Mar 31, 2023 • 2 min read
How to Launch a DAO in a Decentralized Way: introducing Autonolas’ Protocol-owned Services
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have promised to decentralize human coordination by leveraging technology. However, often despite their best efforts, they remain centralized in ongoing operations — particularly off-chain. Innovators are pioneering decentralized operations and legal entities, and yet it has remained impossible to even launch a DAO in a decentralized autonomous way… Until now.
From obscure LLC variants to constellations of Associations, the brightest minds in crypto are working on pioneering new ways to form DAOs to achieve their original decentralized, autonomous vision. Lead Architect at Nascent, @brockjelmore, suggested using a Special Purpose Decentralizing Organizations (SPDOs), i.e. DAOs without a specific product that buy software to launch a protocol. These organizations could be launched by anonymous members providing a “clean way to launch a protocol in a decentralized way”.
David Minarsch, co-founder of Valory — pioneers of co-owned.ai and co-creators of Autonolas, has offered a concrete proposal for DAOs to launch in a similar way. Concretely, Protocol-Owned Services (PoSe) allow DAOs to create and launch new services, subDAOs, or entire protocols in a crypto-native without any central or manual steps.
Here’s how it would work:
- First, the DAO would specify an off-chain autonomous software service to be built.
- Then, multiple developers would create or compose the components making up the service for the DAO. (Components and the service itself are represented on-chain as NFTs.)
- Finally, the DAO would finally add the service to their governance system via a vote, and independent agent operators would run the nodes making up the service. At this point, the autonomous service offers its utility to the DAO, and can even launch new functionality, in a fully autonomously and decentralized way.
