In 2021, we saw an incredible growth of DAOs with the rise in popularity of Web3. Among a wide range of DAOs with different organizational structures and missions, BanklessDAO (bDAO) stood out. Fast forward to 2023, the project has built a DeFi media empire with their mission to onboard 1 billion people to crypto.
The community has a bigger goal of spreading information about backless media and education on wider cryptocurrency adoption. In this comprehensive article, we learn more about the organization, its mission, tokenomics, and future endeavors.
Why go the BanklessDAO way?
DAOs have changed the way we govern and manage decentralized ecosystems by transferring the decision-making power to token holders instead of a centralized institution. This poses a question: why go bankless after all? Here’s why:
- Ownership: Going bankless is about moving into decentralized finance (DeFi) and out of centralized financial systems, such as banks or credit unions. DAOs are all about communal ownership where individuals hold private keys to their digital wallets & have full control over their assets.
- Financial sovereignty: The bankless revolution aims at empowering individuals with financial sovereignty, which is the ability to have make financial decisions and manage assets without getting subjected to fees, transaction delays, and limited access free from the constraints of intermediaries.
- Education and community: Going bankless makes room for community engagement and education among like-minded individuals who share the same vision, while taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the decentralized economy. Communities provide resources, educational content, and tools to help individuals understand and navigate the complexities of DeFi and make informed financial decisions.
What is BanklessDAO?
Launched by the crypto media outlet Bankless on May 4, 2021, Bankless DAO is one of the most popular DAOs in the crypto space. Over the years, Bankless has grown from a centralized media organization to a crypto media outlet with its flagship podcast, YouTube channel, newsletters, and its own DAO, complete with a BANK governance token. By providing the latest crypto news and updates, the project has built a huge number of followers and passionate Web3 thought-leaders who aim to learn and educate new users along with developing Web3 scholarship, build DAO tools, produce both written and audio media, and more.
How Does Bankless DAO Work?
The way Bankless DAO operates is similar to that of Discord and Notion. To understand how the project works, here are various organizational units that hold it together:
- Departments: They are operation-critical units that are essential to the functioning of the DAO and comprise a marketing department, operations department, education department, and treasury department.
- Guilds: There are 13 guilds within BanklessDAO and help organize the contributors. These talent pools include a project management guild, audiovisual guild, DAOlationships guild, design guild, developers guild, legal guild, research guild, writers guild, translators guild, and analytical guild.
- Governance: The organization uses Snapshot an off-chain token-weighted voting platform for decisions related to the governance process, treasury allocation, and organizational structure.
- Projects: They enable guilds and BanklessDAO members to collaborate and scale the Bankless revolution by sharing revenue, products, or services.
Individuals can join the Discord server of Bankless and can participate in its governance by staking $BANK to the network by choosing any guild they like.
This requires them to provide their personal information to the corresponding Notion database created by that guild. They can either earn the token by completing tasks or purchasing it in the open market.
Users are required to be Level 1 or above user and hold 35,000 $BANK or more. Members who contribute to the community may upgrade to Level 2 through community nomination and voting. Level 3 requires members to hold at least 15,000 $BANK.
Users can also get a 14-day temporary participation opportunity to participate in most of its daily operations. All the users in the Discord server can browse public information and documents.
It’s also interesting to know how BanklessDAO has grown since its inception. To overcome the complexity in governance and decision-making, the organization has launched suBankless DAOs, which function autonomously from one another, much like the subsidiaries of centralized enterprises, but upholding the shared goal of the parent DAO.
What does BanklessDAO do?
Ever since its genesis, BanklessDAO has made its presence in media with its YouTube channel, podcast, and newsletter.
The organization also produces written and audio media to provide education on the adoption of decentralized and permissionless money systems. BanklessDAO constantly creates a suite of products that leverages the community size and treasury along with building DAO tooling to help other DAOs operate more efficiently.
It also offers consulting services to help organizations navigate the world of Web3.
Tokenomics
BanklessDAO’s native token $BANK is primarily used as a coordination mechanism that operates on the Ethereum platform and has a 1B maximum supply. It’s used for entry and complete access to Bankless Discord and all perks.
- Free: (Level 0) 0 BANK
- Member: (Level 1) 35,000 BANK
- Contributor: (Level 2) 35,000 BANK along with a nomination or vote
- Whale: (Level 3) 150,000 BANK
- Liquidity provider: (level 4) 250 Uniswap V2 BANK or ETH LP tokens
The distribution of $BANK started with the following:
- 30% Retroactive distribution (30%)
- 30% Treasury distribution (non-vested) (30%)
- 30% Treasury distribution 3-year vesting period
With the formation of BanklessDAO, Bankless submitted a genesis proposal requesting a one-time grant of two hundred fifty million $BANK vesting over the following 3 years (along with a 6-month cliff) leading to a new distribution of $BANK:
- 30% retroactive distribution
- 5% Treasury distribution (non-vested)
- 40% treasury distribution 3 year vesting period
- 25% Bankless LCC
Funding
BanklessDAO has a Grants Committee and Treasury that provides funding for projects and proposals. The organization started off with 50M $BANK tokens and has since diversified through various initiatives where funds get released from the BanklessDAO Vault through seasonal budgets or grants.
Seasons
These are the timeframes to propose, refine, and ratify budgets to be allocated to projects, guilds, and departments.
- Projects: Guild funding proposals include a list of active members and a record of their activities where all active member calculations are reviewed by the Grants Committee.
- Guilds: Project funding proposals include a detailed budget for the next season and a description of actions taken to meet key performance indicators.
- Departments: This includes a detailed accounting from the current season and a detailed budget for the next season.
Grants
The Grants Committee has a grants treasury that funds projects either for the first time or outside the seasonal budgeting process. Projects require passing their Forum proposal successfully to receive grants.
Bankless Academy
Bankless Academy is a platform that helps members to forge their unique learning paths and prepares them to open new avenues across blockchain space.
Members can advance their knowledge in Web3 space and test their abilities by completing activities related to crypto concepts. They can complete quests, collect badges, and earn on-chain rewards upon completing lessons and quests. Members can collaborate with Bankless by building lessons with the Academy, opening their own academy, or partnering with them with an interesting value proposition.
Conclusion
BanklessDAO has become a DeFi powerhouse over the years, aiming to onboard one billion individuals into the world of Web3 while upholding financial sovereignty and ownership by moving away from centralized financial systems.
With a strong community, BanklessDAO provides educational resources and builds tools for the Web3 ecosystem. This initiative is not just a DAO; it’s a transformative movement towards a more inclusive financial future.