What started out with the development of blockchain back in 2009 has now turned into an international system, including financial projects, community-driven initiatives, and functional platforms that are all run on blockchain technology. While there have been many technological strides of blockchain, weaving itself into a range of different industries and pushing the bounds of what users can do, one of the most significant developments is DAOs.

DAOs and Don’ts
DAOs and Don’ts: Why These DAOs Should Be on Your Radar Pixabay

A DAO, which stands for decentralized autonomous organization, is an organization that does not have a centralized leadership. Instead, DAOs rely on program rules that are encoded onto the blockchain, allowing the community to actively have a say in the direction that the organization goes.

Most commonly, DAOs have governance tokens that users can put down on different projects to demonstrate voting power. The more tokens that a proposed project receives, the faster that project will move to the top of the 'To-Do' list for the DAO. Without central leadership, these organizations are entirely bottom-up, providing incredible community initiatives.

DAOs have now penetrated into a range of fields, their unique approach to leadership - or lack thereof - sparking fervent community support. In this article, we'll be taking a look at eight DAOs that are taking the world by storm. We'll touch on:

  • TRONDAO
  • FriesDAO
  • DropsDAO
  • BitDAO
  • GoodDAO
  • BalancerDAO
  • IzumiDAO
  • DAOSYS

Let's get right into it.

TRONDAO

To those familiar with the top cryptocurrencies, it'll be no surprise that TRON has made this list. The governance token of TRON, $TRON, is currently the 25th most popular cryptocurrency around, demonstrating the extent to which the community has found value in this project. TRON started as a blockchain project but was taken over by TRONDAO when the TRON Foundation stepped down.

This movement from foundation-lead to community-lead marked the beginning of TRON, with the governance token paving the way for the community to make active decisions in regard to this project.

The main aim of the switch over to a DAO format was to boost community engagement, make the platform more transparent, and ensure its stability going forward. Considering that TRON itself is an open-source blockchain operating system, it's no wonder that people have been flocking to this platform now that it is completely decentralized.

By acting as the foundation and developer toolkit for further decentralized projects, TRON is allowing its own community to pave its way toward innovation.

Recently, TRON hosted a Grand Hackathon, where entrepreneurs and developers were able to build smart contracts and blockchain applications on TRON, with the best submissions receiving prices ranging from $10,000 to $50,000. Across multiple categories, including NFTs, Web3, DeFi, and gaming, TRON rewarded their community for the innovative ideas that they brought to the table.

FriesDAO

FriesDAO proves that blockchain systems really are moving into every industry imaginable, with this DAO project buying fast-food chains and giving their community a say in how they are run.

In a week-long fundraiser, FriesDAO raised over $5.4 million, with the intention of using this capital to then buy their first fast-food franchise. Their plan is to buy the first location, which is shaping up to be a Subway store, within the first year of launching. Failure to do so will result in all of the capital that they've collected so far being returned to the community, minus expenses.

This DAO came to be as the two owners believed that forming a DAO would be a quick way of gathering the necessary capital, as well as a fantastic way of crowdsourcing information right from the community that they were working with. Within days of this project being announced, advisors of the project got in contact with a former President of Domino's, owners of over 160 Coldstone and Domino's franchises, Subway, and representatives of a range of higher-end restaurants.

From late February, community members can stake their FRIES tokens to then comically get KCHUP tokens back. With those tokens, they can then buy NFTs, which will also have the additional benefit of providing perks within the fast-food site when it opens. This is definitely one of the most off-the-cuff DAOs around currently, with promising future potential plans making Fries one to watch over the coming months.

DropsDAO

DropsDAO is an innovative blockchain project that provides further utility to NFTs and other DeFi assets. Alongside their standard uses, Drops allows owners of these assets to enter them into lending pools, leveraging their assets to earn tokens and additional yield. Not only does this incentivize NFTs, raising their innate worth, but it also means that users of Drops can then get even more from their NFTs by hosting them as collateral.

Drops is currently the leader in this specialized field of staking and yield farming, allowing digital creators to expand the functionality of the NFTs they produce and give further pathways towards earning passive income with their digital assets.

The DropsDAO functions off the DOP (Drops Ownership Power) governance token, each token allowing users in the community to express their opinions on certain proposals. Additionally, votes can be boosted or highlighted by the community via spending veDOP tokens, which will provide further utility to users in the community.

Users are also able to stake their DOP tokens, locking them away overtime to receive veDOP tokens for further voting rounds. This leveled system provides further incentive for users that want to stake their DOP tokens and provide liquidity to the system.

BitDAO

BitDAO is currently the #2 most funded DAO active in the world, having over $2.25 billion USD incorporated into it. This incredible figure is mostly due to its governance token, BIT, which holds over $1b of that total amount. Behind the BIT token, the central purpose of this DAO is to create a tokenized economy that everyone can become a part of.

Its main goal is to provide the necessary capital to create a steady ecosystem of DeFi products, with the funds involved going towards developing these projects. Each day, due to partner contributions, the BITDAO treasury increases by around 2 million, this being the typical trend over the last 90 days.

This project has also gained significant traction due to its growth strategy. BitDAO aims to collaborate, using token swaps, with a range of crypto and DeFi project ventures. Any of the BitDAO community members that assist in a partner project gain benefits, while the community also helps to boost the audience that the project in question can reach.

