We are back at it with another round of what is happening at CityDAO. Grab a coffee or O-liang and jump right in! ☕️

Table of Contents

1. CityDAO so far

2. Community Shoutouts & Showcases

3. CityDAO elections

4. Overheard in CityDAO

5. Tweets we love

6. Memes to go

7. Past CityDAO Community Roundups

The CityDAO community is made up of ambitious and HIGHLY curious people exploring and building at the frontier of technology, governance experiments and physical land.

The vision of CityDAO is to build the city of the future on the Ethereum blockchain by experimenting with tokenizing land, rights, and governance. 🏙

First, let’s do a quick recap of the CityDAO adventure so far:

Month 1: July - laying the groundwork

• July 1 - DAOs can legally be recognized as an LLC in Wyoming

• July 2 - CityDAO starts (Scott’s infamous tweet)

• July 7 - First community call

• July 15 - CityDAO Discord membership crosses 1000 people

• July 23 - CityDAO officially registered as an LLC in Wyoming

• July 28 - CityDAO gets voted in on Mirror’s $WRITE RACE

Month 2: August - bolstering the treasury

• August 8 - The First Citizen NFT sells for 6.52 ETH

• August 11 - Release Founding Citizen NFTs

• August 12 - CityDAO treasury passes $30k

• August 20 - CityDAO treasury passes $100k

• August 25 - Founding Citizen NFT sells for 10 ETH live in a community call

• August 25 - CityDAO treasury passes $250k

• August 26 - Connect w/ real estate agent in Wyoming to help with land purchase

Month 3: September - voting on land acquisition

• September 08 - CityDAO forum is added to aid governance discussions

• September 15 - Dev & Design team demo the parcel viewer

• September 21 - CityDAO citizens vote on first parcel purchase

• September 27 - Citizens vote to make offer on “Parcel 6” (40 acres)

• September 28 - CityDAO makes an offer on real land

• September 28 - Offer accepted, land purchase process begins

Month 4: October - Vitalik stops by & we close the land parcel deal

• October 06 - Vitalik Buterin stops by CityDAO to ask questions

• October 07 - CityDAO flag put up on land owned by a DAO

• October 14 - The DAO figures out how to buy land with a treasury in ETH 😂

• October 23 - CityDAO Citizen NFT minter released

• October 25 - Funds wired for land purchase

• October 29 - Land parcel deal officially completed

Month 5: November - Explosive growth & Crypto cities blog post

• November (first week) - Vitalik and Brian Armstrong purchase Citizen NFTs

• November 13 - Season-0 kicks off

• November 14 - Mark Cuban purchases two Citizen NFTs

• November 14 - Citizen NFTs sell out

• November 15 - CityDAO treasury hits 8.5 million

• November 28 - Balaji gets a Citizen NFT

• November 30 - CityDAO twitter account passes 20k

Month 6: December -

• December 14 - Founding Citizen NFT sells for 34.8 ETH

• December 15 - Partnership with Chainlink

• December 20 - Community members visit parcel 0, meet the neighbors

• December 27 - Financial Times publishes an article covering CityDAO

• December 28 - Vote goes up for the CityDAO council

• December 31 - Legal AMA with securities lawyer

Month 7: January - Build resilience as a DAO & steps towards decentralization

• January 1 - The CityDAO public-affairs guild is born

• January 3 - Citizens vote to elect a council to establish CityDAO Charter

• January 5 - CityDAO museum receives CityDAO DAOpunk NFT

• January 10 - CityDAO discord gets hit with phishing scam

• January 15 - Audit papers signed for Parcel 0 land drop

• January 17 - Candidate election pitches begin 🎉

There’s no need to sugarcoat it: after executing quickly early on (going from a tweet to collectively purchasing land in Wyoming in 4 months), progress has slowed down as CityDAO got into the weeds of navigating the legal side with parcel 0.

Another key learning from this period is that hype makes it harder to execute. When CityDAO purchased land, the Discord server had around 1500 people. The core team did not have to worry nearly as much about scammers, trolls, bad actors, speculators, partnership seekers, etc. all demanding time that would otherwise have gone to building / executing. The CityDAO discord exploded and is now consistently at around 40-50k people.

Luckily, CityDAO is a long-term project and the DAO is taking the steps necessarily to adapt and build the foundations for long-term success. The council elections happening now will ensure we have a solid foundation with the operating agreement and charter. It is also a crucial step towards decentralization. 🔥 I should note though, it will feel like the DAO is moving slow for at least another month, but the tradeoff is absolutely worth it. With a charter in place, the DAO will have a clear view on what’s next and the collective talent of the community (which is incredible) can be better harnessed to execute on larger goals.

