Utopia has consistently prioritized streamlining payments and optimizing workflows for crypto organizations. However, our vision extends further as we recognize the potential of our tools to address the challenges faced by individual EOA wallet users in the broader market. 

We believe in enabling more people in the crypto space to seamlessly integrate with traditional payment systems, bringing the value of blockchain technology into their everyday work and life. At the intersection of crypto, fiat, and fintech, we will continue to innovate and create new possibilities.

Our first foray in this vision is our off-ramping solution, bridging the gap between crypto and traditional payment rails.

How are we developing our off-ramping feature?

We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Bridge, a pioneering company in the field of stablecoin orchestration and issuance. This collaboration empowers Utopia to provide seamless onboarding for new users and effortless off-ramping of stablecoin assets from their wallets to their preferred bank accounts.

Why use Utopia’s off-ramping tool?

Utopia's individual off-ramps offer several key benefits for existing Utopia contributors and EOA wallet users:

1. Easy and Convenient: Utopia makes off-ramping your crypto assets simpler than ever with its user-friendly interface and collaboration with Bridge. The whole process- from completing the KYC process to getting USD in your bank - happens super quickly and seamlessly.

2. Low Cost: For a limited time we are offering no fees for off-ramping!

3. Reliable KYC Process: We ensure a highly reliable and efficient KYC process, providing users with a secure and compliant off-ramping experience and robust measures to protect their assets and personal information.

4. All-in-One Platform: Utopia's individual off-ramps are just the beginning. We aim to become a comprehensive hub for crypto contractors, offering a centralized location for tracking finances, facilitating compliant work, and providing additional features to enhance your crypto experience.

More info:

As we work diligently on developing the off-ramp feature, we would like to provide you with a brief update on our progress and key considerations prior to our launch:

1. US Bank Accounts Only: Initially, the off-ramp tool (V1) will cater exclusively to users with US bank accounts, with plans for global expansion in the future.

2. Limited to USDC on Ethereum mainnet: The off-ramp feature will initially support USDC token on Ethereum mainnet - with integration plans for other blockchain platforms such as Polygon and Avax coming soon!

3. Transaction Limits: Currently, transactions are limited to a maximum of $10,000, but users can increase their limit to $100,000  after completing additional KYC.

4. Single Bank Account Wallet: Users can currently link one bank account wallet to their Utopia account, streamlining the off-ramp experience.

5. Future Support for SAFE: We are actively working on bringing the off-ramp feature to  our SAFE user to provide enhanced convenience and flexibility for managing crypto assets.

We aim to facilitate easy conversion and transfer of digital assets, empowering users to access their funds whenever they need to. Your input is invaluable in shaping our roadmap and driving our progress. If you're interested in sharing your insights and collaborating with us, please reach out. Join us as we build a wider Utopia, where on-chain value becomes an integral part of everyday life.

Is your business looking to make fiat payments with crypto? We’re working on that too! Sign up here for beta access.

For support, please reach out to offramps@utopialabs.com.

TL;DR: Now, organizations on Utopia can comprise more than one Gnosis Safe, consolidate their Safes’ transactions into a single source-of-truth, and more easily facilitate their accounting processes. Try it out, or learn more.

What are multi-Safe organizations?

Historically, organizations with multiple Gnosis Safes were not able to relate them on Utopia. Now, they can create an environment that reflects their organization and add multiple Safes to it.

How do multi-Safe organizations relate to accounting?

Earlier this year, we launched tools that help organizations track transactions for a single Gnosis Safe. Many of our customers, however, have multiple Safes and want to have an active record of all of their Safes’ transactions.

We subsequently made the decision to introduce support for multi-Safe organizations. That is, when an organization has multiple Safes added to it, we automatically consolidate transactions from each one into a single location, making it easier to keep track of financial activity across related Safes.

How do you create a multi-Safe organization?

Setting up an organization on Utopia is simple:

1. Connect your wallet and navigate to ‘Your organizations’. Use the empty state to create a new organization.

2. Alternatively, you can go to your environment selector and create a new organization there.

How to create an organization

This 2-step demo illustrates how you can create an organization in Utopia.

https://app.supademo.com

Adding Safes to your organization is just simple:

1. You’ll be prompted to add a Safe that you’re a signer for when you create an organization.

2. If you’d like to add additional Safes, click the ‘Add safe’ button in ‘Safes’ page of the respective organization. You can request to add Safes you’re not a signer for, or you can add Safes you’re a signer for instantly.

How to add a safe to an organization

This 3-step demo illustrates how you can add a safe to an organization on Utopia.

https://app.supademo.com

How were multi-Safe organizations designed?

Our solution began with first principles. In recognizing Utopia as a wrapper around Gnosis Safe, we could allow users to add more Safes to that wrapper, create a separate wrapper around multiple Safe wrappers, or do some version of both.

We narrowed our options by contextualizing each option with the following customer insight: some organizations have a core group managing all of their Safes, while others have multiple groups managing a subset of their Safes. That is:

1. 🚫 We nixed option 1. This option represented Utopia at the time we started to explore multi-Safe support, meaning we identified the very problem we set out to solve from this structure.

2. 🚫 We nixed option 2. This option would work well for organizations that have a core group managing an organization’s Safes, as they can easily add Safes and aggregate their transactions in a single environment. This approach, however, would not work well for organizations with multiple groups managing their Safes, as they would want more granularity over who has access to each single-Safe wrapper.

3. ✅ We chose option 3. We ultimately selected this option because it could work for both organizations with a core group and multiple groups managing their Safes. To that end, we suspect we’ll need to continue to evolve this option to streamline the experience for both groups.

4. 🚫 We nixed option 4. We admittedly discarded this option because option 3 addressed the problem at a lower cost. Still, we anticipate that this option may be one of the iterations we make from option 3.

How will Utopia’s accounting tools evolve?

The vision for our accounting tools begins with helping organizations capture a complete and accurate picture of their crypto assets, liabilities, equities, revenue, and expenses. To that end, the tools we launched earlier this year, multi-Safe organizations, and the ability to track transactions across any wallet (which we plan to release this quarter) serve as milestones toward that vision.

Additionally, we aim to support applications related to financial planning and analysis, as well as build integrations to streamline processes—like tax reporting—that we do not plan to support natively at this time.

We have a starting idea of what our vision entails and how we should prioritize initiatives, but we know our work is better when it’s done in collaboration. If you’re interested in influencing our roadmap and timelines, please schedule some time with me. I’m one of the founding designers at Utopia, and I’m newly leading the team that’s building out our accounting solution. I look forward to hearing from you!

The days of spending hours transcribing transactions from Etherscan to excel sheets are over. Stop the headache, and get acquainted with operating peacefully on Utopia.

Meet Bookkeeping, our transactions and insights experience, designed to help you manage your crypto transactions, derive insights around your Safe treasury, and create shareable transparency dashboards for your community.

What can you do with our Bookkeeping feature set, transactions and insights?

• View and categorize all your transfers related to your safe, including those executed outside of Utopia, so you can understand your safe’s spend.