Community members that actively participate in the growth of this network are rewarded with BIT tokens, helping create a motivational system that drives BitDAO's own development. These tokens can then be submitted to certain projects, demonstrating voting power, or placed on certain future development suggestions.

With forming alliances at the center of BitDAO, this community-driven project helps invest in new ventures, pushing the blockchain ecosystem to flourish even more than it has done in the past.

GoodDAO

GoodDollar is a cryptocurrency that actively works towards creating a more equal world for everyone. Its protocol uses free-market forces to create a stream of free cryptocurrency that people can claim. Absolutely anyone can claim this cryptocurrency, directly claiming it over their phone.

At its heart, this protocol is an anti-poverty movement, allowing people around the world to get a basic digital income. By leveraging DeFi tools, it aligns to give cryptocurrency to those that need it the most, fighting back against the wealth distribution inequality that's rampant in the modern age. With users from around the world supporting this cryptocurrency, the blockchain community is helping to build a system where millions of the poorest members of our global community can benefit.

In January of 2022, GoodDollar introduced the community-driven DAO, GoodDAO, allowing the community to participate in this project to a greater extent. The movement in control structures was facilitated by non-transferable GOOD Tokens that were given out to anyone that had participated in the community. Those that were more involved with the project received a larger portion of these voting tokens, which can be used to support the development routes of the cryptocurrency going forward.

Twitter's co-founder, Jack Dorsey, is incredibly keen on this idea, contributing over $55 million to the project in order to push for this cryptocurrency to act as a universal basic income for those that need it most. This DAO is an example of blockchain technology being used for good, with this project having incredible future potential if it continues on its pathway towards success. We can't wait to see where this one goes!

BalancerDAO

Balancer acts as an automated trading platform, helping users to more effectively manage their portfolios. As its name might have given away, this platform automatically rebalances platforms in order to hit certain metrics and maximize income. It is currently the most advanced automated market maker on the platform, allowing users to access liquidity pools, trading pathways, and intelligent pricing from one location.

This platform works by allowing users to collect fees from the traders that rebalance their portfolios instead of forcing users to pay for an index fund manager to rebalance their portfolios for them. This system is perfect for launching new tokens, allowing platforms to acquire DeFi liquidity within their platform. This platform currently has over $3 billion in locked assets, demonstrating the participation behind the project.

The governance of Balancer is a completely open system, its DAO approach allowing users from around the globe to buy BAL and then vote on what changes should be made on the platform. From determining what features should be created next to plotting the development course of this platform, the Balancer Protocol is a democratized process that allows anyone to have their say.

As Balancer continues to release new features, this investing platform is providing unique opportunities to users around the globe.

IzumiDAO

Framing itself as a liquidity mining protocol designed for Uniswap 3, iZUMI is one of the most exciting financially-based DAOs that's currently active. Announcing their movement to a DAO structure in February of 2022, their development as a decentralized organization has only been a recent development.

Most commonly, iZUMI allows users to farm yields on Uniswap, with high APR rates ensuring that those users that stake or liquidity mine are set to receive steep rewards.

iZUMI is leading their DAO by using quadratic voting, with veNFT governance tokens at the center of their voting protocols. Quadratic voting is specifically designed to make sure that no one voice in the community is louder than any other, with everyone having an equal opportunity to vote. While users can cast consecutive votes, only the first vote they cast will actually count to the total.

This ensures that all voters have one chance to place their vote, selecting the issue that is most important to them. Additionally, this means that those with less of the governance token can still have an equal impact when compared to those that may have a wallet full of VeNFT tokens. This is a far more democratic system, allowing the community to accurately get a representative understanding of how they feel about certain issues.

This system of voting takes the DAO system to the next level, presenting a way of creating equal opportunities for everyone on the platform.

DAOSYS

One common critique of DAOs as a system is that due to a few whales that have a lot of the currency, these voting platforms can be easily manipulated from behind the scenes. Additionally, as DAOs have ownership of users' capital within a treasury, there is also an extent to which users are disconnected from the protocol's value proposition. DAOSYS aims to fix these issues, providing a new method of structuring these decentralized organizations.

DAOSYS moves to a permissionless protocol that anyone can use, allowing them to operate autonomously from economic factors. DAOSys is based on Syscoin, which is a layer one ecosystem, meaning that there is no risk associated with stakeholders that could be behind the scenes of other DAO's. Instead of governance tokens, DAOSYS uses Autonomous Service Engine architecture, allowing for self-sovereign asset management without large cost risks. This allows Quests to be created, which facilitates discussion between builders on this network and stakeholders.

Not only does that mean that the community can directly participate in Syscoin's treasury, but they can also directly help drive progress on the system without taking any risk. While this DAO system is still in development, it's definitely one to keep an eye on as it rolls out more information and features.

Final Thoughts

DAOs are an exciting system that puts blockchain systems and platforms directly into the control of the community. Boosting transparency and increasing engagement, a DAO is an ideal way of running a web 3.0 project, as they align directly with the pillars of this new internet iteration.

As you can see by this list, the biggest and most exciting DAOs that are currently available range incredibly. From social good DAOs to fast-food restaurants and financial platforms, there are now DAO projects for almost anything.

Due to this, you're able to easily find a DAO that aligns with your interests, buy their designated governance token, and start making an impact in their communities today!