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Chronicles of Nantang DAO (Part III)

June 23, 2025 · 21 min read

By Jia Fan

(PhD Student, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Eurybia Researcher)

Preface

In March 2025, with the support of City University of Hong Kong and my doctoral supervisor Professor Liu Xiaofan, I conducted a one-and-a-half-month field study in Sanxing Village (formerly Nantang Village), Sanhe Town, Fuyang City, Anhui Province. During this period, I conducted in-depth interviews with 14 participants, including core members of Nantang DAO, employees of local agricultural cooperatives, and villagers. I also participated in the Nantang DAO onboarding program, daily operations of the Nantang Xingnong Cooperative, and translation work for the Nantang Buzhi DAO translation group.

Although my time was short, I was deeply moved. I witnessed the locals’ earnest efforts to put DAO ideals into practice, as well as the many challenges they faced as pioneers in the rural-building DAO space. These issues are not only unique to their context but also reflect broader difficulties currently facing DAO development.

The "Chronicles of Nantang DAO" series is divided into seven parts: Origins, Gathering and Conflict, What Are the Goals?, Experiments in Incentives and Circulation, Is It Decentralized Enough?, Paving a New Path, and Final Thoughts. These writings aim to objectively document the stories of people striving for change on this land — the faint yet persistent light of idealism in rural revitalization, the frustrations and perseverance in practice, and the most authentic human connections. If these stories can resonate with more people or offer insights to rural builders and Web3 explorers alike, then they have fulfilled their purpose.

This installment includes Parts 6 and 7, focusing on the future direction of Nantang DAO, exploring reflections on the integration of rural development and Web3, presenting members' visions, and sharing my own grounded experiences from the field.

Paving a New Path

The story of Nantang DAO continues. Despite numerous challenges, things are still unfolding organically and emerging naturally. The community explores its way forward through trial and error, constantly seeking new possibilities amid transformation. Several core members have already traveled to Jianta Village in Pujiang County, Chengdu, attempting to launch a new project aimed at discovering the true intersection between rural revitalization and Web3 — building a "Rural Entrepreneurship DAO."

Meanwhile, Jump has chosen to remain in Nantang, proposing the initiative "Living Well Together"¹. By organizing blockchain co-learning sessions and band activities among local youth, he continues to deepen community engagement. One group explores outward; another roots itself locally. Both paths proceed without contradiction.

Breaking new ground is never easy. Yet, as a saying goes: "Pessimists are often right, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of Nantang DAO are now writing their own answers through action.

Attracting More Professional Talent

Talent is the foundation of any organization’s growth. Cikey once reflected that in its early days, Nantang DAO failed to effectively attract professionals who truly understood blockchain and Web3. Compounded by a general lack of rural development experience among early members, the community encountered many avoidable detours during its exploration phase.

Fortunately, this gap has since been recognized, and a series of improvements have been implemented. Currently, Nantang DAO plans to invite senior experts from the industry to form a “Nantang DAO Governance Advisory Group”, offering professional mediation for internal disputes and providing systematic strategic guidance each quarter.

Additionally, through the “Bilateral Enlightenment Plan for Rural Development and Web3”, community members have repeatedly participated in domestic and international Web3 events and university outreach programs. These experiences have not only enhanced their professional understanding but also attracted more individuals passionate about both Web3 and rural revitalization.

This two-way interaction has opened up new opportunities for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members continue to join, bringing fresh energy to the community. Some excel in artistic creation, adding creativity to rural cultural activities; others specialize in branding, supporting Nantang DAO’s external communications. A few have strong backgrounds in organizational research, contributing valuable insights to governance mechanisms. These new members not only bring technical expertise but also open up new horizons for Nantang DAO’s long-term development.

Facing the World, Learning from Experience

What are the real needs of rural communities? Can Web3 inject new momentum into rural development? How can DAOs truly take root — is this merely a question for Nantang, or a shared global challenge?

Nantang DAO has studied multiple international DAO cases, some of which offer valuable insights for rural revitalization. For instance, in response to post-earthquake reconstruction and an aging population, Japan’s Yamakoshi Village (Yamaguchi-mura) launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" — centered around its famous local specialty, the Koi fish — and treated NFT holders as "digital villagers."

This initiative formed a DAO-like community that attracted over 1,750 global participants and raised funds to support regional sustainability. Although this model did not incorporate typical DAO elements such as smart contracts or on-chain treasuries, it effectively addressed local challenges.

The experience of Yamakoshi Village offers meaningful inspiration for Nantang DAO. Recently, the village further proposed a vision called the “Two-Layer DAO Governance Revolution”:

The Yamakoshi DAO² serves as a governance body where both physical and digital villagers co-govern through voting on Snapshot.
The Sewaribito DAO functions as a platform for cross-regional collaboration (e.g., with Hekiryo Village and Tenryu Gorge), aiming to build a LocalDAO Network.

This dual-layer structure bears striking resemblance to Nantang DAO’s current developmental trajectory, and could serve as a valuable reference model for its future evolution.

Figure 1 - Keio University SFC Study Group: "Understanding the Digital Village System through the Yamakoshi Village Case"

Another relevant case is CabinDAO — a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to building networked cities through community collaboration and technological innovation. Its development can be divided into four phases³:

2020–2021: The Creator Era — Established the Creator Cabins program, which focused on funding creative residencies for artists and builders.
2021–2022: DAO Service Phase — As DAOs flourished globally, CabinDAO entered a service-oriented stage. During this period, the community built multiple DAO media brands and developed tools such as on-chain and physical passport systems for digital communities.
2022–2023: Digital Nomad Focus — Amid crypto market turbulence, the team significantly downsized but shifted focus toward creating natural, off-chain communities for digital nomads, and began building a global co-living network.
Early 2024: Family-Centric Communities — The keyword became "family communities." The team decided to deepen its connection with local communities by launching the Neighborhood Accelerator Program, proposing the creation of a community where people live near friends and collectively raise children.

Figure 2 - CabinDAO Roadmap

What’s worth learning from and reflecting on is that after years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team came to believe they were better suited as a loose community network rather than as a startup or DAO. On May 8, 2025, Cabin officially announced its dissolution on the X platform⁵, deciding to abandon DAO funding and commercial projects in favor of becoming a purely community-driven network.

This decision stemmed from a deep reflection on the different models of entrepreneurship, DAOs, and community networks:

"Venture-backed startups are best suited for small, focused teams capable of rapid pivots in search of short-term, financially viable high-growth opportunities. DAOs function best as trusted, neutral governance mechanisms for distributing ecosystem grants from existing revenue streams. Community-driven networks are most effective as loosely connected organizations, allowing many individuals to independently explore adjacent paths and build what they find most interesting and valuable."

For practitioners of rural-building DAOs, the question of how to position DAOs within rural communities, and what value DAOs bring to local development, remains a shared global challenge.

Rooting in the Local, Seeking Strength

While learning from global pioneers, Nantang DAO must conduct in-depth local research and analysis to determine how it can truly root itself in the community. To develop practical goals and an actionable roadmap, the organization needs a comprehensive assessment of local resources — including economic conditions, human capital, cultural values, political structures, social capital, geographic advantages, and natural environment.

Nantang Village has long been known for its historical experience with democratic governance — and social engagement remains its greatest asset. Looking back at Nantang’s history, one can clearly see that the pursuit of democracy and rights has never ceased. Its key historical milestones have always resonated with progressive organizational ideas within broader societal movements:

From the late 1990s to early 2000s, amid rising civic activism, movements such as citizen legal advocacy and environmental protection emerged, empowering people to defend their rights through collective action.
Nantang began organizing farmers' rights protests and promoting grassroots elections and self-governance.
From 2003–2004 onward, the goal of farmer organization gradually shifted from protest toward constructive development. As Yang Yunbiao reflected: "In the past, we fought for rights from a confrontational stance; after establishing the cooperative, our daily work became about defending rights through livelihood development, cultural construction, and rural self-governance."⁶
Later, during the process of farmer organization, Western practices were introduced — most notably Robert's Rules of Order — which were localized and implemented in 2008. This phase saw rapid growth in the village’s economic and cultural sectors.

During a rural development dialogue, Yang Yunbiao once emphasized: "Rural revitalization is not just about industrial or organizational revival — it must return to the idea of 'human revitalization,' asking how people can live with smiles on their faces and dignity in their hearts."⁷ Today, the formation of Nantang DAO continues this tradition of organizational innovation — marking the latest attempt to integrate rural ethics with modern civilization.

From rights protection organizations to procedural rules, from cooperatives to Nantang DAO — despite the different forms of democratic organization attempted in Nantang, the past 30 years have brought dramatic transformation. Yet, it's important to recognize that no matter how innovative the organizational form may be, the core focus must remain on human connection — addressing the fundamental needs of local villagers.

Encouragingly, ongoing initiatives have already generated meaningful connections. After living and working together for some time, members from both the DAO and the cooperative have begun forming real bonds. During my fieldwork, I observed local youth using Robert’s Rules of Order spontaneously when facing difficulties in group meal coordination — proposing and seconding motions to efficiently reach consensus on task assignments.

I also witnessed the budding awareness of equality among local youth. They are starting to organize themselves independently, reflecting critically on issues like lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities, and ambiguous rules regarding rural life and work. The emergence of independent thinking and critical consciousness will become a valuable asset for Nantang’s future.

On the other side, the cooperative is also broadening its perspective — planning to build a "third space" aimed at attracting digital nomads, fostering deeper connections with younger groups. By acting on the basis of mutual understanding and respect, new possibilities may emerge from this land.

Final Thoughts

Despite existing conflicts, the integration of rural development and Web3 holds great promise. Over time and through practice, both sides may gradually find common ground amid differences, eventually shaping a governance model that balances individual autonomy with collective collaboration.

As Nantang DAO moves forward, while promoting Web3 technologies and decentralized governance models, it must deeply root itself in the local culture and the real interests of villagers, focusing on solving the most pressing rural challenges. Only by doing so can these new digital tools truly touch the soul of rural society.

How Should We View DAO Experiments in Rural Areas?

Rural development and DAOs resemble two initially tangent circles: one carries the practice and sentiment of rural revitalization, while the other reshapes trust and collaboration mechanisms through decentralized technological principles. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners dedicated to rural development and rural builders eager to embrace new technologies.

However, due to short exposure time and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, this intersection inevitably brings friction — from clashes between decentralized governance logic and rural collectivist culture, to tensions between foreign ideas and local traditions.

The central question is: as a new form of organization, where does DAO fit within the rural governance structure? What are its scope and capacity limits?

Taking Nantang DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantang Beans is merely a digital replication of traditional rural governance incentive systems like the labor-hour system — and even fails to surpass the usability and accessibility of existing alternative currencies⁸; if token-based voting is just direct democracy relocated to a Web3 platform, effectively excluding villagers from real participation — then how much change can such so-called "organizational innovation" truly bring to rural society?

Though framed around Nantang DAO, these questions are not unique to it. They represent broader challenges for all future rural-building DAOs or similar initiatives.

Moreover, we must acknowledge that DAO is not the ultimate solution to all organizational governance issues⁹. No organizational design is perfect — the key lies in the trade-offs and decisions made during the governance process, which ultimately determine whether an organization can meet sustainability challenges.

Organizations vary in strengths and weaknesses — they coexist rather than replace each other. If we view decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, historical organizations — and different stages of the same organization — fall at various points along this continuum.

Many DAO failures stem from a lack of understanding of this complexity:

Some aim to build commercial projects but find centralized structures more efficient.
Some attempt to distribute funds via DAO, yet most members aren’t true beneficiaries — economic support often gets monopolized by a few.
Some DAOs focused on community building struggle to define their role.

A vivid example is the Uniswap Foundation’s decision — made through a DAO vote — to allocate $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain, which sparked outrage among members. Critics questioned why the foundation was spending money when Uniswap Labs (a centralized entity) earned millions from front-end fees.¹⁰

Therefore, rather than chasing after the ideal of a perfect DAO, rural development practitioners should focus on practical questions:

Under what circumstances is organizing via DAO necessary?
Where exactly lie the boundaries of DAO?
Which decisions benefit from collective deliberation, and which require decisive leadership?

Although there may be no standard answers, and perhaps a truly pure DAO can never be fully realized in practice, idealists can still take comfort in knowing that the core values pursued by DAOs — transparency, participation, and decentralization — serve as a powerful driving force behind the continuous evolution of human organizational forms.

Is Decentralized Governance Suitable for Nantang?

Nantang may not necessarily need an externally introduced DAO, but the ideals of DAO — transparency, participation, and decentralization — undoubtedly offer valuable insights for improving cooperative governance.

By drawing upon these external experiences, Nantang can gradually introduce decentralized governance mechanisms while preserving its unique identity — paving the way for more resilient and inclusive development.

