In the latest case study video, Bernouilli-Locke founder David Palmer details how his group is implementing a DAO for team ownership and governance for SailGP boat racing, by leveraging the power of NEAR.

The post Case Study: Bernoulli-Locke-Locke’s David Palmer on the DAO-Owned SailGP Team appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

By partnering with NEAR Foundation, Hydra Ventures will open the doors to the eventual launch of the first investment DAO in the Near ecosystem. 

“The combined expertise of the leaders that have created this fund offers a winning formula that will help provide critical funding to purpose-driven, socially impactful web3 startups,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation. “We are delighted to be playing a part in launching this DAO and look forward to seeing the role it will play in developing our ecosystem.”

Decentralizing Web3 investment with DAOs

To power the “fund of funds” investment DAO, Hydra Ventures has raised $10M in capital from NEAR Foundation, MetaCartel Ventures, ConsenSys, 1kx Ventures, Collab + Currency, Nonagon Ventures, CMT Digital, among others. Hydra Ventures aims to take a hands-on approach to support investment DAOs, from community coordination and investment practices to organizational design, incentive design, and back office/operations.

“While the first legally wrapped investment DAOs showed us what was possible, many of them have had major operating flaws which have been exposed over the years,” said Peter Pan, co-summoner of MetaCartel and Partner at 1kx Ventures. “Hydra looks to address many of these problems and ultimately emerge with a fundamentally better model for how investment DAOs should be operated. We are thrilled to have NEAR Foundation’s support in this venture.”

Hydra Ventures is incubated by Thing3 and MetaCartel Ventures (the first and one of the most successful investment DAOs created), and backed by leading founders and thinkers in Web3. MetaCartel has incubated and made investments in several category-leading projects like Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity, Arweave, Open Zeppelin, DAOhaus, Zapper Finance, and Rarible, and were also one of the first investors in Mintbase, an NFT marketplace built on Near. MetaCartel members include Ameen Soleimani (founder, Moloch DAO), Stani Kulechov (founder, AAVE), Roneil Rumburg (founder, Audius), Bobby Ong (founder, Coingecko), RAC (Grammy award winner), Peter Pan (Partner, 1kx Ventures), amongst others.

The post NEAR Foundation Backs Hydra Ventures to Create Web3’s First ‘Fund of Funds’ Investment DAO appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

We are more than halfway through the first quarter of 2023 and wanted to share a quick update on the progress NEAR Foundation has made on community funding and accelerator strategies.

First, if you are a project building on NEAR or interested in building on NEAR and need some immediate support, please fill out this Project Support Form. NEAR Foundation will connect you with the appropriate person or organization who can assist. 

Decentralizing Funding

Important changes in the grant program were announced at the start of January, highlighting the Foundation’s goal for a more decentralized funding process by handing over decision making to community DAOs. What follows is the status of the initial DAOs. 

• MarketingDAO is actively reviewing proposals related to amplification and marketing via the MarketingDAO forum channel. At the moment, the core focus of applications is around content and social media, with an exciting ETHDenver bounties initiative having just recently been announced.
  • What is the Marketing DAO
  • How to submit a proposal
  • Marketing DAO Guidelines  

• DevGov is ramping up and reviewing proposals supporting technical ecosystem projects via their NEAR.social gig board.
  • What is the Developer Governance DAO
  • How to submit a proposal

• Creatives DAO is on track for accepting proposals for funding before the end of March.
  • What is the Creatives DAO
  • How to submit a proposal
  • Creatives DAO Guidelines

• NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) is a grassroots movement by the NEAR Community to decentralize. NDC V0 Governance is coming soon! The initial milestone is for the Community Treasury to come online, and it is actively being finalized. V0 focuses on funding the GrassrootsDAOs listed above: Marketing, Developer, and Creatives.
  • A beginner’s guide to V0 of the NDC governance structure
  • What is the NDC? 
  • How to Get Involved:
    • Join the NDC movement on Telegram:
      • Join the Movement
      • Start a conversation
      • Join or form a Workgroup to contribute to governance and decentralization on NEAR 

The Accelerator

From the accelerator side, NEAR Foundation’s past experience with the grants program showed us that founders and teams are in need of a variety of support in order to be successful and take their project to the next level. 

To that end, the Foundation’s strategy consists of three elements: 

1. We are building a product on NEAR Discovery that will allow founders to connect with a range of contributors (e.g., investors, subject matter experts in areas like legal and finance) who can support them in their journey. We are launching an MVP in early March.
   1. If you are a founder, investor, mentor, or subject matter expert interested in being a beta tester, please fill out this form. 
   2. If you are a founder interested in participating in paid user research, please fill out this form.

2. We recently made an open call to partner with accelerator programs that can help us fast track support needs for projects. We will be releasing additional open calls in the coming weeks as we continue building out the support network available for founders. These open calls will be for:
   1. Engineering support resources
   2. Talent / Recruitment platforms and services
   3. Legal platforms and services
   4. Back office accounting platforms and services
   5. Marketing services
   6. Product management services

3. We are continuously developing and identifying learning content and tooling that are most helpful for early stage founders (e.g., accounting software geared towards Web3 teams, Go To Market exemplars, etc.). These resources will be available within the product.

Take 1 minute to help us pick a name for the Accelerator here (survey closes on March 1, 2023)!

If you have any questions on decentralized funding, the DAOs, and Accelerator program, please reach out to the Community Team on Telegram, Discord, and other social media channels used by the NEAR community. 

And again, if your project is building on NEAR or interested in doing so and you are in need of some immediate support, fill out this Project Support Form. NEAR Foundation will connect you with the appropriate person or organization who can assist. 

The post Update on Near Decentralized Funding, DAOs, and Accelerator appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

With 2023 around the corner, it’s a great time to reflect and take stock of all the exciting happenings and announcements that took place in 2022. NEAR Foundation congratulates every developer, community member, and partner that made 2022 a blast.

Without further ado, here’s everything that happened with NEAR in 2022, how the ecosystem is successfully navigating bear market conditions, and why NEAR is primed for explosive growth heading into 2023!

Protocol Progress and JavaScript SDK

The last 12 months saw huge progress on the protocol level, with an exciting roadmap charting the course for 2023 and beyond. From staking upgrades to new developer tools, the NEAR protocol made huge strides in onboarding new builders and the next 1 billion users.

NEAR introduced the brand new JavaScript SDK, enabling developers to build on NEAR using the most popular programming language in the world. Brendan Eiche, the inventor of JavaScript and co-founder of privacy-first browser Brave, even joined a panel at NEARCON to discuss the new SDK, Brave’s new support of Aurora, and why he’s excited about NEAR.

NEAR also saw the introduction of meta-transactions, allowing third parties to pay transactions for the transaction cost of any account. Users can then be onboarded to NEAR apps without owning any NEAR tokens. Meta transaction development will continue through next year and will be critical to new wallet growth.

