Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO): Will Electric Coin Company (ZCash) become a DAO?

Hi there,

A solid structural organization is necessary to efficiently develop and rapidly grow any new technology. Centralized organizations like startups and more solidified legal entities, such the Electric Coin company, are historically proven ways to create innovation that gets utilized by the masses.

However, given the principles of openness and decentralization, the perception is that ZCash currently doesn’t provide users the confidence that it isn’t some sketchy currency built to benefit those in governing positions of the company.

Too much power in too few hands.

In the near future, I see that the implementation of HALO 2 would eliminate one of the biggest doubts in the currency, the possibility that the trusted setup was compromised, since HALO 2 would be “trust-less”. (Please correct me if I got this wrong, its very technical stuff so my explanation may be off.)

Another idea that would bring ZCash closer to mass adoption is perhaps the conversion from a Company structure to a DAO, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, similar or along the lines of what Bisq has done.
( More info on DAO)
https://docs.bisq.network/user-dao-intro.html#what-is-a-dao
The DAO ‹ Bisq - A decentralized bitcoin exchange network )

Surely DAO is not perfect but it’s a step away from the norm and closer to the principles of a decentralized currency.

I was wondering what your thoughts are about DAO, and whether this system or a structure away from a company structure, is something that ZCash is considering seriously for the near future.

thanks

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I am relatively new to the ZCash space but I am interested in DAOs.

I think an effective ZCash DAO could mobilize Zcash talent and resources effectively and I am interested in exploring these issues more deeply. Is there a good spot on the forums here to have this conversation? DMs open

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What’s needed to move further?
It doesn’t seem realistic to get a share of dev fund directly to DAO “now”. But community needs proof that DAO doing something that ZOMG or ECC or ZF couldn’t do. In more concrete terms, this is what I think is needed:

  1. Clear proposal for setting up & managing DAO - how it could evolve
  2. A list of anons/folks who will be part of DAO.
  3. Short term goals to meet before making a ZIP. Not sure if a ZOMG grant can be made to fund the DAO initially!

Thanks

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Hey! I love the direction of this discussion.

I want to talk about how it’s being framed, in two dimensions:

(1) Where we are discussing this:

This thread, is a good start point but it’s (ostensibly/originally) focused on the ECC specifically. That’s an interesting topic, in its own right, but I think there’s a wider topic of how the community related to the DAO concept that needs it’s own “start point”. I think we need a simple answer to the question:

Where does someone who’s interested in DAO’s and zcash get started?

This leads me to the second dimension:

(2) What we are discussing:

What we are discussing. In addition to @dontbeevil 's suggestions, I think we need to also reconsider the most basic issue of names. What are we labeling this thing? The DAO. This thing has attracted attention in a much wider context than just the zcash community. (As I’m sure @joshs could tell us.)
I’m sure that, if you’re reading this, you know that the acronym is “Distributed Autonomous Organization”.
DAOs as currently realized in e.g. the ethereum community, dramatically fail to live up to their own definition (if we’re to take their name at face value).

The succinct way to describe this failure is to point to one of the most famous "DAO"s… the Constituion DAO, was completely undercut… it’s purpose was not fulfilled BECAUSE it was not truly Autonomous. It wasn’t/isn’t autonomous because it does not have the privacy that’s a necessary condition for Autonomy.

Okay, enough preaching to the choir, my point is that there’s a real question here around naming. Should we, as a community be attempting to simply instantiate the named thing: DAO? Or should we seriously consider naming the thing that we’re hacking on in a way that makes it unambiguous that we’re building a solution that actually lives up to the name?

In conclusion I vote that we:

(1) Create a top-level “category” on this forum that is dedicated to this important topic.
(2) Name that “category” in a way that keeps the point that what we’re building is an Authentic DAO (framework) in focus.

In other words, I think the “where” should be a top-level “category” on this forum, and the “what” should be carefully/thoughtfully reflected in the name of that “category”.

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Would you be interested in naming a forum “category” for DAO-discussion?

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I appreciate the focus on semantics. To me, DAO is decentralized autonomous organization (not distributed.)

I think it would be good to have a dedicated place on the forums to ideate and move towards setting up a clear vision for a Zcash DAO

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I prefer the term Distributed since these organizations need not replace, or supercede, a previously Centralized organization.

Actually this is an interesting point. If the understood definition is: “Decentralized Autonomous Organization” and our community proactively uses “Distributed Autonomous Organizationfor the same acronym… that might be exactly the kind of distinction we need… though… it doesn’t emphasize the Authenticity of Autonomy that we are building…

Is there a word that means: “Authentically Autonomous” (and preferably starts with an “A”?

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Since this thread started as a question about ECC becoming a DAO over a year ago with only a single reply and no direct comment from ECC, I think it’s safe to say they weren’t interested. We could either re-name it or close it.

Feel free to make a separate topic about creating a DAO for Zcash to discuss further. If the discussion of a Zcash DAO (or whatever you choose to name it) becomes too broad and nuanced that it is taking up several threads I would be happy to create a separate category for it.

Until then it doesn’t make sense to create a separate category for a single thread discussion.

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zooid (1) A cell capable of spontaneous movement and can live independently or apart from the parent organism

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We have this thread right to continue DAO chat?: Truly pseudonymous contributors & ZCG

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According to wikipedia, DAO is “decentralized” not “distributed” which makes sense in the context of crypto not web2.

At this point, what we call it is not important. Although Zcash DAO sounds good to me.

I think the first step is to talk about what we could do with a Zcash DAO. @Rucknium and I have been talking about being able to fund projects without requiring KYC over in this thread:

Does anyone know of a project or want to lead a project for Zcash without undergoing KYC?

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