Dialogue with OpenDAO: It took only 6 days to be born, and it does not aim to be a competitor to OpenSea

Authors: Liu Quankai, Wu Shuo

On December 24, OpenDAO launched and announced an airdrop of SOS tokens for all users who had traded NFTs on OpenSea. In an instant, OpenDAO attracted thousands of followers and discussions on Twitter, inspiring a wave of similar projects.

Although its popularity has since decreased, as a landmark event, how did it come about? What does the future hold? It is worth leaving more information for crypto history and future generations. Based on this, we interviewed Dyno, a core member of OpenDAO.

In the interview, OpenDAO's vision seems to have changed; it is no longer focused on being an early challenger to OpenSea (which now has a new challenger, LooksRare), but has returned to a more realistic community level.

Disclosure: The authors and editors of this article do not hold SOS tokens and have no financial relationship with OpenDAO. The views and comments of the interviewee do not represent those of Wu Shuo.

"It took about 6 days to get this done"

1. OpenDAO has been around for a while now. Could you please help us review how OpenDAO was born?

Dyno: OpenSea is the largest NFT trading market, and its development has been smooth. Last year, many protocols airdropped tokens to users, sparking a craze for "airdrop farming," such as ENS. The trading users and community of OpenSea also hoped that OpenSea would give back to the community with an airdrop, but there was no follow-up for a long time.

It wasn't until around November that OpenSea hired a new CFO. During an interview, he revealed plans for an IPO, which, as outsiders see it, for such a large company with good cash flow, it would be foolish not to go public.

This interview ignited the entire community, and users expressed strong dissatisfaction with OpenSea. Many users complained on Twitter and in communities, but no one took real action. Later, we had the idea that since users' trading data is recorded on-chain, we could replace OpenSea to airdrop the rewards that NFT players deserve.

From the initial idea to actually distributing the airdrop to users, it took about 6 days, just in time to airdrop to all players on Christmas Eve. The OpenDAO airdrop was very fair. First, we had no public or private fundraising; it was all funded by the team. Second, the team did not reserve any tokens; the tokens held by the team were purchased from the market, and not at the beginning, but after they had increased tenfold. Third, the funds in the OpenDAO treasury are held by 8 multi-signature candidates.

From the beginning until now, there are over 500,000 SOS holding addresses, with about 300,000 on-chain data, including some exchanges. Counting retail investors, the number of people could be even higher. SOS was listed on ten exchanges within a week, with the last one to achieve such a feat being Dogecoin. In the first week of 2022, SOS topped the trading volume rankings, and the total cumulative trading volume has now exceeded 2.6 billion USD.

Not a competitor to OpenSea

2. What is the future development direction of OpenDAO? How will the 20% of SOS tokens in the community treasury be used?

Dyno: The positioning of OpenDAO is actually very simple. Many people say we want to be a competitor to OpenSea, but that's not the case. We are more focused on being a self-governing organization that builds ecological infrastructure, so we can cooperate with anyone. Our team does not need any benefits; all benefits will be returned to the community to ensure the healthy development of the community is based on ecology.

The remaining 20% is managed by OpenDAO, primarily controlled by 8 multi-signers. The purpose of this portion is also very clear, as detailed on the official website. It is mainly to support some NFT communities, NFT artists, new artists, or to protect some historically significant landmarks. There will also be some funds used to compensate users who have been scammed. This issue is quite serious on OpenSea; for example, if a user's account is hacked, who has the right to freeze all their assets on the trading chain? Shouldn't the community have a greater say? So we will do some compensation in this regard. Additionally, we want to provide more support to developers. We have a Developer Grant; if community members want to create products in our ecosystem or solve existing problems, we will provide financial support.

This has been quite interesting from the beginning until now. We already have 4-5 sub-DAOs. These sub-DAOs have developed on their own, and we haven't provided any support yet. One sub-DAO expressed a desire to become one of the top ten in our treasury and has slowly developed itself with that goal. Another sub-DAO focused on NFTs has already purchased over 200 Ethereum worth of SOS.

3. You can clearly feel that the atmosphere in the OpenDAO community is very active. Can you talk more about the sub-DAOs within the community? What are they doing, and what are their directions?

Dyno: Among our current sub-DAOs, half are focused on NFTs, whether in music, graphic arts, or art collections. These projects are self-organized, and our team is not heavily involved. Our role is quite neutral; if it's ecological infrastructure-related, we can support and cooperate, but for individual NFT projects, the risks are higher. We will pay more attention to their sincerity, such as purchasing SOS with real money, so that some of our community members can become part of their community.

The other half mainly focuses on DAO tools. In the long term, we hope to have some automated tools. As DAOs grow larger and organizational layers become more complex, we hope to reduce human intervention in this DAO and increase automation. Some of our sub-DAOs are working on solutions for DAO automation tools, such as tipping, proposal voting execution, and payroll.

The NFT community is becoming increasingly competitive

4. Initially, everyone compared OpenDAO to Sushiswap in DeFi (which pressured Uniswap to issue tokens), but now it seems that OpenDAO's vision and actions are quite different. In this light, LooksRare seems to bear the "responsibility" of pressuring OpenSea to issue tokens in the future. What are your thoughts on this?

Dyno: For us, we never intended to educate the market. Our idea is quite simple: to voice for the community and build some ecological infrastructure products. Infrastructure can be categorized into a few types, such as wallets with better security, like MetaMask. MetaMask has over 20 million users, but many people still fall victim to scams, possibly due to individuals mistakenly clicking on phishing links, and the wallet warnings are not strong enough. Of course, this also involves a lot of investor education and understanding.

A wallet with higher security will be one major category, and a decentralized community-owned trading market is another. Creating an NFT trading market is not very difficult for us; we could do it, but once it's done, we can't cooperate with other platforms or communities anymore, and it becomes a competitive relationship. We would rather support those truly innovative, community-centered trading platforms, such as our current collaboration with Xdotxyz (a community-owned cross-chain NFT trading market).

Additionally, we are also a cross-chain bridge. The future will be a multi-chain ecosystem, and if this multi-chain ecosystem does not effectively integrate Layer 1 and Layer 2, the friction costs of this multi-chain ecosystem will still be quite high. We have been advancing products related to cross-chain bridges.

Whether it's Polygon or Wormhole, we are gradually connecting channels and different chains, and our planning outline is already very mature. We have also launched a feature that is still in beta testing, allowing users to tip in real-time within the forum without friction costs. For example, if you think a member of this DAO has made a great contribution, you can tip them in real-time without any friction costs, as this product is on Layer 2, so there are no gas fees.

Dyno: From the beginning until now, in 2011 and 2012, there are now about 300 million players in cryptocurrency, but NFTs have gained many users in a very short time. After all, humans are visual animals, and NFTs are relatively more penetrating and attractive. However, we also find that the NFT community is becoming increasingly competitive, which is not what we want to see. Our current thinking is still focused on expanding the entertainment aspect of the NFT community, enhancing the security of NFTs, and lowering the barriers for newcomers to enter, cultivating new users, and expanding the incremental market.