Stake Wars’ latest iteration also began in 2022, marking another step towards decentralizing the network. Stake Wars will increase the total number of validators as chunk-only producers for the next phases of sharding. The chunk-only producer role will be more accessible to new validators who don’t have sufficient $NEAR to run a Block Producer node.

Phase 1 of Nightshade Sharding Commences

Stake Wars was a critical step in the transition from Simple Nightshade to Phase 1 of sharding in 2022. As Phase 1 continues, total validators will increase from around 100 to 300, with a significantly lower seat price. Phase 1 was crucial to facilitate scaling, improve decentralization, and bring the Open Web to mass adoption.

There will be an 86% decrease in collateral requirements to become a chunk-only producer as Phase 1 of Nightshade concludes in 2022 and continues into the next year. Phase 1 went live on mainnet in September 2022 with key contributions and assistance from the Pagoda team.

As NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin told CoinDesk in the lead-up to the Phase 1 roll-out, “the more users the network gets, the more decentralized the network gets as well.” This allows NEAR to add more validators in response to more demand for the network, delivering on the promise of speed, scalability, and efficiency. 

Major Strides in Funding and Transparency

A thriving NEAR ecosystem requires resources and trust, both of which made major strides. The birth of Transparency Reports assured the community that all core stakeholders in NEAR are operating in good faith and from a position of financial strength. These reports provide important information about the health of the protocol and ecosystem, including staking distribution, daily transactions, and new accounts created. (Read the Q3 Transparency Report.)

NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament also hosted a post-FTX AMA, re-assuring the ecosystem of NEAR’s runway and explaining why the current bear market is a time for a conviction to build.

To see how NEAR Foundation and other ecosystem funding projects have been distributing portions of the $800M in funding throughout 2022, check out Q1/Q2 and Q3 Transparency Reports. Key areas of funding include Proximity Labs and DeFi, DAOs, NFT infrastructure, and Regional Hubs. The NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) was also announced and launched at NEARCON, with one of the goals being to further decentralize and democratize grants giving and decision-making processes.

Ecosystem Growth

NEAR’s 2022 was one of huge growth and innovation. New partnerships like Sweatcoin and SailGP were major stepping stones toward bringing Web3 to the masses. Projects in areas such as gaming, music, and NFTs showcased that the NEAR ecosystem is thriving and poised for new heights in 2023.

The NEAR protocol experienced 15x growth in cumulative accounts over the past year with 22M+ today. NEAR also has 900K monthly active wallets, marking a major increase from this time last year. And in 2022, the NEAR ecosystem generated $330M of external capital in projects building on NEAR. 

Movement Economy

One of the biggest catalysts for new NEAR wallet and account creation was the partnership with Sweatcoin. The $SWEAT token rewards users for every step they take throughout the day, encouraging users to live healthy lifestyles. Sweatcoin migrating to NEAR pushed total wallets from 2 million at the beginning of the year to over 20 million by November. As Flament pointed out during the Sweatcoin keynote at NEARCON, the movement economy is in its infancy, and NEAR is poised to be a leader in the space with the help of Sweatcoin.

DAO Innovation

Another huge addition to the NEAR ecosystem was the world-renowned boat racing league, SailGP. SailGP partnered with NEAR to pioneer the intersection of sports, Web3, and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). In addition to offering NFT collectibles on the NEAR blockchain to fans, SailGP will use AstroDAO tooling to create the first fan-owned team as a DAO. In addition to the growth of ecosystem projects like Kin DAO for equity and inclusion, it was a banner year for NEAR and DAOs.

Blockchain Music

You may not have noticed, but 2022 saw a massive surge in interest about music and Web3. And one of the most innovative projects in this area was in the NEAR ecosystem, with the launch of Endlesss. The music creation, marketing, and community development platform’s NEAR integration went live in the summer as a virtual gathering place blending social media features with music production tools. Endlesss enables musicians of all skill levels to conduct “jam sessions” on the NEAR blockchain and mint their music as NFTs. 

Gaming

The NEAR ecosystem got a huge dose of star power with the unveiling of Armored Kingdom. Backed by Hollywood star Mila Kunis, Armored Kingdom will be an immersive gaming, NFT, storytelling, and metaverse experience built on the NEAR blockchain. The project kicked off with a first edition NFT comic book airdrop at Consensus, Austin. NEAR also announced the launch of the South Korea Regional Hub with a focus on bringing the NEAR blockchain to the massive local game development community. 

PlayEmber also established itself as a key player in the NEAR gaming ecosystem, taking a mobile-first approach to Web3 gaming and bringing advertisers into the space. PlayEmber’s games now have over 4.2 million monthly active users, and recently closed a $2.3 million pre-seed raise led by Shima Capital.

NFTs

With core NFT infrastructure maturing in the NEAR ecosystem, 2022 was a year of innovative use cases and groundbreaking projects. NEARCON saw the announcement of a key grant to Few and Far, a premium NFT marketplace on NEAR with a seamless UX and simple minting solutions. One of NEAR’s biggest NFT projects, Mintbase, received over $12 million in funding this August. Mintbase empowers niche creators with the ability to mint NFTs of any type with little technical know-how, exemplifying NEAR’s commitment to making Web3 easy for everyone.

Looking Ahead

From the launch of Phase 1 sharding to protocol upgrades and ecosystem growth, 2022 was a huge leap for the NEAR ecosystem in many respects. It’s the year that the “Create Without Limits” vision was introduced, the biggest NEARCON ever took place, and some of the most important partnerships in the history of NEAR were cemented. It was also a year in which NEAR committed to more transparency and communication with the community.  

Looking forward, NEAR will continue to champion Web3 as a catalyst for change, in addition to environmental sustainability as a carbon-neutral blockchain. In 2023, the NEAR community can expect even more partnerships that push boundaries and support projects that will enhance and empower a prosperous NEAR ecosystem.

The post NEAR 2022: A Year in Review appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Yet Web3 also hasn’t fully delivered on its promise to open the web. While important progress has been made, much more needs to be done for this technology to deliver fairer, freer digital systems. Today’s Web3 suffers from inaccessible user experience, siloed applications which are difficult to discover, few real-world use cases, and technology tribalism. Put simply, too much hype and not enough value for users. 

Since 2018, NEAR has focused on building scalable, secure technology and infrastructure that is easy to use and enables developers to freely create usable applications. Since launching Mainnet in late 2020, the NEAR ecosystem has made incredible progress, becoming one of the top layer-one blockchains with 22 million accounts, 600K monthly active wallets (active defined as 2+ transactions), and 15x growth in users and projects just in the last year. And despite chaos in the market and a major downturn in recent months, NEAR Foundation has sufficient capital to sustain at least five years of operations in bear market conditions thanks to responsible treasury management. 

While Web3 has yet to deliver on its promises, NEAR Foundation believes that NEAR is the only ecosystem where Web3 promises can be delivered and where mainstream adoption can happen. All the fundamentals have been established for some time and NEAR is charging full-speed ahead into its next growth phase in 2023. This post will cover NEAR’s convictions heading into next year, the strategic approach to drive our next phase, and a look ahead at new areas of product and development. 

