A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a coordination system for creators and businesses in the digital age. Unlike the traditional corporation, a DAO is governed by its members using rules that are encoded into computer programs and transparent on a blockchain ledger.

Global collaborations, made possible by the Internet and accelerated by a Covid-era move to remote work, can be managed and automated through the use of a DAO. More than that, the DAO gives entrepreneurs a chance to create a for-profit or non-profit entity that is in itself a network of people connected by a common goal. These networks are deeply intertwined with smart contracts to create a cybernetic organism that melds the human experience with the meta.

A DAO is decentralized because it uses a shared blockchain network that distributes computing power. It is automated through the use of smart contracts, which are coded by humans and then released to the Internet through a blockchain network like Ethereum to do their work.

The members of a DAO commonly have shared ownership in the “company” via token ownership and will often use tokens to vote on the direction the protocol and community takes. DAOs that have higher levels of decentralization enable anyone to become a member. On the other end of the spectrum, you might see a permissioned DAO where some or all members are selected by the DAO’s creators.

Self-executing smart contracts make it possible for the financial aspects of each DAO to be efficient and transparent. Transactions such as capital raises, commerce payments, payroll dispersions, and promotional spends can be automated and may occur 24/7 on a global basis.

A token that is native to the blockchain network on which the DAO is built can be used for governance and voting, fiscal management, incentivizing, etc. Unlike the traditional corporate structure, DAOs enable entrepreneurs to build companies that demonstrate financial transparency with a budget management system that is in step with decentralized finance (DeFi.). Trackers and explorers for open public blockchains, such as Etherscan.io for Ethereum, provide real time data on all transactions without requiring personal data. This automated blockchain ledger is available to the public.

$WILD token is the DAO governance token for Wilder World

A DAO’s connection with DeFi

DAOs are connected to an underlying, blockchain-based financial system that involves thousands of virtual currencies and a well-laid infrastructure of exchanges, wallets, liquidity pools, trading tools and platforms. When a DAO governance token is available (for instance for voting on improvement proposals or when staging an incentivized marketing campaign), often the token is already widely available for trading on decentralized as well as centralized exchanges. DAO tokens issued from open blockchains like Ethereum enable a transparent, automated auditing system that all members can access.

The DAO’s user base of members can be increased quickly and automatically by incentivization methods that invite people to take positive action (i.e. follow on social media) to receive token rewards. Since DAO tokens are automatically transacted on a globally available blockchain that autoruns 24/7, global scaling becomes a streamlined, cost-efficient process — all accomplished without brick and mortar headquarters or centralized 3rd parties such as payment providers, government entities, and banks.

If a DAO is decentralized, who is in charge?

DAOs come in many forms and new versions are sure to be created. Generally speaking, the DAO’s creators have the ability to predetermine what the DAO will be for, who can become members, who can work for the DAO, and what the tokenomics will be, etc.

The DAO is preprogrammed by the core team of developers and entrepreneurs to run autonomously. For each person who participates in the DAO as a contributor, an autonomous system run by code and enforced on an open public blockchain automatically assigns their voting rights and incentivizes them with tokens to act in the best interest of the DAO.

Management of the DAO can be transferred to the DAO itself, which connects with smart contracts that issue voting rights to token holders and can even apply certain rights or token amounts to different sets of members who perform varying tasks. But behind all of this, there is always a founding team who has the vision, builds the business model, publishes the smart contracts, and guides the DAO into its formation as well as during its evolution in cyberspace.

A DAO can have a CEO, a board, or any other governance structure or hierarchy, but the way it auto-manages the encoded rules and the way it directly connects a network of humans with a common goal to a global, collaboration network, completely sets it apart from the corporation.