• Share your transactions and insights pages publicly as a read-only link to stay transparent with your community.

  • View Utopia’s transactions and insights.

• Label smart contract addresses and manage your DAO contributors.

• Retroactively edit all historical transfer details.

• See your transfer categories manifest as graphs and charts in our insights experience.

• Create custom charts out of any single-select transfer property.

Celebrate this moment with us by minting “Welcome, Bookkeeping.” on Zora:

https://zora.co/personalize/collections/0x0347112253f7078bb23644b874e0f0e332626584

Want to start operating peacefully?

Book your onboarding:

Go view your transactions and insights:

https://app.utopialabs.com/login

There are two fundamental reasons why I believe this:

1. Blockchains are the most efficient method of transferring value.

Organizations that operate on the blockchain run faster and cheaper than traditional financial rails. This is because, unlike conventional financial operations, working off the blockchain absolves the need for “trust” to be delegated to a third party.

Need to verify that this transaction went through? Ask Western Union. Need to verify a wire transfer? Ask Bank of America...

The need for trust means that traditional financial rails are:

• Slower

  • Wire transfers typically take 1-2 business days; however, with blockchains, payments can be under two minutes.

  • With human intermediaries as the delegate for trust between two parties, settlement takes much more time. Using operations within the United States as an example, legal negotiations and settlements often take years.

    • Or, in the case where you're an international founder, filing your 83B is a nightmare, and sending $20 to recognize your equity costs typically $50+, including fees.

• More expensive

  • With blockchains, smart contracts cut out the intermediaries, removing the need for rent-seeking, extractive monopolies that can charge high fees through data moats. Currently, the average cost of global remittances is 6%.

• High risk of censorship

  • In a centralized world, transactions are more susceptible to being blocked by intermediaries, often for no good reason. This gatekeeping creates an opaque system and a vague verification process.

2. Blockchains enable a newfound social consensus mechanism.

Every transaction on the blockchain gets documented in the exact sequence of occurrence, creating a public ledger of events. This public ledger enables a social consensus mechanism, allowing humans to coordinate with complete consensus.

This solves three things:

• 1. Information Asymmetry

  • You can trust that nobody messed up the data (i.e. no incorrect or missing amounts).

    • Everybody has access to the same information, which serves to be a universally composable API.

      • This is similar to Jeff Bezos’ API mandate → https://nordicapis.com/the-bezos-api-mandate-amazons-manifesto-for-externalization/

    • Enables 10x efficiencies in areas such as:

      • Network accounting and budgeting.

      • Coordination between financial institutions (i.e. people can build, partner, and work with other organizations in a permissionless manner without high barriers to entry)

• 2. Permissionless creation and deployment

  • Blockchains serve to be a more democratized technology that allows for permissionless creation. For example, not everybody in the world can start a Delaware C Corp, but everybody can create and deploy a set of smart contracts.

• 3. Store of Value → Resiliency/Decentralisation

  • Blockchains serve as resilient infrastructure whose infrastructure cannot be shut down, ultimately leading to confidence in resilient, unbiased systems.

You can look at how this affects organizations from an internal and external perspective. Internally, operational processes will be streamlined with a unified backend database. Externally, blockchains work towards enabling a free market economy that optimizes end-user experiences as it’s impossible to build true data moats.

Some trends from the market that I believe validate my two core beliefs:

• Society is demanding a credibly neutral, authentic, verifiable database.. People are starting to trust institutions/companies less, including the nation-state. Today, no widely accepted solution allows anyone worldwide to verify factual accuracy unless there’s a credibly neutral ledger.

• Capitalism is a correct model for only a small percentage of the global population, with negative externalities to disadvantaged nations (i.e. global warming and climate externalities, low labor wages).

• The sheer amount, quality, and density of ideas through knowledge dissemination are happening more on the internet than in person. The internet will eventually replace cities (think of subreddits and clusters of the internet as cities), and crypto rails will be the underlying infra to allow groups of people on the internet to organize, create, and build meaningful value.

• Eventually, technology will reach a point where 1) privacy, 2) transparency, and 3) accessibility will all be demanded by consumers vs. institutions and will be the norm.

  • Examples include ZK, AI, DiDs, Layer 2 solutions, and Layer 3 solutions, etc.

  • Previously, privacy had to be sacrificed for accessibility.

I believe Utopia plays an incredibly important role in equipping digital organizations that use crypto rails as their primary means of coordinating. Our current strategy is to work with and be at the frontier of observing blockchain-based organizations' applications (and limits).

Today, we’ve seen many challenges with these organizations, or what we’ll call “DAOs.” In retrospect, it’s an incredible breakthrough to see organizations transparently share their balance sheets, company salaries, operational processes, governance, and more on day one.

That does not prevent us from facing some harsh truths that these organizations (DAOs) go through. For example:

• It costs more money to send payments - it’s more expensive to send payments (gas costs) vs. sending a wire transfer (free).

  • Layer 2 solutions should eventually make costs minimal, but this raises the question: is the benefit of these transactions being on-chain more than having them completely free in siloed financial systems?

  • Payments are a primary use case that couldn't be solved, but ZK snarks and scaling solutions are right around the corner → Vitalik Buterin - Ideas for things worth building

• The balance between private and public payments - in the future, crypto organizations will require a combination of both public and private payments. There’s tons of technology/innovation within this space right now. Should DAOs be able to have private payments?

• Coordination costs are still incredibly high, resulting in “consensus” based decision-making, which does not yield the best results for traditional companies.

  • For companies, the best decisions are typically made where a group of individuals provides input, while decision-making falls to select individuals.

    • Keep in mind, framing DAO’s <> C-Corps might instantly lead you to the conclusion that DAOs won’t work, but more interestingly enough, DAOs might replace things that require more democratic structures, such as the following:

      • Non-Profits

      • Governments

      • Public Goods

      • Large Projects

• Legal, which I touch on here - and even more recent news with the CFTC and OOKI penalty.

Conclusion

Areas that I want to explore further, inspired by my conversations with our customers, is the idea that a new form of digital conglomerates, which almost serve to be more similar to countries vs. companies, will be the most successful model of what we consider “DAOs”.

“Companies'' or “Sub DAOs” could be the common governance underneath these digital conglomerates, which have their incentives but still provide base value to the overall protocol or project. Think of Alphabet as the DAO and Google as a company.

Over time, Utopia can and will build conviction in understanding which blockchain-based organizations work and which ones won’t, and I’m very grateful that we’re in the position we are today to observe and support this frontier.

Thank you for reading through my half-baked thoughts! I’d love to continue this discussion on Twitter here or feel free to book a call with me here.

- Kaito, CEO & Cofounder

Welcome to the first issue of Utopia Oasis, where I bring you fresh updates about our product, workflow tips & tricks, and food for thought.

We’ve been heads down and building this sprint and I have some fire updates for you. Short on time and want to cut to chase? Read our changelog here.

Product Updates

🤖 Discord Bot Notifications

Small update, big impact. Introducing our first ever Utopia Discord Bot, designed to notify you of new transactions that need to be signed and when your transactions have been executed. Learn how to set up Utopia notifications for your DAO in under 2 minutes here.