Fundamentals and Convictions

• NEAR has the best technology in Web3. Provably scalable, easy to onboard and use, developer friendly, secure, and decentralized, with the most advanced account model and onboarding in the blockchain space. 
• NEAR has world-class talent and ample runway. From the core teams at the Foundation and Pagoda, to the incredible NEAR Foundation Council and advisors, to the diverse group of brilliant entrepreneurs building companies, apps, and funds on NEAR, some of the best talent in the world is here on NEAR. And thanks to the Foundation’s responsible treasury management, core ecosystem operations and funding are well-positioned to run for many years to come. 
• Achieving mainstream adoption is about users. Not TVL, not flashy headlines, not cultish maximalism. NEAR focuses on what matters for the long term and the bear market will separate the high quality projects from the ones fueled mostly by hype. 
• Web 2.5 will get us there. Sweatcoin proved that NEAR can support an app with tens of millions of users on open web infrastructure. This is the next phase of adoption: helping another generation of Web2 apps and communities take advantage of the opportunities Web3 offers while providing a richer, more sustainable experience to their users. 

Strategic Approach

Enabling NEAR to make the most of these convictions in today’s climate means committing to the following goals over the next year. 

Growing usage on NEAR will begin with a top-down approach focused on partnerships. The world-class business development team at the Foundation will focus on working with major applications and brands with substantial, established communities to partner with NEAR on real use cases that drive engagement, such as ticketing and earning. High-traction focus verticals include sports, entertainment, and loyalty. Major partnerships in recent months include Grupo Nutresa, Google Cloud, and Sweat Economy. 

Any great Web3 ecosystem is an emergent product of a dedicated community of believers. The bottom-up, grassroots approach for the next year on NEAR will empower the community to invest in its own expansion through grants, primarily through 3 major community DAOs: Developer DAO, Marketing DAO, and Creatives DAO (visit the DAO websites to get involved). This means the NEAR Foundation will no longer directly allocate capital to projects, instead supporting the community in these decisions and further decentralizing key elements of the ecosystem. These grassroots DAOs will be supported by the NDC, which has achieved initial traction, including launching a new Governance Working Group and plans to roll out a v1 governance infrastructure for the ecosystem early next year.

In the new year, the NEAR Foundation will form an early-stage accelerator that will provide support to promising projects and founders on NEAR in areas including education, tech, hiring, legal, UX, and GTM guidance, setting them up to grow into the landmark Web3 projects of tomorrow. 

Looking Ahead 

With NEAR’s protocol, infrastructure, and developer tooling already well established, the next step in providing the best user experience to Web3 will be at the discovery layer: the connective tissue that connects applications, tooling, social, earning, and developer components across the open web. This stack is what we call a “blockchain operating system.”

Many of the building blocks of the blockchain operating system already exist on NEAR, either as features or apps. These include NEAR Crowd, a gig economy platform with 50% of users transacting every day, and NEAR Social, an on-chain social network with a widget framework that lets developers fork entire app frontends to build new experiences. Combined with upcoming improvements to onboarding, including from EVM wallets (which we’re calling remote accounts), native meta transactions, Keypom, and new chat/social capabilities, NEAR will deliver even more amazing value directly to developers and users. 

All of these user-centric elements further up the stack, particularly at the app layer, will form the basis for a core component of the NEAR ecosystem’s product and technical focus in 2023. Pagoda, NEAR Foundation, and other key ecosystem participants will work together to deliver the best possible technology with an increasingly integrated and seamless experience for developers and end users. The goal from here is evolving NEAR to be more than just a layer-one blockchain: it will become a global blockchain operating system. It’s still early days, but building is underway and the vision is clear. 

NEAR is Now 

NEAR is the place where mainstream adoption of the open web will happen. Soon, anyone in the world—app users, developers, founders, creators—will be able to create without limits.

Thank you for reading our NEAR 2023 Strategy Blog Post and/or participating in the NEAR Go Forward Strategy Twitter AMA! If you have questions or comments we would love to hear them!

The post NEAR Strategic Update and Outlook for 2023 appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

To pull this fan-owned team off, Bernouilli I Locke will use a DAO structure built on the NEAR Protocol. Launching Bermuda and across the Caribbean, this new, DAO-powered team will create new opportunities for fan engagement and sports ownership alike. 

The DAO-owned team hopes to be the tenth squad in the SailGP league. The team is expected to debut in Season 4, which will comprise 14 events at iconic destinations around the globe. Season 4 kicks off June 17-18, 2023 with the United States Sail Grand Prix | Chicago at Navy Pier, and includes one event held at the team base in Bermuda in May 2024.

How the DAO will power the fan-owned team

A Distributed Autonomous Organization, commonly known as a “DAO”, is a blockchain-based  organization with governance managed transparently by its community. Fans interested in owning a part of the SailGP team will be able to purchase tokens that provide governance to the DAO—and with it, the right to vote on important team matters. 

The sports team’s owners will be able to vote on decisions like team names, new flag design representing overall territory, and even team athlete selection. Fan owners will also be able to help make decisions on boat livery, fan benefits and access, sponsorship, management, team business decisions, and more. 

“Last month we shared that we had updated our SailGP Participation Agreement to allow a DAO owned team to join the league and now we are very excited to see David Palmer and his team of founders at Bernoulli | Locke forming a team under these amended rules,” said SailGP CEO and Co-founder Russell Coutts. “David and his team have a unique marketing and operational background building global membership-based communities – demonstrating the unique expertise required to launch and assist in operating a fan owned team facilitated by a DAO.”

“Professional sport is about building a passionate fanbase, and as a tech-forward global league SailGP has leaned into Web3 to develop the future of fandom,” Coutts continued. 

“We look at the fan owned team as the ultimate implementation of a loyalty program, and this new Caribbean and Bermuda team will  redefine the fan experience and team ownership model. It is a testament to the power of our relationship with NEAR hat a decentralized team can be created to ultimately provide control of a team to a passionate community of fans.”

How to join the historic fan-owned team

Fans can take the first step in getting  involved in the new DAO team by heading over to FanVest.io to signal initial interest. The opportunity to participate is expected to be available to a limited number of individuals and institutions meeting financial and other applicable requirements. (See Legal Disclosure/Disclaimer below.) 

Fans will also be able to own a seasonal membership pass through the purchase and holding of an NFT. This NFT provides season pass holders access to community as well as governance but not equity. 

“With our partners, we are delighted to bring a new and exciting level of engagement and participation for sports team owners and fans, and add a new participant in SailGP,” said David Palmer, Bernoulli | Locke Founder and CEO. “Our goal is to have a vibrant community of owners and fans jointly sharing the incredible journey of establishing and operating a global racing team.”