Take the mutual fund program as an example: some villagers expressed dissatisfaction during interviews about how cooperative funds were invested in certain “local elites.” Had a decentralized decision-making mechanism been in place — allowing villagers to collectively decide fund allocation through voting — perhaps the tragedy could have been avoided or mitigated. Even if such grievances emerged only in hindsight, they reflect a sense of alienation from the decision-making process.

Decentralized governance not only enhances community participation, but also improves fairness and rationality by distributing risk across the group.

During my fieldwork, I observed that the current operational model of the cooperative affects every aspect of its activities — including the intern program — creating an awkward middle ground: lacking both the rigorous rules and efficiency of corporate governance, and the grassroots dynamism of self-organized communities.

In this context, Nantang faces a critical choice between hierarchical and decentralized models:

Fully adopt a hierarchy: Clearly define Biao Ge as CEO, Liu Bing as board member and investor, and establish a clear chain of command.
Experiment with multi-centered governance: Delegate decision-making power over small-scale projects to interns or full-time staff, while Biao Ge and Liu Bing focus on resource provision and strategic guidance.

This second approach has the potential to unleash creativity within the team while maintaining essential coordination and support.

The Expectations of Nantang DAO Members

The final question I asked during my interviews was about members’ hopes for the future of Nantang DAO and its next steps. Below are some of their responses:

Bixing emphasized the importance of continuous change and openness, encouraging broader participation to drive Nantang DAO forward.

"Change is inevitable. We must constantly seek transformation and open up new fronts — both in terms of thinking and action."
He believes that integrating different groups is a major challenge:
"Bringing together two very different kinds of people and aligning them toward a common goal is already a huge task."
By expanding participation, he hopes to increase influence:
"The more people involved, the better known we become, and the more people we can attract."

Biao Ge expressed confidence in the future, emphasizing the central role of people and urging a focus on practical action.

"It’s not that I wish for Nantang DAO to disappear — because I’ve benefited from it too,"
"I just hope they can do things with real impact."
He stressed the importance of personal well-being:
"People should take care of their bodies and minds. If Web3 participants burn out, fall into depression, or even forget how to enjoy a good meal, then what’s the point of Web3?"

Cikey hoped that people could "live happily and play joyfully."

"At least this narrative can inspire and nourish people. Doing something meaningful in the countryside is always a good thing."

Pianpian advocated for grounded actions:

"We should do things that are local and concrete — not too abstract or distant."

Jump admitted he never felt full identification with Nantang DAO:

"From the beginning, we were never really a team."
"I needed to trust someone to work effectively, but some relationships never built that trust."
He suggested that the best possible outcome for Nantang DAO might be as "a platform for fund distribution," while actual projects would benefit from smaller, tightly-knit teams.

Xiao Bai expressed concern over current trends:

"Many members feel that Nantang is no longer suitable for their development. To be honest, I’m worried — and there may eventually be a split."
He hopes that Yunxiang DAO can become a like-minded partner of Nantang DAO:
"Collaboration between us would be a great thing."
But he opposes the idea of one DAO "incubating" the other.

Yu Xing focused on reducing internal friction and moving toward real-world integration between Web3 and rural development.

"We need to help those who want to build avoid getting stuck in endless debates — our ultimate goal is to create order from chaos and actually get things done on-chain."
He believes the exploratory phase has ended:
"We can’t stay in exploration forever."
"We’ve already created an impact through rural-web3 integration — now it’s time to move beyond exploration and start doing real work."

My Reflections

As I write this conclusion, I have completed my time living and conducting fieldwork in Nantang. If I gained anything during this period, it was a set of genuine and profound reflections.

While analyzing the token holdings of Nantang DAO members, I came to understand that the meaning of data analysis goes far beyond revealing just "significant differences." Each shift in numbers represents a vivid story — a life unfolding behind the scenes.

I witnessed many people arriving with high hopes, earning their first tokens through community contributions; I observed how Liu Bing, the main financial supporter, was somewhat “forced” into being granted voting rights; and I was deeply moved by the collective effort of members who used real actions to support local creditors in need.

Of course, I also saw some people selling off all their Nantang Beans, or choosing to leave the community altogether — no longer participating in any transactions.

Here in Nantang, I temporarily set aside theoretical models and causal frameworks, and for the first time, truly felt the joys and sorrows of each individual behind the data.

Perhaps I will still feel anxious about completing my Ph.D. and publishing my dissertation — but at least when looking at this dataset, my heart feels grounded.

Re-evaluating the Meaning of DAO

At the beginning of this journey, my interview guide was filled with grand themes: organizational structure, mission statements, future development paths — perhaps overlooking the most basic aspect: human relationships.

In essence, a DAO may carry no intrinsic value. Decentralization might be nothing more than an ideal pursuit within human society. Concepts like autonomy, self-governance, and automation remain vague — almost like semantic games.

Yet when a group of people declare their intent to build a village using DAO principles, they are expressing something deeper — a value system and aspiration:

That rural communities deserve serious attention,
That people can form better connections,
That working together — whether through action or discussion — has the power to rebuild relationships among individuals.

From this perspective, Nantang Buzhi DAO may actually be closer to the true spirit of DAO in rural China than Nantang DAO itself.

Especially when most of Nantang DAO’s core members moved to Chengdu to explore new opportunities, Nantang DAO launched the “Live Well Together” proposal — aiming to better organize people's lives — which may reflect the deeper purpose that DAO should embody.

During interviews, I often asked participants:

"Is it DAO that needs the countryside, or is it the countryside that needs DAO technology?"

Now, I believe the answer lies elsewhere — neither the countryside nor DAO inherently needs the other. What we truly need is the people here, and the connections they build among one another.

Beyond Research

Though I initially came to this land with the goal of studying DAOs, what I took away went far beyond academic research.

As a volunteer in the cooperative, I met people from vastly different backgrounds:

Some came determined to settle down and learn ecological agriculture;
Others, tired of city life, sought peace and solace in the countryside;
And some arrived with confusion, searching for direction amidst the intersection of land and humanity.

This was a highly diverse group — coming from all over China:

From Guangzhou to Liaoning, Guizhou to Zhejiang;
Among them were billionaires and those burdened with debt;
Hong Kong’s top university postdocs and lifelong farmers — people who literally live with their backs to the sky and faces toward the soil.

Why did they come? I believe it was because of the openness and inclusiveness of this place, the villagers’ deep respect for rules and order, and most importantly, the enduring spark of idealism shared among these individuals.

Thank you to Liu Bing, Biao Ge, Jump, Yu Xing, Bixing, Pianpian, Shuhui, Xiao Bai, Jianqiao, Yang Zhen, Fangfang, and Cikey, as well as creditor Old Chang and Old Liu, for taking the time to chat with me and share your stories and feelings.

Thank you to Zhang Dong, Gan Yu, Baoshi, Keyi, Zhaolin, Jiale, Hanbai, Wenliang, and Jingyi, for co-living with me and making this period of time so fulfilling and meaningful.

Figure 3 - Local Partners Participate in the Hackathon Bonfire Night (2025.3.16)

Figure 4 - The Band and Children of Dadi Study (2025.4.13)

Figure 5 - Morning Exercise: Web3 From the Soil (2025.4.6)

Notes and References

¹https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0x69407f6f76fc6977f1d5217dc83cf997376e8a8b733db5eae92a82610b0f5890

²https://www.x-dignity.kgri.keio.ac.jp/news/738/

³https://forum.cabin.city/t/cabin-labs-2025-roadmap-planning-kickoff/291

⁴https://x.com/cabindotcity/status/1920220527530225764

⁵Yang Yunbiao: Operational Democracy [EB/OL]. China Urbanization Website – China’s Urbanization Portal, 2015-03-20 [2023-11-01]. http://www.ciudsrc.com/webdiceng.php?id=82806

⁶He Huili, Xu Hancheng, Wang Sixian. Conversations with Rural Builders: A Real Journey to the Rural Utopia [M]. Beijing: Oriental Press, 2023: 277-295

⁷The concept of "alternative currency" can be traced back to Canada in the 1980s when it was initially proposed by progressive intellectuals as a social experiment tool to address economic inequality and financial exclusion. Its core idea is to construct a medium of value exchange independent from the traditional financial system, serving vulnerable groups who struggle to access formal currencies and exploring more inclusive economic models.

⁸Zhou Xueguang. Ten Lectures on Organizational Sociology [M]. Social Sciences Academic Press, 2003.

⁹https://substack.chainfeeds.xyz/p/hodl-dao-defi-obol-eth-staking

PANews Link

https://www.panewslab.com/zh/articles/v6ozjj43q084

Chronicles of Nantang DAO (Part II)

June 19, 2025 · 30 min read

By Jia Fan

(PhD Student, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Eurybia Researcher)

Preface

This installment includes Parts 3, 4, and 5, focusing on the governance challenges within Nantang DAO: insufficient alignment with rural development needs, scattered goals, imperfect incentive and voting mechanisms, and risks related to external regulation, economic monopolization, and centralized voting power. It also introduces the heartwarming story behind the "New Year Goods Plan."

What Are the Goals?

"Promote the integration of rural development and Web3."

On the homepage of Nantang DAO’s Notion site, the organization’s stated mission reads: "Nantang DAO is dedicated to promoting holistic village development while facilitating mutual learning between rural communities and Web3 ecosystems: 'Seeking DAO-based community models from rural life, and global wisdom from cryptography.'" On the voting platform, its goals are described more concretely: "By upgrading the cultural courtyard of the Nantang Xingnong Cooperative, we aim to gradually establish a base for Web3 partners in the countryside; through deep collaboration with the local cooperative, we strive to build a sustainable points-based system for governance and economic distribution."

From these descriptions, it is clear that Nantang DAO sees itself primarily as a service-oriented rural organization aiming to support rural revitalization through democratic governance and financial empowerment. Specifically, it hopes to use cryptocurrency and Web3 technologies to build a new model of democratic decision-making, enabling decentralized management and allocation of treasury funds to meet local needs such as infrastructure and cultural activities. However, there remains a significant gap between vision and reality. In practice, Nantang DAO often feels like an awkward transplantation of existing DAO models from online spaces to rural settings — failing to truly integrate with fundamental rural needs and lacking focus in its goal-setting.

Democracy Without Villagers, Rural Building Without Locals

In discussions about the relationship between DAOs and rural communities, there is a general consensus: DAOs exist to serve villages, and the village should be the main actor. As the foundational members of rural society, villagers should naturally be at the center of rural development. Yet in Nantang DAO, only two members are native-born villagers (Fangfang and Yang Zhen), who are also employees of the cooperative. Their inclusion was intended to better facilitate on-the-ground operations. The vast majority of ordinary villagers, however, have neither joined the DAO nor participated in its decision-making processes.

Thus, the democracy practiced by Nantang DAO remains internal and limited — failing to meaningfully connect with or mobilize the broader rural community. This approach inevitably results in what could be called “external rural building” — rural development led by outsiders rather than driven by local residents. Due to its shallow integration with the rural community, the sustainability of this model is questionable. Objectively speaking, aside from a few members who have chosen to stay long-term, most members exhibit high mobility and short engagement cycles, further weakening the connection between DAO and village life. At present, both Nantang DAO and its members remain largely outsiders to the village itself.

Scattered Goals, Fragmented Efforts

"Promoting the integration of rural development and Web3" is an attractive and ambitious goal — one that carries inherent legitimacy and broad value appeal. Few Chinese-native DAOs have ventured into rural areas with such aspirations. Yet, in practice, this grand vision has proven difficult to implement. Whether participants are insiders or observers, the question inevitably arises: "How exactly can rural development and Web3 be integrated? What is the practical path forward for Nantang DAO?"

The formation of Nantang Buzhi DAO and the departure of some key members to establish new initiatives in Chengdu have further exposed internal disagreements over organizational direction. The team clearly faces challenges in aligning around shared goals.

"Brother Bing has a clear goal — integrating rural development and Web3 — but other members lack clarity," remarked Yang Yunbiao. When even basic directions and boundaries are unclear, achieving collective consensus becomes extremely difficult. Reflecting on the early days of Nantang DAO, Cikey noted: "The goals were too abstract, and the tasks were too vague." She observed that members worked on different aspects without sufficient understanding of their respective domains, leading to frequent shifts in objectives and slow progress toward consensus. Even after several months of operation, Xiao Bai admitted during an interview: "Nantang DAO doesn’t have specific goals. It’s experimental — we know what we want it to become, but we haven't set clear short-term or long-term targets."