@Elmo said it well here in a reply in the chats:

Our decision to halt most external operations (especially marketing) and unwanted public awareness to temporarily focus on Charter, operating agreement, legal implication, and clearer vision (all of which are healthy for our DAO's long term growth imo) combined with this crypto market down turn surely would affect our short-term prospect. It'll surely shake many short-term speculators who focus more on immediate events and some if those who follow FOMO trend last two month out.

One of the things that impresses me most about our community is the focus on building something real and with substance. Floor price is important to some extent, but it has never been a priority for the community, which is so rare in the crypto space. @calvin put it well in the below quote (and I hope this focus on building / substance vs hype never changes):

CityDAO has a massive responsibility not just to our own vision but also the broader ecosystem of DAOs and web3. We are pioneers in bringing decentralized coordination into the physical world and its organizations. Let’s empower the first CityDAO Council with the clear objective of ratifying the pillars of our foundation. - First Citizen Justin Kalland

For context on the CityDAO election, see here:

https://city.mirror.xyz/RemQwtJ1AvKx-zdvebXrqWMJdZukqDRMC3W8zMssNCw

See the section below dedicated to the election for more information on the process and candidates (such fantastic candidates running!). 🗳

• The technical audit contract has been signed ✅

• The dev work is complete (the parcel viewer is so damned cool) ✅

• With the CityDAO council election in motion, the land drop will need to wait until the election process is complete (the council must ratify the land drop launch). Citizens in the DAO will continue to work on the project but the launch date will be determined by the council.

• Legal work is being done to explore ways we can pack more substance to the Parcel 0 NFTs ⛰

p.s. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS TO FINALLY HAPPEN!

“Projects like CityDAO are actually trying to do things in the physical world.”

Worth noting: as cool as a shout-out from Vitalik is - hype gets us nowhere. Much more important is that CityDAO can execute and push forward on interesting experiments. We must build. 🌆

Also, I highly recommend checking out Vitalik’s recent blog “The bulldozer vs vetocracy political axis” (has relevance to what we’re working on):

https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html

Massive shout-out to Crypto Bushi and SinjunART for this powerful piece! 🤯 Thank you as well to @HiroKennely and @Lyons800 who contributed to this project coming to life as well.

We’re going to revisit this again in the future in a podcast interview because this piece and all the thoughtful consideration behind it is worth diving into further. See below the tweet for my meeting notes.

Say hello to the CityDAO DAOpunk nft (make sure audio is on):

p.s. challenge: find the nuggets hidden within the NFT 😀

You can find the CityDAO DAOpunk in the CityDAO Art Museum:

Last month CityDAO had a legal AMA with @ethlaw, CityDAO’s legal consul. Citizens asked a lot of great questions and we got deep into the weeds on some of the biggest legal questions facing web3 projects and specifically CityDAO.

This is one of the things I love about the CityDAO community. People here understand the huge challenge we face as we navigate uncharted territory at the intersection of irl <> crypto. People here are ready to jump into the weeds for hours and work on sorting out these super important questions that will help move the project further.

Pictures below from places like: Toronto, Beijing, Argentina, Swiss Alps, Chiang Mai, Virginia, and Mexico.

Still continuously amazed by how global the CityDAO community is. Amazing to see so many cultures coming together and to see a glimpse of the places citizens are from. :)

On Copa Del Sol:

It's called la copa del sol. here's a drone vid I found online so the meditation leader used a bunch of interesting instruments that vibrated at frequencies that were super relaxing. The bowl has unique acoustic properties so it feels like the sound is coming from above my head even though the instructor was on the other side.

“I am in DC as well and have been a Federal lobbyist since 2005 (worked on the Hill from 1995 - 2005).”

This guild was born from a community call discussion around the importance of the DAO being a good neighbor and being proactive from a public affairs perspective.

@Stuggart, @fugyeah, @Elsa, @filiblaster, 2Jamez, and @Elmo have been meeting regularly and having async discussions to go get this initiative stood up. 🔥

Here’s a glimpse from the collaboration taking place in this burgeoning guild:

Last month Casey and @2Jamez visited CityDAO’s land in Wyoming. @2Jamez is a local to Wyoming and was even able to connect with one of the neighbors to introduce himself. ❤️ It is incredibly important that CityDAO is a positive force in the local community not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because we are representing DAOs in general.

In recent conversations, there has been discussion of starting by putting leases on chain. While on chain ownership of land registries may be the desired end state, this is a much lighter lift than full ownership and most importantly, it seems to be the least regulated way to get started, allowing for the greatest flexibility in iterating to product market fit.

While the romance of full property ownership may make getting started with leases appear to be a vastly inferior solution, at the end of the day the difference may not be as great as it seems. We’re effectively just leasing our land from the government anyways. If you own your property outright and fail to pay your property taxes for long enough, the government is always happy to remind you of who really owns the land.

https://dfmerin.com/leasehodl

This is definitely worth a listen - all 2+ hours worth of it! 😁

Note: due to the last minute nature of the call and candidates being from North American, European and Asian timezones, not everyone was able to make the call. If you listen be sure to also review other candidates pitches on the CityDAO forum.