“Using the NEAR Protocol and the unique structure of the DAO we have established, we believe that we can achieve our goals with transparency and legal compliance, enabling the participation of an international community sharing a common sports interest and passion,” he added.  “We look forward to seeing everyone on the water at the first race next season!”

“This historic partnership elevates fandom to a completely new level and creates a blueprint for building a successful use case for Web3,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation.  “Launching this fan owned team breaks down the hierarchy of sport, giving enthusiastic spectators the chance to play an active role in shaping the future of competitive sailing by democratizing access to the sport and allowing fans to collectively own and manage a team like never before.” 

For further details, please visit FanVest.io

LEGAL DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER 

The information contained in this press release is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any equity tokens offered for sale by the DAO. An offering to invest in equity tokens of the DAO will be made only to accredited investors in accordance with U.S. Securities and Regulations by a private placement memorandum or equivalent information, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation which should be read in their entirety. Any ultimate offering may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of acceptance given. An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind.

Information in this release is not financial/investment advice.

The post First Fan-Owned Team Launches on NEAR appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

One question is whether Web3 will live up to its promises of creator empowerment through the coordination of decentralized systems. 

Community is at the center of it all.

“For NEAR, community is not about owning the narrative by trying to eat into each others’ share of the pie,” says Harshit Tiwari, Community Activation and Adoption Specialist at NEAR. “NEAR is committed to building a Web3 ecosystem where every human can find and build a digital home. We believe that true inclusion begins at the grassroots level.”

Let’s take a look at the future of community on NEAR.

Embracing timeless, unbreakable foundations

The future of community on NEAR starts with commitments that the ecosystem is making now. From Tiwari’s perspective, several pillars define the NEAR community experience. 

With a commitment to diversity, NEAR is working towards one of the most vibrant ecosystems in the world. In this diverse community, the vision is for people to have the freedom to pursue their passions and make an impact. Through shared governance, every community member will have a toolkit to protect the integrity of their ecosystem. 

The culture, throughout NEAR, will inspire a sense of belonging so that everyone can find a home in the NEAR ecosystem. The overall impact is to facilitate collaborative uplifting, to make sure every person gets to enjoy upward socio-economic mobility while collaborating with people around the world.

Tiwari believes that in the coming months and years the NEAR community will become increasingly decentralized. 

“NEAR is really letting community members steer the community governance and building a safe environment for people from diverse backgrounds to come and thrive,” says Tiwari. “How the community decides to govern itself and organize around ideas is decided by the community through DAOs.”

“The biggest things we are all collectively trying to figure out are equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, participation in governance experiments and decentralized ownership of ecosystem responsibilities,” adds Tiwari.

‘Phygital’ community building across cultures  

India is known for its vibrant artist communities, traditional craftspersonship, and vibrant in-person marketplaces. Imagine being able to experience the rich beauty and cultural tradition of rural artists, from anywhere in the world. 

It’s this “what if” that led to the creation of Naksh Marketplace, an NFT marketplace fueled by communities all over India. Founded by Srilakshmi Barathi and Nivedita Hail, Naksh grew out of the duo’s time in London working on a project in which Indian artists and artisans taught their skills to the world using a stitch kit. 

“That’s when we realized the value a traditional artwork holds in the art space and we understood that there was a demand for such artwork which is associated with a cultural background of its own,” they adds. “We also saw the lack of artists in the NFT space who create their work on physical media, and lack of platforms that were accessible by the Indian audience and Indian artists.”

Initially, Naksh focused on product instead of community building. But during the build, Barathi and Hail received support from many individuals. Through this feedback, a Naksh community evolved organically. 

“That’s when we started interacting way more with our communities,” says Barathi. “We set up events and spaces for them to join and give us their opinions.”

Since Naksh focuses on onboarding artists who produce work physically and not digitally, almost all onboarding efforts happen in person. 

“We’ve been going to a lot of regional exhibitions and art galleries, meeting artists through some amazing curators,” say Barathi and Hail. “We have also found artists through virtual exhibitions.”

The duo see Web3 as a pathway to connect the ingenuity of rural artists with the rest of the world.

“Most rural artists are not aware of technology that can empower, educate, monetize and preserve their work,” explains Barathi. “The need for a vehicle to help Indian artists access the larger digital ecosystem with their physical products gave us an incentive to build Naksh.”

Naksh’s next iteration will invite and onboard traditional artists from around the world. Envision a platform where traditional Indian artists—oftentimes individuals who have never left the country—can join the same communities as fellow creators from around the world. It’s a first-in-history mind-meld.

“We are also trying to make our platform ‘phygital’ since all our traditional artworks have a physical asset,” says Barathi. “We aim to be the future of art exchanges.”

Once Naksh launches digital and self-minting features for artists, Barathi expects more people to join. At that point, new communities will spring up around digital artists, just as with Naksh’s traditional Indian and fine artists. 

Facilitating unique collaboration

“Boo.”

In a time of widespread negativity and distrust, that’s how Capardano, one of the project managers at BOO Monsters, has begun greeting people and signing off on emails. “It’s one of my favorite things to say,” says Capardano, who goes by “Cap” for short. 

This perspective encapsulates the spirit of BOO Monsters, a collection of 100 NFT monikers roaming the internet. So what are these BOOs about?

“We’re a group of people, who live across the world, who otherwise had no ties together,” says Cap. “We’re a DAO with decentralized project management.”

In total, there are currently 37 BOOs roaming Web3. With BOO NFTs costing as much as $300,000 USD due to supply and demand economics, the community is exclusive to high net worth individuals.

“Many of our members come from an investment perspective, with unique experiences and insights,” says Cap. “NFTs are just one gateway into our community. The money goes into the DAO to be spent across our endeavors and benefit the NEAR community.”

One vision that the BOOs are building towards is evolutionary art. So what exactly does that mean, in practical terms? 

With their RPG NEAR Future, built natively into Discord, a tribe of robots evolve beyond their initial programming. BOOs also created Antisocial Ape Club, a collection of 3,333 unique, generative pixel art NFTs. And Ev3reth, a machine learning artist and composer, is  partnering with artists such as GDM, whose work blends surrealism and fantasy. The BOOs also offer expertise and support to other NFT projects, like Skellies Secret Society and Few and Far. 

“It’s about keeping growing, moving, and adding value to NEAR as a whole,” says Cap, who has been helping bring AnonymousFox to market.

“It’s about helping people for the sake of doing good,” says Cap. “The Boos are curious and giving. We envision a future on NEAR built on empathy. There are people here in their 20s and people here in their 50s with a lot more life experience. What we share in common is that we’re curious. We embrace that there’s a lot we don’t know. It’s an environment built on love, where we are always learning and moving forward.”

“Decentralization can be messy,” says Cap. “But we’re figuring it out with good intentions and mutual support. We see a future on NEAR built on these foundations.”

Welcoming people who are hesitant to enter the space

Understandably, many people stay away from cryptocurrencies and blockchain for reasons ranging from personal safety to confusion and barriers to technical adoption. 

