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Source: Empower Labs
In August 2019, an organization called YangDAO was announced to be established, with the goal of helping Chinese presidential candidate Anze Yang participate in the election.
(DAO is a new form of organization, through encrypted networks, the rules of operation and governance are determined by the code. However, the definition of DAO has never been unified. Nowadays, many organizations do not rely entirely on code to run, but as long as they have decentralizedCollaboration and governance mechanisms are also considered DAO. )
DAO was once one of the most attractive innovations in the crypto space, but the first large-scale DAO in history encountered a catastrophic security breach in 2016.The community was hit hard, and the DAO concept was silent for several years. Until Valentine’s Day 2019, at the Ethereum Denver Conference, a guy named Ameen Soleimani announced the return of DAO with a 144-line core code..
This simple and practical code is named Moloch protocol, which allows people to create an endowment fund in the form of DAO on Ethereum.According to legend, people in the ancient Canaan area wanted to sacrifice their eldest son to the gods in exchange for the safety of the entire tribe. The evil god who received the sacrifice was called Moloch.In 2014, scholar Scott Alexander published a famous article, “Moloch’s Contemplation”, explaining how humans fell into the tragedy of the commons. Since then, Moloch has a faint meaning of public system failure.
Moloch was like a thunderclap, which once again touched people’s yearning for DAO. By August of that year, more than 80 DAOs built on the Moloch protocol had been born, and YangDAO was one of them.
Yang’s two major campaign programs—supporting cryptocurrencies and promoting national basic income—has attracted crypto enthusiasts.YangDAO hopes to become a super PAC (an independent political committee that accepts unlimited donations).YangDAO claims to be a 21st century solution to the 21st century problems, and pays special attention to the unemployment caused by AI.However, due to poor publicity and the DAO concept has not yet been popularized, YangDAO has raised only tens of thousands of dollars.
As Yang Anze retreated from the party’s primary election, YangDAO also came to an end.Although the history of YangDAO is short, it is the first time in the history of the crypto community that has been openly and collectively attempted to participate in American politics.
PACDAO
On August 20, 2021, PACDAO was established to influence the attitudes of members of Congress towards cryptocurrencies through political lobbying, and even hope to push a pro-crypto MP into Congress.
PACDAO shows the rapid evolution of the DAO field.Compared with YangDAO two years ago, it has made significant progress in community organization, talent recruitment, fundraising and project execution.The first fundraising was made using the NFT sale method, and the famous political artist Rebecca Hendin was also invited to design it.
The most eye-catching innovation of PACDAO is the establishment of the on-chain Congress scorecard.Community members can rate the crypto-friendliness of councillors, and the results will guide the political support direction of the crypto-community.They also created animated avatars that can be cast as NFT based on the ratings for each politician.
However, politics remains a niche topic in the field of crypto.I have been observing in PACDAO for a long time. Although PACDAO is full of creativity, its community activity is not as active as other DAOs.After the midterm elections, PACDAO gradually stopped operations.Nevertheless, this attempt is another important experiment in crypto community participation in politics.
Constitution DAO
In October 2021, Sotheby’s announced the auction of the only circulating copy of the 13 original copies of the US Constitution.Less than 10 days before the auction, a group of crypto enthusiasts came up with a bold idea on Twitter: to form a DAO to raise funds to buy this constitution.
This idea quickly ignited the entire crypto community.In just one week, they completed what seemed impossible: to qualify for Sotheby’s auction, negotiate the use of cryptocurrency as margin, establish a compliant DAO structure, and handle various auction details.This initiative has also attracted a large number of ordinary people’s attention and attracted reports from many well-known media.
In the end, the Constitutional DAO raised more than $40 million in less than 10 days, creating a miracle.Although it was not successfully shot a copy of the Constitution, this action sowed a seed in the hearts of tens of millions of Americans.These seeds will eventually sprout, bloom and bear fruit, gather into a force, subtly changing the political ecology of the United States.
Lobby3
Back to Yang Anze.Although YangDAO has no direct connection with Yang Anze himself, this experience has made him realize the potential of community power and DAO organizational form.
At the 2022 Ethereum Denver Conference, Anze Yang announced the establishment of the Lobby3 project.”Lobby” in this name means “lobby”, which reflects the political nature of the project.Lobby3 aims to integrate traditional political lobbying with DAO’s decentralized governance, explore new models of citizens’ participation in policy formulation, and is expected to provide ordinary people with channels to directly influence politics.
However, Lobby3 is a little thunderous and rainy.Although it was very lively at the start, the subsequent operations were weak.Yang Anze obviously only gave a small part of his energy to Lobby3, and his work was mainly handled by several enthusiastic people from the community.After organizing several Washington lobbying events, Lobby3 released its last proposal, the Sunset Plan, on August 20, 2023, marking the end of this political experiment.