🌊 Simplified Workflow

Huh, Victoria, requests look different now! It sure does Anon; we took in all your feedback and simplified this workflow. All Incoming Requests now live on one page, meaning you can Approve, Archive, and Create transactions all in one place. No more navigating through three different tabs. Visualize all your incoming requests in a singular table.

Cheat Sheet

• Payments being sent to external wallets will have a red icon beside the wallet. To set a wallet as verified: Click into the request > Click “Save Wallet” > Add information > Click “Save.”

• If a request is not approved by an administrator, it will have a "Pending" status. To create a transaction, all requests must be approved.

• To Reject a request: Select the request > Click Archive.

🥚 Batch Contributor Actions

The days of accepting, rejecting, or assigning roles one by one for each of your contributors are over! Batch these actions by multi-selecting contributors and clicking on your desired action.

🗑 Archive Payment Request Categories

This update may just as well be a team favorite… we’re so excited to announce that you can finally archive categories within your Payment Request forms. We want to support payments for all types of workflows, big or small. You can simplify your forms and streamline information by archiving payment categories unrelated to your internal workflows (i.e., Airdrops).

To edit your Payment Request form: Click on the Settings Gear > Click “Payment Details” > Edit your form details on this page.

🔝 A New Topbar & Account Switcher

To top it all off, let’s talk about the Topbar! With our universal plus button, you can create a payment request, a payment plan, or add a contributor at any point in your workflow. In addition, we’ve made improvements to our account switcher: seamlessly navigate through your different safes without having to reauthenticate.

Oasis Tip

Catch your contributors who may accidentally submit duplicate requests by sorting by Recipient. In fact, you can toggle and sort your Payment Requests by Recipient, Request Amount, Category, or Request Date. This feature is helpful for deriving quick insights about your incoming Payment Requests.

Summertime Sadness

I want to close this issue by extending care and love to all of you in this community. Beyond the declining floor prices, rising burn rates, and endless memes, this bear marketing is affecting real people at the end of the day. Now, more than ever, we thank you for your ongoing support, feedback, and every ounce of attention you spend on us.

Please know that the Utopia Team is ready to support you as best as we can. 🤍

Book a time for a consultation or to request a demo:

https://calendly.com/d/dtt-6dv-j3m

Get started on Utopia:

https://app.utopialabs.com/login

Optimism is built by the Optimism Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing the Optimism Collective (a new model for properly rewarding those who create or sustain public goods). The Optimism community is one of the most dedicated builders focused on impact and growth, with over 1M dollars donated to public goods. We’re thrilled to be supporting Optimism DAOs and look forward to advancing toward the sustainability of public goods.

What is Optimism?

Optimism is a layer 2 Ethereum blockchain known to be lightning-fast and low-cost. It is built through the organization’s four pillars: simplicity, pragmatism, sustainability, and optimism.

• Simplicity –to build with a minimum number of moving parts, optimizing for low overhead cost while focusing on a secure, scalable, and flexible L2 system.

• Pragmatism –to be aware of real-world constraints and prioritize user and developer needs.

• Sustainability –to strive for long-term sustainability and scalability.

• Optimism –to work with continued optimism about the Ethereum vision and project.

Optimism is enabled through an “Optimismtic Rollup,” a blockchain that piggybacks off of the security of another "parent" blockchain. These roll-ups take advantage of their parent chains’ (Ethereums’) consensus mechanisms and make Ethereum transactions cheaper and faster.

Using Optimism on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality! Any Optimism Chain DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

New chain, same Utopia ⛩ Using multichain on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality! Any Optimism DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

1. Optimism DAOs can create recurring and 1-time payments on Utopia and pay them out in less than two clicks. These two clicks make a transaction through Gnosis SAFE, paying the team’s recurring compensation.

2. Once the transaction is created, DAO multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

3. A Utopia payment request link can be shared with the community to avoid back-and-forth messages. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

4. DAOs can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

5. In July, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow Optimism DAOs to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions.

Looking to free your team from operational overhead? Book a demo below

https://calendly.com/d/dtt-6dv-j3m

You can access Utopia on Optimism Chain here:

https://app.utopialabs.com/

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com

Sources and additional reading:

https://www.optimism.io/apps/daos

Working Constitution of the Optimism Collective

The Optimism Collective is a large-scale experiment in decentralized governance. Our Vision is to sustainably fund those public goods that improve upon the well-being of the Collective and beyond. This Working Constitution enshrines governing provisions and principles that, we hope, are calibrated to the ambition of this Vision.

https://gov.optimism.io

https://optimism.mirror.xyz/gQWKlrDqHzdKPsB1iUnI-cVN3v0NvsWnazK7ajlt1fI

Previously known as the xDai Chain, Gnosis Chain provides stability, scalability and an extendable beacon chain framework. We’re so happy to support Gnosis DAOs onto Utopia to help scale their operations as organizations.

What is Gnosis Chain?

The Gnosis Chain is a stable payment Ethereum Virtual Machine, meaning applications built solidity smart contracts can be deployed on Gnosis Chain. This blockchain is designed for fast and low-cost transactions. Similar to (link) BNB Smart Chain, Gnosis Chain uses a dual-token model.

1. xDai –stable token used for transactions, payments, and fees

2. Gnosis Beacon Chain –consensus-layer providing Proof of Stake protection

New chain, same Utopia ⛩ Using multichain on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality! Any Gnosis Chain DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

• Gnosis Chain DAOs can create recurring and 1-time payments on Utopia and pay them out in less than two clicks. These two clicks make a transaction through Gnosis SAFE, paying the team’s recurring compensation.

• Once the transaction is created, DAO multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

• A Utopia payment request link can be shared with the community to avoid back-and-forth messages. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

• DAOs can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

• In July, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow Gnosis Chain DAOs to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions.

Looking to free your team from operational overhead? Book a demo below

https://calendly.com/d/dtt-6dv-j3m

You can access Utopia on Gnosis Chain here:

https://app.utopialabs.com/

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com

Sources and additional reading:

What is xDAI on Gnosis Chain? * Benzinga Crypto

Gnosis is hoping to create a more scalable future for crypto, but how does it work? Here's an in-depth guide to what Gnosis chain really is.

https://www.benzinga.com

Gnosis chain blockchain explorer - View Gnosis chain stats | Blockscout

Open-source block explorer by Blockscout. Search transactions, verify smart contracts, analyze addresses, and track network activity. Complete blockchain data and APIs for the Gnosis chain Explorer network.

https://gnosis.blockscout.com

Discord - Group Chat That's All Fun & Games

Discord is great for playing games and chilling with friends, or even building a worldwide community. Customize your own space to talk, play, and hang out.

https://discord.com

Previously known as the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Binance Chain (BC), the BNB Chain was launched earlier this year as a blockchain dedicated to interoperability, efficiency, and security. The BNB Smart Chain is currently the third most popular chain in the Defi ecosystem, and Utopia is thrilled to be supporting this vibrant community.

