The mission is straightforward: the DAO holds 500 barrels of 4-year old whiskey and is executing a buy-hold-sell strategy anticipated to last approximately four years. In addition to co-investing alongside successful whiskey entrepreneurs, investors will gain access to the insights and experiences of the sponsoring curators through periodic newsletters and virtual events. Whiskey Pioneers is an opportunity for people to come together and build a new community, while also learning about the spirits industry, participating in the exclusive world of whiskey investing, and discovering the burgeoning world of DAOs. Oh yeah, Whiskey Pioneers will also have first dibs on upcoming, related DAOs! (more on that later)

For those uninitiated in either DAOs or whiskey, let’s back up.

What is a DAO?

A DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is an organization of individuals governed according to pre-established, encoded rules. Typically, actions taken by a DAO are decided upon by the collective through a blockchain-based vote, rather than by central leadership. The rules, decisions, and treasury of the DAO are tracked and managed on the blockchain, which provides maximum transparency and enables everyone to collaborate with confidence.

Why whiskey?

Minty’s mission is to make DAOs accessible to millions of people so they can discover how they can align their personal passions, economic interests, and desire for community. At Minty we wanted to introduce people to the collaborative philosophy and functionality of DAOs with a subject that is tangible, often inaccessible, and in a manner where the incentives of all parties are aligned. We decided to go with American whiskey because, why not?

It’s no secret that demand for American Whiskey has grown and distilleries have struggled to keep up (won’t bore you with all the details). Unlike some spirits like vodka, whiskey must be aged, and almost invariably tastes better with proper aging. Therefore, we thought investing in something fun and tangible (and liquid 🤦) made sense. Secondary whiskey investments are generally unavailable to those outside of the industry, and never in a manner where the investor can have an influence. In Whiskey Pioneers DAO, the industry experts are co-investors, and all investors will be able to participate equally through a transparent and egalitarian interface. In this DAO, each individual has an equal vote, regardless of investment size.

Communities emerge from shared experiences

Whiskey Pioneers represents one of the first DAOs to launch on Minty, which is creating an infrastructure for the Web3 curious to discover and join DAOs, and where anybody can bring IRL (read: tangible) DAOs to life.

In a DAO you don’t need a pre-existing community to be successful. The Whiskey Pioneers are an emerging community of enthusiasts who have come together to learn and share and coalesce around shared experiences in ways that weren't possible before.

What DAO do you want to build? Tell us on Twitter or Discord.

The future is DAO.

WAGBTC

WAGBAT

WAGBAI

WAG…

Whatever we all wanna buy, we are gonna buy it as a DAO. Forests, jets, Pokémon cards, castles. If it involves IRL assets or experiences, we want you in the Minty DAO. Our goal is to build shared infrastructure and knowledge to accelerate these experiments and bridge web3 to the meatspace.

Feature image created by Abraham.

“How high can the DAO go?”

“Who won?”

“Do you think this is good or bad for DAOs?”

These are just a few of the questions asked while the Minty team watched the livestream of Sotheby’s auction for the US Constitution. A LOT has been written about this, so I’ll just focus on some key takeaways:

1. Regardless of the outcome, a slapdash effort raised over $46 million in less than a week, primarily through Discord and Twitter. It was impressive, and reflects the potential power of a coordinated collective.

2. The number of people who’ve heard of a DAO is has likely multiplied tenfold over the past week.

3. Sotheby’s — and presumably all auction houses — are licking their chops now that they realize the potential buying power of DAOs. How quickly will they adapt to accommodate this new type of customer?

4. A lot of work remains to be done to ensure that DAOs — especially DAOs collecting $46 million — are properly governed.

My thoughts? Yes, it was haphazard. Yes, many ConstitutionDAO contributors were initially under the impression they were buying fractionalized ownership, to be later informed, “You are receiving a governance token, not fractionalized ownership.” And, of course, they didn’t win. Ultimately, Brooke was the Goliath that banker David could not outbid.

My takeaway is that this is a big net positive for the space and I tip my hat to the creators of this DAO. When an unknown fighter loses a championship fight in the 12th round, did they really lose?

- GVA