DAO or decentralized autonomous organization is the perfect application of blockchain, the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies in the crypto market. DAOs are entities with no central leadership and are governed by a community with a specific set of rules enforced on a blockchain. The emergence of these projects was primarily fueled by users’ clamor for ultimate freedom from third-party interference. DAO has no hierarchy and the idea that no one is above anyone in the organization spells “equality”. And with rules encrypted on smart contracts, this eliminates any chance of favoritism or even corruption. In the real world in which we live today, equality is something that is very elusive. Were DAOs created to primarily feed human’s desire for equality? But thanks to blockchain, with DAO, this dream can finally be realized in the crypto world.
But of course, each DAO was created with primary purposes in mind. At the end of 2021, some DAOs made it to the headlines due to their persistence in achieving their vision and one of them is ConstitutionDAO. The DAO was formed to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution at the Sotheby’s auction in November 2021 and was able to raise $46M during the fundraising. Unfortunately, ConstitutionDAO lost to Citadel CEO Ken Griffin on the final auction. On Nov. 23, ConstitutionDAO announced its shutdown through its website but PEOPLE, the DAO’s native token soared to 200% even after it ceased operations.
In 2022, what are the top DAO projects to invest in? Here’s a list of promising DAO projects you can choose from. But it’s still a “must” to make your own research before investing in any crypto project.
MakerDAO
A peer-to-peer organization created on the Ethereum network enables users to lend and borrow using digital assets at predetermined interest rates. DAI, the stablecoin of the protocol pegged with the US dollar is used to facilitate collateral lending and borrowing. Users can also mint DAI stablecoins by staking their ETH (ethereum) in MakerDAO smart contracts.
DAI is now utilized in the real world for donation and fundraising with the use of smart contracts and cryptocurrencies. UNICEF uses DAI to facilitate donations from donors to fund blockchain-based open-source explorations for social projects. Maker DAO has also explored the gaming industry by launching the “Dai Gaming Initiative” to encourage the creation of gaming apps with DAI as rewards. The protocol is also set to join the NFT bandwagon by using stablecoin DAI to incentivize artists to turn their artworks into NFTs.
DAI has now reached a total market cap of $9,775,881,658 with its price of $0.999970 in data by Crypto.co and ranked #19 among leading cryptocurrencies. MakerDAO has a total value locked of $16.70B and second-largest among DeFi projects. Rune Christensen founded the protocol in 2015.
Uniswap
A centralized exchange that utilizes a decentralized network protocol. It performs automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain using smart contracts. Created by Hayden Adams in November 2018, the protocol received several grants including $100,000 from the Ethereum Foundation. The platform is the largest decentralized exchange (or DEX) operating on Ethereum and the first-ever DeFi project built on the network.
Similar to Sushiswap, users can earn by providing liquidity through a pair of assets like ETH (Ethereum) and DAI. These assets are then used as liquidity for traders and in return shares the trading fees with liquidity providers in the platform.
UNI (Uniswap), the token of the Uniswap has now a market cap of $4,799,046,051 with its price at $10.52 and ranked #24 among crypto assets. Uniswap has a total value locked of $7.53B and is currently at #4 among top DeFi platforms.
Curve DAO
Created in 2020 by Michael Egorov, the protocol is a decentralized exchange liquidity pool built on Ethereum that offers an extremely efficient way to exchange tokens. It also allows users to trade between stablecoins with low slippage, a low fee algorithm designed specifically for stablecoins and earning fees. Users can earn CRV (Curve Dao Token) by providing liquidity as liquidity providers for the protocol. The protocol then generates income by supplying tokens from the liquidity pools to Compound protocol or iearn.finance.
CRV, the native token of Curve has now a total market cap of $1,151,283,33 with its current price at $2.94 and ranked #80 among digital assets in the crypto market. In data by DeFi Pulse, Curve is currently the largest project in the DeFi space with a total value locked of $19.54B.
