DAO is the abbreviation for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. The term captures the characteristics of a human-machine organizational construct. DAOs facilitate collective action (organization), where large portions are automated and run unstoppably when criteria are met (autonomous) and where members manage their community together and where the servers, called nodes, are owned by several independent owners (distributed).
In the "Coin and Token" section of the Korea IT Times, money and economic issues are analyzed through blockchain technology and the financial future is predicted. In this interview, Peter Nobels, Founder and CEO of Kalibo explains the role of DAOs in emerging markets and why it matters. explains the role of DAOs in emerging markets and why it matters.
The following are interview questions and answers with Peter Nobels.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Kalipo.
Hi Monica. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to connect with people who are interested in new ways of organizing and how this can change the world for the better.
To answer your question: I am 61 years old and was always interested in how teams can achieve success. For me, success is when the result adds value to all stakeholders. Where I also consider society and the environment as stakeholders. So too is the team itself. Team members should thrive while developing and delivering their results.
My main roles at Kalipo are business developer and product owner.
What benefits does a DAO offer over simply using web2 solutions to facilitate community engagement and collaboration?
Web3 supports self-sovereignty, people owning and managing their own data, and tokens. This means that individuals can hop on and off a DAO while carrying their data with them. Once a member of a DAO, individuals can participate in decision-making, collective action, and revenue sharing. The power of DAOs is the distribution of power: no single person can single-handedly make decisions, change its mission, or make a grab from the treasury.
What problems does Kalipo’s DAO infrastructure solve for communities?
On Kalipo, people with a shared mission can set up their organization with a few clicks. Once operational, they can manage their treasury and constitution together. Kalipo also addresses some usability issues by offering a built-in wallet and a secure mechanism that replaces the use of long private keys or passphrases. Kalipo is all about ease of use and supporting collective action.
Given the decentralized nature of DAOs, is there an issue with the speed of decision-making, thereby slowing organizational efficiency? If so, how does Kalipo aim to solve this?
We at Kalipo have thought a lot about this and have come up with several features. Kalipo's support on this issue starts with the first step: a group of people establishing a DAO, must choose a template that matches their organizational form. With a template comes a set of rules that should fit the communities' needs for decision-making in terms of speed, quality, and member involvement. Kalipo's MVP contains only one, the "Startup" template, but we will add more templates over time.
Another feature is Kalipo’s constitution management. A DAO's constitution contains the rules that members want to abide by. So, if members choose speed over quality of, and broad consent of, decisions, that's up to them. Other communities may choose to have majority support on each issue. Communities need to figure out what works for them. Kalipo offers short learning cycles. On Kalipo, through bills, members can propose changes to their constitution with the goal of changing the trade-off between speed and quality/support of their decision-making.
Kalipo offers a range of decision-making mechanisms for DAOs to choose from. For example: (super) majority vote, list voting, liquid democracy, quadratic voting and reputation weighted voting. It is up to the members of a DAO to find out which mechanisms work for them.
Next, a DAO's constitution contains different proposal types. Each proposal will be implemented according to the rules established by the members. E.g. For a transfer of less than, let's say €1000, only two signatures are needed while for a transfer of more than €1000 a majority approval must be reached. This is a way to balance speed with quality/support at the issue level.
In addition, Kalipo supports constellations. These are groups of autonomous units, which at Kalipo we call autons, that together form a DAO. This results in polycentrism: decisions are made at the level of, and by, the people affected by an issue. This will improve engagement at the auto level and speed up decision making because most issues will never reach the top level.
And, as advice, I think communities should always keep in mind that dialogues may be more valuable than the decision itself. That's why Kalipo also supports the dialogue phase of decision-making. Speed may be tempting, but it can also be a path to control and command structures.
What are the most prevalent problems standing in the way of DAOs integrating successfully with legacy community and organizational infrastructure?
I see three categories of challenges: cultural, vested interests, and legal. To start with the cultural ones: many people strive for power, want to be at the top of a command & control pyramid. On the other side are people who give power away, for whatever reason. In DAOs, the first group must (learn) to let go of power and the second group must (learn) to take responsibility and risk.
Then you have the incumbents. Organizations that have proven to be successful with their current organizational approaches that contain power concentration elements. Interestingly, employees of these organizations often attend DAO events without the subsequent ability to change their organization afterwards. DAOs will result in autonomous units with their own treasury and revenue sharing. This is considered too risky with too little means of control by the parent unit.
Then there are the legal hurdles: what are the liabilities for the members? What jurisdictions must the DAO comply with? How to pay taxes? How to deal with, legally binding, disputes? What is the legal basis of the DAO's terms and conditions? Will my tokens be illegal tomorrow?
What role do you foresee DAOs playing in the future of distributed online communities?
I am not a fortune teller. At the same time, under the condition that laws and regulations will evolve supportively, I foresee that more and more communities will go online to take advantage of IT opportunities. And communities that are online, whether distributed or not, are more likely to be DAOs than other organizational structures.
What role will Kalipo play in making DAO technology accessible to mainstream communities?
Because the early adopters of new technologies and new ways of organizing can be found in online communities, especially in web native software development teams, they are our first target group. In parallel, we have created the DAO Hub. This is a group of experts with backgrounds in blockchain, economics, governance, etc. This hub conducts research on DAOs and participates in experiments. One of the goals of the DAO Hub is to make DAOs mainstream. Therefore, it cooperates with the Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands, among others.
Kalipo’s DAO platform intends to act as a central hub for distributed communities to operate and collaborate. What unique benefits and features does Kalipo offer to these communities and organizations? What is Kalipo doing differently than other DAO infrastructure solutions available today?
On top of the governance, collaboration and inter-DAO functionality that Kalipo provides to communities, Kalipo itself is a DAO. So, Kalipo is different on a governance level. We think that ownership and governance of a solution will become a USP: potential users will choose the platform, given a choice between different candidates, with the governance that fits their values. Values such as transparency, users owning their own data, and the ability to participate in decision-making, co-ownership, and revenue sharing. Kalipo, as a DAO, has incorporated these values and allows users to become members. As a member, one can buy and earn tokens that in return give the right to participate in decision-making on KIPs (Kalipo improvement proposals), on adjustments to Kalipo's constitution, and on revenue allocation. This makes Kalipo more of a coop than a company-owned solution. For the community, by the community, from the community.
Can you tell us about Kalipo's vision for supporting DAO innovation in 2022?
The roadmap for 2022 includes additional functionality for constitution management and treasury management. We are currently conducting research on tokenomics. We will use the results to define and implement a Kalipo token system. For the longer term, we will add functionality to build organizational constellations. Providing inter-DAO functionality is another objective.
Furthermore, we are strengthening our partnership with Lisk and the Hogeschool van Utrecht where we are hosting a DAO event "How to DAO it 2" on November 24.
As a final note, an invitation to all your listeners and readers: feel free to join us in our effort to give communities control over their governance and collective action. And by doing so, to make the world a better place. As we say: take control together, improve together, flourish together.
