The same mechanism described above could prove useful in other financial contexts, particularly lending. Over the past two decades, tech-enabled lenders have emerged that use alternative data to underwrite loans. In some cases, this involves social graphs and behavioral information. Lemonade, purveyor of home and renters insurance, once touted its app’s ability to pick up on “non-verbal cues” – before realizing how very creepy that sounded.

Again, we can re-envision this paradigm as symbiotic rather than parasitic. Instead of having our faces, social lives, and online activity unwittingly scanned, we could donate our data to improve the underwriting abilities of a co-owned bank. In exchange, we would receive a token and share in the entity’s ownership. Assuming this data was in some way predictive, our Bank DAO should compound in value.