Thread by @jkubicki

What is a #DAO and what are the predictions that will impact lawyers (aka opportunities and growth!) - a thread. #legal #lawyers #law #crypto #blockchain #legaltech Complete research briefing at practice.ventures/doa

DAO - decentralized autonomous organization. This is a new type of company type (e.g. LLC), in which there is no leading member of the organization that has a majority rule and no human-based active decision making.

DAOs - operate through a series of smart contracts with extremely limited human interaction. This means the business can run without a traditional business structure.

DAOs - are built on the #blockchain - #Ethereum typically. They operate based on code and user voting - all users have a say. This dismantles the traditional hierarchy of business structures.

An example. The DAO soda vending machine. It takes your money and releases a soda. Then it uses that money to automatically re-order more sodas. This machine, all by itself, also orders its own cleaning services and pays its rent all by itself.

The DAO soda vending machine (cont.) It is “interactive.” As you put money in, you and all the other users have a say in what sodas it will order and stock as well as how often it should be cleaned. No mgrs or operators. All processes were pre-written into its software code.

DAOs combine property rights, a governance layer and a money system. They are NOT controlled by any state, nation or government but rather they self-govern based on programming code and “user” voting.

This is all happening outside any legal system.

More groups are using DAOs. The wealth controlled by DAOs is growing exponentially.

This is a massive opportunity for lawyers to help create, support, and guide a new system that connects theses digital organizations to the human world.

Prediction #1 DAOs weaponize the masses to rewrite rules that have excluded them. These “user owned” DAOs become commonplace. The backlash against being leveraged out of the stock market is real and growing. Robinhood’s reaction to GameStop stock trading created momentum.

Prediction #2 DAOs take a role in traditional retirement planning. Using DAOs to directly invest in crytpo is already happening. What happens next is traditional mechanisms like 401(k) will be augmented/replaced by DAOs – dissolving the blackbox algorithms used to manage them.

Prediction #3 You may one day be an employee of a DAO. The decentralized workforce is already here. Driven by economic phenoms like the pandemic, the creative economy, and advancing Web 3.0 tech – more people are able to achieve economic gains outside of the traditional model.

Prediction #4 Dispute Resolution for DAOs will grow both in digital form and human form. It is only natural that with the increase of people forming and using DAOs, more disputes and mishaps will arise. This is certainly true in the still early days where we are now.