© Profile
We can understand a network blockchain as a digital infrastructure on which a network of users is mounted who use it to store, transmit and validate data in a decentralized, secure and incorruptible way. On this technology, an architecture is being developed in the form of applications that are oriented to the exchange of value and economic coordination between individuals and/or global projects.
These increasingly secure and efficient interactions are giving the initial kick to become the operating system of a new form of global society, decentralized and democratic; because it is the same community that creates and uses a network, determines its purpose, the mechanisms and rules on which its governance will be exercised, with the function of improving the functionality and usefulness of the network itself.
Blockchains and asset tokenization
With the emergence of Bitcoin (2008) and Ethereum (2013), today there is a growing ecosystem of projects around the blockchain universe. Here, we are interested in highlighting the Decentralized Autonomous Organizations the DAOs, a new type of organizational structure through which a set of individuals can coordinate their collaboration around a common goal(s), under a model of democratic governanceparticipatory and productive, which in turn allows increasing efficiency and reducing corruption associated with intermediaries.
Its differential is that through blockchain technology codify their statutes allowing them to:
- Make decisions directly, transparently and efficiently;
- Design and develop collective projects; 3- Manage processes, allocate resources and make open and public transactions, globally (without borders) and free (without censorship or bureaucracies external to the organization).
Blockchain: concrete use cases with social impact
Virtually all cryptocurrency projects today are examples of DAOs in operation. Some of the most successful in terms of number of members are ENS (45k members) and Gitcoin (33k); in turn, in terms of their treasures, we have that Uniswap and BitDAO have about 2 billion dollars. Likewise, there are others designed to meet specific objectives, such as the AssangeDAO, which was created to fight for the release of Julian Assange; or the UkraineDAO created for humanitarian purposes.
Although DAOs are embryonic, they already show the potential to transform how we organize ourselves, make decisions and allocate resources according to the decision of the members of a collective. This takes on special value if we observe how the dominant institutions on the international scene are showing a marked inability to face the increasingly complex global challenges such as pandemics, the climate crisis, growing social inequality, or the centralized monetary system inflationetc.
Crypto: a threat to the traditional model?
The benefits we can experience with this technology are potentially endless, and while we don’t have enough experience yet, it is encouraging that we can organize ourselves in a decentralized, efficient and transparent way that we already have at our disposal. This invites us to think and test its application in real politics, for example, let’s imagine a DAO Political Party. Wouldn’t it make it really democratic? And to manage goods and services common to all efficiently and transparently, what would a Nation-State DAO look like?
*Francisco Tunez. Doctoral candidate in Global Studies, Universidad del Salvador.