Although this attempt failed to last, it once again demonstrates the ongoing exploration of political participation by the crypto community and provides valuable experience for similar projects in the future.
Standing with Crypto
DAO is not the only group in the crypto community that participates in politics.In recent years, major U.S. crypto institutions have invested heavily in political lobbying, and these dispersed forces have eventually gathered into greater influence.
In 2023, an organization called Fairshake was born, a super PAC officially registered with the Federal Election Commission, with giants in the US crypto industry standing behind it.Coinbase, Ripple Labs and A16z alone donated $45.5 million, $45 million and $44 million respectively.Fairshake’s mission is clear: to support political candidates who are committed to building the United States into the center of future Internet innovation into Congress.They believe that the key to fully unlocking the potential of an open blockchain economy in the United States is to create a clear and friendly regulatory and legal environment for innovators.
Meanwhile, another organization called Standing with Crypto was also born in 2023.If Fairshake is a high-end stage for crypto giants, then Standing with Crypto is an attempt to unite the broader community.Its main initiator is still Coinbase, but its goal is to unite a wider range of practitioners and ordinary people in the industry, and it has attracted DAO organizations with a clear political stance like Devils DAO to join.
Standing with Crypto’s strategy is quite creative, they almost copied the practices of PACDAO and established a detailed politician’s crypto stance score card.The database contains more than a thousand politicians, and one can understand at a glance how each MP is versatile about cryptocurrency.
Each member’s data card also includes what votes he has voted on crypto-related proposals in the past.
Going further, they carefully selected 24 candidates who are crypto-friendly and actively guided community members to endorse or donate to these candidates.This direct and powerful way of support will undoubtedly have an important impact on the election of these candidates.
Selected candidates
With the strong support of industry giants, Standing with Crypto has gathered far more power than any previous political participation in crypto communities.
Looking ahead to the 2024 congressional election, we have a high probability of meeting many candidates supported by the crypto community to successfully win seats. This new wave of political participation may become an important driving force for cryptocurrencies to enter mainstream society.
Trump and J.D. Vance
Four years ago, YangDAO’s efforts in the presidential campaign stopped the party’s primary election, and this general election, the crypto community has entered the final circle.
According to a survey in the first half of this year, 19% of registered U.S. voters already own cryptocurrencies, and another 16% plan to buy them.This huge group has attracted the high attention of candidates.Trump expressed his pro-crypto stance early, and Biden, who had previously opposed encryption, had to soften his attitude and start to smooth things over.
In June, Silicon Valley investor David Sacks organized a fundraising dinner for Trump, under the command of Senator J.D. Vance.Several people from the cryptocurrency industry attended and expressed their demands to Trump to relax supervision and encourage innovation.The dinner eventually raised $12 million for Trump.
According to Axios, Elon Musk, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and David Sacks recently secretly lobbyed Trump, strongly recommending J.D. Vance as vice presidential candidates, and the lobbying continued until Monday morning.In the end, Trump did choose J.D. Vance as his campaign mate.This choice may be directly related to the crypto fundraising dinner matched by J.D. Vance.
Compared to Trump, J.D. Vance is a more radical crypto supporter.He has been one of the most active voices in Congress in support of crypto since being elected by Senate in 2022.The 2022 financial declaration shows that he has held $100,000 to $250,000 in Bitcoin through Coinbase and has been in place so far.In 2023, Vance also introduced a bill to protect crypto companies and exchanges from traditional bank blockades.
“Our tech industry, once characterized by innovative emerging businesses, is now dominated by boring monopolists. The crypto community is in stark contrast to this transformation,” Vance said.
Against this backdrop, the world may witness the birth of a US president/vice presidential combination that stands out in November this year.This potential result not only marks a significant increase in the political influence of crypto communities, but is also likely to have far-reaching impact on cryptocurrency policies in the United States and even the world.
Looking back on these past events, it seems like a past life. However, if you think about it carefully, the earliest germination began in the last presidential election, and most of them have happened in the past two or three years.In just a few years, American politics has changed dramatically.Such a speed of transformation may not even be expected by political pioneers in the DAO field.
Looking back, their efforts have made some contribution to crypto’s opening of Capitol Hill, but the greater credit should be attributed to the cryptocurrency’s own philosophy and growing influence.After more than ten years of precipitation, these ideas have quietly changed public perception, and the public’s large-scale acceptance has finally leveraged the nerves of Washington politicians.
The cryptocurrency, which was once regarded as a fringe topic, has now become an issue that presidential candidates and members of Congress have to take seriously.The utopian conception of the past is now becoming a reality in front of us.This change is reshaping public perceptions of finance, technology and governance.This is not only about the economy, but also about the organizational methods and value distribution of future society.Political participation in crypto communities has become a force of change that cannot be ignored, quietly shaping the future of the world.