@MemeBrains has been on fire the last few months preparing, coordinating, interviewing and editing podcasts for the upcoming CityDAO podcast! 🔥 Huge shout-out to @Blackacres as well who has helped with coordinating, preparing, brainstorming and bringing the energy needed to get projects like this off the ground. 💯

If you have any questions head over to #citydao-podcast.

Proposed scaling solution:

Sub-daos organized by regions. These sub-daos have a separate governance, treasury and fund raising capabilities.

These sub-daos are actively advised by support functions, led by CityDAO. Potentially, there could also be asset-specific sub-daos.

This enables a more localized approach to city/real estate development. While CityDAO may help fund the initial treasuries of sub-daos, they are expected to be financially self-sustaining.

Happy to further develop. That's a model that YGG (Largest gaming guild) is currently implementing.

Citizens can check out the discussion here.

Congratulations to the winners of CityDAO’s bounty “Write a blog that answers: What does CityDAO mean to you?

Whenever I think about something interesting, I find it helpful to zoom in, then zoom back out. I work in foresight, and this is honestly the biggest takeaway I’ve learned from my time in the industry. Zoom in, then zoom back out. That’s all you need to do to evaluate. Everything else is frills.

I consider CityDAO to be something interesting. Ever since an influential friend turned me on to crypto in 2020, I’ve been looking for projects that go beyond just the finance side of it. The finance side is cool, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t interest me. What interests me is tangible real-world applications of crypto governance. - @yiction

https://city.mirror.xyz/CPVU1MdnYYcopO523oGjk0dvoGyqjPFazsrP7HPgXOc

Recently, CityDAO got hit with the phishing scam hack that has hurting communities across the web3 ecosystem. It was a horrible event and people in the community got scammed. Being a DAO, how to handle the decision was put to a vote. It was an extremely close vote with citizens voting to not to remediate scam victims. There has been some good discussion on the forum around this and I encourage citizens to voice their opinions and make a proposal if appropriate.

You can read more about how the hack happened here:

You can see his report here:

I also recommend checking out his recent tweets as many are related to the hack and provide more information.

See the #IRL channel and specifically the NYC thread for more details.

He is bootstrapping a course using this resource:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jxbb3YkrjAT1TUe6W2yCFUAsXUhdVt5JYoJwmMfykoQ/edit#

On Mars College:

Mars College is an educational program, R&D lab, and off-grid residential community dedicated to cultivating a low-cost, high-tech lifestyle.

Mars College

A 3-month experiment building an off-grid village to explore future technology and self-preservation.

https://www.mars.college

Here is a link to the article without the paywall:

https://tittlepress.com/crypto/1403377/

@Elmo has been a such a positive force in the community by answering questions (including from members like Vitalik no less), routing people where they need to go or where they can find more information, and let’s be honest, something dealing with trolls. We are incredibly lucky to have someone like Elmo in the community and I can’t wait to see how we can get the Thai community overall more involved in the DAO in general. :)

Live footage of Elmo in the chats:

Actual gif here 😂

Looking to organize a squad to hack and just generally vibe. Fill out this form so we can make it happen:

We’re starting up a health / fitness accountability group in CityDAO!

For citizens, here is a link to this thread in discord.

Sometimes, I hear people complaining that eg. the United States (but other countries too) is falling behind because too many people use freedom as an excuse to prevent needed reforms from happening. But is the problem really freedom? Isn't, say, restrictive housing policy preventing GDP from rising by 36% an example of the problem precisely being people not having enough freedom to build structures on their own land? Shifting the argument over to saying that there is too much vetocracy, on the other hand, makes the argument look much less confusing: individuals excessively blocking governments and governments excessively blocking individuals are not opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin.

https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html

See here for all candidate pitches for the upcoming CityDAO Council elections:

https://forum.citydao.io/c/elections/election-inaugural-council/7

Random lines taken out of context from the CityDAO community.

Note: for this edition of Overheard in CityDAO, I’ll pull entirely from the candidate pitches.

Sitting on the Council is a public trust. You have to be respectful of the confidence placed in you by other citizens by acting with integrity and independence.

The pioneer in smart city development, providing cities with the tools and frameworks they need to go on-chain, with the goal of democratizing DAO governance & blockchain use in Cities. (Infrastructure and platform layer)

Joy - DAOs should not be another burden on our stressful lives. They should give us a chance to be liberated in small, everyday ways. And CityDAO gives us a chance to potentially liberate ourselves in big ways: physically going to a physical space where we feel powerful and can do our damn thing in community with others.