Observations from the Proposal Process

Examining the proposal process provides a clearer picture. As of April 23, 2025, there were 49 completed proposals on the Nantang DAO voting platform, which can be categorized into five types:

Funding Requests: Over half (51.02%) of all proposals fall under this category, mostly involving local material procurement, infrastructure development, and member incentives.
Project Plans: 34.69% of proposals, many overlapping with funding requests, covering various projects like ecological agriculture and community development.
Institutional Development: 13 proposals focused on establishing and revising organizational systems, such as onboarding tasks, contribution point systems, reimbursement procedures, and voting mechanisms.
Member Onboarding: 6 proposals dealt with approving new members via community votes.
Other Decisions: 2 proposals addressed collaborations with the cooperative and other DAO organizations (see chart below).

Figure 1 - Proposal Types

The following chart illustrates the evolution of proposal types over time. Over the past nine months, the majority of community proposals centered on funding applications and project planning — especially during the initial and final stages (first and last four months). Institutional development proposals clustered mainly in December 2024, reflecting the initial shaping of organizational structures. Later, more proposals emerged regarding new member onboarding, indicating a phase of regular recruitment.

Figure 2 - Proposal Trending

Further analysis of project proposals reveals a notable trend: the focus has shifted from local rooting to external outreach. Initially, proposals were closely tied to rural production — such as enzyme-making, date tree planting, and construction and book procurement for the community library. Later, efforts diverged into two streams:

External exchange and collaboration (e.g., the “Bilateral Enlightenment Plan for Rural Development and Web3,” cooperation with Wuxiang in Chengdu).
Local community operation and integration (e.g., ongoing management of the community library and organizing local events).

Building Community or Commercialization?

Whether from an individual or organizational perspective, DAOs must navigate the inherent tension between commercial interests and public value. In many DAOs, members often prioritize short-term financial returns over governance participation, leading to recurring "free-rider" problems — a challenge that contradicts the long-term vision of community-oriented builders. From an organizational standpoint, pursuing productivity and commercial growth may require a centralized structure to improve decision-making efficiency, while emphasizing public goods necessitates decentralized, democratic mechanisms that ensure member equality and transparency — yet this can result in slow and cumbersome processes.

During my fieldwork, I frequently heard the phrase: "Nantang DAO is the least financially constrained DAO." Supported by Liu Bing’s generous funding, Nantang DAO enjoys considerable financial backing — a situation that, while enviable, also carries risks. Yang Yunbiao raised concerns during an interview: "Many people are here for speculation." This highlights the dual-level contradiction within Nantang DAO: individuals face a choice between contributing meaningfully or seeking quick gains, while the organization itself struggles with balancing community integration and commercial viability. Yet personal intentions cannot be enforced — as Bixing aptly put it, "judge actions, not intentions." Therefore, the following discussion focuses on organizational-level goal-setting.

Community building remains central to Nantang DAO's mission, encompassing both broader rural-web3 integration efforts and deeper engagement with the local Nantang community. As a highly active initiative, the “Bilateral Enlightenment Plan for Rural Development and Web3”, proposed and funded by Liu Bing, is led by core members like Bixing and rural development expert Liang Shaoxiong. By supporting exchanges between rural teams and Web3 communities, the plan has enabled members to attend domestic and international Web3 events and conduct outreach at universities, generating some influence within the industry.

In terms of local integration, Yu Xing noted: "There’s no disagreement about wanting to integrate; the debate is about how." Jump, known for his focus on public goods, has become a widely recognized advocate and practitioner of grassroots integration. He stated: "When I don’t have to worry about making money, I want to do things that truly matter." He emphasized that he was not advocating for passivity, but rather investing in meaningful work with eventual returns — including economic ones.

At the same time, members have reflected on the commercialization angle. Cikey expressed her early confusion: "What kind of economic value can we generate without having done anything concrete yet?" After months of experimentation, the team gradually recognized the model’s economic unsustainability. For instance, Yu Xing argued that "throwing money at local integration without market pressure leads to resource waste." He added: "As long as we keep relying on Liu Bing’s funds, we can't prove ourselves as an independent autonomous organization."

Still, rather than focusing on short-term profitability, the community currently prioritizes practical, real-world rural-building projects and use cases. As Bixing summarized: "Although our immediate goal isn’t profit, we need to engage in concrete actions — sharpen our skills, understand real needs, and eventually explore monetization possibilities."

For a newly formed organization, too many goals can lead to fragmentation and prevent deep emotional and value-based alignment — ultimately weakening collaborative cohesion. Rapid shifts in direction also raise concerns about continuity. Most members believe commercialization and community building aren't inherently contradictory; they’re simply exploring different paths based on their own experiences. However, one objective reality persists: internal disagreements over goals often lead to scattered resources and competition for attention. Pianpian shared during an interview: "Those who are better at writing proposals and securing funding tend to hold more power and control more resources."

At the time of my fieldwork, core members Yu Xing and Bixing had already traveled to Jianta Village in Chengdu to explore the feasibility of a DAO-driven startup incubation project, while Jump remained in Nantang, organizing daily Web3 activities (such as translation and writing groups) to deepen local integration. He said: "I feel like my experiment hasn't ended yet."

Experimenting with Incentives and Circulation — The Nantang Bean (NT)

DAOs typically govern through tokens — digital assets that serve both incentive and governance functions. These tokens are usually collectively owned and used to vote on community proposals. Less than a month after its formal launch, Nantang DAO moved forward with its token issuance plan. On August 20, 2024, the Nantang Bean (NT) was launched on Optimism¹, with an initial supply of 10 million. Each NT was pegged to the value of one Chinese yuan (RMB).

Functionally, the Nantang Bean serves dual purposes: recording contributions and acting as a voting right credential. On one hand, Nantang DAO uses a labor-hour system to track member contributions, which members log themselves via the Fairsharing platform. According to current standards², each hour of work entitles the member to compensation equivalent to RMB 60 in ETH and 60 Nantang Beans. Although labor-hour validity primarily relies on peer review among members, adjustments can be made through voting when necessary — ultimately depending on community consensus.

On the other hand, the Nantang Bean also serves as a governance token. Members holding more Beans gain greater voting weight in community decisions. This design — directly linking contribution records with governance rights — essentially forms a governance-incentive mechanism, theoretically encouraging higher levels of participation and autonomy.

Limitations of the Labor-Hour System

Despite taking a significant step forward in incentive design, Nantang DAO’s current “contribution recording” system faces several challenges in practice, including unclear access criteria, rigid evaluation standards, and ineffective peer-review mechanisms.

Pianpian shared his experience: he participated in farming and even helped start a village band, yet struggled to record his hours. He recalled: "I tried logging two times, but both were questioned in the group chat — 'This doesn’t seem like what Nantang DAO does' or 'This hasn’t been officially approved yet.'" This reflects the lack of clear access standards and insufficient transparency in the current system. These invisible barriers effectively exclude many contributors.

Yu Xing, however, believed Nantang DAO aimed to "lower entry barriers and encourage self-directed exploration." This divergence in perspectives further underscores the confusion caused by ambiguous access rules.

Community members broadly agree that the current "equal pay for equal time" model has notable shortcomings. For example, Biao Ge, Xiao Bai, Shuhui, and Cikey all pointed out that differences in experience and efficiency among members mean paying solely by hours "indirectly encourages inefficiency." Jump further observed that effort and reward often felt mismatched, causing a sense of imbalance. If Member A logs 10 hours but produces little, others might resent the compensation received. Moreover, tasks vary widely in nature, making time spent difficult to quantify. Combined with some members’ reluctance to self-report hours, the issue becomes even more complex.

Biao Ge lamented that this mechanism created distance among members: "Everyone feels uneasy, thinking others are taking advantage. The most intense arguments in the group chats always revolve around labor-hour disputes."

Did the peer-review mechanism help mitigate these issues? The answer appears limited. Xiao Bai explained: "People don’t really know each other’s work well enough to give fair evaluations. Also, members are generally conservative and avoid giving negative feedback out of consideration for others." This reluctance undermines the mechanism’s effectiveness. When asked, Pianpian gave a blunt response: "I just stopped engaging with him." This shows that the peer-review process not only failed to resolve conflicts but also became virtually meaningless due to low participation.

Faced with these challenges, Nantang DAO is internally exploring reforms to its incentive system. Currently, the community is shifting toward project-based funding applications — where disbursements depend on project outcomes. Some proposals now include milestones, allowing phased evaluations and staged fund releases. Additionally, certain members have suggested adopting a retrospective incentive approach — distributing funds after task completion based on output quality.

Though promising, these reform directions remain unproven, and the community has yet to settle on a mature solution. Disagreements persist over which incentive models should apply in different contexts. These debates are closely tied to broader issues such as internal tensions and unclear organizational objectives. Balancing flexibility and standardization in incentives — while fostering innovation and ensuring fairness — remains a key challenge for Nantang DAO.

Circulating the Nantang Bean

Beyond its roles as an incentive and governance token, the Nantang DAO community has been exploring additional use cases for the Nantang Bean (NT) — aiming to expand its function as a medium of exchange within the local economy. One of the most notable experiments was the “New Year Goods Debt Settlement and Contribution Points Promotion Plan”³, launched around the 2025 Spring Festival.

This initiative was ambitious in scale: it aimed to allow creditors from the cooperative’s mutual fund program to redeem NT for New Year goods. The dual objectives were:

To help alleviate the cooperative’s long-standing debt issues.
To create real-world usage scenarios for the Nantang Bean.

Under the original plan:

Nantang DAO would mint an additional 20% of NT (a total of 38,400 beans) and transfer them to the cooperative's wallet.
The cooperative would then use these tokens to exchange ETH from the DAO treasury.
With the ETH proceeds, the cooperative would purchase essential daily necessities (e.g., rice, flour, oil).
These items would be distributed to creditors, with each person allowed to redeem up to 400 RMB worth of goods using NT.
The cost of these goods could then be used to offset debts owed by the cooperative.

At the planning stage, this circulation experiment appeared highly promising — designed to cultivate villagers’ habit of using digital tokens through clear mechanisms, system workflows, and redemption rules.⁴ However, reality diverged sharply from the blueprint.

The envisioned scene — villagers independently scanning QR codes and using NT on their own — never materialized. Instead, all transactions had to be manually processed by Yang Zhen, the cooperative’s administrator, who operated wallets behind the scenes. According to Liu Bing, there were even attempts to assist elderly users by writing down wallet recovery phrases⁵ — a practice that was quickly halted due to security concerns. For most villagers, the technical barrier and complexity of cryptocurrency wallets remained too high.

Despite achieving short-term circulation, the system exposed several critical flaws. Reflecting on the entire New Year Goods Plan, intern Jianqiao offered a blunt assessment: "This only added costs. Villagers don’t care about points; this approach doesn’t actually solve people’s problems." The mismatch between the circulation experiment and villagers’ core needs — particularly their desire to cash out outstanding debts — became apparent. Some younger creditors openly stated, "We only want cash, not goods." Elderly participants like Old Chang and Old Liu accepted the tokens more out of necessity than preference — "Better than nothing," they said, reluctantly adapting.

Moreover, the value of daily essentials paled in comparison to the weight of accumulated debt. During a village meeting organized by the cooperative, several creditors suggested that if NT could be expanded to cover agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilizers, they would be much more willing to adopt the token.

From the perspective of actual usage, this circulation experiment fell far short of success. Yet, a surprising discovery emerged from data analysis conducted on April 19, 2025. By tracking publicly available wallet addresses of Nantang DAO members, I observed a significant drop in token holdings among key figures including Liu Bing, Bixing, Jump, Yang Zhen, Fangfang, Ruosong, and Yafeng around January 2025. Among them, Jump experienced the sharpest decline — over 70% reduction. Yang Zhen practically "all-in" his entire NT balance (see chart below).

Figure 3 - NT Holding Trending

Meanwhile, analyzing the overall NT wallet distribution revealed that while the total supply was around 100,000 beans, nearly 40,000 beans were held in the cooperative’s wallet alone — significantly exceeding the originally planned 20% allocation (see chart below). It wasn’t until later inquiries that I learned the heartwarming story behind the New Year Goods Plan.

Figure 4 - NT Issue Trending

Collective Effort: The Heartwarming New Year Goods Plan

Approaching the end of the year, the cooperative faced immense pressure — with many creditors and limited funds. On one side were villagers whose life savings had vanished overnight, facing urgent needs such as medical expenses and living costs. On the other side was a cooperative teetering on the edge of collapse.

Although the idea of using NT for debt settlement was already in place, the cooperative’s wallet contained very few tokens — meaning only a small amount of goods could be purchased. In response, members of Nantang DAO and the cooperative voluntarily decided to lend their NT to the cooperative, helping ease the immediate burden.

In essence, DAO members used their hard-earned contribution points — earned through participation in community work — to support the cooperative’s "debt-for-goods" initiative. This act symbolized a rare moment of alignment and empathy.

