BLOCKS DAO LLC is trying to lead the push to get widespread use of blockchain technology across industries. It is working to becoming an industry and chain agnostic solution to help migrate organizations to using the blockchain. They are trying to do this through the use of pre-made modules, easy UIs, and setting up multi-sig wallets as a service.
For those of us who don’t have a business to migrate to the blockchain, BLOCKS DAO also has a native token $BLOCKS. This is currently tradeable & stake-able.
So what is the story of BLOCKS DAO LLC and is $BLOCKS a token you should look out for?
BLOCKS DAO LLC Bringing Business on the Blockchain
BLOCKS’ long-term mission is to bring more businesses onto the blockchain. They state their intention is to ‘devise innovative solutions’ and ‘implement those solutions via a streamlined process of seamless integration’. BLOCKS token is ‘chain agnostic’ allowing for it to be used on alt and L2 chains. Additionally, BLOCKS claims to have nearly $0 gas fees on its transaction regardless of the network.
You may have noticed the LLC in the name so far. BLOCKS DAO LLC is the first DAO LLC and prominently points this out as an example of its forward thinking.
BLOCKS DAO LLC – The World’s First DAO LLC
BLOCKS was the first registered DAO LLC in the world after Wyoming’s recently passed bill. Their website highlights the benefits of a DAO LLC. They claim it is different than a pure Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) as the LLC adds a layer of liability protection to all participants. Traditional DAOs may be open to future regulatory risks.
DAOs are leaderless organizations that are run on smart contracts and therefore largely autonomous. The DAO members vote on decisions and if the vote passes the code executes. (Note – many “DAOs” in the crypto space call themselves DAOs but have leaders and are far from autonomous.) BLOCKS’ site claims that without LLC protection and due to the uncertainty of any rulings around it, token-holders in a traditional DAO could have there personal assets at risk without the LLC.
Wyoming passed a law allowing for a new limited liability company structure, the DAO LLC. By going through the extra hurdles to be a DAO LLC, BLOCKS claims that it protects investors and stakeholders from all liability. Since DAOs are global and cross-boarder liability is hard to enforce, there is a risk of stakeholders in the country of issue to be on the hook for the entire DAO, according to BLOCKS. As an LLC, only the DAOs assets are at risk, not any personal assets of stake holders.
Seven Types of DAOs According to BLOCKS
BLOCKS splits DAOS into 7 types: Grant, Protocol, Investment, Service, Social, Collector, and Media. Each DAO has different needs and BLOCKS is trying to set up ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions to help each category.
1. Grant DAOs
Communities donate funds and the DAO structure is used to vote on how to spend the pool of money. To be considered for the money, governance proposals were made by the community. Grant DAOs originally had non-transferrable shares.
2. Protocol DAOs
Protocol DAOs are used to pass power from the core dev team to the community. They issued the first transferable ERC-20 tokens that had secondary market value. The tokens gave token-holders the ability to propose, vote on, and implement changes to the network’s underlying mechanics. Protocol DAOs opened the door for token issuance on any commnunity owned project.
3. Investment DAOs
Similar to investmetment groups, Investment DAOs allow members to pool capital and invest in projects. Many investment DAOs operate like early-stage investors looking for new projects. Investment DAOs come with more legal restrictions than Grant DAOs.
4. Service DAOs
Service DAOs use on-chain credentials to act like ‘crypto-native’ talent agencies. They create centralized working groups to find vital skkills from all over the internet. The goal is to gather a legal, creative, governance, marketing, development, and treasury management talent in the DAO. Completed work gets rewarded with ERC-20 tokens which give emplyee ownership.
5. Social DAOs
Social DAOs ransform group chats into possible digital enterprises. These are an evolution of group chats where the group members can be collaborators. These DAOs harness the power of connections.
6. Collector DAOs
Collector DAOs collect NFTs and do so by pooling talent of people able to discern between a good and poor long-term investment in NFT.
7. Media DAOs
Media DAOs give power of what to consume back to thoses who consume the content. These DAOs are an opportunity for content distributors to interact with their own work to their own community better. The community is able to decide what they see and the content distributor is able to gain awareness.
DAO Benefits from BLOCKS
BLOCKS is a DAO LLC that is trying to help other industries and companies move onto the blockchain. As such, they highlight DAOs as having many benefits versus a traditional organization. On the BLOCKS site, the benefits of DAOs include the following:
- The DAOs decisions and actions are based on the code. This makes it 100% verifiable and transparent and helps remove trust issues from dealing with people, especially over the internet.