I started falling into the DAO rabbit hole a few months back and CityDAO has been one of the most exciting discoveries so far. The idea of creating decentralized autonomous future cities is immensely fascinating and I want to do everything within my capability to help facilitate this movement.

I now run an industrial automation and software company that employs over 400 people globally

Having an approach where we desire to put tangible assets on chain is the most exciting aspect of CityDao to me.

I have a deep interest in Decentralized Systems, Entrepreneurship, and long-distance running.

As one of the first mission-driven DAOs, CityDAO has the potential for creating a new operating framework for organizations. If we can demonstrate success, many others may be inspired to start their own DAOs. What could make us feel better?

I dream for a community where talents are put to be used at their fullest potential with friendly and welcoming atmosphere as its most important quality.

I believe CityDAO needs to take a step by step approach with an eye always toward driving value for CityDAO citizens.

I’m also passionate about building and nurturing community, which is why I am a volunteer Acroyoga teacher

I am a 42 year old Dad, currently on sabbatical, touring European countries with my family to meet alternative communities and experiment with a new work life balance (including van schooling fun with our 2 kids).

I’d like us to be pioneers in the world of tokenizing assets, which means working with attorneys and eventually regulators to redraw current boundaries as DAOs move into the mainstream.

I know local politics, food systems, and land management. If we want this to be a decentralized city, we need to be able to live on it, eat from it, and to be in good relationships with our neighbors and the local and state governments that we will need to not piss off (and perhaps even have influence over).

I think that tokenizing real estate, in a form that non-accredited investors can use, has the ability to lower barriers of entry to home ownership.

“We are putting land on the blockchain” is a great rallying cry but it means different things to different people. We have limited resources and cannot execute on everyone’s vision at the same time.

CityDAO has the tremendous responsibility to bridge the crypto world with real life as never before by offering a platform for experimenting collectively, in physical spaces, a new operating model for our society, away from DeFi speculation or CryptoGaming fantasy.

I know that our collective conscious will mold CityDao into a beautiful beacon of hope. I believe that we need to make it as easy as possible for our citizens, as a collective, to decide the faith of our city.

I found CityDAO last August and was immediately taken by the vision.

Integrity is potentially the backbone of not only CityDAO, but of the blockchain as well. Integrity is instrumental in creating trust within communities, both digitally and physically.

I believe it is crucial for a council member to hear first, and deliberately take action later- while giving a well thought out explanation when due.

I am a lawyer, licensed in NY State since 2005, specializing in contract law. For the past 15 years, I have been a Senior Lecturer in Law and Sociology, first at the Sino-British College and then at Donghua University in Shanghai, China.

I created r/foodporn on reddit and did not participate because internet points don’t matter.

Investment Advisor & Crypto product specialist @ Rothschild & Co.

Representing manufacturers in hopes of placing technical product is what I have done for over 15 years.

My legal perspective allows me to balance the legal guidelines of our Wyoming DAO status with the best interest of our citizen

I am a 42 year old Dad, currently on sabbatical, touring European countries with my family to meet alternative communities and experiment with a new work life balance (including van schooling fun with our 2 kids).

In one instance, I was part of a team of four producers who created an entirely independent, $70 million season of television, for which we built a TV studio from scratch

Interact and seek advice from big crypto figures (Mark C, Vitalik B, Brain A), who minted our NFT.

Currently I’m participating an experimental co-living project where people gather together in the desert and build a temporary structure to live, host study groups, workshops and events. This community is made of people with backgrounds and expertise in software & mechanical engineering, crypto, multi-media art, yoga, Buddhism and bio chemistry.

I think CityDAO has the potential to revolutionize the way we conceptualize ownership.

I plagiarized this entire topic from the STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN F. KENNEDY ANNOUNCING HIS CANDIDACY FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 2, 1960 - but let’s be real if you are reading this you already know that this community matters to me LFG!!!

https://chance.ghost.io/citydao-community-roundup-vol-1-so-it-begins/

https://city.mirror.xyz/jTi0-xQOMadDgvP_KgMOoHZaYvWJY6D7YK4bcdFz-f4

https://city.mirror.xyz/4t6MRC8re_vTuJiVqkKmJTPXBpurzwb1N3v8S6bSJJs

https://city.mirror.xyz/1HoGdPHJ4NBmLW_sEun299_QiZTl5WHQAZfa9G8J8NY

https://city.mirror.xyz/SQW0jsq14kvFmqZKKMQejXr8Gz3QN1HHnBUW2toA6WI

https://city.mirror.xyz/wB0NbjYfHQjYSw7SU3NwNCrtKR_ECScFRZxHhuSwdjw

https://city.mirror.xyz/u_rVIZA7xq1ebmsUrdy953xg7oOF5oZmw7VBulCJgIs

https://city.mirror.xyz/ynayPtmbuB0awAGdLoMrbEnLtnpcnlYlgneD5zdYyjI