“I think working towards mass adoption with massive educational efforts and  onboarding for more diverse folks — namely women, people of diverse genders, people of color, and people in vulnerable social and financial situations is how I would like to see NEAR shaping its community infrastructure,” says Maria Neu, community manager at Mintbase, an NFT platform.”

“It’s about giving them access not only to information but skills to work in the NEAR ecosystem,” she adds. “In terms of infrastructure and tooling, what I believe could help is a better overview of the existing guilds  — and a place to research. Think of a place to insert keywords to find communities already working on certain subjects. For example: art, utility NFTs, translation, education, etc.”

In other words, the future of NEAR begins with a commitment to listening, observing, learning, and questioning assumptions.

“The NEAR ecosystem is a very friendly and open place to start getting involved with Web3  but could be optimized and simplified for those who are still reluctant to enter the space,” says Wend.

The road ahead

It’s important to remember that these are still early days for NEAR. As Cap likes to say, “Web3 is the wild west.”

It’s up to NEAR communities to create the future that they want to see. It also means that NEAR users must stretch their minds, and meet each other in a space of respect and kindness.

“My biggest takeaway about the NEAR Community is that it’s in fact a ‘Community of Communities,’” says Rebecca Hallquist, a Community Team Lead at NEAR Foundation.

“It contains incredible and ever-changing multitudes,” she says. “Whether it’s a group of digital artists in the Philippines, Web3 educators in Venezuela, or digital nomads hopping from crypto conference to crypto conference, they’re finding like-minded people here sharing similar interests, language, and enthusiasm for NEAR’s mandate and vision.”

NEAR is a place where communities help new members settle in. It’s like a new family settling into a neighborhood, explains Halquist. It’s about helping people contribute where best they can.

In the future, communities on NEAR will likely fulfill several functions. They could become gathering spaces and networks for social support, hobbies, income, learning, and so much more. For this to happen, the tools, platforms, and other means of organizing will have to be as multifaceted as the communities needs. And what NEAR communities build will manifest in the real world. They have the opportunity to be counterforces to the world’s more destabilizing forces. 

“It’s a steady process of organic evolving self-organization with the potential for an increasing number of connections to emerge between the different communities, between communities and dapps, and between communities and projects, the more any new group ‘settles in,’” says Halquist.

“We will need to be multifaceted enough to accommodate those needs more robustly.”

Check out the complete series on the NEAR Community:

• Part 1: Web3 vs Web2 Communities  
• Part 2: Decentralized Community Building on NEAR
• Part 3: NEAR Regional Hubs
• Part 4: The Future of Community on NEAR

The post NEAR Community in Focus: The Future of Community on NEAR appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

The idea was to create a platform that provided real-time data for NEAR wallet activity, just like the platform he set-up to track Ethereum movements. After launching this week, the NEAR tracker bot is still a work in progress—but so far, so good. 

“It was good vibes from the beginning,” says Matt. “As an analytics provider trying to tell the story of what’s going on on all these blockchains, we have to do our best to anticipate additional Layer 1s besides Ethereum where we think there can be meaningful activity our users would like to track.”

“We’re getting all the help we need to get off to a good start,”he adds. “Community members and 4NTS helped connect me to the NEAR ecosystem and get things off to a smooth start.”

Building Web3 products is different from building for Web2. Why? Because Web3 is decentralized, and users have—or at least are supposed to have—ownership. With no centralized authority making all the decisions singlehandedly, it is up to everyone to push things forward. 

The importance of community in the Web3 world 

For a project to be successful, those working on a protocol need to work in harmony and help newcomers. This can only be achieved with a strong community. 

A recurring theme with those building NEAR products is getting a warm welcome from seasoned users of the blockchain, and the support needed to get off to a good start. “The people working on NEAR projects definitely want to help—especially newcomers,” adds Matt.  

Community definitely exists in Web2. People interact on platforms like Reddit and writers can freely add to the world’s most popular websites, like Wikipedia. 

But Web3 projects break down barriers, and users are much closer to the tools they use. People can have more control and say over how a project is built; there is no centralized authority (or, at least, there shouldn’t be—not for long, anyway); members can be rewarded for what they contribute. 

In the Web3 world, communities are much more active and engaged (think DAOs and governance tokens.) And building a big, healthy community is key to a project’s success. The more people who believe in the project and are actively involved, the more likely it is to succeed. 

How NEAR’s blockchain was built for communities 

Jordan Gray, who is part of the TenK DAO and launched the NEAR Misfits NFT collection, says that building a community on NEAR is, for the most part, a smooth process—even for those moving from Web2 to Web3. This is in part due to NEAR’s unique and fool-proof architecture. 

An example? NEAR’s web wallet. Getting started with it is far easier than getting started with other popular Web3 wallets, like MetaMask, says Jordan. Users get a human readable name that must be correctly entered to send money. And there are no lost funds on the NEAR blockchain. This is a feature many new users praise when entering Web3. 

It’s one of the things that attracted Jordan to build upon blockchain in the first place.

“The fact that when new users had their wallets, there was a human readable name—it wasn’t a long hexadecimal code—was just very friendly in that regard,” he says. “It’s really nice and easy for new users coming from the Web2 space, they find it pretty natural and it makes sense to them.” 

Naksh, an NFT marketplace built on NEAR that puts traditional art on the blockchain, has gained traction in India’s art world. Naksh co-founder Sri Lakshmi says that NEAR’s impressive architecture—the wallet in particular—has helped get people using the marketplace, in turn helping to create a buzzing community. 

“I think it’s pretty simple,” she says. “I have taught my artists how to open their wallets and they did not find it that difficult being completely new to this.”

“Since all of the artists in our platform are completely new to the Web3 ecosystem and it was a first time experience for them, creating a wallet itself wasn’t much of a hassle for them,” she adds. “Including some of the deaf and dumb artists.”

NEAR’s community is already bustling, and this makes building new communities easier. With a host of guilds and DAOs already in place to help new projects launch, things go more smoothly. 

“NEAR’s community thrives on cross collaborating and helping each other out,” says Sri. “We have received a lot of help from guilds and other communities on NEAR in getting more people interested in Naksh through the various giveaways, Twitter spaces, video interviews, and articles.”

A shared vision is also what keeps a decentralized community strong. And NEAR’s community shares one thing in common: a focus on building quality products. 

“The kind of people who end up on NEAR are very collaborative and cooperative and want to help others,” adds Jordan. “Quality attracts quality.”  

The strength of community during a bear market 

NEAR Misfits co-creator Alejandro Betancourt, who does business development for the liquid staking app Meta Pool, finds strength in community. He says the NEAR community’s resilience during hard times is evidence of a solid community and project. 

If anything, more people are noticing the NEAR ecosystem. Launched during the last crypto winter in 2020, it’s still going strong during today’s bear market, with more builders jumping aboard daily.  