Learning about this touching story, I realized that although the New Year Goods Plan failed to establish sustainable token circulation and made only a marginal impact on the massive debt burden, it went beyond monetary value. Faced with hardship, people here chose to set aside differences and filled the gaps left by systemic failures with human compassion.

As Liu Bing reflected: "During the New Year Goods Plan, everyone was quite proactive — doing what they could to help the cooperative manage its debts. And under external pressure, we worked together better. The team spirit improved a little."

For the first time since the DAO’s formation, Nantang DAO and the cooperative shared a rare moment of consensus.

This can surely be considered a milestone in the history of “Rural Development + Web3” — where DAO members’ goodwill reached rural communities through blockchain technology, truly embodying the slogan: "Web3 from the soil."

If we reflect on the event, this might have been a plan where only the patron, Liu Bing, bore the cost — but he willingly paid for his dream. In that sense, he didn't lose at all.

Is It Decentralized Enough?

Decentralization is a relatively ambiguous concept. This article interprets it as a distribution of power within an organization’s governance structure. In the context of DAOs, decentralization manifests externally through political, regulatory, and financial independence, while internally it refers more concretely to how voting rights are distributed among members and the dynamic power relationships that emerge during decision-making processes.

The Unignorable Influence of External Forces

Globally, the legal status of DAOs remains largely undefined. So far, DAO-related regulations can be roughly divided into three stages⁶:

No clear legal entity (before 2021)
Inclusion under Limited Liability Company frameworks (2021–2023)
Independent legal entity recognition (after 2023)

Before 2021, U.S. law treated DAOs similarly to general partnerships. Between 2021 and 2023, states like Wyoming⁷ and Tennessee⁸ passed legislation recognizing DAOs as Limited Liability Companies (LLCs). In March 2023, the Utah State Legislature passed the Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Amendments⁹, marking a milestone in which DAOs were officially recognized as independent legal entities in the United States.

It's evident that the U.S. leads in regional regulatory development. Other developed jurisdictions such as Australia, France, and Hong Kong have also begun proposing and discussing relevant frameworks.¹⁰ However, in most global jurisdictions, DAOs still lack formal legal recognition, leading to regulatory uncertainty — and this is no exception in China.

On one hand, cryptocurrency forms the backbone of DAOs, yet issuing token-based assets related to crypto remains in a highly regulated and legally ambiguous zone in Mainland China. When Nantang DAO issued the Nantang Bean, it had to carefully define its top-level design — limiting its use strictly to internal governance (e.g., voting, participation in activities) or local service redemption — avoiding any financial attributes that might trigger legal risks.

On the other hand, although the Chinese government has not explicitly banned DAOs as organizational forms, it closely monitors their potential influence. This was demonstrated during the 2022 “Summer of the Roof Tile Cat” initiative co-organized by SeeDAO — a Web3 event themed around the traditional Yunnan house guardian figure, the Wamao. Originally planned to host over 50 thematic discussions, the main event was canceled due to pandemic control measures, but unexpectedly evolved into a pop-up "Open DAO Pub" experiment on the streets of Dali Ancient City — where over 2,000 participants self-organized NFT auctions, hackathons, and other spontaneous activities.¹¹ This case not only became an awakening moment for Chinese Web3 communities but also sparked global collaboration networks in places like Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Bali, Indonesia.¹²

A similar situation occurred in Nantang. In March 2025, the "Walking into Spring" event — jointly initiated by Yang Yunbiao, Liu Bing, and SeeDAO — originally planned a week-long trek from Nantang to the Taihao Mausoleum in Henan Province between March 1 and 7. Designed as a journey to promote physical and emotional growth among local partners, the event was ultimately affected by external factors.

Due to the timing — just before China’s annual National People’s Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (“Two Sessions”) — local authorities recommended rescheduling the march. The original plan was temporarily canceled and replaced with a government-organized bus tour visiting local cultural landmarks and ecological agriculture demonstration projects.¹³ Although this change was not directly related to Nantang DAO and no enforcement actions were taken by authorities, it clearly reflected the kind of external regulatory pressure that DAOs may face in China.

Internally in Nantang, as previously agreed upon between the cooperative and Nantang DAO, the cooperative holds a “veto right” over decisions involving local affairs. To some extent, this too represents another form of invisible regulation.

Monopolized Economic Resources

The establishment and ongoing operations of Nantang DAO are deeply tied to the social ideals of its patron, Liu Bing. As an investor who has long supported both cryptocurrency and rural development, he began donating Ether to the Nantang Cooperative as early as 2017. Later inspired by SeeDAO’s whitepaper, he initiated rural DAO experiments. To date, all costs associated with Nantang DAO — from planning to daily operations — have been personally funded by Liu Bing.

This single-source funding model naturally raises concerns about financial independence, especially within a context that emphasizes decentralized governance. Nearly all members acknowledge Liu Bing's unique influence. Yu Xing and Bixing noted: "In many cases, when Brother Bing speaks, others don’t offer alternative opinions or insist on their own."

Jump, Xiao Bai, and Pianpian, however, emphasized the legitimacy of the current structure:

Jump stated: "Joining this organization means accepting its rules. I can still disagree with him — if I don’t agree with something, I just don’t do it. When I interact with him, I feel equal, like friends."
Xiao Bai added: "Liu Bing respects the rules and honors voting outcomes. Even if he withdraws support, there’s still some treasury reserve to sustain basic operations."
Pianpian candidly admitted: "We don’t have better alternatives right now."

Yang Yunbiao (Biao Ge) was more direct in his critique: "Nantang DAO is fake decentralization — it’s ultra-centralized. In theory, everyone has voting rights and freedom of speech, but in practice, we all know decisions ultimately depend on Liu Bing." He also pointed out that Liu Bing’s central role stems directly from his financial contributions — "If he stops investing, Nantang DAO will effectively die."

Beyond Nantang DAO, even the salaries of Nantang Cooperative employees are currently covered by Liu Bing through personal loans, meaning the cooperative itself also faces issues of economic monopoly. In February 2025, the “Complaining About Liu Bing Assembly” organized by interns under Nantang Buzhi DAO became a symbolic event.

On Nantang Buzhi DAO’s Notion page¹⁴, members revealed several fiscal governance issues:

Lack of transparency in fund usage
Exclusion of community members from decision-making processes
Resource allocation heavily favoring projects aligned with Liu Bing’s vision for “Web3 integration”
Underfunding or deliberate neglect of other critical areas like rural revitalization
Liu Bing had even used the threat of cutting salaries to pressure cooperative members into project participation, making them feel treated like pawns and triggering widespread dissatisfaction, severely damaging team morale and cohesion

Members highlighted how this financial monopoly threatens the stability of both cooperative employees and DAO participants, leading to imbalanced project development and difficulties in implementing long-term plans.

Insufficient Decentralization in Voting

For a DAO, a prerequisite for decentralized governance is relatively equal distribution of voting power — meaning a flat structure where no individual holds disproportionate influence. Each member’s voting weight corresponds to their token holdings — in this case, the number of Nantang Beans they possess.

As shown in the chart below, before December 2024, Yu Xing held the most Nantang Beans. After that, Jump, Liu Bing, and Fangfang saw the largest increases in token holdings. By March 2025, these four individuals collectively held over 75% of all Nantang Beans, effectively becoming the "whales" of the community.

Interestingly, despite being the primary financial backer, Liu Bing initially did not hold any formal voting rights. However, his opinions still significantly influenced community decisions. Since he didn't participate in labor-hour recording, he couldn't accumulate Beans through regular contribution channels. Through community discussion, it was decided to allocate 20% of the originally allocated 20% share (i.e., 4% of total supply) from the cooperative’s portion to Liu Bing — granting him voting rights while partially repaying debts he had personally loaned to the cooperative.

Yu Xing joked about the arrangement: "For Liu Bing, having no vote meant having all the votes — so why not give him actual voting rights?"

Figure 5 - NT Holding Trending

Voting Mechanism: Power Balancing and Vulnerabilities

Closely related to voting rights is the design of the voting mechanism, which determines how much real influence each member’s tokens actually have in decision-making.

Nantang DAO follows a classic off-chain governance process — proposal submission, discussion, and voting — primarily conducted via Snapshot, a widely used DAO voting platform supporting multiple voting models. So far, Nantang DAO has experienced three major shifts in voting mechanisms:

One Person, One Vote
Weighted Voting Based on Token Holdings
Weighted Voting with a Cap of 20% per Individual

Before November 1, 2024, when Nantang Beans were not yet issued, decisions were made using a one person, one vote model, with equal voting rights among the seven founding members.

From December 22, 2024 onward, after the contribution system had been in place for about three months, the community shifted to weighted voting based on token holdings.

During this phase, decision-making briefly became dominated by a few members. For example:

In a proposal regarding a "contribution reward system for non-Nantang DAO members"¹⁵, four members voted in favor or abstained, but Liu Bing’s opposition carried over 38% of the vote, directly determining the outcome.
In another proposal on "Rural Development and Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment," Jump’s voting weight reached 55.5%, effectively vetoing the proposal.

To prevent such dominance, Nantang DAO revised its voting rules again¹⁶. The new regulation capped individual voting weights at 20% — any excess would be recalculated proportionally. Additionally, proposals required more than 50% participation and over 60% approval to pass.

However, by the time of my interviews in April 2025, the 20% cap was not well enforced. For instance, in a proposal concerning the trial operation of the Village Library¹⁷, Jump’s voting weight still reached 31%.

Xiao Bai explained: "There was no programmer available to adjust Snapshot’s voting mechanism, and since most proposals passed unanimously, we didn’t bother calculating manually offline."

Issues and Risks in the Current Voting System

Currently, Nantang DAO’s voting mechanism suffers from several flaws:

One key vulnerability is that anyone holding Nantang Beans can vote, regardless of whether they are official members of the DAO. This means outsiders who obtained beans through local activities (e.g., rural-building events, New Year Goods Plan) or interns¹⁸ who received token airdrops could theoretically exert significant influence over community decisions.

While the original intention was to encourage broad participation and inclusivity, this openness introduces a risk of centralized manipulation.

Open token-based governance lowers barriers to entry, but may allow small groups with concentrated token holdings to sway outcomes. For example, during the New Year Goods Plan, if over 100 creditors united and colluded with a DAO member to submit a malicious proposal on Snapshot — such as "Nantang DAO assumes full responsibility for cooperative debt" — the proposal might pass under conditions of low voter turnout or inadequate oversight, given the cooperative’s wallet alone held around 40,000 beans.

Although this scenario sounds extreme, if it ever occurred, Nantang DAO could face severe financial risks — and potentially suffer reputational damage if the decision were not executed.

To mitigate these risks, the following improvements are recommended for future iterations of Nantang DAO:

Restrict voting eligibility — require minimum token holding duration or community verification
Introduce multi-stage review and emergency stop mechanisms — such as multi-signature approvals or council veto powers
Control token distribution — prevent excessive minting or airdropping that dilutes governance rights

These adjustments could significantly reduce centralization risks and help ensure long-term stability and fair self-governance as Nantang DAO continues exploring the intersection between Web3 and rural revitalization.

Notes and References

¹ Optimism is a "Layer 2" network that makes Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper, aiming to improve the efficiency of Ethereum. NT wallet address: 0x7563cb33148cD2b929ed85e69F697be13b515Bd0

² https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0xd7c359c0cb1deff207d1f8ceb2bea1ca3fd815d8a6dc3297883a28b460480d65

³ The Nantang Bean (NT) is pegged 1:1 with the Chinese yuan (RMB), thus equivalent to 40,000 RMB.

⁴ https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0xbe2f78457742f3b30a01ade314bf3a69c5a0dcd0bdb19c8bb370f28a7da68eb9

⁵ A mnemonic phrase is a list of words that contains all the information necessary to recover a cryptocurrency wallet. It is a critical component of cryptocurrency security and can be seen as the "master key" to a wallet.

⁶ zf857.eth. How Legal Recognition Can Lead DAOs Out of Utopian Dilemmas [EB/OL]. TechFlow, March 13, 2023 [Accessed February 28, 2024]. https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_11516.html

⁷ See Wyoming Decentralized Autonomous Organization Supplement Act, https://sos.wyo.gov/Forms/WyoBiz/DAO_Supplement.pdf

⁸ See Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 48

⁹ Utah State Legislature. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Amendment: H.B. 357 [S]. March 1, 2023 [Accessed April 20, 2025]. https://le.utah.gov/~2023/bills/static/HB0357.html

¹⁰ In October 2021, Australia’s Senate submitted a report (Senate Select Committee Report into Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre’s Final Report), recommending that Australia formally recognize DAOs as legitimate corporate structures. In June 2022, French National Assembly member Pierre Person proposed legal recognition of DAOs. In May 2024, Hong Kong Legislative Council member Junius Wu suggested legal reforms were needed to promote DAO development.

