Studying the Optimism Collective
Disclosure: You may already be a winner of the $OP token sweepstakes. I am serving as a delegate for the Optimism Token House. This week Optimism dropped the $OP token, initiating Optimism Governance. Optimism’s governance system presents an exciting opportunity to study the latest thinking in governance design and helps us focus on shaping the next era of Web3 through its focus on public goods. With the launch of the token, Optimism created the Optimism Collective, an ecosystem that will gov...
Studying the Optimism Collective
Disclosure: You may already be a winner of the $OP token sweepstakes. I am serving as a delegate for the Optimism Token House. This week Optimism dropped the $OP token, initiating Optimism Governance. Optimism’s governance system presents an exciting opportunity to study the latest thinking in governance design and helps us focus on shaping the next era of Web3 through its focus on public goods. With the launch of the token, Optimism created the Optimism Collective, an ecosystem that will gov...
Finding and Vetting Web3 Attorneys: Five Lessons
The Path to Finding Great Representation in Web3One of the common challenges our founders face is choosing the right attorneys. Few attorneys have focused on the issues that apply to Web3 to the extent that they can legitimately claim to be experts. With the broadening market appreciation of the importance of decentralized technologies, the attorneys who have developed public personas for Web3 advocacy are often oversubscribed for their services or quickly hired in-house. There are stellar We...
Finding and Vetting Web3 Attorneys: Five Lessons
The Path to Finding Great Representation in Web3One of the common challenges our founders face is choosing the right attorneys. Few attorneys have focused on the issues that apply to Web3 to the extent that they can legitimately claim to be experts. With the broadening market appreciation of the importance of decentralized technologies, the attorneys who have developed public personas for Web3 advocacy are often oversubscribed for their services or quickly hired in-house. There are stellar We...
Getting Past Maybe: A Call for Forward-Thinking Lawyers
Legal education mires its pupils in the netherworld of anti-probability. The goal of a legal education is to equip students with the ability to see multiple sides to an argument and to spot issues that could arise based on a pattern of facts. The process can make lawyers wildly creative: a lawyer can find latent flaws in what appears to be the most bulletproof plan, which can enable the lawyer to outwit adversaries and avoid pitfalls. The Achilles heel of the legal profession is that lawyers ...
Getting Past Maybe: A Call for Forward-Thinking Lawyers
Legal education mires its pupils in the netherworld of anti-probability. The goal of a legal education is to equip students with the ability to see multiple sides to an argument and to spot issues that could arise based on a pattern of facts. The process can make lawyers wildly creative: a lawyer can find latent flaws in what appears to be the most bulletproof plan, which can enable the lawyer to outwit adversaries and avoid pitfalls. The Achilles heel of the legal profession is that lawyers ...
DAO Governance Primer: Flat DAOs
Flat DAOs: Peaks and Valleys of Participation The short history of DAOs began with a mantra that DAOs are flat organizations. While much of the lore of “flat” DAOs resides on Twitter, esteemed groups have made serious efforts to foster DAOs that have no formal hierarchy and have equal participation among contributors. These DAOs are collectives: participants are free to join, vote, and add value without formal restriction. MetaCartel, an early venture capital DAO, voices this vision for DAOs:...
DAO Governance Primer: Flat DAOs
Flat DAOs: Peaks and Valleys of Participation The short history of DAOs began with a mantra that DAOs are flat organizations. While much of the lore of “flat” DAOs resides on Twitter, esteemed groups have made serious efforts to foster DAOs that have no formal hierarchy and have equal participation among contributors. These DAOs are collectives: participants are free to join, vote, and add value without formal restriction. MetaCartel, an early venture capital DAO, voices this vision for DAOs:...
DAO Governance Primer: The Initial State
A DAO is a mechanism of governance enabled by smart contract execution of tokenized commands. Tokens send signals; smart contracts interpret those signals and deliver an outcome. In its most basic form, a DAO is naive: it is not necessarily flat, nor necessarily democratic. In order for a DAO to form, a group of people must agree on the initial architecture and answer: who holds tokens, what rights do tokens create, and what smart contracts exist at the beginning? Answering these questions an...
DAO Governance Primer: The Initial State
A DAO is a mechanism of governance enabled by smart contract execution of tokenized commands. Tokens send signals; smart contracts interpret those signals and deliver an outcome. In its most basic form, a DAO is naive: it is not necessarily flat, nor necessarily democratic. In order for a DAO to form, a group of people must agree on the initial architecture and answer: who holds tokens, what rights do tokens create, and what smart contracts exist at the beginning? Answering these questions an...
