Over $1 Billion Is Now Managed by DAOs - Decrypt (2024)

In brief

  • Funds under management by DAOs now exceed $1 billion, according to Aaron Wright.
  • DAOs were credited for their network effects, and impact on global capital coordination and allocation by investors and startup founders.

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Crypto industry insiders estimate that the funds managed by Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) now exceed $1 billion—up from about $10 million a year ago.

In 10 or 20 years from now, we’ll see “Silicon Valley in the cloud,” powered by DAOs, rather than corporations, Aaron Wright, co-founder of the OpenLaw digital contract platform, argued at Decrypt's 2021 Ethereal Virtual Summit last week.

"DAOs will probably be viewed as the organizational entity for the Internet age,” Wright said. “I really do think that this is the future.”

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Historically, in the crypto industry, DAOs have been used by groups big and small to manage protocol development, fund investments, or fulfill various other missions. But recently interest in these organizations that use automated decision-making processes and Ethereum smart contracts (instead of traditional hierarchical forms of governance) has soared. It’s been sparked by the growth in Decentralized Finance (DeFi,) the popularity of NFTs and a new law passed by the state of Wyoming providing DAOs with a legal identity.

The Dawn of the DAOs

In another Ethereal Summit panel, Olaf Carlson-Wee, CEO and founder of San Francisco-based venture capital firm Polychain Capital, also had a positive prognosis on the new technology. He said that DAOs are the future of venture capital. “I’m really excited about DAOs,” said Carlson-Wee. “The ability for global capital coordination and allocation based on just anonymous people from around the Internet is absolutely fascinating to me. A lot of people don’t realize the sheer magnitude.”

AND IT’S OFFICIAL!! 🤠#Wyoming will recognize #DAOs as a new type of LLC, effective July 1! Thank you legislators & @GovernorGordon for building on Wyoming’s history of inventing the LLC, which all other states followed roughly a decade later. We’re doing it again! A thread👇. 1/ pic.twitter.com/4x7VpcPTkk

— Caitlin Long 🔑 (@CaitlinLong_) April 21, 2021

Many in the industry now anticipate that a new Wyoming law, which recognizes DAOs as a new type of limited liability company, will give these evolutionary organizational structures some much-needed credibility.

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Last year, Wyoming also became the first state in the U.S. to issue a charter for crypto banks and has already issued licenses to two: Kraken and Avanti.Avanti founder Caitlin Long worked closely with legislators to get the Wyoming legislation passed and, speaking on the same panel as Wright, she explained that some compromises had been made to ensure that Wyoming’s new legislation was “backward-compatible with the existing legal system,”

She said that the Wyoming law requires the name of an agent who represents the DAO, in order to set it up, and the fact that people need to be named has caused some to question whether the legislation is strictly in keeping with the anonymous ethos that has come to characterize many DAOs.

She also highlighted a lesser-known aspect of the legislation: “Unlike other types of business entities that limit liability—like corporations or LLCs—the Wyoming Secretary of State, in the event of fraud, can yank the limited liability away from a DAO.”

She explained that only in this way can the state ensure that DAOs can be policed and that these compromises were necessary because, up to now, DAOs exist only “in an ambiguous legal sense.” In absence of legislation, they could be deemed to be general partnerships, which would compromise their status. “Because there’s more money on the line, you really do want that clarification,” she said. “What the Wyoming law does is it makes DAOs a legal entity.”

Long pointed out that there was much that still remained to be decided—such as how DAOs would deal with banks.

But the legal breakthrough will unleash even more experimentation, and the technology is rapidly moving beyond the days when DAOs were put together with “band-aids and bubble gum,” said Wright.

Wright himself is behind a new type of DAO, the LAO (Limited Liability Autonomous Organization), a limited liability entity organized in Delaware, which uses smart contracts to handle voting, funding and the allocation of funds.

He’s convinced that tech advancements and new, “super-interesting use cases” such as creator DAOs and protocol DAOs—which can coordinate the development and funding of projects, will help the fledgling industry prosper dramatically this year.

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Also on the panel, NFTcollective BeetsDAO’s co-founder Jordan Garbis, praised DAOs for the strength of their network effect. His 58-person collective brought together rap legend Snoop Dogg and Nyan Cat meme creator Chris Torres for an NFT drop that pulled in$242,000 last month.

🚨Introducing...🚨

🐕@SnoopDogg X @NyanCat 🐈‍⬛

✨4/19✨
🌳4:20 PST🌳
Powered by @BeetsDAO
Edition: 1/1https://t.co/N0ZaRw4kuV pic.twitter.com/kaaFk43Z38

— ☆Chris☆ (@PRguitarman) April 17, 2021

“The dream is to unleash the power of NFTs and create networks of communities that actually drive the value of artists,” he said. “We have almost anyone we can reach at any one time.”

