Showing posts with label The DAO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The DAO. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 May 2016

The Rise of the DAO

The ÐΑΩ is Live!!! - The official address is: - 0xBB9bc244D798123fDe783fCc1C72d3Bb8C189413

We stand here at the birth of the DAO - for all of us participating; the creators, the coders, the contributors, the curators, the thousands on the Slack channel and on the DAOHub, all the participants on Github, Stackexchange, Reddit, hundreds of bloggers and commentators - the long hours of building and testing are at an end.

  • like the first email in the 1960's
  • like the first mobile call in the 1970's
  • like the Tim Berners-Lee paper in the 1980's
  • like the release of WWW software by CERN in the 1990's
The birth of The DAO is a key event that will be followed by an array of amazing developments. The pace of change will be dramatic and driven by the imagination of literally millions of people. This will upset the status quo in ways we are only beginning to imagine.

Looking back how could one have ever predicted; Wikipedia, Linux, the beginning of online purchases, of online auctions, of search engines and bookstores, streaming video, machine translation, Wifi, the list goes on and on.

In this decade a wave on ongoing development (just when we thought there were no more really big ideas); Uber, AirBnB, crowd funding and most importantly, the beginning of the democratisation of capital via the blockchain, the distributed ledger and Ethereum.

  • Like everything the human race produces there is good and bad and an ongoing technological struggle against the scammers and spammers and trolls / the evil and the greedy. The naysayers pointing only to the negative aspects and the legacy media hyena feeding on misery - many outlets simply producing disinformation / soft propaganda for their governments or distorting truth at the behest of vested interests.
  • Citizens pushing back with messaging in repressive regimes, the hard reality of "democracy" as revealed by Wikileaks, the Sopa/Pipa blackouts - this next wave driven by the march of the smartphone - finally at long last a method for the citizen to engage with their fellow citizens unencumbered by government.
  • We are already seeing the emergence of sensors and connected devices; for pollution control, personal safety, for medical use, for remote communities, mobile payments, the sending of micro payments in under-developed regions, in response to natural disaster; the growth of community - of people doing it for themselves. Small agricultural producers reaching out directly to large consumer markets.
  • The sharing economy is in its infancy, (but perhaps) with an unsustainable level of commissions in the hands of the first movers. It will ultimately deliver unprecedented change in how business and community and government are constructed and funded.
There can be no doubt that the technological advances brought about by the internet create freedom vectors, from the ability to simply express oneself to whistle blowing, to the reduction of protectionism and artificial duties and the breaking down of trade barriers - all edifices existing at the expense of the citizen.

At long last the markets and structures and controls put in place by the old empires marauding across the globe are coming to an end. This change will not happen tomorrow or next year but like all things technological the early adopters are working tirelessly towards this goal, often without pay or without tangible reward. Most importantly the early majority are waiting in the wings.

Welcome to the next (r)evolutionary step - the Rise of the DAO

Friday, 29 April 2016

Slock.it proposal to the DAO now available

Slock.it UG is Blockchain + IoT solutions company registered in Germany (HRB 30026).

The DAO framework is side project of Slock.it UG and a gift to the Ethereum community. It consists of a definitive whitepaper, smart contract code audited by a highly regarded global security company. The software is free and open source for anyone to re-use.

Slock.it are developing the Ethereum Computer, whilst the final specifications are not available at this time it is likely that the design will be based on either Raspberry Pi or Samsung Artik running Ubuntu Core.

The unit will make it much easier to bring blockchain technology to the entire home or the office and allow individuals or companies or communities to rent access to any compatible smart object and accept payments without intermediaries.

You can now download the Slock.it proposal directly via the link below,  You can also find discussion on:- 


http://download.slock.it/public/DAO/Proposal1.pdf

Read more about it:-
on this thread at daohub.org.
more about 
the Ethereum Computer
more about Slock.it

Saturday, 2 April 2016

The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is a virtual entity that exists in cyberspace / the internet. It comes into existence when a group of people decide to form a DAO.

Once this initial decision to create is taken the participants may decide to extend participation to a wider community. It is possible that this process could well be entirely anonymous (subject to the technical skills of the participants).


A DAO may be established with a view to raising or investing / managing funds raised, for example to develop a specific idea or a range of ideas or within a particular sector. Participants / investors 'invest' their funds from their own cryptocurrency holdings. This transfer of funds appears on the Blockchain. 

Alternatively the purpose of the DAO could well be civic - to remove the inherent weaknesses of outdated political structures.

