Opinion: What has the media overlooked about DAOs?

The New York Times: "Reality Intrudes on a Utopian Crypto Vision." (Reality Intrudes on a Utopian Crypto Vision.) Bloomberg: "The Next Crypto Bust May Be Spelled DAO." (The Next Crypto Bust May Be Spelled DAO. ) The Guardian: "Are blockchain-based DAOs really a utopian revolution in the making?" (Are blockchain-based DAOs really a utopian revolution in the making?)

Every week, it seems, another established media outlet echoes defenders of the status quo financial system who fear and mistrust the economic opportunities unleashed through the power of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). While the media rightly recognizes the DAO's early growing pains, when it comes to the DAO's impact, this sense of hopeless anxiety sees only the trees and ignores the forest.

The DAO is not a simple "utopian" experiment, but a key tool in the development of a new decentralized financial (DeFi) system that has the potential to reach the 1.7 billion people around the world who currently do not have access to the traditional financial system. DeFi promises to provide individuals around the world with a reliable and transparent financial system with clear rules.

The potential of DAOs

Also, while we've only scratched the surface of what a potential DAO has to create a more transparent and fair financial system, we've already seen the emergence of projects that are now delivering real value to people in the real world.

The Ukrainian War is an example, where UkraineDAO, founded by Russian art collective Pussy Riot and Trippy Labs, raised over $6.75 million worth of Ethereum donations to go directly to Ukraine’s defense efforts against Russia. While this figure may not change the balance of battle, the rapid creation and expansion of UkraineDAO demonstrates the power of decentralized financial technology, which can bring tangible benefits by coordinating disparate groups of individuals around the globe around a single cause. result.

But DAOs are worth more than raising money for noble causes under duress. In fact, many DAOs are already delivering sustainable value to participants around the world, even utilizing blockchain technology to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time, such as climate change.

Today, DAOs are being used to support charitable causes, remove barriers to crowdfunding, give donors more control over how their funds are spent, enable low-cost borrowing, and support artists and musicians. All of this is designed to be governed by transparent smart contracts that give users control over the direction and governance of the organization.

Other DAOs are using new technologies to directly address human-caused climate change. KlimaDAO, a sub-DAO of Olympus DAO, proposes an innovative mechanism to transfer carbon credits from the voluntary carbon market to the DAO's treasury, effectively pushing up the cost of carbon offsets and making it more expensive to build carbon-intensive businesses .

KlimaDAO has locked up over 17 million tokenized carbon credits, more than Croatia’s annual CO2 emissions. Such projects are realizing the promise of DeFi technology and pioneering a new way of climate activism that integrates environmental concerns into the fabric of economic activity.

Like any revolutionary new technology, DAOs present endless opportunities for innovators to solve problems in new ways, but also attract the attention of scammers looking for a quick profit. Scams like “rug pulls,” where developers abscond with funds invested in projects, are real problems that need to be addressed in the DeFi ecosystem. We are committed to strengthening regulatory requirements to ensure DAOs are safe to protect consumers.

However, we cannot allow a handful of bad actors to distract from the fact that DAOs and the entire DeFi ecosystem are driving disruption to a traditional financial system that is predatory and exclusive to our most vulnerable populations, Dangerous to our planet. It’s time for established media to dig deeper into The DAO and present a more authentic and nuanced picture that reflects what those of us involved in DeFi know: that what we do today will pay off for generations to come.

Cointelegraph Chinese is a blockchain news information platform, and the information provided only represents the author's personal opinion, has nothing to do with the position of the Cointelegraph Chinese platform, and does not constitute any investment and financial advice. Readers are requested to establish correct currency concepts and investment concepts, and earnestly raise risk awareness.