Project highlights
Personal DAO is an application built 100% on the IC. It is built in such a way that numerous Personal DAO replicas can be deployed to the IC and sold via an NFT marketplace. Each Personal DAO has its own User interface, URL, API, treasury and database.
Personal DAOs have the ability to create DAO-controlled neurons. Any DAO member may submit a proposal to stake a new neuron or to stake ICP within any of the DAO’s existing neurons. Voting Power over the DAO is allocated in proportion to the sum of a DAO member’s neuron stake (age and dissolve delay bonuses included). Personal DAOs also have the ability to select a neuron that they choose to follow when voting on NNS proposals.
Personal DAO addresses the increasing desire for decentralization of NNS governance by supplying active voters with the tooling they need in order to concentrate and apply the voting power that exists within their respective communities. It also addresses the ever-increasing need for community financing options and revenue sources.
The target user for Personal DAOs are:
1.) Developers and/or active voters who aspire to accrue more voting power within governance of the NNS.
2.) Users who cannot afford to stake in their own neuron due to the high costs and commitment needed in order to achieve the 1.05 $ICP in rewards required before being able to withdraw their NNS rewards. Rather than staking alone, these users can stake within a Personal DAO’s fractionalized neuron. By doing so, they’re able to distribute the cost barrier amongst the group, thereby enabling them to reach the threshold needed in order to withdraw ICP rewards.
3.) Users looking to leverage their ICP neuron stakes in order to receive liquid ICP/stable coins.
4.) Users looking to leverage their liquid ICP to receive stable coins.
5.) Users looking to leverage their ckBTC to receive stable coins.
6.) Users looking to leverage their ckETH to receive stable coins.
7.) ICP investors looking to create a revenue source for themselves by offering loans to members of their respective Personal DAOs.
Web3 advantages
Personal DAO’s peer-to-peer lending solution replaces the need for TradFi community banks as it serves the same function of being a community lending source with hardly any of the overhead costs associated with maintaining a traditional TradFi community bank. Each Personal DAO has a baseline operations cost of approximately $2.50 per month, with that cost increasing proportionally to the amount of active users within a particular Personal DAO. Compare that baseline cost to a TradFi community bank ($600,000 - $2,500,000 according to FINMODELSLAB)
How is it built
Each Personal DAO is comprised of 5 different canisters:
1.) User Interface Canister: This canister is an asset canister that stores the code of the DAO’s User Interface. The User interface is written in React.js.
2.) Backend Canister: This canister is where the business logic of the application is written. It is responsible for receiving calls made from the User Interface canister, and then routing/retrieving information from other canisters within the DAO). Every bit of data sent to or from the User Interface passes through this canister before ultimately reaching its final destination. The backend canister is listed as the controller of every canister within the DAO (including the backend canister, itself).
3.) Manager Canister: This canister is responsible for downloading and installing code updates to the Personal DAO that are made available by our development team. Just like the Backend Canister, this canister is also listed as the controller of every canister within the DAO (including the Manager Canister, itself). Updates to a particular Personal DAO may only be deliver by said Personal DAO’s corresponding manager canister. The Manager Canister only performs updates upon consensus being reached by the DAO members. No member of the dev team may force any updates upon any Personal DAOs.
4.) Treasury Canister: This canister is responsible for creating and managing neurons owned by the DAO, as well as keeping track of member contributions to said neurons and calculating the voting power of contributing member.
5.) User Root Canister: This canister is responsible for storing users’ personal data and assets. Each user receives their own Root Canister that is exclusive to their account.
Internet Computer superpowers
Creating an application such as Personal DAO- a completely commoditized application that users own 100% end-to-end- is only possible if every portion of the application is able to be written within smart contracts. Otherwise, portions of the application that cannot be written within smart contracts will always be required to be owned and maintained by an intermediary (AKA, a dev team). The Internet Computer’s ability to host User Interface logic within smart contracts has made Personal DAO’s architecture possible where it otherwise wouldn’t have been.
