DAOs for Earth

By Grace Rachmany (Interchain Earth Program Team member)

One of the pillars of the decentralized and regenerative movements is governance. To operate inside of a global network of regenerative finance, we need new structures of governance and more effective ways of managing common-pool resources to achieve the greatest positive impacts on the Earth.

DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organisations) are now proving themselves, with more than $6 billion in crypto assets under management staked in DAOs. However, when it comes to sustainable and ecological finance, DAOs are just beginning to be implemented in organizations such as The Regen Network and ixo Internet of Impact Hub.

For its model of self-sovereign identity using decentralised proof of unique humanity, BrightID has tried just about every available platform for DAOs. This week they launched the BrightDAO with the $BRIGHT token and fairdrop.

Conceptually, the promise of the DAO is that all stakeholders will be involved in a democratic process to determine how an organization functions. Nested DAOs are the idea that a group of DAOs can operate together under a shared function. This can be pictured in a hierarchical way, for example, each community currency has its own DAO which is beholden to a “management” DAO, or it could be conceptualized as an equal relationship. The multitude of DAOs have an interoperability protocol that connects them, but no DAO is superior to the others. Rather than “nested”, this structure might be described as “cooperative”.

Other promising DAO applications include:

• Dispute resolution, such as the Gravity capability of Token Engineering Commons (TEC), the Kleros project, and Aragon Court.
• Rewarding contributions, such as participation in community discussions, governance, or code creation. Contributions could be recognized as “proof of impact” and provide ways of giving more decision-power to the people who contribute the most. The Token Engineering Community, SourceCred, 1Hive project and Gitcoin are all experimenting with different DAO mechanisms for recogning contributons and building economies based on reputation.  

As we look at the coalitions and collaborations forming under the Interchain Earth Program, we are working with Regen Network, ixo, The Commons Stack, and Community Currency Alliance groups, to unleash potential of DAOs to enable more effective coordination, local collaborative participation in governance, as well as regional and ultimately global coordination for the Earth Mission, to achieve sustainable prosperity and ecological regeneration for the future of humanity.

This area of technology is still in its early stages. The Interchain Earth Program team is initiating a program of research and development into how existing Cosmos governance technologies can be used, and to design an Earth DAO for sustainable coolaborative funding of the Earth Mission.

Please express your interest, if you would like to get involved!