MetaDAO is my highest-conviction low-cap altcoin. And this is my thesis.
metadao.fi
But first, let’s lay some groundwork — WTF is MetaDAO?
MetaDAO is building decision markets. It’s similar to Polymarket but with some key differences. In a prediction market, you bet on what you think will happen. In a decision market, you bet on what you think should happen. Prediction markets are passive. You sit on the couch, watch the game, and bet on who you think will win. You have skin in the game but no control over the outcome. Decision markets are active. By speculating, you are actually influencing the outcome.
At the heart of MetaDAO is “futarchy,” which is essentially just prediction markets for decisions. Futarchy is not a new idea. It was invented by famed economist Robin Hanson in 2000, and Vitalik wrote about it in 2014. But MetaDAO is the first attempt to bring futarchy onchain.
when will someone implement a futarchy based DAO. all the tools are here
— roon (@tszzl) January 9, 2022
Futarchy is not some niche governance tooling or another ve-voting ponzi. It’s a new tool for human coordination based on the belief that markets are superior to human decision-making. In futarchy, markets make decisions, not elected officials or voters.
Let’s walk thru a quick example:
You are the CEO of UpOnly Protocol, which has a whopping $50 million treasury. You want to use a portion of the funds — $UPONLY tokens — to accelerate adoption of your protocol, so you decide to spend $1 million on a marketing campaign. You’re considering spending it all on Twitter ads, but first want to gather feedback from the community. At a high level, there are three ways to do this:
- Token Voting
- Prediction Market
- Decision Market
Token Voting:
It’s exactly what it sounds like. 1 token = 1 vote. If 100 tokens vote for ‘Yay’ and 99 tokens vote ‘Nay’ then ‘Yay’ wins and you proceed with the ad campaign on Twitter. Token voting is the current paradigm in crypto governance and is riddled with issues. The biggest issue is that most people are lazy and refuse to participate in governance. A close second is token voting is relatively easy for whales to manipulate. After years of DAO disasters, it’s clear token voting is not the endgame.
every dao exists only to distribute its treasury to its insiders
— venture apologist (@0xBalloonLover) June 23, 2024
Prediction Market:
Spinning up a prediction market on a platform like Polymarket would essentially be like a glorified poll. People would bet on what they think the team will do, not what they should do. All the signal would be lost because people have no incentive to bet on what they believe. You could probably get just as much value from a Twitter poll as a prediction market for a decision. Overall, prediction markets are not a great option if you want to tap into the wisdom of the crowds.
Should I step down