- DAO organizational structures are flat and largely democratized vs traditional organizations that are more hierarchal. DAOs typically rely on voting on proposals from members of the DAO to be implemented. This brings more people into the decision vs the enclosed board room decision making of a traditional organization. However, anyone who has spent significant time in democratized structures has seen that sometime the masses are pretty poor decision makers. It would be an over-generalization to say that democractic processes are always better.
- DAO funding is more of a crowdfunding model with the tokens holders helping to direct the flow of funds. The voting and transactions should all flow seamless through the code. In a traditional structure the decision process are less clear and there is a lot of manual effort required to implement any transactions. Additionally, DAOs are fully transparent and public while traditional organizations are opaque and much of the going ons are private.
- The blockchain also eliminates the need of third parties as the blockchain directly handles and records all the action. This leads to higher efficiency in DAOs as they can be set up by a Turing-complete platform to require nearly no human interaction.
- The last benefit listed by BLOCKS is the legal status of DAOs allowing for general partnership structures that eliminate local limitations.
What is BLOCKS DAO?
BLOCKS DAO identifies itself as a combination of a Social and Services DAO. The purpose of the DAO is to onboard industries onto the blockchain through industry & blockchain agnostic solutions. BLOCKS is looking to ‘pioneer the blockchain technology space, providing innovative solutions to companies looking for blockchain-based solutions to their business challenges.
The types of business that BLOCKS lists as good first entries are real estate, financial services, agro tech, and ticketing.
BLOCKS DAO wants to be the leader in ‘demonstrating a commitment to compliance and security’ through the DAO LLC structure.
BLOCKS claims to have a library of governance protocols and friendly user interfaces for ‘creating and managing DAOs’. Additionally BLOCKS helps with multi-signature wallets to allow for extra security around the onboarding companies treasuries.
BLOCKS does have a governance token, $BLOCKS. The tokens are used for the community and segmented into 3 tiers based on the holdings. The higher tiers has more voting and higher staking rewards.
BLOCKS Tokenomics
In total, 10,000,000,000 BLOCKS tokens will be minted and distributed as shown below.
In order to participate in the DAO, a minimum of $BLOCKS must be held.
The team allocation of 23% is released 14% at month 1, 5% evenly across year 2, and 4% evenly across year 3. The 4% airdrop was to community members in the first month of the DAOs existance.
The 25% Corporate Treasury allocation unlocks 10% in year 1, 9% in year 2, and 6% in year 3 and will be ‘governed and used as the community deems fit’ through voting on proposals.
The 5 listed utilities of the $BLOCKS token are:
- Tokenized Community Participation
- Governance
- Platforms
- Software Development Kits
- Network Participation
Lastly, BLOCKS offers farming and staking rewards to $BLOCKS token holders.
The price action on the $BLOCKS token has not been pretty and the volume traded is miniscule, in the low 6-figure dollar amount.
Does BLOCKS Have Any Partners?
BLOCKS DAO has partnered with Revest Protocol and BizSecure.
Revest Protocol is developing Financial Non-Fungible Tokens (FNFTs). Revest allows for depositing any ERC-20 token and set custom conditions. This can be used to set NFT vesting schedules up to derivative and borrowing. Revest is using BLOCKS modules in the verification of the NFTs. Revest was able to use the off-the-shelf modules BLOCKS had already developed.
BizSecure creates Immutable Data Services (IDS)is a platformthat helps verify digital relationships. They will be using BLOCKS help in building a ‘Hyperledger’ that leverages publicand private networks. BizSecure has a relationship with the US AirForce to put flight records on the blockchain.
BLOCKS may also be working to help put student academic records on the blockchain and looking to help with celebrity & athlete NFT ownership.
Summary BLOCKS DAO LLC
In summary, BLOCKS has made some promising strides in its half year of existence. From being the first DAO LLC to gaining some partnerships with organizations looking to get on the blockchain. BLOCKS is a potentially interesting infastructure play for future wider blockchain adoption.
However, it is still a very new concept and the price action on the token has been ugly. (Albeit, they launched in October right near the crypto market top). Additionally, the token is horrifically illiquid currently with $150k of trade volume listed on CoinGecko.
The main utility of the $BLOCKS token seems to be the access to using BLOCKS services, which makes this fairly uninteresting as an investment. However, the work to onboard more industries and organizations to using the blockchain could help the broader acceptance of crypto.
In short, if you are in it for the tech, BLOCKS DAO LLC may be a protocol to watch, otherwise it is just an interesting story of blockchain adoption and DAO LLC creation for now.
