
Genesis contributed to the development of Loot lore
Adventure Gold, which is launched by him, is an in-game currency for the Loot universe
The Uniqueness Of Loot
Difficult to repeat Loot as a category as it occurred in a unique moment in time
In crypto, creating a fork is more profitable than building on top of an original
In Loot, this turned out to be different. The community took it forward and built on it
Bottom-up community experimentation only works when the community has enough of a sense of ownership
"Almost always creating a fork is more profitable than building on top of an original. And those are incentives that the crypto space needs to solve to create long-term value rather than short-term speculation." - Will Papper
Pros And Cons Of What They Are Trying To Do With Loot
Each project that builds on top of Loot brings it forward
For Genesis, players had to assemble a bunch of different elements spread across Loot bags and track them down between NFTX and OpenSea. This is a game without any graphics/interface, but it feels like a game
Most of the pros and cons of Loot came down to how people viewed Loot
Those opposed to Loot saw Loot as trying to build a game
Those who saw projects that build on Loot as part of the Loot ecosystem/game think that we are very early to Loot
How Can People Get Involved With Adventure Gold?
Adventure gold has widespread acceptance from the Loot community. It is seen as the in-game currency of the Loot universe
For builders interested in integrating Adventure Gold, he guides them through the process
Everything is linked. The success of Adventure Gold helps the Loot ecosystem and vice versa
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.