Could DAOs be the future of business?

9

October

2021

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At a basic level, such a stance makes sense. After all, decentralized finance (DeFi) is taking off starting from the idea that it is the inevitable successor of the traditional financial system. Moreover, NFTs are experiencing enormous success in a similar way. It is thus not surprising that a growing number of experts consider decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, with their organization rules transparently programmed on blockchain, as the future of work. DAOs are seen as new structures that will replace the obsolete hierarchical ones of centralized companies. Yet, among non-experts, DAOs are either unknown or barely understood. Mainstream media, financial experts and regulators have occasionally shown minimal knowledge of DeFi and NFT, but DAOs remain largely a foreign concept – perhaps best known to blockchain novices for the infamous “The DAO” hack. , a first DAO investment experiment that collapsed in 2016.

DAOs are the ability of blockchain technology to provide a digital and secure ledger that tracks financial interactions on the internet and counteracts forgery through the concepts of timestamp, of trust and its presence in a distributed or non-centralized database. In recent years, DAOs have probably taken more steps forward in terms of development than any other blockchain industry. Many DeFi and NFT projects are governed by DAO; a large and growing percentage of the total market capitalization of approximately $2 trillion in cryptocurrencies is managed by these facilities. The tools and features have seen significant updates thanks to the work of organizations such as Colony, Aragon, and Coordinape.

“There is a group of Generation Z people who feel ripped off by late-stage capitalism,” said Kevin Owocki, CEO of the DAO-led grant organization Gitcoin. “We have inherited this economy where climate change is a big problem, disinformation is a big problem, where we don’t trust our institutions and have a new culture […] which is built around needs, values ​​and thoughts. of our generation “.

Ultimately, experts agree that the best way to generate value from this emerging trend is through active participation – what the investor known as Tracheopteryx has called “contribution mining”.

There are a number of guides on how to get close to joining a DAO, but according to Tracheopteryx the process isn’t as complex as, say, interacting with a DeFi contract – an investor just needs to find their favorite field and then get to work.

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How blockchain could disrupt the education system

17

October

2019

No ratings yet. In 2017, it was highly possible that even your local baker or butcher advised you to invest in cryptocurrencies. The hype seems over and the dust seem to have relatively settled. Now that most people do not only see the technology as a medium of exchange, it is time to bring the real potential of blockchain to the mass. The founder of Ethereum describes blockchain as “a decentralized system that contains shared memory” (Buterin, 2017). Therefore, the technology offers a solution to any environment that wishes decentralization and transparency. Due to the peer-to-peer nature of the technology, the middleman is redundant. The first industry that comes to mind to most people is the banking industry, while thinking about Bitcoin in the back of their mind. However, it offers a solution to many more industries and markets.

An interesting affair that blockchain could possibly disrupt is the education system. The way we have been facilitating learning has been around since the 19th century (Rose, 2012). In most countries, there is a four-year university degree model where the education often fails to calibrate the needs of students and employers. Students learn different skills during their curriculum and are therefore not prepared for the job market. Therefore, many employers offer traineeships to acquire additional skills. Additionally, at average there are five intermediaries between the education and the students that all take a percentage of the tuition fee (Raffo, 2018). This is one of the big reasons why the tuition fees in the US are so high.

A platform with professors, students and employers can be created to solve these two problems. With blockchain, educators are no longer chained to these old institutions and can instead offer their curriculum that fits the wishes of employers directly to students. Students can communicate directly with the professors, so that both parties get what they want. This makes education more affordable as it removes expensive intermediaries. Certificates received on the public blockchain after taking the class are accepted by employers within the network. To disrupt an old invariable model that has been around for centuries like the education system, bootstrapping and expanding the community of the platform is pivotal. However, once the community matures, it could potentially overrule the current education system. Could it be just an utopic idea or reality in the next few decades?

Sources:
Buterin, V. (2017, September 18). Decentralizing Everything. Personal Interview with N. Ravikant.
Raffo, E. (2018, February 15). BlockchainTalks – Decentralized Education Marketplace.
Rose, J. (2012). How to Break Free of Our 19th-Century Factory-Model Education System, The Atlantic.

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