This thread is a compilation and will be updated as we go along, based on info we have at the time of writing. Many of it is speculation, but always uses the information we have available.
Buying guide with all major links:
https://twitter.com/takegreenpill/status/1539013826850463744?s=20&t=D3skRac0xWQkF4w_F2nFZQ
Why did this project get so much initial hype & increase in price significantly during one of the worst bear markets with ZERO paid marketing? One answer is: speculation on possible links of @TehGoldenOne to @ethereum @optimismPBC & @Shibtoken to form a major project/community.
If you want to know more about speculation on the connections, check out this first medium blog by @AzumaKisama:
medium.com/@azumakisama/w…
medium.com/@azumakisama/w…
And then check out this thread by @JiraiyaReal which delves into it from various angles as well:
https://twitter.com/JiraiyaReal/status/1538437208939454464?s=20&t=SZ4c9ydI38_XFH7fpffbQQ
Okay, now let's get into what was dropped today.
Who is @EthGandalfwhite? Here is one speculation: Greg Colvin, known as the "Gandalf" of @ethereum by his peers: decrypt.co/4199/greg-colv…
Something interesting is that @EthGandalfwhite entered the group telegram right at the end of the final countdown on @TehGoldenOne website:
https://twitter.com/AaronDoesCrypto/status/1539279248409649153?s=20&t=D3skRac0xWQkF4w_F2nFZQ
Let’s get into the white paper dropped by @EthGandalfwhite on @TehGoldenOne Golden DAO:
gold-1.gitbook.io/golden-dao/ogC…
gold-1.gitbook.io/golden-dao/ogC…
This is from the introduction to the white paper: 
Two important aspects are mentioned in the white paper: public goods funding and of course the DAO governance system.
What is a public good? It is a commodity or service made available to all members of a society. Typically they are funded by centralized authorities such as the government. The problem with this is that people rarely have a voice in which world problem is addressed with funding.
Check out this video where @VitalikButerin speaks on the importance of using blockchain for proper, decentralized public goods funding:
In this video are both @karl_dot_tech, former developer on Ethereum and a current major developer and visionary of @optimismPBC, an Ethereum scaling solution, and @VitalikButerin, the founder of Ethereum himself.
They both talk about the importance of Public Goods Funding in Sep 2021 and seems like they have been working on this idea for a while.
Karl mentions that a lot of Ethereum development and software itself is actually public goods because it is available freely on the internet.
Vitalik defines public good as something that benefits a large and unselected group of people.
In a 2nd video, a November 2021 presentation: Vitalik mentions the funding of public goods through the blockchain. He says that public goods funding has to be long term and systematic. Meaning that proper funds needs to come from applications and protocols (like DAPPs). Below:
In this video, he says that the funding does not have to come directly from Ethereum, it can come from Layer 2s like @optimismPBC, which of course Karl is a part of.
He also said the Uniswap DAO has funded a few public goods.
Vitalik also states that the funding from a layer 2 would be more flexible.
He said a centralized small committee is possible for deciding where funding goes to, or quadratic funding.
Vitalik also states that the funding from a layer 2 would be more flexible.
He said a centralized small committee is possible for deciding where funding goes to, or quadratic funding.
He mentioned Moloch DAO, an experiment on the ETH blockchain that decided where the funding would go to. It was a small experiment.
Vitalik mentioned the importance of retroactive public goods funding, which funds people in recognition of completed work, instead of funding projects in anticipation of future.
This avoids inefficiencies and having to predict certain factors in certain projects. Other investors that invested in the public goods projects initially could get funded by a the main public goods funding protocol retroactively as well.
He goes onto mention the future of funding. He says we will continue to see large scale protocols on L2s and Ethereum that fund public goods. He wants to see such protocols growing much larger than the L2 or the Ethereum blockchain that they are located on.
He wants to see such protocols become bigger than crypto itself and become a large factor in how humanity builds in the 21st century.
He sees people being able to make enough rewards off an quadratic funding to make a living.
He wants to see large ecosystems form around these public goods funding protocols and mechanisms.
He wants to see large ecosystems form around these public goods funding protocols and mechanisms.
To get a large amount of funding for these protocols, Vitalik sees L2s being able to get fees from their transactions (Optimism for example) for funding.
Scaling needs to happen in terms of both acquiring funds and governance.
Vitalik mentioning his interest for @optimismPBC tackling DAO governance:
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1519012381581463552?s=20&t=EWGfUePlyoSbYJk-NJ1vuQ
This next video is a YouTube short and might be the most important video in this thread:
Vitalik: “I’ve been really interested in this concept of DAOs, and figuring out what sane decentralized governance systems would look like. Funding Public Goods is probably one of the most important things that any sane governance mechanism would end up doing.”