“There’s definitely a lot in the crypto culture that can be lost because everyone is just too obsessed with price or the herd mentality is too strong, so no one has the time or audacity to look into new things,” says Betancourt. “We launched during the bear market and now it’s a bear market again. The builder ethos and mentality keeps people motivated in the long-term.”

It’s a bit quiet, there is less noise, and it makes it less pump and dumpy,” he adds. “Not everything is shiny, so people get a bit more critical of projects. So when people spend time looking into NEAR technology and the community, it definitely rises to the top in ways that other projects may have been attractive when everything was pumping but are now suddenly a bit more questionable.” 

This is what makes NEAR a solid project. A strong community that keeps building, growing and helping others—even when things in the wider ecosystem have quieted down. 

Check out the complete series on the NEAR Community:

• Part 1: Web3 vs Web2 Communities  
• Part 2: Decentralized Community Building on NEAR
• Part 3: NEAR Regional Hubs
• Part 4: The Future of Community on NEAR

The post NEAR Community in Focus: Decentralized Community Building on NEAR appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

The March NEAR Town Hall explored ecosystem updates, MetaBUILD 2 winners, DAOs, and more. Here is the highlights from the NEAR Town Hall, which can be seen on NEAR’s YouTube channel or below. 

NEAR in the news amid strong ecosystem growth

In her opening remarks, NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament gave an update on the NEAR community’s Ukrainian members. As Flament explained, many of them have settled in Lisbon, Portugal, one of the NEAR ecosystem’s major European hubs. 

Flament reiterated the Foundation’s commitment to raising platform awareness, supporting projects with grants, and creating a safe path to decentralization via engagement with policymaking and regulation. She also showed some updated numbers from the NEAR community. 

Through March, the NEAR community has onboarded 40,000 students and 120 NEAR-certified teachers, while grants grew to $124 million in funds spread across 509 recipients. The ecosystem also grew from 300 to 429 projects and DAOs, 110 million transactions (up from 95 million in February), and 5.2 million wallets—a growth of 1 million wallets in a single month.  

Flament also highlighted recent news coverage on the Ukrainian fundraising effort Unchain Fund. This included a Cointelegraph feature, NEAR Co-founder Illia Polosukhin’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, and Sail GP’s NEAR announcement.

Tune into Marieke’s talk here. 

New brand partnerships: SailGP, Unchain Fund, and more 

Chris Ghent, NEAR Foundation’s Global Head of Brand Strategy and Partnerships, went into greater detail on the SailGP announcement, and Unchain Fund. 

“Sail GP is one of the most exciting and rapidly growing sports,” said Ghent. “The goal here is to look at the property as something we can drive really deep integrations with. The league is looking to announce a DAO, so we’re looking to see that evolve over the coming weeks and months as Season 3 approaches in May. From ticketing to NFTs, this is very much a deep tech integration as much as it is a global go-to-market.”

Ghent also detailed NEAR’s ongoing partnership with privacy-preserving browser Brave—specifically, the homepage takeover for Unchain Fund and NEAR’s education initiatives. He also highlighted NEAR’s support of “Play Magnus,” a charity chess event that benefitted Unchain Fund’s humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.  

Ghent’s segment also features “Marketing by the Numbers”, with talk of 700,000,000 global impressions and explosive social media engagement. 

Catch Chris’ talk here. 

MetaBUILD 2: the largest hackathon in NEAR history

Pagoda’s Maria Yarotska, MetaBUILD 2’s Hackathon Coordinator, announced winners of the MetaBUILD 2 at the NEAR Town Hall. 

“I’m happy to tell you that we just wrapped up the largest hackathon in NEAR’s history with a $1 million prize fund and almost 4,000 participants,” said Yarotska. “I was managing the judging process while fleeing the war in Ukraine, and I’m really proud of the community that made it happen and delivered some really exciting projects.”

“Congratulations to Voog, MetaAds, and NEAR Playground,” she added. “Enjoy your bounties and don’t forget to respond to all the potential investors.”

Yarotska also encouraged teams who didn’t win this time to get involved in the next MetaBUILD hackathon. For full details on the results, read “MetaBUILD 2 Hackathon Winners” on the NEAR blog. 

You can see Maria’s talk here.

Paris Blockchain Week Summit and other upcoming NEAR events

Yadira Blocker, Experiential Marketing Lead at NEAR Foundation, spoke on NEAR’s involvement at Paris Blockchain Week Summit. NEAR speakers will be at PBWS (April 12-14th), so be sure to find them at the summit’s Discovery Stage. 

For more information on NEAR’s events at PBWS, head to nearpages.wpengine.com/pbws. 

From April 18-25th, NEAR heads to DevConnect in Amsterdam (more details to come), then Consensus 2022 in Austin (June 9-12th). 

“[Consensus] is very big for the NEAR ecosystem,” said Blocker. “We’re coming on as a Block 4 partner, and we’ll have more information to share soon.” 

Stay tuned to NEAR’s events calendar at nearpages.wpengine.com/events and watch Yadira’s talk here.

Global NEAR Education and NEAR Grants updates

Sherif Abushadi said NEAR Education continues to onboard new teachers through its global education initiatives. While 5,000 individuals registered for programs in the last week of March alone, Abushadi noted that only 120 people have become NEAR-certified. 

“Certifications are still low—it’s not easy to get NEAR-certified,” said Abushadi. “You have to build an original project. We want to maintain a high bar but also make this program more accessible. So, you’ll see some new innovations from the education team in the coming weeks and months.” 

Abushadi also spotlighted considerable growth in education fellowships in India, Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela, and other c. 

Want to become NEAR-certified? Visit near.university/certify. 

You can see Sherif’s segment here. 

Next, Josh Daniels, Head of Funding at NEAR Foundation, spoke on the Grants team’s core funding vision and statistics. To date, the Foundation has issued 234 direct grants committed for $15.4 million in 2022. Additionally, 8 projects have raised ~$70 million, with 84 currently fundraising for a total of $350 million. 

Daniels also noted how NEAR Grants is currently exploring grant pools for select projects as part of the ecosystem fund. 

“This is something that we announced at NEARCON in October of last year,” said Daniels. “We’re very much committed to continuing to move this forward.”

Daniels also spoke on the expansion of the NEAR Regional Hub effort. Funding has been provided to four hubs to support local initiatives and projects in Kenya, the Balkans, Latin America, and Ukraine. 

Check out Josh’s talk here.

Open Web Collective on latest accelerator batch

Mildred Idada, Head of Open Web Collective, had several updates at the NEAR Town Hall, including an announcement for OWC Accelerator’s Batch 4. 

“This is going to be our biggest batch yet,” said Idada. “Just like other batches before, we want to see projects from all industries and sectors. So, if you’re focused on DeFi, NFTs, dev tooling—we want to see it all.”

She also noted how every project in the accelerator gets up to $650,000 after Demo Day. 

“That means when you join Day 1 of the program you’ll have $150,000,” Idada said. “At the close of Demo Day you’ll get another $500,000. Really, this allows you all to focus and build.”