¹¹ Guazi. "The Unfinished Summer of Wamao — Guazi: The Pop-up Experiment of Open DAO Pub" [OL]. Foresight News, 2023 [Accessed June 1, 2025]. https://foresightnews.pro/article/detail/41473

¹² Ruiyue. "In Dali, A Web3 Conference Was Canceled Twice" [OL]. QQ News, 2023 [Accessed June 1, 2025]. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20230127A041Z600

¹³ Wen Qian. "Walking into Spring: A Journey across the Central Plains — In Anhui and Henan" [OL]. Matters, 2025 [Accessed June 1, 2025]. https://matters.town/a/gbvf918jhdho/history

¹⁴ https://meadow-kangaroo-109.notion.site/19f015795cf780fca50ce6cf1a1d189e

¹⁵ https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0x2059ea0bd9165641da720267eacf16400f1f7161c852704193c2640634a8ffa6/votes

¹⁶ https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0xbfd4791933427fc5b810ccd9360b71218d24a53454eeec3381f18286ea2eb730

¹⁷ https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0x4cace033a20cbec94263f651005bf53e7c33ac3072ad1814f7347e4840f66fb0/votes

¹⁸ According to a community proposal (https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0x8ce03f897a37e41be19c60aea665f35349e111e7e0bc1841b8034a123635f561), Nantang DAO once issued Nantang Beans as an airdrop to Sushe interns (1,000 points per person per month).

PANews Link

https://www.panewslab.com/zh/articles/31873z07lde1

Chronicles of Nantang DAO (Part I)

June 17, 2025 · 26 min read

By Jia Fan

(PhD Student, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Eurybia Researcher)

Preface

In March 2025, with the support of City University of Hong Kong and my doctoral supervisor Professor Xiaofan Liu, I conducted a one-and-a-half-month field study in Sanxing Village (formerly Nantang Village), Sanhe Town, Fuyang City, Anhui Province. During this period, I conducted in-depth interviews with 14 participants, including core members of Nantang DAO, employees of local agricultural cooperatives, and villagers. I also participated in activities such as the Nantang DAO Onboarding Program, daily operations of the Nantang Xingnong Cooperative, and the Nantang Buzhi DAO Translation Group.

Although the time was short, I was deeply moved. I witnessed the locals’ earnest efforts to put DAO ideals into practice, as well as the many challenges they faced as pioneers in the rural-building DAO space. These issues are not only unique to their context but also reflect broader difficulties currently facing DAO development.

This first and second part introduces the background of Nantang DAO’s emergence in Nantang Village, the gathering of the "Seven Founders," and the tensions between the Nantang Cooperative and DAO members.

Origins

Nantang’s Democratic Roots

In the year 2025, on the wish list of the Ethereum Foundation’s academic grant program, the question “How can DAO tools assist cooperatives?” was proposed for the first time as an academic topic¹. This marked not only a novel application of Web3 technology² in the real world but also posed a significant challenge to researchers globally. While scholars around the globe were eager to tackle this issue, coincidentally, in a seemingly ordinary rural village in China, a group of young people and villagers had already begun their own grassroots experiment.

In August 2024, Nantang DAO — a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to rural development — was officially established. Unlike most DAOs worldwide, all members of Nantang DAO live within the village, coexisting with the original agricultural cooperative. Though jokingly described as rival factions, the truth is that the so-called "headquarters" of Nantang DAO actually resides within the cooperative compound — a true example of mutual integration. However, introducing the concept of decentralized autonomous organization into rural life is indeed a pioneering effort in China. This small village in Sanhe Town, Yingzhou District, Fuyang City, Anhui Province, became a hub of innovation by adopting cutting-edge ideas from the crypto world. It soon gained national attention, drawing scholars and experts to discuss the concept of “rural-building DAO,” and even hosted a Web3 hackathon — an unprecedented event in rural China³.

Figure 1 - The Horse-Head Wall of the Nantang Cooperative Courtyard

You might wonder: what makes this village so attractive to Web3 elements? Why was the first rural DAO born here? And why has it been humorously dubbed “the Jerusalem of Chinese Web3”? The answer lies not in randomness but in history — the democratic genes and cultural heritage cultivated over the past three decades are the deepest roots of its success. From renowned farmer rights organizations to the first localized implementation of Robert's Rules of Order, the seeds of democratic governance have long been sown here.

The mention of farmer rights organizations may seem somewhat outdated today. Yet at the turn of the century in China, when the phrase “farmers suffer, rural areas are poor, agriculture is dangerous”⁴ accurately reflected reality, such self-organized groups played a crucial role in advancing rural modernization and left a significant mark in the history of rural development. This village in Anhui was both a participant and witness to this sweeping movement.

In the 1990s, tax reform was implemented nationwide, but in some parts of Fuyang, local authorities imposed excessive burdens on farmers, while corrupt officials colluded with local thugs to enforce collection efforts, leading to widespread suffering. At that time, Yang Yunbiao (affectionately called “Biao Ge”), a recent graduate from Northwest University of Political Science and Law, represented villagers in filing complaints in Beijing. He faced various forms of retaliation, including intimidation and unlawful detention. In response, locals realized that only through self-organization could they change the status quo. Thus, the Farmers’ Rights Protection Association was born⁵.

In 2004, inspired by the suggestions of Wen Tiejun, a well-known expert on rural issues in China, the village began preparing to establish the Nantang Xingnong Cooperative, marking a shift from protest-driven resistance toward constructive community building — from “crying for rights” to “building villages with smiles.” During this period, many constructive cultural, social, and economic initiatives emerged, including the Elder Respect Cultural Festival, farmer-led financial mutual aid programs, elderly associations, women’s associations, and activity centers for left-behind children⁶.

As things gradually settled down, one of Nantang Cooperative’s democratic innovations once again drew outside attention — in 2008, Robert’s Rules of Order, the classic Western parliamentary procedure, took root in a Chinese village for the first time. Yuan Tianpeng, the key figure behind this transformation, had personally experienced the rule-based system during his time at the student parliament of the University of Alaska. Upon returning to China, he committed himself to adapting these rules for local use. Through a chance introduction by independent writer Kou Yan Ding, he met Yang Yunbiao of Nantang Cooperative and visited the village in person. Together with Biao Ge and other villagers, they engaged in extensive discussions and trial-and-error processes, eventually crafting the “Thirteen Nantang Principles” — affectionately nicknamed the “Radish and Cabbage Rules” by locals. The book Operational Democracy vividly documents the birth of this set of rules⁷.

This localized adaptation of parliamentary procedure quickly attracted widespread attention from domestic and international academia and media, becoming one of Nantang’s most recognizable cultural symbols. Looking back, what made it especially valuable was that it successfully stripped away the elitist connotations of Western-style parliamentary rules and transformed them into a truly practical and implementable model rooted in rural life. The Nantang practice demonstrated that democracy is not an abstract ideal or the exclusive privilege of elites, but rather a workable system grounded in methodology that can take root even at the most basic levels of society. This experience provided valuable indigenous insights for China’s grassroots democratic construction and showcased the strong vitality of democratic institutions in rural China.

Formation of Nantang DAO

Consciously organizing farmers and applying the Radish and Cabbage Rules undoubtedly represent Nantang’s precious cultural DNA. Yet up to this point, everything happening within the Nantang Cooperative had not yet intersected with the world of Web3. That connection would come through one person — Liu Bing.

In 2011, Liu Bing came across online reports about Nantang’s democratic practices. Driven by curiosity about the “Radish and Cabbage Rules,” he traveled to Nantang as a volunteer. Meanwhile, Matthew Hale, a Ph.D. anthropology student from the U.S., arrived in Nantang to conduct field research on China’s new rural development movement⁸. In this village deeply connected to the land, they engaged in wide-ranging discussions — from Argentina’s worker factory occupation movements⁹ to how blockchain technology could foster decentralized economic systems and support cooperative development. During one casual conversation, he introduced Bitcoin to Liu Bing and even offered him one (worth about $1 at the time). This encounter planted a seed in Liu Bing’s mind. Since then, fate had started turning — he began closely following developments in the cryptocurrency industry. From 2013 onward, he invested in Bitcoin and participated in Ethereum’s global crowdfunding campaign in 2014. After achieving financial freedom, Liu Bing began giving back to Nantang — initially donating Ether directly to the cooperative and attempting to educate its members about blockchain and digital wallets. Unfortunately, the results were less than ideal.

In the following years, two major events occurred — one involving the cooperative, the other related to the Web3 space in the Chinese-speaking world. First, the cooperative’s mutual fund project collapsed due to factors like the impact of the 2022 pandemic, leaving loans unrecoverable and plunging the cooperative into debt. Meanwhile, SeeDAO — the largest DAO organization in the Chinese-speaking world — completed its transition from a company to a DAO and rapidly grew into the largest DAO community in China. SeeDAO, a humanistic DAO, has always focused on rural development in China. Against this backdrop, with introductions from Liu Bing, Gu Yi, and Wang Debin, Yang Yunbiao, the head of the cooperative, and Baiyu, the founder of SeeDAO, engaged in deep conversations. They realized that integrating Web3 into rural development could attract more young talent and commercial resources, and potentially offer new solutions to the cooperative’s debt crisis. At this point, combining Nantang with Web3 seemed to have everything in place — except for the final spark.

Unexpectedly, the wind blew first from SeeDAO. In May 2024, several SeeDAO members visited Nantang for field research. In the former village elementary school now known as Nantang Sutras Guesthouse, Biao Ge shared the cooperative’s 20-year struggle story under a Bodhi tree with visiting guests. These stories deeply moved the Web3 explorers, who repeatedly exclaimed that Nantang felt like “the Jerusalem of Chinese Web3.” This meaningful meeting ignited enthusiasm for collaboration, and SeeDAO subsequently organized multiple study tours. Almost simultaneously, the cooperative launched its first intern recruitment plan, opening its doors to young people passionate about rural development.

Thus, people from two entirely different worlds — rural development and Web3 — began exchanging ideas and learning from each other in Nantang. Amid this vibrant atmosphere, another favorable wind quietly arose — the idea of establishing a truly grounded Web3 organization was gradually transforming from dream into reality...

It was June 2024 in Shanghai — preparations for the “Ethereum Public Summer” event, jointly initiated by LXDAO and ETHPanda, were underway. Meanwhile, an extraordinary 700-kilometer journey was about to begin. Introduced and sponsored by Liu Bing, partners from the Nantang Cooperative in Fuyang, Anhui, entered the Web3 world for the first time. There, they met Jump, an LXDAO member who was preparing for a presentation. Liu Bing recalls little about the actual speech, but he clearly remembers how Biao Ge’s son excitedly grabbed his hand after Jump finished speaking, shouting: “I like Jump! I like Jump! I want to bring him back to Nantang!” This innocent moment, full of destiny, was seen by Liu Bing as a fated connection.

In the following days, in-depth conversations between Liu Bing and LXDAO member Yu Xing gave shape to the vision of “Web3 entering Nantang.” Soon after, Lizi from SeeDAO, along with Yu Xing and Jump from LXDAO, arrived in Nantang as the first resident participants, launching this unique experiment. To encourage more Web3 participants to join, Liu Bing promised a reward of 0.1 ETH (approximately RMB 2,000) to each participant who visited Nantang. Later, to build a more sustainable incentive mechanism, and upon collective suggestion, Liu Bing decided to establish a dedicated treasury to facilitate exchanges between Nantang and the Web3 world.

Once the funding issue was resolved, organizational efforts followed. On July 28, 2024, Yu Xing drafted and published Nantang DAO’s first official proposal¹⁰, marking the formal start of this innovative organization aimed at integrating Web3 technologies with rural governance. One month later, the Nantang DAO founding proposal was approved by LXDAO¹¹, signifying the establishment of a deep collaborative relationship between Nantang DAO and LXDAO, and affirming Nantang DAO’s status as an independently operating entity.

From ambitious declarations of building “the Jerusalem of Chinese Web3” to the concrete rooting of a DAO led by Nantang itself, much has happened in just two short years on this land. For the Nantang Cooperative, emerging from the shadow of debt brought a glimmer of hope — and everything seemed to be moving in a better direction.

Figure 2 - Logos

Gathering and Conflict

The Seven Founders of Nantang DAO

"Creating connections while embracing differences, nurturing hope amid uncertainty."¹²

With the support of Liu Bing’s Web3 incentive program, news quickly spread across various online DAO communities. More people gradually arrived in Nantang, including Bixing, who would later become a core member of Nantang DAO. At the same time, the cooperative also assigned one of its official employees (Yang Zhen) to join the DAO’s founding team as a representative. Thus, a rural DAO composed of seven initial members was formed. These "Seven Founders" came from diverse backgrounds — some were DAO practitioners, others were Web3 developers or graduate students, and some were even local villagers born and raised in Nantang. Across all of China, it would have been hard to find a more grounded DAO team at that time.