What is BNB Smart Chain:

The BNB Smart chain was created by Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Much like the functionality of Ethereum, BNB is an EVM-compatible blockchain created for developers to build decentralized applications. Today the BNB Smart Chain is acclaimed for its community-driven ecosystem, lower gas fees, and high-speed transactions.

The newly rebranded BNB Smart Chain comprises:

• BNB Beacon Chain –“A fast and secure decentralized digital asset exchange based on the highly performant matching engine built on distributed consensus.

  • Used for governance (i.e. staking and voting)

• BNB Smart Chain (BSC) – “EVM compatible, consensus layers, and with hubs to multi-chains.”

  • Used to bring programmability and interoperability to the BNB Beacon Chain

New chain, same Utopia ⛩ Using multichain on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality! Any BNB Chain DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

• BNB Chain DAOs can create recurring and 1-time payments on Utopia and pay them out in less than two clicks. These two clicks make a transaction through Gnosis SAFE, paying the team’s recurring compensation.

• Once the transaction is created, DAO multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

• A Utopia payment request link can be shared with the community to avoid back-and-forth messages. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

• DAOs can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

• In July, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow BNB Chain DAOs to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions.

Looking to free your team from operational overhead? Book a demo below

https://calendly.com/d/dtt-6dv-j3m

You can access Utopia on BNB Chain here:

https://app.utopialabs.com/

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com

Sources and additional reading:

BNB Chain: Build for the Next Billion Web3 Users

BNB Chain is a community-driven and decentralized blockchain ecosystem for Web3 dApps, powered by BNB. Join us for massive Web3 access and a future full of opportunity!

https://www.bnbchain.org

As the name suggests, Utopia Labs embodies the pursuit of the ideal. We’re leveraging technology to achieve better collaboration in the Web3 economy, where DAOs hold the potential to break down geographic and digital barriers and usher in a new era of decentralized coordination.

Since we launched Utopia last year, we’ve partnered and built alongside leading crypto-native organizations including OlympusDAO, Lido, Friends with Benefits, Yield Guild Games, Badger DAO, Illuvium DAO, Fingerprints DAO, SushiSwap, Tracer DAO, Pleasr DAO, and more. We’re proud to have helped scale more than one hundred DAOs while facilitating millions in contributor payments and operational expenditure.

As we enter our next phase of growth, we’re excited to announce that we’ve closed a $23 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm with continued support from our earliest seed investor, Kindred Ventures, as well as participation from Circle Ventures, Gusto, Coinbase Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Distributed Global, and Fourth Revolution Capital.

When we say we build with DAO's – we mean it. We’re thrilled to also have support from DAOs like WOO DAO, Chain Forest, Yield Guild Gaming, Global Coin Research, IndiGG, Paragons DAO as well as founders, core contributors and operators from 1Inch, UMA Protocol, Zora, Opyn, Mirror, City DAO, Badger DAO, Llama, Goldfinch, VitaDAO, FIAT DAO, Mirror, Redacted Cartel, New Order, Nouns DAO, Party DAO, Friends with Benefits DAO, Krause House, Index Coop, Cabin DAO, SushiSwap, and Synthetix, involved in our Series A round.

From our first meeting with the Paradigm team, it was obvious we share the conviction that the future of crypto-enabled coordination requires thoughtful back-of-house infrastructure in order to advance, mature, and power a Web3 world. We’re excited to welcome them and all our other new partners into our Utopia.

This new funding helps us pursue two main goals:

1. Develop and grow our team of the builders and creators who are innovating for DAOs in impactful ways

2. Create new features, primitives, and initiatives that push the space forward and unlock the full potential of DAOs, including

   • Bookkeeping and Accounting

   • Financial Analytics

   • People Management

   • Treasury and Token Management

   • Fiat On & Off Ramps

   • Sub DAO’s

   • Token Vesting

   • Developer APIs

   • AND SO MUCH MORE

We’ll be expanding the very boundaries of what a DAO can do and be in every way imaginable.

Come join us!

• Get started with Utopia Core:

  • https://app.utopialabs.com/

• Apply to our job openings:

  • Job Openings

• Join our waitlist for tax-compliant DAO payroll, in partnership with Friends with Benefits DAO:

  • DAO crypto payroll

• Stay in touch on Twitter

Welcoming our new + existing partners:

• Paradigm

• Kindred Ventures

• Coinbase Ventures

• Gusto

• Circle Ventures

• Infinity Ventures Crypto

• Distributed Global

• Fourth Revolution Capital

• Spice Capital

• Chain Forest

• Cowa

• Yield Guild Games

• Global Coin Research

• IndiGG

• Paragons DAO

• WOO DAO

• John Palmer - PartyDAO

• Hart Lambur - UMA

• Anton Bukov - 1Inch

• Tyson Battistella + Jacob Horne - Zora

• Pattrick Rivera - Mirror

• Lonis Hamaili - DeWork

• Anjney Midha - Discord

• Mario Lopes - Krause House

• Sarah, Bhaumik, and Tasha from Crypto Culture & Society

• Micheal and Jack - Redacted Cartel and New Order

• Max Fiege - FIAT DAO

• Jbeezy + Izzy - Lido

• Patti Hauseman + Alex Zhang - FWB

• Manasi Vora - Skynet

• Alec Taggart, Jon Allen - Mirana Ventures

• Stefano and Hohmward Bound - Mont Virtua

• Sarang - SushiSwap

• Jordan - Synthetix

• Neel Popat - Donut App

• Andre Iguodala - Golden State Warriors and GP Mastery Ventures

• David Faktoki - Golden State Warriors

• Mason - BadgerDAO

• Todd White - Vita DAO

• Alexis Gauba - Opyn

• Ani Pai - Praxis

• Tyler Kraus - Fingerprints and SquiggleDAO

• Jason Choi - BlockCrunch

• Jason Kim + Nikita - Big Whale Labs

• Cuy Sheffield - Visa

• Steven Willinger - Coinbase

• Derevk Hsue, Larry Sukernik - Reverie

• Gaby Goldberg

• Todd White - Vita DAO

• Marc Bhargava - Tagomi / Coinbase

• Shweta Kayal - Angel Investor

• Wangarian - Angel Investor

• Georgios Vlachos - Axelar

• Hootie Rashidifard - Hash 3

• Mike Zinaman - Angel

• Dariya Khojasteh - Layer 3

• Matz - Cryptex Finance

• Scott Fitsimones - City DAO

• Jon Hillis - CabinDAO

• Big Sky - Index Coop

• Austin Green and Shreyas Hariharan - Llama

• Greg Egan - Goldfinch

• Bernard Chan - Race Capital

Polygon is a leader in exploring how to scale blockchains and developing technology that makes web3 accessible for all. It has an amazing and storied community of projects and supporters. The benefits of increased speed, efficiency, and lower cost make it an attractive option for web3 teams.

And Utopia is excited to support amazing DAOs and crypto-enabled organizations no matter where they live!

What is Polygon:

Polygon is an L2 scaling solution that helps Ethereum smart contracts with speed and scalability.

