NFT DAOs
If you spend time in the blockchain space you’ll have come across DAOs, which are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. These communities are emerging for any number of purposes where it makes sense to form a network and pool resources and ideas. Being online, DAOs are unrestricted by location or time zone.
DAO membership tends to be accessible through ownership of tokens issued by that DAO, which may also offer governance/voting rights. The DAO itself is structured through code and smart contracts, meaning–ideally–that it’s transparent and requires no traditional company hierarchy or central authority.
Some DAOs may be accessed through more traditional means, such as an invitation. There are no hard and fast definitions, and there are discussions to be had about levels of decentralization, optimal ways of making decisions, security, and so on.
There are many types of DAO, but one identifiable category is collector DAOs focused on picking up NFTs, and also, in some cases, metaverse and blockchain gaming assets. There are also DAOs which may not be focused on collection, but to which you can only gain membership through ownership of a particular NFT.
Here are some NFT DAOs to look into, but expect that this space, like everything else in crypto, will move fast.
Probably the most well know NFT DAO. If you want to get exposure to Bored Ape Yacht Club, but without dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on a BAYC NFT, then you can do so through APED tokens, from the APE DAO.
The DAO was not set up by BAYC itself, but was established independently. Besides BAYC and MAYC, the vault contains Squiggles, CyberKongs, and a lot more.
Established on Unicly, the Jenny DAO has acquired a collection of high worth NFTs, and you can join by purchasing its uJenny token. The tokens carry governance rights, meaning you’ll have a say in the direction the NFT DAO takes.
This group has, for now, very limited membership (just 100 people), but is worth checking in on to get an idea of what’s happening around high value NFT collections and DAOs, and you can also enjoy their eye-pleasing flamingo-colored website design.
A relatively well-known group that should be on your radar, PleasrDAO organized in March 2021 to buy a work by digital artist pplpleasr. They also bought and fractionalized the Doge NFT, and acquired, among many other things, a $4m one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album and a $5.4m NFT by Edward Snowden.
The YGG DAO is focused on acquiring and making use of tokens, NFTs and virtual land related to gaming projects, and has issued the YGG governance token.
They will also have specialized subDAOs, the first of which is YGG SEA (the SEA meaning South East Asia), which will also launch its own SEA token.
IBC is another DAO focused on in-game assets and metaverses, although they recently announced that they will no longer be focused solely on these areas, and are transitioning into other investments too. There is currently a waiting list if you want to join.
Do you want to join the Gutter Cat Gang? Well in that case, you’ll need a Gutter Cat Gang NFT in your wallet. It’s a simple set-up and looks great, and it will be fun to see where these kinds of projects lead.
On Solana, there is MonkeDAO, for which you’ll need to own a Solana Monkey Business NFT if you want to join. The DAO operates a validator node and a community staking pool, and has plans to launch 3D avatars and a token.
The Whale organization is not a NFT DAO, but issues a social token backed by a vault of rare and valuable digital assets. However, they say the following on their website:
“In the future we envision $WHALE continuing to be operated as a Social Currency with a DAO component to manage assets in The Vault. You can be assured that once the technology is proven and ready, $WHALE will be one of the first projects to migrate to a new DAO based governance system.”
Through buying their Whale token, you can gain exposure to high end assets in the NFT market.
While not a NFT DAO, Metaverse Index is closely related. It’s a straightforward way to buy exposure to an underlying collection of metaverse, blockchain gaming and NFT assets is through an index fund called Metaverse Index and their MVI token. The index was created by Index Coop.
Square Enix
Not related to DAOs, but here’s more evidence of how blockchain technology is set to become integrated into the gaming industry. Square Enix is a huge Japanese entertainment conglomerate that produced blockbuster games such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
In his new year’s letter, the company president, Yosuke Matsuda, focused from start to finish on metaverses, NFTs and blockchain gaming, with relation to 5G and cloud computing. This line, reflecting on the past year, gives an idea of his sentiment:
“I see 2021 not only as “Metaverse: Year One,” but also as “NFTs: Year One” given that it was a year in which NFTs were met with a great deal of enthusiasm by a rapidly expanding user base.”
And here are some lines on blockchain games and crypto assets:
“We will keep a close eye on societal shifts in this space while listening to the many groups of users that populate it, and ramp up our efforts to develop a business accordingly, with an eye to potentially issuing our own tokens in the future.”
Are things set to heat up where crypto meets gaming? The enthusiasm is there and it’s no longer just at the fringes, so I certainly wouldn’t bet against it.
Sam is a qualified journalist from the UK who covers NFTs, Bitcoin, and the cryptocurrency world.
He believes NFTs are about far more than just JPEGs, and web3 is going to be transformative, but recognizes the value in a good quality meme and a well-drawn ape.