Check out Idada’s segment for more OWC Accelerator updates here. 

Panel on NEAR’s growing DAO ecosystem

The March Town Hall also featured a panel on NEAR DAOs, moderated by sports business analyst and ESPN alum Darren Rovell. The panel featured Ben Johnson (Strategy & Commercial, SailGP), Don Ho (Founder, Orange DAO), Rev Miller (Unchain Fund), and Julian Weisser, ConstitutionDAO). 

After Rovell’s smooth introduction, SailGP’s Ben Johnson kicked things off with background on how SailGP partnered with NEAR to help create a groundbreaking sports team DAO. Unchain Funds’s Rev Miller talked about creating Unchain Fund DAO using Astro DAO, a NEAR-based DAO launchpad, to create the Unchain Fund DAO for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. 

Next, Julian Weisser explained why Constitution DAO was important in demonstrating what is possible when people assemble around a shared goal.

“This wasn’t about saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to buy a copy of the Constitution, then we’re going to try and flip it 5 years from now, or we’re going to have a token and have the token appreciate in value,” he said. “The reason people were participating in this, including people who had never created a crypto wallet before, is that they wanted to be part of something that had emotional resonance to them. The constitution, like many artifacts, has significant cultural resonance to a lot of people—some positive, some negative.”

“There is also the fact that it’s funny,” he added. “There’s this meme component to it. You combine that with a 7-day deadline. If we had started 90 days out we wouldn’t have had the traction.”

Don Ho, Managing Director at Quantstamp, talked about why the DAO is an important structure to Orange DAO, a crypto collective formed by Y Combinator alums. 

“I think DAOs are interesting, specifically in the context of Orange DAO, because it allows the community to actually own the community’s efforts,” Ho said. “What is Orange DAO? It’s the largest collective of builders in web3. To start, we have over 1,200 YC founders who are all part of this DAO, all who want to build in web3—that represents 20% of all YC founders.”

“The craziest thing, though, is the YC community itself doesn’t have an inherent mechanism to capture the value it creates,” he added. “So, at Orange we want to create a community-owned fund and body of things that can promote this advancement of web3.”

Check out the talk here.

Read NEAR in March: Unchain Fund, SailGP, and DAOs to see what the NEAR community was up to in March.

The post NEAR’s March Town Hall Highlights appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

As Web3 matures and goes mainstream, existing alongside and working in concert with Web2 platforms, DAOs will impact the world in more physical ways, from work to ReFi and sustainability to automation of business documentation and beyond. 

Let’s take a look at how DAOs are already evolving, and how this process will be accelerated for mass Web3 adoption. 

The DAO of work

In the last few years, remote employment changed how people work—up to a point. But it’s possible that DAOs will be even more transformative with work in terms of how, when, how long, and under what conditions. 

With more transparency in contracts and fund transfers, Marma J Foundation’s Chloe Lewis thinks DAOs will allow community members to work on what they want, when they want to, without worrying about the next paycheck. 

“When you can see publicly that there are hundreds of funded DAOs that have open gigs, it’s less stressful to think of working for DAOs as being a reasonable way of life,” Lewis muses. “I also see DAOs using their governance token as a way to fund more projects without really selling or giving away the token through more advanced DeFi opportunities.”

Belonging to a DAO is, in effect, a new type of work. A person isn’t hired so much as they join a DAO in a more participatory way. 

With DAOs, work’s traditional top-down command structure can be flipped. This will create a fairer entry for ambitious individuals looking to get rewarded based on participation, output, and unity. 

“Coming from both a startup and corporate world, I can say that a DAO is not comparable,” says Trevor Clarke, founder of Croncat, which does decentralized scheduling NEAR blockchain transactions. “A DAO utilizes elements of both, but when a startup or corporation would constantly require higher authority chains to finalize direction, DAOs can simply allow the community to be the decisive force.”

Open Forest Protocol’s Rim Berjack is full-time crypto and notices that when she introduces herself, or interacts with different projects and stakeholders, she identifies herself as her role in the DAO. This isn’t simply an add-on to who she is. It’s necessary since she works as part of a DAO, and the DAO actually makes decisions and implements changes in projects. 

“If I were to try and explain that I work for a DAO to my parents, they wouldn’t really understand what that means and not really consider it a ‘job,’,” she says. “But when you think about it simply in terms of effects, if you contribute to something, you produce results, and get compensated for it, that’s work.”

In the current Web3 space, working for a DAO means freedom and creativity, with work being self-motivated and “earned” rather than assigned. A very startup-like ethos. Right now, DAOs offer a lot of equality and very little hierarchy in the decision-making processes. 

“Working in a DAO is a testimony to the nature of work in crypto at large, which is much more entrepreneurial, undefined, and therefore creative,” says Berjack. “I was at ETH Denver recently and a Coordinape and Yearn contributor talked about how in DAOs work is defined by the intersection of what you like, what you can do, and what the project needs.”

There is a lot of fluidity and flexibility in DAO governance, and this likely has something to do with the lack of contractual obligations for work. This might change for certain DAOs, like those operating in the DeFi space, who might be working with sensitive financial information. In the future, those DAOs that want a more traditional mode of work will balance it with the free-wheeling, creative Web3 startup ethos. 

Beyond flattening work hierarchies, H.E.R. DAO’s Tracey Bowen sees future DAOs shifting the autonomy of work—centering the human rather than the company or machine. 

“The DAOs of the future will look markedly different from today,” Bowen says. “Less dogmatic and rigid concerning technical requirements and more geared towards serving the needs of groups and populations across the globe.”

“Equity is the new currency of our future cooperative world,” Bowen continues. “It’s the foundation on which many new Web3 projects are being built, and will be the standard bearer and rating system related to the efficacy of our ideas and the authenticity of our practices.”

Jordan Gray of AstroDAO, a DAO launchpad platform, has a lot of different ideas on how DAOs will impact the world. For one, he thinks DAOs will have a huge impact on how business will be conducted.  

“The last time things were really revolutionized in the business world was with spreadsheets—people use them to do any kind of business, computation, or keeping track of things,” says Gray. “I think that DAOs are going to revolutionize business in a very similar way, where many things that happen with spreadsheets are going to be automated, and processes are going to get put in place and cemented into code that allows organizations to work a lot more efficiently.”

“That’s where I see DAOs maturing on the legal front, so that things like that are possible,” he adds. “That’s also where I see a huge opportunity in the future.”

Jessica Zartler, Communications Advisor and Researcher at BlockScience, hopes that people won’t work for DAOs as anthropomorphized entities. 

“[Ideally, people will] share collective ownership of the value created in the network and have unconditional basic income,” she says. “This will enable them to choose to work on things they are more passionate about—exploring via natural curiosity and intrinsic motivation.”

Others aren’t so sure how DAOs will change the nature of work. But many Web3 natives, including Luis Freitas, Co-founder of 3XR—a platform for creating customer experiences like VR galleries—believe that DAOs are already changing how people work and cooperate in the NEAR ecosystem and on other blockchains.