Polygon uses a modified proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that enables consensus to be achieved with every block.

But Polygon is working on an array of different scaling solutions! two of many being:

Polygon Edge/Subnets:

• A modular and extensible framework for building private or public Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks.

Polygon Hermez

• Hermez is an open-source zk-Rollup optimised for secure, low-cost and usable token transfers on the wings of Ethereum.

Polygon also has a deep commitment to sustainability with plans to go carbon-negative this year, and climate positive beyond that.

Communities we’re excited about on Polygon:

Polygon is home to many amazing DAOs and crypto projects; One of the amazing communities that inspired us to launch on Polygon was PoolTogether.

PoolTogether is a crypto-powered savings protocol based on Premium Bonds. Users can save money and have a chance to win every week.

New chain same Utopia ⛩

Using multichain on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality!!! Any Polygon DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

• Polygon DAOs can create recurring and 1-time payments on Utopia and pay them out in less than 2 clicks. These two clicks create a transaction through their Gnosis SAFE paying the team’s recurring compensation.

• Once the transaction is created, DAO multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

• To avoid back-and-forth messages, a Utopia payment request link can be shared with the community. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

• DAOs can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

• In may, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow Polygon DAOs to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions

Looking to join Pooltogether in freeing your team from operational overhead? Book a demo below

You can access Utopia on Polygon here:

https://app.utopialabs.com/login

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com

Sources and additional reading:

Move your money fast

Polygon is the fast, low-cost blockchain powering real-world assets and global payments, used by millions every day.

https://polygon.technology

https://www.investopedia.com/polygon-matic-definition-5217569#:~:text=Polygon%20is%20a%20cryptocurrency%2C%20with,name%20Matic%20Network%20in%202017.

Avalanche has been a leader in alternative chains since its launch in late 2020. It has a vibrant community of projects and supporters; who are not only crypto native but also institutional. The benefits of increased speed, efficiency, and innovative subnets make it an attractive option for web3 teams and companies making the transition from web2 to web3.

And Utopia is excited to support amazing DAOs and crypto-enabled organizations no matter where they live!

What is Avalanche:

Avalanche is a blockchain that combines scaling capabilities and quick confirmation times through its Avalanche Consensus Protocol. While being, its own blockchain Avalanche is also EVM compatible meaning applications built solidity smart contracts can still be deployed on Avalanche as well.

Avalanche is also known for its innovative subnet technology; Avalanche is made of 3 main blockchains

C-Chain:

is the chain that handles most of the volume including DeFi and NFTs.

X-Chain:

is used for the minting, distribution, receiving, and swapping of digital assets

P-Chain:

lets users stake $AVAX as validators and also create subnets.

Inspired by sharding, subnets are the preferred scaling solution for Avalanche. Subnets, or subnetworks, allow projects to stake $AVAX to create their L1 or L2 blockchains. These blockchains are then secured by a dynamic set of validators, working together to achieve a consensus.

This innovation allows for projects to have all the benefits of blockchain combined with the scalability needed for many projects to create L1 ones or L2s specifically for their needs.

Communities we’re excited about on Avalanche:

Avalanche is home to many amazing DAOs and crypto projects; two of the amazing communities that inspired us to launch on Avalanche are Pangolin DAO and Craba DAO

Pangolin is community-driven decentralized exchange for Avalanche and Ethereum assets with fast settlement, low transaction fees, and a democratic distribution–powered by Avalanche.

Why Pangolin chose Avalanche:

“I love Avax because of its groundbreaking consensus. With the advent of subnets we are now witnessing the birth of a new economic landscape that will allow the next innovations in the progression of web3 technology” - Justin from Pangolin

CrabaDAO is a GameFi/DeFi collective formed around the undersea world of fighting hermit-crabs, Crabada. The main focus of the group is to offer players more accessibility into Crabada while providing gameplay services that will maximize returns, grow the game’s community, and support the ecosystem and tokenomics of the game.

Why Craba chose Avalanche:

“We love AVAX because the community is great and because the growing network maintains cheap and fast gas fees allowing great projects including P2E”

What Craba excites about the DAO community on Craba:

“With the lower gas fees, AVAX brings much lower barrier to entries for DAOs. The gas fees in other networks can often make it not worth it to even join lower cost DAOs. You often see prices of DAO memberships starting at $1,000 outside of AVAX.

In this ecosystem, gas is so minimal it is almost no concern for even the lowest priced NFTs or transactions we chose AVAX because we can offer our membership at under $200 USD without the transaction gas costing $75 or more in some occasions”

New chain same Utopia ⛩

Using multichain on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality!!! Any DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

• Avalanche DAOs can create recurring and 1-time payments on Utopia and pay them out in less than 2 clicks. These two clicks create a transaction through their Gnosis SAFE paying the team’s recurring compensation.

• Once the transaction is created, DAO multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

• To avoid back-and-forth messages, a Utopia payment request link can be shared with the community. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

• DAOs can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

• In may, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow Avalanche DAOs to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions.

Looking to join Craba and Pangolin in freeing your team from operational overhead? Book a demo below

You can access Utopia on Avalanche here:

https://app.utopialabs.com/login

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com

Sources and additional reading:

https://chaindebrief.com/everything-you-need-to-know-avalanche-subnets/#:~:text=Inspired%20by%20sharding%2C%20subnets%20are,together%20to%20achieve%20a%20consensus.

https://docs.avax.network/learn/platform-overview/avalanche-consensus/

What Is Avalanche? A Look at the Popular 'Ethereum-Killer' Blockchain

Avalanche (AVAX) is a smart contract-focused blockchain project seeking to improve upon the shortcomings of Ethereum's original blockchain; namely transaction speeds and fees.

https://www.coindesk.com

Introduction to CrabaDAO!

Introduction to CrabaDAO! CrabaDAO is a group of Crabada players that have joined together to collectively play and earn. Introduction CrabaDAO is a GameFi/DeFi collective formed around the undersea ...

https://medium.com

More and more DAOs are choosing to settle on Arbitrum as a scaling solution. The benefits of increased speed, efficiency, and cost all make it an attractive option for growing teams to build on.

And Utopia is excited to support amazing DAOs no matter where they live!

What is Arbitrum:

Arbitrum is an L2 scaling solution that helps Ethereum smart contracts with speed and scalability.

Arbitrum uses a technique known as optimistic rollups to record batches of submitted transactions on the Ethereum main chain, and execute them on a cheap, scalable layer 2 sidechains while leveraging Ethereum to ensure correct results.

Communities we’re excited about on Arbitrum:

Arbitrum is home to many amazing DAOs and crypto projects; One of the amazing communities that inspired us to launch on Arbitrum was JonesDAO.

JonesDAO is a yield, strategy, and liquidity protocol for options, with vaults that enable 1-click access to institutional-grade options strategies while unlocking liquidity and capital efficiency for DeFi options with yield-bearing options-backed asset tokens.

JonesDAO uses Utopia on Arbitrum to manage payments and handle back-office operations!