A typical Block transaction looks something like this;-

Hash: 0x7c27d7ac1cda6308c9e60ddie77cb6372d3fcc79382b1f77dd3a52ecb32987c777964
Difficulty: 27,777,777,777,777
Miner: sevendwarfs
Gas Limit: 4,700,000
Gas Used: 11,000
Time: 2016-01-01 00:00:00 (0 minutes ago)
Uncle Hash: 0x1ddc7de7dec77d7aab85b777b6ddd41ad3123451b948a7413f0a142fd40d4934
Root: 0xf02dd777a50f73479267671adce3b957876ca561d33ddd765433f038690da9ec8a3a58
Tx Hash: 0xf09ddie837a50d7775671abcde3b7778777dd561d77afd92d3f077790dd9ec7a7a77
Size: 777 bytes
Extra: Geth v1.3.6 (Raw: 0xdd7712345678900077665544332211ddie77992354216)
Nonce: 0x7d7d98765432770055374 

Each Block has a number, this places the 'Block' in the 'chain' of transactions. It also has the identifier / the keys of the Sender and the Recipient, the amount of the transaction and possibly some data embedded in the transaction. After a brief period of time (often minutes) this transaction is immutable;- 

..that means it is unchanging over time or unable to be changed..

Funds flow to the cryptocurrency / Ether account of the DAO, tokens are issued relative to the amount of investment. Once the funds are raised the DAO plan / proposal, as previously agreed, may be to select a primary Contractor who has demonstrated significant / the necessary expertise (or indeed a number of contractors performing a range of tasks). The performance of Contractor(s) would most likely be embedded in a Smart Contract (SC) which would / could / may release funds at regular intervals without further human intervention.

A role within the DAO is that of  'Curator', the Curator would most likely be a group of individuals participating via a multisig wallet/contract, i.e. the wallet requires multiple signatures to release funds. The Curator controls the Whitelist of those contractors authorised to receive Ether from the DAO. The Curator's role is to;-

  • verify that any contract code submitted by a prospective contractor does in fact match the contract as published on the Blockchain (Contract Source Code is published online and publicly verifiable by anyone.)
  • verify that the proposal came from an identified person or organization (via a Blockchain transaction containing information uniquely known only to the Curator and prospective contractor.) 

The power of the DAO lies with the Token holders collectively. The Token holders are responsible for proposals they accept, this responsibility extends to;- 

  • legal issues
  • the auditing of proposal code
  • the evaluation of proposal merits


What Does a DAO Deliver?

Real Democracy: Deployment of the funds raised are voted upon, there are no cosy deals, bribes, backhanders. The process is open and transparent.
Real Operational Transparency: The DAO votes on proposals put forward by Contractor(s), engagement with Contractors would most likely be via Smart Contract (SC) between the Contractor and the DAO. The operating parameters would most likely be timebound, measurable, quantifiable and contractual.
Real Reputation: The Contractor does not come out of nowhere, in the legacy system one would wake up with a new provider and ask - where did they come from?, inevitably they could be a C level person's 'sponsor'. 

Real Verification: Within the structure of the DAO the Curator verifies the authenticity of the contract code and the fact that the person / organisation proposing the contract are one and the same.
Real Performance: The Smart Contract will most likely have clauses that are triggered by time, by a numerical / measurable metric. Overall they will be contractual and non-performance will most likely trigger non-payment automatically.
Real Easy Termination: Termination will essentially be automatic, if you cannot perform your stage will cease to exist.
This is very efficient and elegant, the combination of the transparency of the Blockchain, the immutability of the smart contract combine to minimise the need for legal battles or court involvement, or recriminations.

It could be argued that litigation arises from lack of clarity and lack of immutability. Whilst we stand at the dawn of the DAO it may well be that the properly thought out, well structured DAO will ultimately become the vehicle of choice for those joining together for a common purpose.

At a political level or in the political sphere the real issue is that the edifice is built on lies, half truths, sleight of mind. It really is no way to run a planet.

The DAO structure is a most important evolutionary step:-
  • it allows the DAO Token holders to control 100% of funds from day one
  • it is immutable code-wise
  • it removes the layers of intermediaries
  • it negates Government, corporate & community paralysis due to corruption & ineptitude


The DAO Framework


The DAO framework is side project of Slock.it UG and as completely opensource is being made available as a gift to the Ethereum community. Slock.it UG are a Blockchain + IoT solutions company registered in Germany (HRB 30026). 

The Curators to The DAO were announced 25/Apr and are comprised of 11 members who are at the pinnacle of the development of the entire Ethereum concept.
https://blog.slock.it/vitalik-buterin-gavin-wood-alex-van-de-sande-vlad-zamfir-announced-amongst-stellar-dao-curators-44be4d12dd6e#.1zyaxx6lp


Further elaboration of the DAO concept can be viewed via ;-

On DAO Contractors and Curators
Real time discussion on the DAO can be viewed via Slock.it Slack channels, (sign-in required):-


An example of a pseudo DAO (which is not based on the Standard DAO Framework) is the recent Digix funding round - all transactions can be viewed on Etherscan - https://etherscan.io/token/digix - there are specific governance issues with Digix which will analysed in a future article.

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Note: this is work in progress which is modified with new information as The DAO moves closer to creation
Last Edit 10.55 26/Apr/2016