Yu Xing was the first resident member of Nantang DAO. Before meeting Liu Bing, this Web3 practitioner had already studied innovative cases of integrating blockchain technology with rural development in Japan. From his early fascination with NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)¹³, to his deep involvement in building decentralized communities, and eventually becoming a contributor to LXDAO, his career has always been driven by idealism and entrepreneurial passion. Even before officially stepping into the field of rural revitalization, Yu Xing sharply perceived the natural “resonance” between DAO organizations and traditional villages. In his view, compared to the winner-takes-all corporate structure prevalent in urban commercial societies, traditional villages naturally possess bottom-up governance features through clan networks and public opinion supervision — a characteristic that intriguingly aligns with the distributed decision-making model pursued by DAOs. Moreover, DAOs aim to build more equitable ownership relationships where co-creators participate in value distribution — a concept similarly reflected in the design of agricultural cooperatives¹⁴, indicating a deeper institutional synergy. Reflecting on his connection with Nantang, he believed that this land, rich in historical practices such as farmer rights protection and localized implementation of Robert’s Rules of Order, carries an inherent spirit of pioneering social exploration — providing fertile ground for Web3 to engage with rural development. However, facing reality, he candidly acknowledged that significant information asymmetry exists in rural areas, meaning meaningful change can only happen when people are fully immersed. With this understanding, he committed himself wholeheartedly, initiating a profound dialogue between Web3 and rural China.

Jump was the second core member to arrive in Nantang after Yu Xing. As a devoted fan of American anthropologist David Graeber¹⁵, Jump was deeply captivated by the idea of bottom-up organization upon first encountering the concept of DAO. Prior to arriving in Nantang, he had worked at LXDAO for a year, until a chance encounter at the Shanghai event forged a unique bond between him and the locals. Despite this, during my interview with him, he seemed conflicted about being described as “an LXDAO member coming to Nantang,” almost deliberately avoiding such framing. For him, the identity he carried upon arrival represented a certain original intention — he preferred to see himself as free-spirited, able to pursue what truly resonated with him in Nantang — a lifestyle and institutional design inspired by the logic of mycelium networks.

From Jump’s perspective, mycelium-like design emphasizes instability and interweaving. Instability embraces emergence, multiplicity, and dynamic influence from encounters (as opposed to linear growth and control), while interweaving implies symbiotic relationships with surrounding environments — designing institutions with attention to differences and dependencies among entities, enabling better coexistence.¹⁶ Carrying these values, he came to the countryside to seek a new way of life, naturally adopting a place-based mindset. When asked about the combination of rural revitalization and DAO, he noted that although simply packaging these two elements together may generate buzz and attract development resources, economic benefits, and media attention to the village, the still-bubbly nature of Web3 resembles a seed — one that desperately needs fertile soil like rural China to grow. When I further asked what the countryside could offer DAO (or Web3), he paused thoughtfully before replying: “I haven’t spent decades working within the Ethereum system, nor do I have extensive personal experiences tied to it, so I don’t approach it from that angle. I feel more connected to this village and the people I’ve met here.” Nevertheless, despite his rural-centered thinking, he added: “Digital transformation is something Professor Wen Tiejun has long advocated, and Web3 could serve as an entry point for rural builders to explore digital tools. There are people in the Web3 space who genuinely want to use technology to make positive changes in the real world, and Nantang offers an excellent testing ground.”

Bixing is a seasoned developer in the Web3 space. Just as his pseudonym “xboring” suggests, his daily life is simple and routine-driven. Yet beneath this calm exterior lies a heart filled with curiosity toward emerging ideas — it was precisely this desire for “stillness giving rise to movement” that led him into the world of DAOs. Born and raised in the countryside, Bixing has always maintained a deep emotional attachment to rural life. When he first heard about the unprecedented idea of combining rural revitalization with Web3, his inner passion was instantly ignited. “I wanted to know what they were really thinking, what they truly wanted to achieve.” Driven by equal parts curiosity and unease, he embarked on his journey to Nantang, even preparing to leave shortly after arrival if things didn’t work out. But instead, he ended up staying for over half a year.

He is a pragmatic person — not one to dwell on conceptual debates, but rather someone skilled at identifying solutions based on concrete needs. When discussing the intersection between DAOs and rural revitalization, he emphasized that rural communities need to unite, and DAOs provide just the right organizational form — one that preserves individual independence while enabling effective collaboration. He believes that promoting DAO applications in rural areas can at least open new pathways for struggling rural initiatives and create opportunities for transformative change. As he put it himself: “Change, no matter how small, is better than no change at all.”

Besides Yu Xing, Jump, and Bixing, other members who came from outside included Cikey, Pianpian, and Dinghui. At the time, Cikey served as head of operations at LXDAO and was also a proponent of decentralized communities, saying: “DAO design resembles an ecosystem — it grows from the bottom up, offering more people opportunities to unlock their potential and creativity, helping them find like-minded friends.” To better assist the integration of local communities with Web3, she accepted Nantang’s invitation and traveled there. Pianpian was working at an ecological farm in Guangzhou’s Yinlin Village at the time. Although only vaguely familiar with DAOs, he found the concept “quite interesting.” Finally came Dinghui, a well-known KOL in the community, who gained recognition in Web3 circles for his viral article titled "The Great Failure of Chinese DAOs: Don't Worry, None of Us Can Achieve Decentralized Autonomy."¹⁷

With Dinghui's arrival, the “Seven Founders” of Nantang DAO were finally united, marking the beginning of this groundbreaking social experiment blending rural revitalization with Web3.

Figure 3 - The Seven Founders of Nantang DAO (Source: Nantang DAO homepage[^18])

Conflict: Two Groups with Divergent Backgrounds

The collectivist culture of rural Chinese society is rooted in the tradition of agricultural village communities, emphasizing group cooperation and shared well-being. This culture is based on moral constraints such as the belief that "people act while heaven watches," and it maintains social order through collective norms. As Professor Fei Xiaotong noted, traditional beliefs (such as the kitchen god’s supervision) and taboos (respect for grain, sex, and written paper) form a framework that regulates people's daily behaviors in rural society.¹⁹ In contrast, DAO governance emphasizes individual rationality and autonomous decision-making, building trust through blockchain’s transparency and traceability. When these two fundamentally different governance cultures and logics meet, conflict becomes almost inevitable.

In early 2025, the Nantang Xingnong Cooperative announced its third round of recruitment under the “Nantang Youth Internship Program,”²⁰ marking the third such initiative since its launch in March 2024. Unlike previous rounds, this time the program included not only ecological agriculture, zero-pollution village development, community library operations, and cultural activities, but also emphasized learning Web3 fundamentals and participating in Nantang DAO. Soon after being disseminated by the media teams of Guoren Rural Reconstruction²¹ and SeeDAO, the announcement attracted attention — yet internally within Nantang, the situation was far from optimistic. After months of coexistence, rather than forming a strong synergy, tensions between cooperative members and DAO participants escalated. Jump once summarized the source of this tension as the deep-seated differences between the two groups: “The gap includes differences in experience, life background, values, personality — and often, prejudice.”²²

In fact, signs of this divide were already visible during the formation of Nantang DAO. At the very beginning, when defining the relationship between the cooperative and the DAO, significant disagreements arose. The DAO team wished to operate relatively independently, while the cooperative insisted on starting actions first and gradually establishing boundaries through collaboration. In Biao Ge’s view, as the local entity responsible for ensuring stability in the village, allowing full autonomy to the DAO without established trust was unrealistic — decisions had to be made collectively. Yu Xing categorized this difference as one of "behavioral habits": DAOs tend to plan rules and structures upfront, while rural organizations adapt flexibly to changing circumstances, following a more "elastic" approach.

After prolonged negotiation, both sides reached a compromise: the cooperative would provide its courtyard as the workspace for Nantang DAO, while the DAO would issue an additional 20% of its original token supply (Nantang Beans) to the cooperative as economic compensation. Additionally, the cooperative retained a veto right over decisions involving local affairs.

At the same time, internal institutional development within Nantang DAO continued, aiming to better integrate with the local context. To facilitate participation and support newcomers, in September 2024, the community voted to adopt the first version of a unique "Newcomer Onboarding Task Plan." This plan included tasks closely tied to the local community, such as attending daily morning exercises, participating in ecological farming (weeding, composting), understanding Robert’s Rules of Order, and interviewing villagers. Learning basic Web3 concepts and using common governance tools like Snapshot, Fairsharing, and Notion were also mandatory requirements.

As a result, some cooperative staff and interns completed these tasks and joined the DAO. However, instead of promoting integration, this influx seemed to further complicate the situation. From the perspective of Nantang DAO, new members brought dual identities and equal voting rights — potentially influencing the direction of the community. According to Yu Xing, “their affiliation with the cooperative often led them to act in the cooperative’s interest,” causing internal misalignments. For an organization built on flat hierarchies and shared decision-making, this posed a major challenge.

In response, Nantang DAO raised the entry threshold²³: beyond completing the onboarding tasks, candidates were now required to have prior DAO experience — such as contributing meaningfully to other DAOs or participating in foundational knowledge-sharing sessions within Web3 partner organizations. This higher standard excluded many cooperative members, effectively stripping them of decision-making power over many local initiatives. Yet in a small village like Nantang, nearly everyone was a stakeholder in local affairs.

Thus, at the time, local youth could be roughly divided into three categories:

Members of Nantang DAO with Web3 backgrounds,
Members of Nantang DAO affiliated with the cooperative,
Interns from the cooperative who had not joined the DAO.

On the proposal platform, opinions were sharply divided — some advocated for ecological agriculture, others pushed for local community building, while others focused on external connections. During discussions and voting, arguments often became heated. Central questions emerged: “What does this actually have to do with Web3?” or “Will this truly benefit local development?” If you had visited then, you might have heard community members joking: “Other Web3 communities are trading crypto, while we’re arguing all day.”

In mid-October 2024, during a sharing session in Beijing, Bixing reflected: “Maintaining the vitality of a DAO is far more challenging than creating it — especially when managing internal differences and conflicts.”²⁴

A Third Path: Nantang Buzhi DAO

As time passed, tensions grew increasingly irreconcilable. Rational discussion gave way to emotional disputes, and debates often spiraled into endless arguments. The once-unifying idealism of Nantang DAO now faced its first crossroads.

Jump was among the first to make a choice. As a core member deeply involved in every major decision from inception to daily operations, he found himself trapped in escalating conflicts. “DAO meetings had become rigid and boring,” and the word “struggle” was what he heard most frequently. Feeling powerless to change the status quo, he grew exhausted. Though the mycelium logic told him that instability and conflict were normal, the drawn-out entanglements eventually wore down his patience. He decided to seek a new way — to build a different kind of relationship with local partners.

Around winter 2024, when interns were excluded from Nantang DAO due to their lack of Web3 experience, Jump teamed up with Yaren, Shuhui, and other cooperative members to launch a new initiative. With irony, they named it Nantang Buzhi DAO, setting up its digital space on Notion.²⁵ Exploring this archive, one can find records of passionate gatherings like the “Revolution Against Investors” meeting, alongside everyday activities such as communal movie nights, translation projects, and writing sessions. As more local activities unfolded, relationships among members grew closer.

Although founded with irony and critique, Nantang Buzhi DAO objectively offered a third path — a middle ground between the cooperative and Nantang DAO. When asked about its relationship with Nantang DAO, Jump offered a telling remark: “We hope Buzhi DAO creates pressure for them to improve, pushing them toward better performance.” When questioned about how it differed from Nantang DAO — which also aimed at rural revitalization — Shuhui candidly replied: “We refuse to do things just for the sake of being a DAO. Instead, we focus on practical, meaningful actions that directly impact villagers’ lives — things that are possible but remain undone.”

In April 2025, Nantang Buzhi DAO published an article titled "Finding Authentic Meaning Amid Urban Alienation" explaining its organizational philosophy and vision. It proposed ideas such as “decentralization is a means, not an end,” and “letting rural revitalization truly revitalize itself.” It pledged not to force members to engage with Web3 technology, but instead to empower local youth and inspire more young people to realize their potential.²⁶

Notes and References

¹ https://efdn.notion.site/Academic-Grants-Round-2025-Wishlist-17bd9895554180f9a9c1e98d1eee7aec

² Web3 is a term coined by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Polkadot and one of the original founders of Ethereum, in 2014. It refers to a "decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain technology."

³ A hackathon (also known as a hackfest) is an event where computer programmers and other individuals involved in software development—such as graphic designers, interface designers, and project managers—gather together to collaborate intensively on a software project.