Why Jones chose Arbitrum :

“ARB is for us because its a place where there can be alignment with our partners and cooperation instead of PVP due to the relatively new state but also it's a place that has unrivaled speed and safety.” says from Nach211 - JonesDAO

What excites Jones about the Arbitrum community:

“Here you get some of the best protocols in DeFi (Dopex, GMX) and some of the coolest NFTs (Sami's, DP's, Halloweens) with little gas and incredible speed” - Nach211 - JonesDAO

New chain same Utopia ⛩

Using multichain on Utopia is the same experience as eth-mainnet with no lessened functionality!!! Any Arbitrum DAO with a Gnosis Safe can use our full suite of features!

• Arbitrum DAOs can create recurring and 1-time payments on Utopia and pay them out in less than 2 clicks. These two clicks create a transaction through their Gnosis SAFE paying the team’s recurring compensation.

• Once the transaction is created, DAO multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

• To avoid back-and-forth messages, a Utopia payment request link can be shared with the community. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

• DAOs can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

• In may, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow Arbitrum DAOs to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions.

Looking to join JonesDAO in freeing your team from operational overhead? Book a demo below

You can access Utopia on Arbitrum here:

https://beta.utopialabs.com/

and soon it will be live on our main link:

https://app.utopialabs.com/login

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com

The inception of Pleasr DAO came from the Uniswap Genesis NFT created by pplpleasr, and a tweet calling for the formation of a DAO to acquire that NFT. The ​​piece “x * y = k” represented a historic, cultural, and economic moment; It is the first automated market equation used by Uniswap. The community came together, aligned under pplpleasr’s vow to donate the proceeds to Asian and Pacific-islander focused charities, and solidified under their mission “to collect, curate and commission art with a cause”.

The genesis auction was just the beginning, the Pleasr team quickly amassed a wealth of accomplishments; one being liberating the legendary “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” Wu Tang Clan album from the estate of disgraced financier Martin Shrekli. Like a decentralized Robinhood and band of merry outlaws, the Pleasr community returned a legendary piece of protest music back to the public through promised listening parties and exhibitions.

Pleaser is also well known for the acquisition of the iconic nft piece known as “Stay Free” by Edward Snowden which contains a historic document about the court decision, of which Snowden was a whistleblower. The proceeds of Pleasr’s acquisition went to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which is a non-profit organization created to empower journalists and promote transparency and decentralization.

While nuanced in their approach, Pleasr never shies away from championing ownership, sovereignty, and freedom; this is evidenced by their collection and the fractionalization efforts they pioneer. They are on the cutting edge of curating and sharing the most culturally significant moments of our time through mediums across the physical and digital worlds. Through its charitable work, Pleasr also finds ways to practice the values those cultural moments represent.

In the midst of reimagining the realms of art, culture, and collective impact; the last thing organizations like PleasrDAO should be concerned with is payroll and accounting for their treasury. Utopia is the proud payment provider of PleasrDAO.

How we support:

Like all DAOs, Pleasr has a core team of contributors that work to further its mission. At first, compensating this team meant spending hours juggling CSV files and keeping track of different payouts and reimbursements.

Utopia has made it extremely easy for Pleasr to manage and conduct their payments in only a few clicks.

After creating recurring payments on Utopia, all Pleasr does is make 2 clicks every 2 weeks. These two clicks create a transaction through their Gnosis SAFE paying the team’s recurring compensation.

Once the transaction is created, Pleasr multi-sig holders sign and execute the payment on Utopia without any gas! Our signing page lets multi-sig holders get a clearer picture of their Gnosis transactions and avoid paying gas individually.

And just like that, all Pleasr contributors are happily compensated.

On top of recurring payments, Pleasr also conducts many one-time payments to reimburse people for their expenses or work.

To avoid back-and-forth messages, a Utopia payment request link is shared with the Pleasr community. Individuals expecting payment can submit how much they should be paid along with information on the context of the payment.

After receiving and approving these requests, Pleasr can pay also them out in 2 clicks! After people receive their funds, Pleasr can track and download their payment history - giving them a detailed breakdown of the DAO’s expenses.

In April, Utopia will have a bookkeeping feature that will allow Pleasr to categorize and get analytics on all their DAO’s transactions.

At Utopia we’re building a platform that can abstract away the disjointed process of payments and accounting; So DAOs like Pleasr focus more on what they do best (building web3’s premier art institution) and less on operational overhead.

Looking to join PleasrDAO, FWBDAO, BadgerDAO and many others in freeing your team from operational overhead?

Learn more about Utopia at utopialabs.com and our friends at PleasrDAO at pleasr.org/

Sources:

Revealed: The Crypto Fans Who Secretly Paid $4 Million for Pharma Bro's Wu-Tang Album

The previously anonymous buyers behind the 'Pharma Bro' Wu-Tang Clan album reveal themselves & explain why they bought the one-of-a-kind LP.

https://www.rollingstone.com

Edward Snowden Plans to Auction an NFT, Proceeds Will Go to Freedom of the Press Foundation

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed he is stepping into the world of non-fungible token (NFT) assets.

https://news.bitcoin.com

Revealed: The Crypto Fans Who Secretly Paid $4 Million for Pharma Bro's Wu-Tang Album

The previously anonymous buyers behind the 'Pharma Bro' Wu-Tang Clan album reveal themselves & explain why they bought the one-of-a-kind LP.

https://www.rollingstone.com

DAO’s revolutionize the way work is done, and allow anyone from anywhere in the world to gain ownership in the value they produce. Utopia Core is a commitment to this vision.

Since the founding of Utopia Labs only four months ago, our team has been hard at work building our core product with a collaborative, co-creation software development process.

Kaito

@kaycidot

Build with DAO's > Build for DAO's

54

3:48 PM • Jan 10, 2022

When we say “building with DAOs” we mean it. We’re grateful to be working with DAO’s that are revolutionizing their respective industries - DAOs like Friends with Benefits, Yield Guild Games, Badger DAO, Illuvium DAO, Fingerprints DAO, Shark DAO, Tracer DAO, Pleasr DAO and more.

Akin to the DAOs we build with, Utopia was built through the hard work of an entire community - a big shoutout to DAO operators, contributors, accountants, ops leads, and the multi-sigs.

But this is just the beginning; the gardens ahead are vast; and we aim to build web 3’s promised Utopia with the amazing communities that inhabit it. We have an ambitious roadmap brewing, a few primitives in store, and we’re growing fast.

Meet Utopia Core - the complete payment + payroll suite for DAO’s that need to scale.

Here’s a breakdown on how we solve your DAO’s largest operational pain points.

1. Payroll is currently done manually - which takes up a ton of time.

We automate payroll to core team contributors - allowing you to create templates ready for bulk execution. Handle bulk payroll transactions, mass labelling, multiple tokens, and vesting, coming soon.

2. Transaction history and accounting is chaotic and dis-organized.

We automate smart contract labelling for accounting - so you can spend less time book-keeping. Every transaction you make with Utopia is complemented with rich metadata, giving you a complete overview of your on-chain treasury transactions.

