Can you rank by the order of importance which of the following is the most important to you as hypothetical DAC investor and shareholder?
Let me start by defining what I exactly mean by term “DAC”:
# Decentralized Autonomous Corporation
abbreviated “DAC”
A Decentralized Autonomous Corporation is a decentralized network composed of Weak AI autonomous agents which perform repetitive tasks and human agents which participate in decision making through democratic and meritocratic process.
DAC’s are basically a subclass of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations that pays dividends on purchasable and tradeable shares which potentially entitle their holders to continual receipts based on the DAC’s ability to generate profit.
Which of the following is most important:
[code]
Guaranteed safety of data, resilience to external influence including potential government crackdown
Safety of user funds on the platform
Ability to influence the behavior of DAC via participation in decision making
Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC’s business records
Absence of human agent as middle man between network’s decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.[/code]
Also, please try to list the others by ordering them by the importance.
You could probably make a https://www.surveymonkey.com poll and post this a bunch of places to get more results from different communities. I’m interested in the results as well.
*Item 4 seems to include 2 concerns: “guarantee of dividend” and “direct insight”
I would consider dividends and insight to both be of highest importance, but I have trouble with the word “guarantee.” Without dividends a DAC wouldn’t make much sense; however no investment should be guaranteed, and I would be highly suspicious of promises to the contrary!
*Item 4 seems to include 2 concerns: “guarantee of dividend” and “direct insight”
I would consider dividends and insight to both be of highest importance, but I have trouble with the word “guarantee.” Without dividends a DAC wouldn’t make much sense; however no investment should be guaranteed, and I would be highly suspicious of promises to the contrary![/quote]
I see them as tied together, one can not work without the other. Reasoning behind this is that if shareholder does not get to see how much profit can DAC create he can be cheated on by the founders. In other words, founders can falsify amount of dividends and keep “the cut” to them selves. It is quite important that business records are available to each shareholder.
By guarantee of dividend payout I meant that there is an automated mechanism of dividend payout, so shareholders do not depend on a human agent which will decide when to distribute a dividends and how much will they pay out.
That if based off peershares. The pos system is safe and secure, my funds would ne safe on there hence item 1 and 2 are a given hence less concern.
5 and 3 add features to my dac / investment, and are nice to feel I have a say in the dac and can influence the direction the dac will take, 5 being more important as removes the human element from the final voted action.
For me its 4. This is because… btc assets are pretty much all scams and have had such a bad rep at paying out dividends. Havelock and cryptostocks ate 2 sites riddled with such offerings and glbse was the precursor to these. Basically it shows that cryptoassets are wanted by investors, and that they can be generated relatively easily. However I am yet to actually find one that has a sound business model, pays out regular dividends and is not some scam or ponzi scheme. Regular payments of dividends totalling more than the initial floating of all the shares indicates the dao has a sensible business model that actually makes money and is a worthwhile investment. With this kind of asset you would feel happy your money is as safely invested as can be and may actually show a positive return for you. If the company behind the dao can pay out more than initial investment, this indicates to me the network is secure and my funds safe hence 1 and 2 low prio.
If I’m being paid out dividends, the incentive to hold my stock longer grows abstract why change the course if something working, so voting may be nice but just adds extra feature really, cryptostocks often let the shareholders cast votes on listings, was nice idea but really bottom line if vote doesn’t go way I like or dividends stop then vote with my feet and just sell the stock.
The idea in 5 to use the voting result to implement the motion is exactly what is needed, but I say if I’m paid dividends more than my initial investment then chances are the people running the asset are going to follow through with motions decisions. Eg would have really damaged nubits had the motion to open source code had passed but Jordan lee decided it was not something he wanted to actually do and delayed it as long as he could.
1 - that’s what I love at distributed systems
3 - that’s required to decide where to go
5 - that makes it independent from unneccesary sources of error
4 - dividends not that important; business records on the contrary for sure. Might be handled by motions
2 - why should I leave funds on the platform? What is the platform? The block chain? If so, I consider it secure as long it’s a proven PoS system with sufficient distribution; the minting participation will be kept high due to motion voting
[ol][li]2) Safety of user funds on the platform[/li]
[li]1) Guaranteed safety of data, resilience to external influence including potential government crackdown[/li]
[li]3) Ability to influence the behavior of DAC via participation in decision making[/li]
[li]5) Absence of human agent as middle man between network’s decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.[/li]
[li]4) Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC’s business records i[/i][/li][/ol]
Guaranteed safety of data, resilience to external influence including potential government crackdown
Safety of user funds on the platform
Ability to influence the behavior of DAC via participation in decision making
Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC’s business records
Absence of human agent as middle man between network’s decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.
Most important to least important
Funds must be kept safe
A dividend payment differentiates DAC from cryptocoins
This is the “Autonomous” part of DAC… If this could be applied across all business functions it would be the first true DAC
Participation in decision making does not need to be universal… you own stock but dont participate in decision making. Also, it is a quicker process to have a certain degree of centralization in the decision making process.