To summarize, DAOs have these common features:

They’re an organizational structure involving a cyber network of participants, or members, with a common goal.
DAOs employ a tokenized economy, using cryptographic tokens for governance, incentivization, reserve allocations, crowdfunding, etc.
The DAO essentially is a set of rules that is coded to automate and manage business operations.
Incentives, often appearing in the form of tokens, are aligned. Tokens are used to encourage people to promote that platform, signify a vote on an improvement proposal, and other actions that serve both the members and the DAO itself.
Rules may be enforced through automated consensus mechanisms that do not require human involvement.

The impact of a DAO

A DAO can be configured in different ways but has the ability to solve many problems:

The principal-agent problem occurs in business when one party has an upper hand in a financial transaction. An example might be when getting a car loan; the bank has all your credit information but even though it’s your credit history, it’s not easy for you to access that information. Another example would be when a merger happens, only certain information is transparent to both parties while both parties also hold private information. Most transactions today manifest this problem, however, DAOs overcome it because they provide a way to align incentives amongst all participants in a financial transaction.
Along with the transition from centralized traditional teams to global, decentralized network teams, comes the problem of how to collaborate safely online together. How can you trust someone you’ve never met? DAOs remove the need for trusting those that you don’t know with a collaborative approach where rules are governed by code and not people. This is also relevant in financial transactions, which historically have used a trust based model which must rely on 3rd party intermediaries. Members of a DAO can vote to determine the rules and then the DAO publically manages and verifies that everyone is following.
Research suggests that many modern companies don’t even know where their data is being stored. The job of securing data in today’s cyberworld becomes an overwhelming task, putting humans at risk for all manner of scams and hacks. With DAOs, data storage is distributed on nodes across a computer network of participants that are all tied together in a common goal. Beyond that, due to their decentralized nature. DAOs may operate completely without the need for user data in the first place.

DAOs in the Wild

Bitcoin was released in 2009 as an open source payment system DAO. The protocol gave the ability for anyone with an Internet device to make censorship resistant, peer-to-peer payments without ever having to give over any personal data.

Today, bitcoin runs autonomously without a board of directors, CEO, central banks or regulators. Instead, over 10,000 nodes across the globe use their computing power to run the bitcoin software for processing and verifying transactions, while millions of users transact from their digital wallets.

Wilder World is a DAO that brings together an Artist Guild to build an immersive 3D Universe powered entirely by NFTs in collaboration with Zero.Space. Wilder World enables multi-leveled, photorealistic and mixed reality worlds where Wilders roam freely, acquire virtual land and express themselves through unique avatars, decorative assets and fashionable accessories. Wilder World is fully owned and governed by its community — creators, players and fans alike are enabled to participate via the Wilder DAO on the Ethereum blockchain.

“Just as startups and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley out-competed traditional institutions built on rigid operational hierarchies and traditional capital structures, DAOs create the possibility for coordination to exist beyond the imaginary boundary of the corporation itself.”

- n3o, Architect of Zero.Space and Wilder World

Wilder World’s vision of building a DAO platform and market for immersive 3D NFTs brings us one step closer to the Metaverse, where NFTs take a life of their own to create a cyber organism of gamers, 3D artists, collectors and fans.

Wilder World Artist Guild Platform

Wilder World awaits you

We welcome you to join us in our journey into the Metaverse where our Artist Guild puts ownership, copyright and revenue rights back into the hands of the community of creators. It also gives fans a way to connect more directly and engage with their favorite artists.

All participants of Wilder World will be able to share ownership of the Metaverse, a mixed reality universe where artists from all over the globe meet to collaborate creatively, build communities, play in-world games, and drop/collect digital artifacts in a NFT-based economy run by the Wilder DAO.

About Wilder World

Wilder World is an Immersive 3D Universe powered entirely by NFTs.

In collaboration with Zero.Space, Wilder World enables multi-leveled, photorealistic and mixed reality worlds where Wilders roam freely, acquire virtual land and express themselves through unique avatars, decorative assets and fashionable accessories. Wilder World is fully owned and governed by its community — creators, players and fans alike are enabled to participate via the Wilder DAO on the Ethereum blockchain.