Sushiswap
The protocol is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and an automated market maker (AMM) built on Ethereum. The platform incentivizes a network of users to operate a platform where users can buy and sell crypto assets. Users can earn by investing in different liquidity pools in the platform as liquidity providers. But here’s the catch. As liquidity providers, users will still continue to earn a percentage of the protocol fees in the platform even after they discontinue actively participating in the supply of liquidity.
Sushiswap was launched in September 2020 by its creator that comes with the pseudonym Chef Nomi. The protocol launched a “vampire attack” against Uniswap just right after its launching which led to about $1.5 billion moving from Uniswap to SushiSwap.
SUSHI, the native token of the platform has now a market cap of $774,391,834 with its price at $4.02 and ranked #122 among virtual assets. The protocol has a total value locked of $1.75B and is ranked #10 among leading DeFi projects.
Yield Guild Games
Yield Guild Games (YGGs) is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that invests in virtual world non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It has built a huge community of players and investors who generated income through NFTs used in virtual worlds and blockchain-based games. YGG was founded by Gabby Dizon and Beryl Li in November 2020. The guild is now a global phenomenon with more than 60,000 users and has generated over $11M in revenue as revealed by YGG co-founder Beryl Li in an interview with Digital Asset Report.
Recently, YGG also made headlines after it spearheaded a fundraising campaign for the victims of typhoon Odette (with the international name “Rai”) in the Philippines. Donations poured in and the guild raised a total of $1.4M for its fundraising initiative. Jeff Zirlin a.k.a “The Jiho”, the co-founder of Axie Infinity donated a hefty amount of 5 ETH or $19,970 with ETH (ethereum) value of $3,994 at that time.
YGG has now a market cap of $271,919,843 with its current price at $3.09 and was also ranked #180 among cryptocurrencies.
IBC DAO
Inter Blockchain Communication or IBC is a very essential feature of Cosmos Network. It enables cryptocurrencies within the Cosmos network easier to interact with and more efficient to use capital. It also creates the infrastructure for tokens to communicate across various blockchain tech stacks. In a report by India Times, IBC DAO was initially formed to help skilled players to become part of the play-to-earn economy that is taking root in India.
The organization announced the success of its crowdfunding in November 2021 on its Twitter after raising $500,000 from 50 investors.
A New Journey Begins..🚀🚀
IBC DAO raised a seed round of $500k from 50 genesis members all around the world.
Our first purchase was made today in the Sandbox metaverse. We acquired a 3×3 Estate connected land close to Republic Realm.
— IBC DAO (@IBCDAO) November 21, 2021
IBC founder Hitesh Malviya also thanked the pioneer members for the success of their first crowdfunding.
We’re grateful to our genesis members for their contribution to our first funding round. We all share the same long-term vision to build the biggest game guild and empower players in countries like India,”
The collected funds were used to purchase NFTs as stated in a tweet by IBC DAO.
We’ve acquired couple of #NFT Assets for our DAO Treasury yesterday.
– A 3×3 Estate in #SandboxGame
– 7 Robotos
– 2 Creatures
– 1 WorldofWomen
– 3 Deadfellaz
– 2 0n1forceWe have plan to add more assets to the treasury this week.
Stay tuned for more updates. pic.twitter.com/hMtzDTBloB
— IBC DAO (@IBCDAO) November 22, 2021
In an announcement on its website on Jan. 2, 2022, IBC DAO stated that given its resources and manpower, the DAO is now scaling up its operations. As further stated in the announcement:
“we want to make a transition. That not only helps us play to our strengths but also immensely benefits our genesis DAO members.”
It further adds:
“So, from today onwards, IBC DAO is going to be a community focused on investments and expansion of passive income for its genesis members. “
With its transition to becoming an investment DAO, it is now committed to investing not only in gaming and metaverse projects but also promising tokens in the future. Currently, IBC DAO is using WETH (Matic) for reward distribution and is one of the new players in the sector.
The year 2022 could be a promising year for DAOs. But what are the different kinds of DAOs launched so far? We will continue our discussion about DAOs in our next article and we will be featuring the various types of DAOs.