*This depends on the nature of the business and could be the second most important in certain scenarios
[ol][li]1) Guaranteed safety of data, resilience to external influence including potential government crackdown[/li]
[li]2) Safety of user funds on the platform[/li]
[li]4) Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC’s business records[/li]
[li]3) Ability to influence the behavior of DAC via participation in decision making[/li]
[li]5) Absence of human agent as middle man between network’s decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.[/li][/ol]
4) Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC's business records
Does this mean a guarantee of dividends in the long-term or short-term? As an example, I understand that Nu will not generate a profit in the short-term, but it’s possible it will in the long-term and I’m happy waiting for that and working along with others to make it happen as soon as possible. If it doesn’t generate a profit period then obviously that is just a bad investment and there would be no point in purchasing shares in the first place.
5) Absence of human agent as middle man between network's decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.
As an example of a human agent, are you referring to Nu’s custodians? As long as shareholders have the ability to change these people, I don’t have any problem with this. If these people are required in order to make the consensus protocol work though, I’d be more hesitant. The Nu custodian is basically given a job by shareholders and paid a fee to carry it out, similar to hiring employees. The consensus protocol (minting) should be required to function without human intervention. It already works this way in Peercoin and Nu. I don’t know about Bitshares and their delegates though.
[quote=“Sentinelrv, post:17, topic:3528”]I have 2 questions…
4) Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC's business records
Does this mean a guarantee of dividends in the long-term or short-term? As an example, I understand that Nu will not generate a profit in the short-term, but it’s possible it will in the long-term and I’m happy waiting for that and working along with others to make it happen as soon as possible. If it doesn’t generate a profit period then obviously that is just a bad investment and there would be no point in purchasing shares in the first place.
5) Absence of human agent as middle man between network's decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.
As an example of a human agent, are you referring to Nu’s custodians? As long as shareholders have the ability to change these people, I don’t have any problem with this. If these people are required in order to make the consensus protocol work though, I’d be more hesitant. The Nu custodian is basically given a job by shareholders and paid a fee to carry it out, similar to hiring employees. The consensus protocol (minting) should be required to function without human intervention. It already works this way in Peercoin and Nu. I don’t know about Bitshares and their delegates though.[/quote]
The offered answers do not relate to Nu at all, it is about concept of DAC’s in general. I am trying to map what is important for DAC and what needs to be solved to deliver a “True DAC”. And I came down to this 5 points.
4) Guarantee of dividend payout, and direct insight in DAC's business records
It is just simply put “guarantee of dividend payout” - which means that there is hypothetical automated and trustless system of accumulating DAC profits and paying it out to shareholders. In other words, that shareholders get to see what is going on and not rely on central figures.
Which is totally unlike Nu (seeing that you are eager to compare Nu against this), which centralizes profits in no-transparent way, has internal expenses which are not visible to shareholders, etc… But as 4) is regularly listed among least important it is obvious why Nu is still successful from shareholders point of view.
5) Absence of human agent as middle man between network's decisions and act that will enforce collective decision.
Simply put, in Nu terminology it would be a way to automatically execute a successful motion. Nu relays on human agents to execute collective decisions. For example when there was a motion to become open-source, motion served as poll whether or not it should go but ultimately it was up to centralized human agents to execute the motion. There was no direct influence from shareholders to the act of becoming open-source, shareholders went through proxy.
I hope this makes it clear. Thanks for participating.
4. I don’t think a trustless/automated dividend system is possible to achieve in every DAC. Shareholders might not even want to immediately distribute dividends and might pass a motion instead to redirect profits to fund marketing or development. I do however think that DACs/DAOs need to find ways of being more transparent, especially ones that only track equity of a centralized company that exists in the real world (Example: Amazon or Apple). It’s hard to know how much profit a centralized business is making if there is no record of it on a blockchain. DAOs like B&C and Nu will need to find better ways of being more transparent. Phase 3 of the Nu website was under development last time I heard and would feature important information like this for shareholders so that they can make more informed decisions.
3. In the case of a DAC tracking equity for a centralized company (like Teehe), shareholders may be willing to take a back seat and allow the employees who are most involved to run the business and make the main decisions, however any motions passed by shareholders should take priority. If motions are ignored then trust would be lost and the share price would suffer the consequences. For DACs/DAOs that are more decentralized like Nu and B&C, all the voting tools required to manage the business are a must. This would require motions, custodial share grants, burning, dynamic fees through voting, etc…
5. I would label this last if it weren’t for the reasons I listed below for 1 and 2. It would be wonderful if everything could be 100% decentralized, but this is not possible in every system. As long as the consensus protocol itself is decentralized then I don’t mind adding some human element to it. Sometimes you need humans in order to carry out certain tasks that are impossible to program. Similar to custodians, these people become employees of the network and receive a fee for their services. If they don’t work out, shareholders can easily replace them at any moment. If employees or developers of the network refuse to act on a passed motion, then share price will suffer the consequence and it will be up to shareholders to fire and replace that individual. We should try to take as much trust out of the system as possible, but you need humans to carry out some actions, such as setting up specialized software on their computer (NuBot, TLLP), creating accounts on centralized exchanges and setting preferences, syncing various wallet blockchains like B&C, etc… I want to stress again though that the consensus mechanism needs to be completely automated.
2. If security of the network is taken care of, then this should not be an issue. See below.
1. As long as it runs on PoS, has a fair distribution and is potentially profitable in the short or long-term, the security of the network should not be an issue as shareholders will continue minting in the hope that profit will eventually be delivered. This should be #1, but it’s a given if they’re using Peershares, so I’ve labeled it last instead.
