I got introduced to the Nouns project by one of my internet friends, and since understanding Nouns potential as an organization that has a viable chance of sustainably creating public goods, and just good things generally—I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
What I once thought of as a weird, confusing and frankly overly priced NFT project I now see as a fundamental innovation in organizational design.
The NounsDAO captures value by increasing the value of its symbol, the already iconic glasses (⌐◨-◨), and it creates that value by creating whatever positive association it can with that brand.
The more value it creates for the world (and therefore its brand), the more capital is gets to keep creating more value. It’s an insane, somewhat reflexive value system, but it is working and working big.
In less than a year, the NounsDAO has accumulated over 23,000 ETH ($50M!!!), and has already executed over 70 proposals in less than a year, allocating over $10M already—progressing at a greater rate than any other DAO to date.
It’s had some wild proposals, including:
It’s common to hear anyone in the Nouns community use the term “Nounish” to describe the suitability of a proposal, or to point out something that’s values aligned with the Nouns ethos and philosophy. The best I can discern what it means to be Nounish is positive, playful and public—something I can get behind.
As someone that doesn’t necessarily have the spare ETH lying around to buy Noun, I figured I’d try my hand at contributing! So I’m going to be dedicating some of my spare time to designing improvements to the core Nouns experience and learning how to work with an open community of developers.
Maybe none of it has an impact, but it’s worth a shot! Best case I can help build out an exciting new DAO, worst case it’s a great lesson and I’m left with a cool Lil Noun I like.
I’m going to use Mirror as a public issue tracker and task manager, and just see what happens.
Excited to get to work!
⌐◨-◨