Go-To-Market strategy
My strategy for introducing Personal DAO to markets is to lead with the peer-to-peer lending capabilities. There is real-world economic incentive for people to found their own Personal DAOs in order to create a revenue source by offering financing to whomever they onboard to their Personal DAO. There is also real-world economic incentive for people who wish to receive financing.
My thesis is that by serving as a source of credit, Personal DAO’s real-world monetary benefits will provide incentive for current ICP enthusiasts to found their own Personal DAOs and use them to onboard the “crypto curious” people of their lives to their Personal DAOs. The Personal DAO founders are incentivized by the potential to create a revenue source for themselves via the interest earned from the loans they provide. The people being onboarded are incentivized to come aboard a Personal DAO since it acts as a source of credit.
I will be coupling the incentives offered by Personal DAOs with an education campaign that is intended to inform users-to-be-onboarded of the following:
1.) Distributed Ledger Technology basics
2.) Buying and selling cryptocurrencies
3.) Staking on the Internet Computer
4.) Creating an Internet Identity
5.) Submitting a proposal for a loan using Personal DAO
6.) Servicing a loan received from a Personal DAO
I currently serve the U.S. Blockchain Coalition as the Delegate for the State of Wisconsin and the Vice-chair of the Midwestern Region. Through my connections here, intend to onboard other blockchain professionals as both users of my own Personal DAO and eventually founders of their own Personal DAOs.
Personal DAO’s are also capable of being minted and sold as NFTs and will be distributed via NFT platforms built on the Internet Computer.
Monetization
The development team will earn revenue via:
1.) The Sale of Personal DAO “Members Pass” NFTs (NFTs that grant its holders access to join our Personal DAO where they will then have access to financing).
2.) The Sale of Personal DAO “Founder” NFTs (NFTs that grant its holders administrative status of their own, newly deployed Personal DAO).
3.) Automated Cycles replenishment services to the Personal DAOs deployed to the Internet Computer. Our team will collect a small fee for replenishing the cycles consumed by the Personal DAOs deployed to the Internet Computer.
4.) Upgrade fees collected upon delivery of new feature updates (we do not intend to pursue this revenue source during the alpha & beta stages of development which are expected to last until late 2025 or so).
5.) Revenue Generated by interest earned from lending services offered to members of our own Personal DAO (Note: this is the same way every other Personal DAO founder will be able to monetize their own Personal DAOs).
Once the Personal DAO ecosystem has been seeded and has had time to mature, we intend to conduct an SNS launch of the underlying infrastructure used to:
1.) deliver the code upgrades
2.) replenish the cycles consumed by Personal DAOs
3.) store Personal DAO’s master copy (from which other Personal DAOs are upgraded upon internally voting to adopt the upgrades).
This SNS launch will not take place until we’ve concluded the testing phase of the project’s lifecycle.
Status of the project
We’ve recently concluded the foundational work that Personal DAO relies on: the upgrade delivery protocols, DAO-controlled neuron functionality and the deployment/distribution protocols. This comprises the Minimum Viable Product that is needed in order to begin deploying Personal DAOs to the internet computer, servicing the Personal DAOs deployed in a way that preserves self-sovereignty of the DAOs for its members, and seeding the DAOs with its members (stakers). We are currently rolling out the “OG” Personal DAO, which is the first Personal DAO to be released to market. During this time, we will be addressing User feedback, fixing bugs, and stress testing the upgrader protocols to ensure all upgrades are delivering smoothly. This phase of development is anticipated to conclude towards the end of Q2 2024.
Resources
X(Twitter): https://x.com/Personal_DAO
Discord: Personal Dao🥇
Future Plans
Immediately after concluding the roll out of Personal DAO, I will be creating the peer-to-peer lending protocols which will allow users to borrow liquid ICP, using their Personal DAO neuron stakes as collateral. This is anticipated to conclude sometime in Q3 2024. By Q4 2024, I intend to begin adding support for ETH, BTC and stable coins to the lending protocols. I also intend to begin selling Personal DAOs to aspiring DAO founders.
There are many more plans that I’ll be announcing in due time. In the mean time, feel free to reach out to me with any questions. I can be reached via the Discord server link.
