We all have different reasons why we came and stayed with Nouns. Given my background, for me it was the idea and opportunity to work on a community shared brand that will live forever.

Nouns will live forever.

In recent history of the DAO, it has become increasingly difficult to get funded to bring big, ambitious ideas into the world. The reasons were mainly rooted in resentment from previous losses and failures, paired with a stronger point-of-view on the sustainability of the DAO’s funding abilities.

Assessing the status quo of the community, brand and DAO, it appears that we’re at a pivotal point: we either keep the downward trend in sentiment, community engagement and governance or we collectively commit to a reset and call this the bottom from where we can rise upward again.

Regardless of the nuances of the different directional visions that exist within and for Nouns, we have a few „2026 must lands“ that we need to figure out and work through this year so that we can move forward and away...

from:

• negative sentiment

• high levels of resentment

• not funding ambitious ideas

to:

• positive sentiment

• positive environment for new ideas to breed and flourish

• funding ideas

All of the below are things individuals can contribute to with low effort. Especially #1 + #2, since the greatest contributions there are change in sentiment and generally signaling support in various ways.

1. Retain existing Nouners and talent in the wider community


2. Double down on Winners

Support teams that have modelled their way into bringing Nouns into the world forever:

• The GNOME at Art City

• HOPE Outdoor Gallery

• Quack & Lola

• Nouns Coffee LA

• Nouns House Brazil

• Nouns Primary School in Uganda

• Nouns Deli / Nouns Hamburgers Melbourne

• …

• Surface and coordinate physical artworks and sculptures made for the DAO 
(e.g. Dustin Yellin and others)

• …

• and many many more…

3. Explore and develop more „Money-In“ Streams

• Onchain business models

• Increase and optimize yield spending capabilities

• Building out shareholder relationships to other onchain businesses

Those are territories Nouns is truly pioneering, given the DUNA structure and the frontiers we're exploring.

Part of being a Nouner is also being a pioneer and confidently exploring the uncertain while being optimistic that:

It can be done. It must be done. It will be done.

A few initiatives have already been kicked-off and made significant progress to support a more sustainable funding model - e.g. Nouns x Octant, exploring and developing 501(c)3 structures, as well as some explorations in uncovering opportunities for shareholder relationships.

A big unlock may be for Nouns to become an active ecosystem partner to crypto projects that need what Nouns already has: brand and a community of builders. There is certainly an opportunity to build out and leverage AI tooling more to make this more accessible at scale too. The idea would be to build out the capabilities for being a partner that provides services and exploring how the bilateral partnership would work to unlock "Money-In" flows to Nouns.

The distinct character of these initiatives is always the same: First it moves slowly for a very long time. All of a sudden things gain momentum and move fast - and there it happend: we're so back.

All to say, that there are many more „Nouns Summers“ ahead.

It’s time to buckle up again and shift gears.

Stay nounish.

⌐◨-◨

Nouns will live forever.