“When I started thinking more actively about DAOs in 2020 it was mostly because I was working remotely with a global team on a project owned by us—the team,” says Freitas. 

“Now, I’ve started DAOs [DAOLEX and VR DAO] for the exact same reason and I think it has not only changed the way I work but also for everyone involved.”

DAOs IRL

Some might wonder how DAOs will interact with things outside of crypto. This was a question also put to developers of Web1 and Web2 platforms. The truth is that Web3, and DAOs themselves, are already IRL.

“If we understand DAOs as a tool providing two primary functions—a digital stamp (for immutably publicizing decision making) and an on-chain treasury—then there is always the ‘swan’s legs underneath’ of weekly Zoom syncs, discussions on forums, notifying people on Telegram to vote on proposals, that happen off-chain, accompanying what is visible on-chain,” Berjack explains. “So, in that sense, you could say DAOs are never a purely on-chain affair.” 

In the more literal sense, the physical and virtual worlds of Web3 are already being connected. OFP is a leader in the ReFi (regenerative finance) space, which is currently experiencing a lot of momentum. OFP acts as a “forest oracle,” bringing data from real forests and trees planted, then verifying them on-chain through the  distributed network of validators. 

Berjack says that OFP is also planning to progressively decentralize and govern itself as a DAO. And they aren’t the only projects in the ReFi space doing so. The ReFi platform Ecorise’s DAO buying up land, staking it (as an NFT) in their vault, and creating a coin pegged to these natural assets to create an alternative income stream for ecosystem services and regeneration. Klima DAO, which brought an explosive interest to the ReFi space, tokenizes carbon credits and drives up demand in the market, urging carbon credit buyers to pay a higher price for their offsets, which incentivizes companies to reduce emissions.

Block Science’s Zartler echoes this sentiment. Beyond land-based DAOs for carbon capture, soil regeneration, and other sustainability projects, she also envisions DAOs paving the way for cyber-physical commons and local currencies, where there would be real world impact. 

“We will also see more NFT/AR tagging of artifacts which could be gameable for incentivizing coordination, like local trash clean up,” says Zartler. “DAOs are also an effective coordination tool to raise capital which could be used for pretty much anything; perhaps creating more land trusts, fighting injustices of the current system like supporting and developing affordable housing networks, sharing more unused resources (vehicles/houses), and enable layers of connection based on shared interest signaling/GPS proximity tech.”

There is also the recent launch of Unchain Fund, a new DAO fund built on NEAR, which is currently collecting donations for Ukraine in multiple tokens, including BSC, ETH, Harmony, NEAR, and Polygon. Created on AstroDAO, a DAO launchpad built on NEAR, Unchain Fund is having real world impact by raising funds for humanitarian purposes in Ukraine, including evacuation, shelter, food, and more. Over 700 volunteers are currently helping out with Unchain Fund in one form or another, and the effort is growing quickly. 

Using a funding model similar to Unchain, DAOs could be how community projects organize in the future, helping communities efficiently raise and manage funds for goals. 

“A lot of the benefits of crypto are present with the DAOs of today,” says Chloe Lewis, Co-founder of Marma J Foundation. “What’s missing are a lot of the human coordination elements.”

Lewis expects DAOs to evolve into community support platforms. All of the tooling will be built-in—the only other elements will be “the people and the purpose.”  

“As Web3 gains traction, I see DAOs expanding and collaborating to manage assets in much more complex ways,” Lewis says. “This will hopefully allow for more individuals to be able to add and extract value to communities in ways that are rewarding for themselves while also supporting the wider communities that they interact with.”

Luis Freitas believes that DAOs are flexible enough to pop up in most things humans and software do, playing important roles in how organizations operate, from households and larger corporations to use cases in warehouses, global logistics, and a myriad of things in between. 

“The Digital Assets industry will keep on growing in the years to come,” says Freitas. “My belief is that DAOs need to be at the heart of creating and managing these assets, and to participate in all sorts of digital decision-making processes.”

Faster and cheaper networks will probably yield more DAO experiments. In 3XR, one of Freitas’ DAO experiments, users create 3D spaces with references to other NFTs. 

“This is really interesting because the minting can be proposed to DAOs, so in a way DAOs are curating curator’s work,” he says. “This incentivizes DAOs to participate by placing them in the lifetime royalties of the asset they helped create.”

DAOs could also have an impact on team sports. Recently, NEAR announced a new partnership with SailGP, one of the world’s fastest-growing sailing events. As part of this multi-year partnership, SailGP is set to explore the sale of a new team to a DAO that will be launched on the NEAR Protocol. The SailGP team DAO’s community members  will have a say in athlete selection, team management, commercialization options, operations, and overall team strategy.

Sail GP and MotorDAO, which is democratizing how racing drivers and teams get funding for high-level competition, could inspire the entry of other competitive sports into Web3. In MotorDAO’s membership-based platform, motorsports fans directly participate in the benefits of ownership, driver sponsorship, events; they can also get retail perks, ticket packages, race day NFT air drops, and more. 

Ambitious, yes, but MotorDAO’s model could be used to create similarly functioning DAOs for other industries, like music, film and television, community investment, and more. 

To DAO or not to DAO?

It’s interesting to consider a future in which people, instead of telling others what job they have or social media platforms they use, identify themselves by the DAOs in which they participate. Individuals will remain individual, on their terms, but they will also be part of collectives that will have input into how Web3 evolves and integrates into the wider world. 

Croncat’s Trevor Clark believes mass DAO adoption will happen when the UX meets people where they already coordinate like DAOs, but just don’t realize it yet.

“Think of the mom groups that organize school activities, exercise groups at public parks, social good initiatives with a deadline—all of these groups are already DAOs utilizing disparate technologies (social media pages, SMS, email, etc) that could benefit from a DAO,” says Clarke. “The key will be unlocking the next generation DAO tools for everyday uses already in existence, similar to how Venmo took over the group dinner bill.”

Will everyone be part of a DAO in the future? Perhaps not. As Astro DAO’s Jordan Gray says, everyone is at different stages of technological adoption—and that’s okay. 

“There are still people who make candles and sell candles, or make soap and sell it,” says Gray. “So there’s always going to be people that are at different stages of technology adoption and technology relevant to their lives. I think that there will definitely be folks that are like in that Web2 mindset and they continue cranking away in the mindset.”

Gray says Web3 tools like DAOs present new opportunities, even for people and businesses who have grown used to Web2 and found success in it. “It’s about recognizing that there’s another wave of opportunity hitting and stepping into it,” he says. 

Check out the complete series on DAOs:

• Part 1: DAOs are changing everything
• Part 2: Exploring Astro DAO
• Part 3: Life Changing DAOs
• Part 4: Future of DAOs part 1

The post The Future of DAOs: DAOs at Work and IRL appeared first on NEAR Protocol.