3. The expense process is painful - both for the contributors submitting, and the DAO's reviewing.

Avoid spending time double checking receipts and invoices - and approve/reject expenses in one click. See how we helped organizations such as Global Coin Research and Fingerprints DAO with their payment requests.

4. Getting all of your payments in one place is annoying and challenging as a DAO.

Instead of checking discord, email, forums and telegram chat messages - just share one custom URL (try ours below) and review, reject and exectute all of your payments in one place.

https://app.utopialabs.com/request/payment/617352c749a05795d345d54e

Join our public beta here 👇

https://www.utopialabs.com/

Beyond the Gates - What's Next?

Here’s what’s on our product roadmap - which you can contribute to here:

https://utopia-labs.notion.site/Utopia-Public-Feedback-Page-458b4b7208d949d695421eb6b971931c

1. Compliant Payroll

Utopia is a long term partner for all contributor payment management requirements, and we’re shipping the very first “Payroll Compliance Stack” for DAO’s, launching end of March, 2022 with our partners over at Friends with Benefits DAO.

Utopia’s payroll compliance will be the engine that takes care of the end-to-end tax flow so that you can process payroll confidently while paying in your DAO’s native token, or any ERC-20 token. We'll automatically register for payroll ID numbers, withhold the right amount of tax, access the reports employers and employees need to file, and receive alerts whenever information is required.

Interested in compliant payroll for your DAO? Register for the waitlist here:

Request a Demo - Sign up for the Waitlist: Compliant Payroll for DAO's

Airtable is a low-code platform for building collaborative apps. Customize your workflow, collaborate, and achieve ambitious outcomes. Get started for free.

https://airtable.com

2. Token Vesting

Tokens are integral to the way that DAOs align their core contributors for the long run.

Utopia aims to streamline the experience of token vesting for DAOs and their contributors alongside our recurring payments functionality - handling everything from the vesting smart contract to a direct integration with our payroll compliance stack.

3. Accounting and Analytics

We’re excited to roll out an automated, real time transaction labeling feature that will help DAO contributors gain greater insight into how their communities are being run.

In the near future we’ll be rolling out analytics pages of both internal and external use cases for DAO leadership and their contributors - documenting both inflows and outflows so DAO’s can optimize for P&L, balance sheet, and token flow reports.

Welcome to Web3’s promised Utopia ⛩

In the coming months we’ll be expanding the very boundaries of what a DAO can do in the areas of contributor compensation, compliance and tax, reporting/analytics, treasury management, and much more..

Utopia Core is just the beginning of what we can build with DAOs, for DAOs.

• Get started with Utopia Core.

• Apply to our job openings.

• Join our waitlist for compliant DAO payroll.

• Follow us on Twitter.

• Check out our mention in the Defiant 👇

Our Endless Wall of Love and Shoutouts ❤️

lyons800.eth

@Lyons_800

You don’t use utopia for your DAO payroll ?

27

3:39 PM • Jan 29, 2022

René

@RJPinnell

If you run a DAO then @utopialabs_ is a must to pay your contributors.

18

10:26 PM • Jan 28, 2022

Dan Wu

@itsdanwu

@gnosisSafe - multi-sig/treasury
@voteWithTally / @boardroom_info / @SnapshotLabs - voting/gvrnce
@clarityteams / @wonderverse_xyz - knowledge/proj mgmt
@utopialabs_ - payroll/invoice
@viamirror - content

& once the DAO is scaling, @OrcaProtocol - DAO structure/member mgmt

6

8:42 PM • Jan 14, 2022

cooperray.eth 🎩 ↑ ᵍᵐ ⌐◨-◨ 🚲

@_cooperray_

I did our first @utopialabs_ payroll today for @obscuradao. Seamless. DAOs look into this tool!!! Recurring payments, request feature, payee/contributor roles. Hyped on this. Thanks @0xkaito !! Nice to meet you too

33

3:49 PM • Jan 28, 2022

SharkDAO ⌐◨-◨

@sharkdao

Surprise!!!

If you were an epoch one contributor in @coordinape, check your wallet because you've been paid!

Shoutout to @Goldypix for managing all those transactions and @utopialabs_ for helping us make it happen.

14

6:47 AM • Dec 9, 2021

Synth

@Synth0_0

Got paid today by @sharkdao from a @coordinape round that I helped to organize. Surreal feeling to be paid in internet money, for internet work, working alongside internet frens. (also shoutout @utopialabs_ and @Goldypix for being the best HR I could ask for)

88

11:09 PM • Dec 8, 2021

Liam

@liam_xbt

The DAO starter stack:

Crowdfund & Publication @viamirror
Multisig @gnosisSafe
Communication @discord
Membership @Collab_Land_
Project Management @wonderverse_xyz
AMM @Uniswap
Governance @SnapshotLabs
Accounting & Payments @utopialabs_
Compensation @coordinape

What's missing?

372

1:25 PM • Nov 18, 2021

Sarah Moosvi

@m00sv1

Thank you @utopialabs_ for making my DAO ops dreams come true today. I'm in love.

33

8:53 AM • Nov 17, 2021

nicooo.eth

@evmexplorer

Identifying/developing the best solutions for DAO tooling is imo
- super interesting
- a huge value proposition
- lots of fun

I want to test everything out there and work to develop next gen, crypto-native products. Shill me your tools!

p.s the list needs @utopialabs_

wir

@wirjo

DAO tooling is still a blend of web2 and web3. Early days.

10

1:43 AM • Nov 14, 2021

Goltra

@Goltra

If you're a core contributor to a DAO, you've got to be paying attention to what the @utopialabs_ team is up to

Managing DAO contributors (vs. simple employees) will create new challenges to be solved at scale - and the Utopia team is going to be key to building in this space

12

11:36 AM • Oct 1, 2021

Will Papper ✺

@WillPapper

Very excited to support @utopialabs_ on their journey and partner with them via @SyndicateDAO. DAO payroll is critical infrastructure to allow DAOs to go head-to-head with traditional corporations. An important step in allowing people to work for a DAO and receive upside together

57

11:24 AM • Oct 1, 2021

GCR is a research and investment DAO focused on Web3. They were most recently featured on Coindesk here: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/06/will-daos-replace-crypto-venture-capital/

Products Used

• Payment Requests

Challenge

Global Coin Research previously didn’t have a central repository for expenses - contributors were emailing their receipts to a general email account.

GCR also tried to use Expensify - both alternatives turned out to be un-friendly to crypto transactions and Web3 organizations.

Additionally, GCR didn’t know how to manage part time members, and there wasn’t really a good approach to tracking their contributions and compensation mechanisms.

Solution

GCR uses the payment requests features on a weekly basis to manage their expenses and part time contributors - reducing several friction points and logistic setup costs for GCR.

Try out our payment requests feature below 👇

https://app.utopialabs.com/request/payment?daoId=617352c749a05795d345d54e

For all payments, Utopia has made it so so easy! You just share a shareable link with contributors and anyone can onboard themselves. None of our contributors has had issues thus far.

