WORK
THE FUTURE 100 209
CryptoTwitter is alight with excitement over decentralized autonomous
organizations (DAOs). In simple terms, this is a digitally native community or organization that could potentially represent the future of work—your next employer could be a DAO.
Strictly speaking, a DAO is a community-led digital organization that runs on
blockchain technology. It is managed not by a CEO or board of directors but by lines of code that define its operations, known as a smart contract. In practice, many DAOs are not yet fully autonomous and so the term is also used
colloquially to refer to digital organizations in general. These are more like online collectives that have common interests and goals, and are often centered around a Reddit group or Discord server.
Crucially, DAOs also have built-in treasuries linked to cryptocurrency, which
means members can earn tokens in return for their contributions. A new breed of crypto worker is already being drawn to DAOs as an alternative to the
Crypto-artisans
The Web 3.0 economy is providing an alternative to corporate employment in the form of decentralized autonomous organizations.
corporate nine-to-five.
In September 2021, community builder and consultant Rafa Fernandez posted
a long-form piece on the Web 3.0 publishing platform Mirror about his decision to quit his dream job at a tech startup to work for a DAO. Fernandez is not the only one and participation in the DAO economy is growing fast. According to
DeepDAO, a platform that tracks the industry, there were 1.6 million members and token owners in December 2021, a number that had swelled by 356,000 from the previous month alone. In another signal of this explosive growth, a