Now back to Karl Floersch, who has worked very closely with Vitalik. Karl was on a @bankless interview recently where he passionately discusses the importance of successful public goods funding protocols and how they can ideally and realistically look going forward in the future.
At 57:32 of the video, Karl says: “we are currently building out various governance experiments [to distribute funds to public goods]”
Karl says that Non-plutocratic forms of governance are needed. For example, Optimism created the citizens house and the token house. The citizens house directs the public goods funding. One experiment was done so far. Million dollars were given out to a bunch of projects.
The "citizen house" and "token house" sound quite similar to the "chosen ones" group and the "#GOLD1 token holders" group of @TehGoldenOne Golden DAO. One group creates proposals to guide the funding direction and the other group votes to see what proposal passes.
Optimism plans to do this DAO experiment again but with a larger group of voters/citizens to direct funding. Karl does not want to use strict token voting because voting should be done by the PEOPLE engaging the system, not dominated by heavy bag holders (sounds similar again).
Karl says that some time in the future, “Ether’s Phoenix”, can REWARD the EARLY creators of the positive public goods future. You can either cooperate or go against this future. Going against it is being selfish.
The other option is cooperate and build a positive future that we want to see happen. Ether’s Phoenix is the future here where retroactive public goods funding has succeeded. Those people who cooperated will be rewarded in the future when Ether’s Phoenix is born.
The goal is to get to the “Ether’s Phoenix” point and reward everyone who helped us get there.
"The sooner you get started the more money you will make."
Direct video quote at: 1:13:30, Karl says: “Make sure all debts are settled, Lannister, paying all its debts, Ether’s Phoenix, the “GOLDEN” era, I don’t know, stretching some weird analogies. I’m excited for that future”.
And back to @Gandalfwhite.eth, who signs off his name in his medium blog post the same way that Karl Floersch has his name on Twitter.
The main speculation is that @TehGoldenOne is trying to finish what a certain group of individuals started when they created @Shibtoken. They wanted Shib to be a true decentralized currency for the people with the purpose of a true effective DAO, likely for public goods funding.
Ultimately that movement was hijacked by freed with no true vision, as explained in the Medium article written by Gandalf.
medium.com/@GandalfWhite/…
medium.com/@GandalfWhite/…
One more major component in this puzzle is the SBT, or Soulbound token, a new type of NFT or token that rewards merit rather than just the number of tokens one is able to buy.
This would ensure that voting and proposals in a public goods funding DAO would give important weight to people who are actually contributing to the DAO besides just in a financial way (buying tokens).
This idea of Soulbound tokens was presented by Vitalik earlier this year in this important article and he connected SBTs to DAO governance in this article: vitalik.ca/general/2022/0…
Vitalik says:
Speaking of Gandalf and the Lord of the Rings reference again, there is a forum called the FEM (Fellowship of the Ethereum Magicians): a group of Ethereum developers, where an EIP, or Ethereum Improvement Proposal, was shown at this link: eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-5114.
If you look at the date of 5/30/22, that is coincidentally an important date in the Golden One/Ryoshi saga, if you refer back to the @JiraiyaReal thread or @AzumaKisama Medium article I posted near the beginning of this thread.
If you click on the link, you come to this page where people are discussing Soulbound NFTs:
ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-5114-sou…
ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-5114-sou…
Micah Zoltu mentions the use of SBTs in the context of a meme. This aligns with what @TehGoldenOne is to a certain extent:
@TehGoldenOne white paper refers to a Soulbound token named Valar:
To my knowledge, no other project besides @TehGoldenOne has ever mentioned the actual use of an SBT after Vitalik's article in Janurary 2022, especially in the way Vitalik intended to use SBTs: in a governance DAO.
@TehGoldenOne whitepaper:
In conclusion: this seems to be a DAO built on proper governance proposal voting that utlilizes a new type of NFT called the Soulbound token, which gives a voice to people based on merit, rather than just to whales who buy up a large amount of tokens to crash the voting system.
This is DAO is focused on public goods funding that helps the world, as shown below. This has been a focus on Vitalik and Karl for several years. Perhaps to finish what Shibtoken was supposed to become?
Is this one giant coincidence? Maybe. But is this also something that the previously mentioned figures can all be connected to, on the verge of an innovative groundbreaking project that marks a new wave in crypto? That is possible as well. That is for you to decide.
More updates to be added here as more details are revealed.
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