Funding, creativity and now some legal certainty could well ensure that 2022 will see the dawn of the DAOs.

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Over $1 Billion Is Now Managed by DAOs - Decrypt (2024)

FAQs

How much was stolen in DAO hack? ›

The hack let the bad actors steal more than 3.6 million coins of the total 12.7 million Ether that had been raised. At the time, that amount was the equivalent of USD70 million[1].

Is decrypt a DAO? ›

Decrypt plans to build its web3 studio Decrypt Studios which will specialise in branding NFTs and other metaverse activations in fashion, real estate and entertainment. The funds will also be invested in Decrypt's DAO PubDAO, its decentralised DAO. Decrypt will now be an independent entity.

How did the DAO get hacked? ›

After raising $150 million USD worth of ether (ETH) through a token sale, The DAO was hacked due to vulnerabilities in its code base.

Why are DAOs risky? ›

DAOs may become insolvent – or deal with a person or entity that becomes insolvent. The legal risk in these cases is that contracts become unenforceable against the insolvent entity, and having to deal with the insolvency processes which are typically assisted through the courts.

How much is DAO worth? ›

The current price of DAO Maker is $0.45 per DAO.

Did crypto hackers steal $100 million in the latest bridge heist? ›

The FBI said it was "able to confirm" that Lazarus Group, aka APT38, a group linked to North Korea, was responsible for the attack on the so-called Horizon bridge last year.

What is the hardest encryption to decrypt? ›

AES 256-bit encryption is the strongest and most robust encryption standard that is commercially available today. While it is theoretically true that AES 256-bit encryption is harder to crack than AES 128-bit encryption, AES 128-bit encryption has never been cracked.

How does Decrypt make money? ›

Decrypt also earns about $3 million in annual revenue, per Quittner. It makes money selling advertising against its web3 journalism content.

Who controls DAO? ›

A decentralized autonomous organization is an entity structure in which token holders participate in the management and decision-making of an entity. A DAO does not have a central authority; instead, power is distributed among token holders who collectively cast votes.

Who owns DAO? ›

In general terms, DAOs are member-owned communities without centralized leadership. The precise legal status of this type of business organization is unclear.

Who created the DAO? ›

The founding figure is Laozi, who flourished in the 6th century BCE but about whom little else is known. The Daodejing (“Classic of the Way to Power”), the earliest work of Daoist philosophy, is traditionally attributed to him but was probably composed after his death by many authors.

Which crypto exchange has never been hacked? ›

Kraken is often cited as the most secure, as they are the longest-standing exchange that has never been hacked. Kraken's security is so top-notch that they even have Kraken Security Labs, an arm of their company that offers security services for other crypto companies. SwissBorg is another exchange considered safe.

How do DAOs make money? ›

Does a DAO make money? Like other web3 projects, DAOs can make money through the sale of their native tokens. These tokens can be sold on major crypto exchanges around the world. These tokens give their holders voting rights within the DAO and sometimes other benefits, like token drops.

Are DAOs pyramid schemes? ›

Because most DAOs so far have been focused on raising funds to spend on crypto projects, there have been accusations that these DAOs are akin to Ponzi schemes, with their objectives being little more than to bolster the value of the crypto tokens they have issued. Crypto-related risks.

Do DAOs have a future? ›

However, with the growth in Web 3.0 initiatives and projects in the metaverse, the number and variety of applications of DAOs will continue to rise. Any VCs that want to operate in the Web 3.0 space will be forced to adapt and branch out into these fields, or they will quickly get left behind.

How much money did Kevin Mitnick steal? ›

In 1995 Mitnick was arrested for stealing computer code from a number of high-tech companies including Sun Microsystems, Nokia, and Motorola Corporation. He pled guilty, and spent almost five years in jail. Some estimate that his illegal forays into private networks cost the companies involved nearly $300 million.

How much money has been lost in crypto hacks? ›

Crypto Hacks Totaled $19B Since 2011: Crystal Intelligence

Over $473 million worth of cryptocurrency has been lost to hacks and rug pulls across 108 incidents in 2024, according to a report by security service provider Immunefi.

How much ETH was stolen in the Ronin Network crypto heist? ›

The hacker drained the bridge of 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USDC tokens in two transactions, Ronin said. In one of the largest crypto industry attacks ever, the Ronin Bridge that connects different blockchains revealed that hackers stole about $590 million.

How much was the MT Gox hack? ›

In a few days, bankrupt Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox will begin paying back thousands of users almost $9 billion worth of tokens. The platform went under in 2014 following a series of heists that cost it in the range of 650,000 to 950,000 bitcoins, or upward of $59 billion, at current prices.

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