Additionally, the team support has been one of the best. This is especially when we are early in the DAO tooling space and need alot of handholding and guidance on new crypto-native products. It’s rewarding to think that we are collaborating together to build the best tools in Web3. Joyce Yang, GCR

Results

Because Utopias infrastructure serves as the connective layer across GCR’s payment operations, GCR reduces several overhead costs associated with expense + part time contributor payment management.

With this partnership, GCR joins several DAO's using Utopia today to scale and adapt their contributor payments, accounting, and reporting. Utopia now counts several DAO's in their respective verticals (NFT's, Investing, Media, DeFi) as prospective design partners + clients.

We’re super excited to be collaborating with Utopia in building the best tools in the space.

Don’t hesitate to ask us about our experience, and learn more about us at gcr.community. Joyce Yang, GCR

Ready to use Utopia?

The Gates are Open on Jan 31st, 2021 - if you’d like to access Utopia before then - book a demo by clicking here.

https://twitter.com/utopialabs_/status/1479149071139016707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=notion%3A%2F%2Fwww.notion.so%2Futopia-labs%2FMeet-Utopia-the-modern-system-for-managing-payroll-and-payments-built-right-on-top-of-Gnosis-SAFE-ea9afffd4df441d1b8f39c31be306aac

Over the past few months, I’ve been asked a lot about the nature of compliance for DAOs. Is this DAO compliant or not? Is compliance a challenge for DAOs?

My answer to these questions begins with the title of this article - compliance is a spectrum.

Before you start a company, you start a side project. You don't incorporate your side project on the day that you have the idea, and you’d likely not incorporate it until you’ve made your first sale.

Rather, you put up a landing page, build out a MVP, start making a few sales, and then incorporate your company — justifying the expense and the overhead compliance required for operating a C-Corp.

This is exactly how DAOs work today, except that the ideation and execution layer is much faster for a multitude of reasons (ie. open-source, ownership incentives, etc.). Most DAOs, however, like side projects when they first start, are probably not "regulated" nor "compliant."

The type of “DAO” also matters - are you a social DAO crowdfunding via NFT’s, or a DeFi project bootstrapping initial liquidity?

Even when a DAO reaches a stage in which incorporation makes sense, how they comply with corporation laws turns out to be a spectrum, and it’s much more than a binary “Compliant vs Non-compliant” answer upon analysis.

From my experience, I’ve met DAOs from across the entire spectrum, and I’ve learned that a shift from left (not optimizing for “compliance”) to right (“optimized compliance”) is possible.

Spectrum:

1. DAOs that run completely outside of any nation state.

2. DAOs that are not part of any nation state, but exploring legal counsel and are pro-active with potential compliance audits/checks.

3. DAOs that are based overseas and have international legal structures.

4. DAOs that have a complete legal wrapper as an American C-Corp or LLC.

5. DAOs that are under Wyoming DAO LLC Laws.

I believe the way we move forward with the intersection of legal and decentralized autonomous organizations is NOT to ask the question, “How do we fit a DAO into a C-Corp?” It conforms a completely novel, new idea into a restrictive box (that being the current laws around traditional C-corps and LLC's).

Rather, I believe that the entire premise of cryptography is to push laws forward, so the laws themselves can adapt and become more efficient. The question to ask then becomes:

"What are the most optimal laws that can serve DAOs?"

The reason why DAOs are so powerful is because we have always known that companies are simply coordination mechanisms where groups of people form an idea that results in “imaginary assets” (equity) being issued out of thin air (credits to my conversation with Jeff Christian on this.). This is powerful, as optimism is required for innovation.

For these types of imaginary assets (ie.equity), you might have noticed that a value is assigned (most of the time you get issued 10 million shares, where each share costs 0.0001 cents for example). For these types of assets, it makes much more sense for it to be digitally native and digitally governed — through tokens, for example.

DAOs serve to be a digital-first (the first of its kind) organization governed not by contractual documents enforced by a nation state, but rather, contractual code enforced by a censorship resistant, automated, and efficient agent. To a high level, this should, and will replace a portion of regulation.

Although the question of “How do we fit a DAO into a C-Corp?” is very useful so that DAOs, — in their very early stages — are able to thrive, survive, and push forward economic progress, I believe that DAOs should have their own laws as there are differing regulations that apply to C-Corps as there are for LLC's.

Most notably, there are a few key points in which DAOs should have specific laws that pertain to this new governance structure:

1. Limited Liability: How does limited liability work when token holders are not only customers, investors, and "employees" of the project? How does it work based on differing levels of contribution?

2. Know Your Customer (KYC): How can we implement zero knowledge KYC obligations while retaining privacy and freedom for individuals, regardless of who they are or where they're from?

3. Smart Contracts: How can smart contracts be recognized as a viable method of optimizing for compliance, just like how we have accountants to optimize for year-end audits and notaries to witness signatures on legal documents?

4. Tax Laws: Wider conversations need to be had by regulators that take into account the global permission-less nature of the products, services, and experiences at the core of DAOs, but also understanding of the rapidly changing nature of DAO token value and utility.

These are just a few of my running thoughts, but that’s clearly why productizing legal is very difficult for new governance structures, and it’s because one DAO doesn’t, and will never, fit all.

Edited by:

• Alexander Wu

• Pryce Yebesi

Fingerprints DAO curates and collects artworks that use smart contracts in exceptionally creative ways. They bring together artists and builders to produce fingerprints of the blockchain.

Products Used

• Payment Requests

Challenge

Fingerprints DAO has various project initiatives that spread across contributors from all different time zones with 50+ active contributors.

Whether it's payments for gas fees, event venues, software solutions, to PR agencies, Fingerprints DAO previously had a hard time being able to organize + manage all of the operational expenses that came with operating a DAO at scale.

Solution

Fingerprints DAO chose Utopia as it's flexible payments solution to streamline their invoice + expense processes.

By simply sharing one link to contributors, Fingerprints DAO contributors were able to submit a payment request associated with their operational expenses.

This allowed for the Fingerprints DAO's operations + finance team to streamline their review, audit + bulk transaction execution process.

It's unlocked a new level of speed for our operational transactions that wouldn't otherwise be possible, owing to the great payment request feature Utopia has developed.

Lucas Pontes, Fingerprints DAO

Results

Because Utopias’s infrastructure serves as the connective layer across all of Fingerprints DAO's payment operations, Fingerprints DAO can reduce operational costs, leading to further opportunities to maximize what matters most - their work curating, collecting, and creating.

With this partnership, Fingerprints joins several DAO's using Utopia today to scale and adapt their contributor payments, accounting, and reporting. Utopia now counts several DAO's in their respective verticals (NFT's, Investing, Media, DeFi) as prospective design partners + clients.

I believe pretty much all serious DAOs should have a tool like this. Accounting and financial processes are often overlooked, and end up snowballing into serious issues down the road. Blockchain data has no metadata, so you won't remember what that random transaction you did yesterday was for a few months from now.

Lucas Pontes, Fingerprints DAO

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⭐ Any questions? Ping Kaito on Twitter or Discord (kaito | Utopia Labs ⛩#5843)