⁴ In the early 2000s, Li Changping, then Party Secretary of Qipan Township, Jianli County, Hubei Province, wrote a letter to Premier Zhu Rongji stating that “farmers are truly suffering, rural areas are truly impoverished, and agriculture is truly at risk.” His book I Tell the Truth to the Premier later brought national attention to rural issues. In 2001, the term “San Nong” (rural issues) was officially included in policy documents and became a widely used term among academic circles and policymakers in China.

⁵ Zhu Xinshan, Rural Social Structure Changes and Organizational Reconstruction [M]. Shanghai University Press, 2004. Page 166.

⁶ Yang Yunbiao, Operational Democracy [EB/OL]. Urbanization Network — China's Urbanization Portal, March 20, 2015 [accessed November 1, 2023]. http://www.ciudsrc.com/webdiceng.php?id=82806

⁷ Kou Yanding, Yuan Tianpeng. Operational Democracy: A Complete Record of Robert’s Rules of Order Going Rural [M]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2012.

⁸ Hale, M. A. (2013). Reconstructing the Rural: Peasant Organizations in a Chinese Movement for Alternative Development (Doctoral dissertation).

⁹ The Argentine Worker Takeover Movement is a social movement that emerged in the early 2000s during Argentina's economic crisis, where workers autonomously took over bankrupt factories and implemented democratic management and production practices.

¹⁰ https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0xd01a82872a220edfc472bf9699546cc0d8e3c4a177bb07f3c0594264218f8b86

¹¹ https://snapshot.box/#/s:lxdao.eth/proposal/0x877eda715a49ed9c1c22e0f227f9129bcaa554e4eadea1d588fde2b446bcb639

¹² LXDAO Beijing Offline Event Review | Public Goods & DAO Governance, https://mirror.xyz/lxdao.eth/GBySIP5z0R5vJdEqg6UH7i3iXsPFMhyXp5vo11jeRH8

¹³ A non-fungible token (NFT) is a data unit on a blockchain (digital ledger) that represents unique digital assets such as artwork.

¹⁴ According to the revised People's Republic of China Farmer Cooperative Law in 2017, rural cooperatives are mutual economic organizations voluntarily formed and democratically managed by agricultural product producers or providers/utilizers of agricultural production services, based on rural household contract operations. One of their core features is the "distribution of surplus according to transaction volume," with more than 60% of distributable surplus needing to be returned to members in proportion to their transactions.

¹⁵ David Graeber (February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020), an American anthropologist and anarchist activist, was a professor at the London School of Economics. He was well-known for his sharp critiques of bureaucracy, politics, and capitalism.

¹⁶ Wynn/Tiao. From ALONE to Myco: Fungi, Public Goods, Domestic Conscience, Nantang and Nantang DAO [EB/OL]. Matters, October 27, 2024. https://matters.town/a/t8mkit1ijo4z/history

¹⁷ https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/u66m0xCZNBwuY8__4XtMvg

¹⁸ https://www.notion.so/DAO-ba1ea7d047e3480bb89b210a5ea8d3d0

¹⁹ Fei Xiaotong. Peasant Life in China (Kiang-Ts村经济) [M]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2012: 232.

²⁰ Anhui Fuyang Nantang Xingnong Cooperative. 2025 Nantang Youth Internship Program [EB/OL]. Foresight News, January 4, 2025 [accessed April 21, 2025]. https://s.foresightnews.pro/article/detail/75546

²¹ https://www.bilibili.com/opus/1018446800155049989

²² Wynn/Tiao. From ALONE to Myco: Fungi, Public Goods, Domestic Conscience, Nantang and Nantang DAO [EB/OL]. Matters, October 27, 2024. https://matters.town/a/t8mkit1ijo4z/history

²³ https://snapshot.box/#/s:ntdao.eth/proposal/0x2f95455984cc1ad1c6ffe13dbd78342e58e38ff32a4eb5ea70ca1222d9954520

²⁴ https://mirror.xyz/lxdao.eth/GBySIP5z0R5vJdEqg6UH7i3iXsPFMhyXp5vo11jeRH8

²⁵ https://meadow-kangaroo-109.notion.site/DAO-187015795cf7817cbb48cabaec79cc24

²⁶ Nantang Not-a-DAO: Searching for the True Meaning of Life Amidst the Alienation of Urban Life, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1lLmDI1Ka1XDDwpSx3w85w

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Exploring a New World Through the Fog: The Social Construction of the Web3 Concept

June 16, 2025 · 6 min read

By Liu Xiaofan

(Professor, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Eurybia Chief Scientist)

Figure 1 - Newspaper

Preface

Web3 has become a buzzword in the tech industry. However, when we talk about Web3, confusion often arises. The field is flooded with terminology—from Bitcoin to Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Metaverse, and more recently, Web3, Virtual Assets, and Tokenized Asset Markets. We might ask ourselves: why does one technical domain have so many names? This article doesn't aim to determine which term is the "correct" one, but rather seeks to explore why these concepts keep emerging and reveal the social construction logic behind them.

Bitcoin: The Prototype of a New World

Between 2008 and 2009, Bitcoin emerged as an internet-native currency, laying the foundation for future technological innovations. At the time, it was seen as a resistance against the traditional financial oligarchy, attempting to depict a utopian society where everyone was equal. Its core decentralized philosophy deeply reflected the spirit of Cypherpunk culture—using encryption technology to protect personal privacy and grant individuals economic autonomy. However, these ideas initially spread primarily within small circles of technical elites.

Satoshi Nakamoto's "Retreat" Becomes a Spiritual Symbol

In 2011, a symbolic event occurred—the disappearance of Satoshi Nakamoto, the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper, from the internet. This already anonymous founder became a mysterious hero, embodying the abstract ideals of freedom and decentralization beyond any individual. Nakamoto’s “retirement” not only made Bitcoin’s ideology seem purer but also elevated him to an almost religious figure.

Cryptocurrency: Hype, Bubbles, and Stigma

Since Bitcoin’s value was gradually recognized by the market in 2010, a series of other cryptocurrencies based on similar technological frameworks began to emerge, such as Litecoin launched in 2011. However, cryptocurrency faced awkward early use cases—it was frequently used for illegal transactions, especially on dark web markets, appearing to represent a "gray zone."

Interest Groups Behind the Terminology

As time progressed, cryptocurrencies became increasingly associated with market bubbles. In 2015, the Ethereum system launched, significantly lowering the cost of creating cryptocurrencies and giving rise to a speculative bubble-driven market. In 2018, the crypto market experienced its first major crash. By 2021, the DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and NFT (Non-Fungible Token) waves reignited investment frenzy, only to collapse again in 2022. With increasing global regulatory scrutiny and intervention, cryptocurrencies face mounting compliance pressures, further exacerbating their stigmatization.

The Birth of Blockchain and Reconstructed Meaning

Many people believe that "blockchain" appeared around the same time as Bitcoin, or even earlier—but this isn’t true. According to Google Trends data, the term "Blockchain" didn’t start being used to describe Bitcoin’s underlying distributed systems technology until between 2012 and 2013 [See chart]. Later, it was translated into Chinese as 区块链 ("qu kuai lian"). The emergence of the word "blockchain" served as a symbolic construction strategy, assigning new symbolic meaning to a technological stack. From then on, the technology was detached from the label of market speculation and took on a neutral, universal image—"the machine of trust." This allowed technology companies to confidently promote blockchain adoption across broader fields such as finance, supply chains, healthcare, and government data management. Of course, whether the market truly adopted the technology is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Figure 2 - Google Trends

Metaverse and Web3: Industry Self-Redemption

The cryptocurrency industry was well aware of its own stigma. It had long been trying to reposition itself using new terminology. Two of the most influential terms—Metaverse and Web3—are classic examples of repurposing old words.

The concept of Metaverse originates from the 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, referring to a virtual world parallel to reality, complete with entertainment and economic systems. The crypto industry borrowed this idea to express its vision of rebuilding economic systems in the digital world. Unfortunately, the traditional tech industry quickly discovered the appeal of this term. When Facebook changed its name to Meta, the narrative of the Metaverse was completely rewritten, evolving into a vision of a digital world closely tied to VR and AR. This process revealed the struggle behind discourse manipulation: established tech giants outmaneuvered newcomers.

When Facebook rebranded to Meta, the narrative of the Metaverse was entirely reshaped. This process demonstrated the power struggle behind discourse control—how tech giants defeated emerging players.

Web3 was proposed by Gavin Wood in 2014 to represent an ideal internet driven by cryptocurrencies and user sovereignty (you may have heard the famous slogan: “read, write, own”). However, the concept remained marginal until it was rediscovered in 2021 and has since gained widespread usage.

What we should see in both terms is that the naming of technologies and industries is essentially a process of social construction. Behind each word stands an interest group striving to influence society through various means.

Local Markets: Policy-Driven Innovation

Today, countless terms have emerged globally from the cryptocurrency space, with each country and region having its preferred expressions. For example, the Hong Kong government aims to establish itself as a global hub for the digital economy by building stable markets through specific use cases and regulatory frameworks, thus preserving its status as an international financial center. Currently, the most commonly used terms in Hong Kong are Virtual Asset, Tokenized Asset, Real World Asset, and Web 3.0. They share a common trait: they attempt to distance themselves from the speculative and bubbly image of cryptocurrencies by using more neutral language, hoping to rebuild public trust and reshape narratives.

Conceptual Innovation Isn’t Always Technological Innovation

I won’t go into detail here about the subtle differences behind each term, the interest groups involved, or their overt and covert strategies. However, it’s worth noting: some reflect the crypto industry’s pursuit of legitimacy, some indicate the acceptance of tech narratives within traditional finance, and others remain somewhat ambiguous in intent.

Conclusion: There Is Nothing New Under the Sun

As we’ve seen, every new concept—from Bitcoin to Blockchain, from Cryptocurrency to Web3 and Tokenized Asset Markets—has its own logic of social construction behind it. Conceptual innovation is not necessarily technological progress; it may simply be a discursive reshaping by different interest groups responding to market changes, aiming to attract users and capital. Likewise, conceptual replacement does not eliminate risks—it merely hides them within new labyrinths. No matter how terms evolve, we must clearly recognize that human nature remains unchanged.

Financial markets, whether traditional or emerging, are always turbulent waters—whether you're a novice or a seasoned veteran.

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Eurybia Data Catalog

April 26, 2025 · 2 min read

Overview

Eurybia provides Web3 data services integrating blockchain, media, DAO governance, and market data. The platform leverages AI algorithms and academic theories to analyze project life-cycles, market dynamics, regulatory alignment, etc.

Key Data Sources

Blockchains

Supported Chains:
- EVM (Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, etc.)
- Non-EVM (Bitcoin, Solana, Ton)
Data Resolution: Real-time block updates, daily ETL for structured data.

Media & Community

Social Media:
- X (Twitter): 3,394 accounts (KOLs, developers)
- Telegram: 21 channels (market signals, Web3 groups)
News Media: 483 outlets (crypto-specialized, regulatory updates).
DAO Governance
- Platforms: Discord, Discourse, Snapshot
- Metrics:Proposal discussions, voting patterns, governance token distribution.

Market Data

Exchanges: Binance, OKX (price, volume, funding rates)
Assets Tracked: BTC, ETH, SOL, and 20+ tokens (real-time updates).

Core Metrics & Analytics

Blockchain Metrics:
- Address activity, smart contract logs, DeFi transactions (Uniswap pairs, stablecoin supply).
X2Earn Projects:
- User behavior analysis (auctions, rewards, NFT trading).
Sentiment Analysis:
- Twitter/X and news media sentiment (positive/negative/neutral) for crypto keywords.
Market Dynamics:
- Price volatility, exchange inflows/outflows, whale activity.

For details, visit Eurybia Web or contact admin@eurybia.xyz.

Detailed Catalog Download

Download PDF

DAO: The Core Characteristics, Governance Challenges, and Strategies of an Emerging Organizational Paradigm

August 14, 2024 · 11 min read

By Jia Fan

(PhD Student, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Eurybia Researcher)

In the book Reinventing Organizations ¹, Laloux categorizes historical organizational paradigms into five colors and provides an in-depth analysis of their respective characteristics (see Figure 1). Among these, teal organizations are considered the ideal form of future organizations, characterized by distributed decision-making, self-management, and evolutionary purpose. While the description of teal organizations in the book remains largely theoretical, the recent rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represents a cutting-edge practical application of teal organization principles. This article aims to analyze and reflect on whether DAOs have fully embraced the teal spectrum, what makes this organizational paradigm novel, the challenges faced in governance, and current strategies for addressing governance dilemmas.

Figure 1 - Spectrum of Five Types of Organizations

Note: From bottom to top: Red, Amber, Orange, Green, Teal organizations.

