What are DOAs and Why Are They So Popular?
DOAs are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations that are controlled primarily by members rather than the government and can be explained as an “open-source blockchain protocol governed by a set of rules created by its elected members.” In simpler terms, the idea is that it is an “internet community with a shared bank account” as explained by investor and DOA builder Cooper Turley to CNBC.
Turley further explains that decisions are made based on small groups of people coming together and deciding to collect their capital and put it towards a common investment typically using the best Ethereum wallet. With the rules that are embedded in its code comes the lack of bureaucracy which makes for a more secure and trustworthy environment.
DOAs have become increasingly popular because they utilize smart contracts that eliminate third-party entities during transactions and all exchanges are recorded on a blockchain. It is regulated and maintained without any intermediary individuals, but rather its elected members, which works best when organizations wish to fund certain projects but wish to bypass the complicated legal steps to get their funds to the right individuals, rather DOAs allow them to be securely distributed thanks to its programming.
DOAs are funded primarily by token crowdfunding while the governing structure is less executive-based and more equal, making the entire structure one of the most egalitarian advancements in crypto history.
A downside to DOAs is that they have very convoluted rules that can be hard to fix quickly in response to bugs in the system. Recently, however, the interest in DAOs has increased especially due to the boom in decentralized finance, or DeFi, that uses artificial intelligence entirely to conduct transactions.
Today, DOAs are used for a multitude of reasons including common investment, fundraising, NFTs, and more making use of the metaverse to distribute partial fractions of the funds, further affirming that the metaverse and DOAs are completely shifting the structure of traditional business as we know it.
Recently, PleasrDAO, the organization that bought the original “Doge” meme NFT, came forward as the buyer of the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” and has grabbed the attention of many because of its status as a DOA. As stated by Mark Cuban, such steps taken by DOAs are “the ultimate combination of capitalism and progressivism.” It seems that the future of secure transactions and investment is in the new wave of DOAs.