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Happy New Year, all!

In this week’s episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/ | wclittle.eth) recorded a monologue about my perspectives on “why” Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) matter. I also talk practically about how you can create NFTs on https://opensea.io/ and other NFT marketplaces, and how to participate in DAOs. In fact, I helped launch [Edit: BanyanDAO (https://www.banyandao.xyz/) over the holiday break with the express purpose to help each other learn Web 3, practice "on-chain" governance, and create/join other DAOs to build a better Internet together. Feel free to join our discord here → https://discord.gg/bYnxySgw34 

Check it out: How (and why) to create NFTs and participate in DAOs

Holiday break reflections

The two big, meta-level talking points for me over the past few weeks have been around the content of Ryan Selkis’ Crypto Theses for 2022 - Messari and Alexandra Sims’ PhD Thesis Decentralised Autonomous Organisations: Governance, Dispute Resolution and Regulation.

I will be writing up fuller reflections and notes to share in the coming weeks on this collective 480 pages of Web3 content, but my basic reflections and takeaways revolve around the following:

• To the skeptics, I no longer feel like I have to come up with a ton of examples of how Web3 is adding value to the world. At this point it’s an information/context transfer issue. I’m thankful that Ryan and Alexandra published their seminal works (links above).
• Whereas DAOs are the “organization” of humans, the interface to jurisdictions around the world is the “institution”. The nuances and innovation of the legal stuff here is best left to the lawyers to figure out for us (I’m rooting for them!)
• It’s pretty amazing that Wyoming and Vermon have BBLLCs (blockchain-based limited liability companies). Indeed, this kind of innovation is very refreshing to see from my home country, which is not the safest place to be right now from a Web3 regulatory standpoint.
• If you join a DAO that doesn’t have a legal wrapper to a jurisdiction somewhere, then by default you are most likely joining a “partnership” and all individuals are susceptible to potential liability issues. There is no “entity” that can sign contracts and such besides the individuals.
• The game of L1s (Layer 1s, like Ethereum, Cosmos, Polkadot, Terra, Solana, etc..) is going to be fascinating to watch in 2022. It’s clear that Web3 is going to be a multichain world, with bridges, rollups, and sidechains helping to manage scaling and provide the rails for all kinds of decentralized applications (dApps).

I have a LOT more to say on all of these, so be sure to follow along if you are interested. I’d welcome you to join BanyanDAO’s Discord and you’ll see me in there → https://discord.gg/bYnxySgw34 // Drop me a line and say hi.

Have a great rest of your week!

~Will