Be Part of the Gang: The Best DAO Projects to Join in 2023
Whether you want to join in on buying a $40 million historical text or simply want access to private social events with top influencers, there’s a DAO project out there for you.
Updated Mar 21, 2022
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Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) initially started as a way to govern blockchain protocols and decentralized applications (DApps), but have since grown to become financially-incentivized communities for every interest under the sun—crypto-related or not.
Think of a DAO as an internet community with a shared bank account, where community members decide on how to deploy the funds.
Friends With Benefit’s raison d'etre is to create a social network where the top Web 3.0 influencers congregate to create and share ideas and content.
There are DAOs for trading, social events, art, music, gaming, collecting, sports and more. But despite this growing supply and variety, finding the right DAO to match your interests can be tricky. Here are some of the best DAO projects to join in 2023—and how to find more DAOs that might be up your alley.
The largest DAO: Uniswap (UNI)
The largest DAO: Uniswap (UNI)
- $UNI market cap: $6.2 billion
- Treasury: $2 billion
- Members: 316.1K
- Participation rate: 1.6%
- Top token holder share: 22.8%
- Similar DAO: Compound (COMP)
Uniswap (UNI) is the #1 decentralized exchange (DEX) in the cryptosphere in terms of trading volume. Next to that, Uniswap is also the top-ranked DAO by the amount held in treasury.
The Uniswap DAO was created in September 2020, with over 1 billion $UNI distributed among the DEX’s development team, community members, investors and advisors. Today, the Uniwap DAO has over 300,000 members who can vote over its billion-dollar treasury, governance protocols, listed tokens, exchange fees and more with their $UNI tokens. For context, one recent vote that took place was whether Uniswap should deploy to the Ethereum L2 solution Polygon.
One of the standout features of the Uniswap DAO is that UNI holders can also delegate their votes to other users. This feature comes in handy in a situation where you feel like another member is more qualified to decide on a given proposal.
Exclusive DAO: Friends With Benefits Pro (FWB)
Exclusive DAO: Friends With Benefits Pro (FWB)
- $FWB market cap: N/A (55 million fully diluted)
- Treasury: $18.26 million
- Members: 6.3k
- Participation rate: 22.7%
- Top token holder share: 14.5%
- Similar DAO: Bored Ape Yacht Club (APE)
Friends With Benefits (FWB) is a private discord server, unlike most DAO servers that are still open to people who don’t hold tokens. Friends With Benefit’s raison d'etre is to create a social network where the top Web 3.0 influencers congregate to create and share ideas and content.
To become a full member of Friends with Benefits, you must own at least 75 $FWB (which can be found on Uniswap and other DEXes). At $55 per token at the time of writing, that oh-so exclusive membership will cost you over $4,125. But what else does this full membership buy you? Access to FWB educational resources, lifestyle tips, NFT and trading signals, social events and governance.
Once you cough up the dough to join, you can start to earn $FWB by providing value to the community. This includes posting in Discord, hopping on community calls and hosting events in FWB hubs like New York, London and Los Angeles.
In case you’re curious what types of events you’re missing out on, here are two upcoming ones on the FWB roster:
- FWB NYC: Web3 For A Better World: A fireside chat featuring crypto founders that will be discussing the social impact of Web3.
- FWB.LDN NON FUNGIBLE DINNER 002: An NFT dinner at the Asian-cuisine restaurant Inamo Covent Garden, where FWB members will get an exclusive sneak peek at promising NFT projects in the works.
Metaverse DAO: Decentraland
Metaverse DAO: Decentraland
- $MANA market cap: $4.3 billion
- Treasury: $98.4 million
- Members: 234.1K
- Participation rate: 1.4%
- Top token holder share: 7.3%
- Similar DAO: Axie DAO
Decentraland (MANA) is the largest metaverse token by market cap, where users can create, experience and monetize content like land parcels, avatars, virtual clothing and events. Unlike competing metaverse The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland has a DAO that allows $MANA token holders to govern $LAND auctions, content controls and other features of the virtual world. Take for example the recent proposal to ban the name “Russia” from Decentraland, which was ultimately rejected.
The structure of Decentraland’s DAO is more complex than the other entrants on this list. For one, a DAO member’s voting power is proportional to the amount of $MANA and $LAND (virtual property) they hold. The DAO is also divided into three branches: the community, the Committee and the Security Advisory Board.
While the community simply votes on updates, The Committee’s three members are responsible for enacting changes by signing multi-signature transactions. The Security Advisory Board, on the other hand, makes sure the smart contracts involved are bug-free.
Mission-driven DAO: ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE)
Mission-driven DAO: ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE)
- $PEOPLE market cap: $292.6 million
- Treasury: $3.9K ($52.26 million at its peak)
- Members: 16.8K
- Top token holder share: 28.6%
This entrant is a bit of a cheat since you can’t technically join this DAO anymore. But ConstitutionDAO was so groundbreaking during its short existence that it’s still worthy of mention.
ConstitutionDAO was a crowdfunding campaign that set out to buy one of the thirteen surviving copies of the US Constitution at auction on November 18, 2021. If successful, the DAO intended to put the Constitution on display at an institution that was free to the public and willing to cover the housing costs.
To that end, ConstitutionDAO raised over $50 million, stored in an external crypto wallet with 13 publicly-known signers. In exchange for their funds, community members received a governance token called $PEOPLE that allowed them to vote on where the Constitution will be exhibited in the future.
Unfortunately, ConstitutionDAO didn’t end up winning the auction. Instead, billionaire Ken Griffin bought the Constitution for $43.2 million.
Post-auction, ConstitutionDAO created a smart contract to reimburse $PEOPLE token holders. But in an unexpected turn of events, some community members opted not to redeem their funds and keep their $PEOPLE tokens instead. With the token continuing to appreciate in the month following the auction, it's clear why some holders held onto their bags.
Would you bet on ConstitutionDAO?
Would you join a ConstitutionDAO-type campaign?
How to find the best DAOs to join
How to find the best DAOs to join
There are two main ways you can go about finding the right DAOs for your taste: curated lists and project trackers.
Curated lists come in the form of articles, videos, podcasts, tweets or other media published by your favorite influencers and content creators. Project trackers, on the other hand, are websites solely dedicated to collecting and categorizing crypto and DAO projects, with DeepDAO and CoinMarketCap being two of the best DAO project trackers out there.
These trackers will give you an overview of key statistics in the DAO market, like total treasury, market cap, token prices, token holders, proposals and more. They’ll also show you a ranked list of DAOs that you can investigate on an individual basis. On CoinMarketCap’s homepage, you can fine-tune your DAO search by clicking on filters and choosing “DAO” under the category filter, which then lets you narrow your search by industry, platform, and more.
New DAOs are cropping up left and right every day. Most Web 3.0 platforms are jumping on board somehow—for instance, popular NFT marketplace SuperRare even has their own DAO now. It's becoming clear that DAOs aren't just a passing fad, so which one are you going to join in 2023?
SuperRare
NFTs