Nantung DAO Chronicle (Part II): The Collision of Ideals and Reality

What is the goal?

Nantang DAO is committed to promoting the integration of rural development and Web3, facilitating mutual learning and exchange between rural construction and Web3 communities. Specific objectives include transforming the Nantang Agricultural Cooperative Cultural Courtyard and building a Web3 partner village base; integrating with the Nantang Cooperative to establish a sustainable work point system.

However, there is a gap between ideals and reality. Nantang DAO is more like a rigid transplantation of other DAO models into the countryside, failing to closely integrate with the fundamental needs of the rural areas, and the goal setting is also relatively scattered, lacking focus.

Democracy is not the democracy of villagers; rural construction is objective rural construction.

The democracy of Nantang DAO is limited to a small internal scope and has failed to broadly connect and mobilize rural communities. This practice has degenerated into "objectified rural construction," which is led by external entities rather than a self-driven governance model by the villagers. For the entire village, Nantang DAO and its members still play the role of outsiders.

The goal is decentralized, each fighting for themselves.

"Promoting the integration of rural construction and Web3" is an attractive goal, but it is full of challenges in practice. The members of the Nantang DAO have unclear individual goals, leading to frequent changes in organizational objectives and slow progress in seeking consensus.

By analyzing the proposals, it can be found that community proposals mainly focus on funding applications and project planning. Initially, the focus was on "rooted in the local area," gradually shifting to "expanding outward," but there is a lack of clear short-term and long-term goals.

Build a community or commercialize?

Nantang DAO faces the choice between community building and commercialization. Community building has always been a core topic, but members are gradually realizing the economic unsustainability of the current model. Currently exploring more practical approaches, focusing on the real project needs and feasible scenarios in the field of rural construction.

Experiment of Incentives and Circulation - Nantang Bean

Nantang Bean (NT), as a community token, serves the dual functions of "contribution record" and "voting rights certificate." However, the current "contribution record" system faces issues such as unclear admission requirements, a singular evaluation standard, and a malfunctioning peer review mechanism.

Limitations of the hourly system

The "equal pay for equal work" model, which uses working hours as the sole evaluation criterion, has obvious limitations. Different members have varying levels of work experience and efficiency, and calculating compensation solely based on hours actually "indirectly encourages low efficiency." The peer evaluation mechanism is also rendered ineffective as members tend to consider each other's feelings.

Let Nantang beans circulate.

The community attempted to expand the circulation scenarios of Nantang beans through the "New Year Goods Debt and Work Points Promotion Plan." However, due to high technical barriers and misalignment of villagers' needs, this circulation experiment was not successful. Nonetheless, the actions of Nantang DAO members voluntarily "lending" Nantang beans to the cooperative to help alleviate pressure demonstrated the team's compassion and cohesion.

Is it sufficiently decentralized?

Unignorable external forces

Nantang DAO is facing regulatory pressure and external constraints such as the cooperative's "veto power".

is an "monopolized" source of income

The funding of the Nantang DAO mainly comes from Liu Bing personally, and this single source of funding has raised concerns about its financial independence.

not decentralized enough voting

The distribution of voting rights is uneven, with a few members holding the majority of the voting power. The voting mechanism also has vulnerabilities, such as allowing informal members to participate in governance votes.

The Nantang DAO still faces many challenges in decentralized governance, requiring further improvement in mechanism design, balancing the interests of all parties, and achieving true democratic autonomy.