Carbon DAO
DAOs seem to me a great step forward in creating true stakeholder governance, something I have been considering for a long time. I'm inspired by several models, particular Nouns DAO, which has designed an organizational model that both creates value and ensures community governance.
As much as I admire Nouns and what they are building, I don't believe it aligns with my own long term purpose. Nouns is open source, with an incredibly generous invitation to build on their platform:
So, here's my idea:
- Create a DAO, adopting Compound Governance (same as Nouns)
- Set a clear organizational purpose for all community members, current and potential, to understand at the start: Carbon DAO exists to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the most timely and efficient way.
- Set clear parameters around that commitment which will require full consensus of token holders to change: e.g. Every quarter, 50% of the treasury will convert to direct carbon removal projects. Initially, these payments will follow the Stripe Climate portfolio. Stripe has a distinguished team of researchers recommending best in class projects to directly remove carbon. Carbon DAO leverages that work, and follows the recommendations. Overtime, token holders can vote to change the mechanism of where the offsets are bought, but not the goal of directly removing carbon (without full consensus).
- The remaining 50% of the treasury goes to projects directed by the community to increase future value of the treasury.
- Initially CarbonDAO, will mint NFTs daily (same as Nouns), but through the governance token voting, the community will determine future projects to further enhance the value of the treasury.
I readily admit I don't know about internet culture. I am new to NFTs. I don't know how long NFT creation will be a valuable method of growing the treasury.
But, that is the beauty of the DAO model in my view. Collectively, the token holders are aligned together to improve the value of the organization, by finding new projects that can increase the value of the DAO, and therefore the amount of carbon the organization can directly remove.
I have developed a firm thesis that people want to spend their time as a valued member of a winning team, with colleagues they respect on an important mission.
DAOs seem to me like a new way to organize a collection of like minded people. It lowers the friction to join and contribute, while raising new challenges for coordination and decision making.
Carbon DAO's contribution would be to see if a focused, important mission (directly removing carbon) helps in the coordination during these early days of the new governance model.
DAOs should be the native organizational structure of the internet age. They are global, digital first, low friction, and purpose driven.