1. Emergence: What is a DAO? What are its features?

DAOs are a new digital organizational paradigm rooted in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. According to the professional data analytics platform DeepDAO ², as of August 2024, over 50,000 DAOs have been established globally, with more than 10 million governance token holders and collective treasury amounts exceeding $21 billion. There is no doubt that DAOs have formed a vast global social experiment, demonstrating significant potential for reshaping human organization and collaboration.

While academia and industry have yet to reach a consensus on a definition of DAOs, the discussion primarily revolves around decentralization and autonomy, focusing on both technical and governance aspects. On the technical side, distributed storage blockchain technology and smart contracts capable of automatically executing decisions are commonly cited features ³⁴⁵. Blockchain not only provides a decentralized infrastructure for the operation of DAOs but also supports the deployment of smart contracts. Adhering to the principle of "code is law", DAOs encode community rules based on consensus into blockchain code. Once specific conditions for decision execution are met, the code executes automatically without human intervention, embodying the autonomy of decision execution. A common example is when a majority of members vote in favor of a proposal regarding fund allocation, the smart contract will automatically transfer funds to the corresponding blockchain account. It should be noted that many complex decisions cannot be encoded as program rules, and thus not all decision executions use smart contracts.

On the governance side, decentralization is reflected in shared decision-making power and the democratic nature of the decision process. Shared decision-making power means dispersing decision-making authority from a few agents to all members. According to the community rules of a DAO, all members have the right to propose and participate in the review of community proposals. More distinctively, each DAO issues governance tokens to ensure shared voting rights. Governance tokens, a virtual currency asset with both incentive and governance attributes, are collectively held by all members and used for voting on proposals. The democratic nature of the decision process refers to DAOs following the basic principles of deliberative and voting democracy when making collective decisions around proposals. In a typical DAO, the complete decision-making process includes: forming a proposal within the community, deliberating the proposal on a public forum, and voting on the proposal through a voting platform (see Figure 2). Additionally, autonomy at the governance level is somewhat ambiguous and is often interpreted as participant autonomy. This is typically seen as a result of decentralized governance—under the dual incentives of shared economic gains and a democratic culture, DAO members voluntarily and actively participate in community building.

Figure 2 - Complete Decision-Making Process in a Typical DAO

Note: Starred steps indicate necessary steps. Parentheses contain common governance platforms.

Furthermore, DAOs bring together members to achieve their specific organizational goals. DAOs come in various types, such as investment, social, and media (see Figure 3). Although specific goals vary by type, in general, DAOs aim to achieve both profit and sustainable community. The former requires DAOs to generate profits for their token holders in the dynamic crypto market, while the latter emphasizes the importance of achieving community common good. In fact, the emphasis on community interests is considered the fundamental distinction between DAOs and their original concept, decentralized autonomous corporations ⁶.

To summarize, we can define a DAO as: an organizational form based on blockchain, smart contracts, and cryptocurrency technologies, where decision-making power is shared among all members, community members voluntarily participate in proposal-based democratic decision-making, and the organization aims to achieve commercial profitability and community common good.

Figure 3 - Categories and Examples of DAOs

2. Contrary to Expectations: Emerging Governance Challenges

Despite inspiring visions and advanced organizational concepts, the governance practices of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) over the past few years have been fraught with challenges. While many organizations adopt the name DAO, their degree of decentralization varies significantly. Broadly, the problems discussed widely include:

Centralization Trends in Decision-Making

Many studies reveal that DAO communities exhibit oligarchic trends, with voting rights and community governance authority gradually reverting to a select few over time. From a token distribution perspective, governance tokens in DAOs tend to be controlled by a minority of "whales" or certain voting coalitions, thus increasing the risk of vote manipulation by a small group.⁷ In terms of organizational structure, DAO members form different levels of proposal management authority⁸, and institutions symbolizing centers of power, such as committees and central councils, gradually emerge.⁹ This can enhance management efficiency but also brings the risk of excessive centralization, making it challenging to ensure transparency in decision-making and the effectiveness of external oversight.

Voter Apathy and Short Lifespans

Low participation rates in governance processes represent one of the most severe issues facing DAOs. Despite being granted the right to participate in governance and decision-making, the majority of members do not engage in proposal review and voting processes.¹⁰ At least two-thirds of members display apathy.¹¹ Additionally, most DAOs have short lifespans.¹² According to statistics from Rikken et al., if six months without new proposals is considered a sign of dissolution, the average lifespan of a DAO is approximately 18 months.¹³ Thus, designing effective incentive mechanisms to increase member participation and achieve sustainable development becomes a critical challenge for DAO governance.

Balancing Business Interests and Public Good

Both individually and organizationally, DAOs need to balance the potential conflict between business interests and the public good. Within DAOs, many members focus solely on short-term commercial returns and ignore governance, leading to frequent "free-rider" problems, which conflict with the long-term vision of DAO builders. From an organizational perspective, pursuing production efficiency and business value growth may require centralized power structures to improve decision-making and operational efficiency; however, emphasizing the public good necessitates democratic organizational structures and decision-making mechanisms to ensure equal member participation and information transparency, which could slow down the decision-making process. Therefore, DAOs must find a dynamic balance between business interests and the public good through reasonable governance structures and decision-making mechanisms, achieving a harmonious coexistence of production efficiency, business value growth, and public interest maintenance.

3. Breaking the Deadlock: Strategies for Sustainable Governance

In general, DAOs are still in their growth and exploration phase, continuously learning from trial and error. To address the centralization trends in governance, voting mechanisms have been redesigned. Building on the "one token, one vote" (1T1V) model, several novel voting models have emerged, including quadratic voting, quorum voting, and reputation-based voting.¹⁴ Furthermore, to increase member engagement, various economic incentive and distribution governance models have been proposed and implemented, such as bounties, staking pools, rewards, tips, and employment contracts to indirectly redistribute tokens among members and the broader community. However, even when users are re-empowered, it remains difficult to ensure everyone participates in every decision. As a result, many DAOs have begun implementing delegation voting, where members can delegate their voting rights to trusted peers, which is seen as the latest practice of liquid democracy in DAOs.

However, it is important to recognize that improving voting mechanisms alone is insufficient to solve the governance problems of DAOs. Ensuring the effectiveness of decision-making communication and negotiation is a crucial challenge in DAOs. Compared to traditional organizations, the decision-making power in DAOs is distributed among different members, making the improvement of communication mechanisms between members particularly important and potentially beneficial for the organization. Specifically, enhancing communication mechanisms includes three main aspects: improving conflict resolution capabilities in decision-making communication, ensuring equality in the communication process among members, and increasing the quality and efficiency of communication and negotiation. Through open discussions around community proposals, DAO members can share information, exchange opinions, reach consensus, and develop community norms and collective values⁴, contributing to the sustainable development of the DAO community.

4. Epilogue: Reflections on DAOs

DAOs carry the latest hopes and imaginations of humanity for better organizational forms. They address the issues and pain points of traditional collaboration methods and have the potential to revolutionize organizational governance mechanisms. However, it is evident that there is a gap between idealism and reality. In the foreseeable future, the process by which DAOs achieve their organizational goals will not be smooth sailing and may even give rise to new problems.

This disparity between idealism and reality is not unique to DAOs; it is a common phenomenon throughout the history of organizational evolution. Regardless of technological advancements, the fundamental challenge for organizations remains how to achieve and maintain effective governance. If governance mechanisms do not fundamentally improve, the concept of teal organizations might remain an utopian fantasy, with values such as equality, freedom, and democracy potentially becoming conceptual traps. Furthermore, historical experience repeatedly shows that the early visions of organizations tend to deviate over time. Examples include the transformation of social media from open networks to platform monopolies, commercial capital taking control of open-source communities, and non-profit organizations becoming commercialized. Such cases suggest that organizational development often does not withstand the test of time.

Therefore, we must acknowledge that no organizational design is perfect, and the trade-offs and decisions made during governance are key to addressing sustainability challenges.¹⁵ Different organizational forms each have advantages and disadvantages and coexist rather than replace one another. If we view decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, historical organizations and different stages of the same organization occupy various positions along this spectrum. Thus, DAOs are not the ultimate solution to all organizational governance problems. Instead of striving for a perfect DAO, we should consider practical questions: under what circumstances is it appropriate to organize people through a DAO? Where are the boundaries of a DAO? Which decisions within a DAO are best suited for "collective wisdom," and which require "decisive action"? While these questions may not have definitive answers, and a true DAO may never fully materialize in the real world, idealists can take solace in the fact that the core values pursued by DAOs are the true source of motivation driving the continuous optimization of human organizational forms.

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DAOs, DACs, and On-chain Org Design: A DAC Manifesto, https://operator.mirror.xyz/6SGQA4dsexVJM6K44ypb_hP9PgHr39Tv_EIvD7hQSQo ↩
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The Token Economic Model of Friend.Tech Social Platform: In-depth Analysis and Prospects Exploration

January 25, 2024 · 15 min read

Abstract

The Web3 social platform Friend.Tech, launched in August 2023, enables users to tokenize and trade their social influence. While attracting 139K users, Friend.Tech's economic model and business strategy face significant challenges. After collecting and analyzing relevant on-chain data, we find that the platform's economic model generates early substantial returns for key opinion leaders but also restricts community size and stable profit potential, with 99.4 percent of accounts having fewer than 100 followers. Numerous speculative users are attracted to the platform, but only 22.1 percent of speculative returns are positive, and the trading frequency rapidly declines, with the average token holding period exceeding 4 days. The reliance on new users, combined with an inevitable decline in platform activity, indicates a less optimistic outlook for the sustainability of this economic model. The platform demonstrates a high level of transitivity and tighter social connections compared to existing social platforms. In conclusion, while Friend.Tech appears economically unsustainable, its social model shows promising prospects and serves as a valuable exploration and demonstration for the development of Web3.

What is FRIEND.TECH?

The Latest Work from a Pioneer of the SocialFi Model

Following DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and GameFi (Game Finance), SocialFi (Social Finance) has become one of the hottest concepts in the Web3 space. This model combines decentralized financial services with social media, offering users a new way to derive economic value directly from social interactions and content creation.

After developing two popular Web3 social applications—TwitterDAO and Stealcam—developer Racer launched Friend.Tech on August 10, 2023. Built on the SocialFi model, this blockchain-based social platform allows users to trade cryptocurrency for the right to engage in private one-on-one chats with other users.

This app, which directly links social influence with economic value, is especially appealing to crypto enthusiasts—it offers regular users direct access to influential KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders), while also providing KOLs with a new avenue to monetize their influence.

Friend.Tech Links Influence Value with Economic Value

Friend.Tech Gameplay:

Users connect their Twitter (X) accounts within the app; each account corresponds to a set of Keys (initially called Shares), with no upper limit on the number of Keys per account.
Each Key set starts at zero, and users can claim their first Key for free to activate further functionality.
Users can purchase Keys from others to become Holders, thereby gaining the right to engage in one-on-one private conversations with that user.
Users can buy multiple Keys from various users (including themselves) and sell previously held Keys back to the platform.

Friend.Tech operates on the Base chain (an Ethereum Layer 2 network). Holder lists (wallet addresses on the Base chain) and Key quantities are stored in smart contracts, and transactions are conducted using ETH. A Friend.Tech account must be linked to a Twitter (X) account to obtain a blockchain address. However, due to the openness of smart contracts, users can generate addresses and interact with the contract without entering the app interface. We refer to all such addresses as "users" for simplicity.

Figure 1 - Application Interface

Tokenomics · Token Economy Concept and Analysis

A Rigid Economic Model

Keys do not follow traditional order-book or AMM (Automated Market Maker)-based pricing mechanisms commonly used in decentralized exchanges. Instead, they use a fixed price formula based on the total quantity currently held on the platform.

Figure 2 - The Relationship Between Keys Holdings and Price (ETH)

Buying Price (in ETH):
Price = (previous holding amount)^2 / 16000
Selling Price (in ETH):
Price = (holding amount before sale - 1)^2 / 16000

In practice, when purchasing Keys:

An additional 10% fee is charged:
- 5% goes to the creator of the Keys
- 5% goes to the Friend.Tech project team for development, support, and community building

When selling Keys:

Only 90% of the proceeds are returned to the seller:
- Again, 5% goes to the creator
- 5% to Friend.Tech

This means that if a user sells a Key at the same price it was bought, they incur a 20% fee loss. These two 5% fees are collectively referred to as protocol revenue below.

Although the notional price of Keys increases quadratically with the number held:

Holding increases by 1 → value increase = 2 * previous holdings / 16000
Holding increases by N → value increase = (2 * n * previous holdings + n^2) / 16000

Due to the fee structure, even with increased holdings, selling does not necessarily yield profit. In fact, the number of Keys held needs to increase by approximately 10.6% just to break even. Before that, the cumulative cost grows exponentially. For example, if a user buys the 200th share of a Key, they would need subsequent buyers to purchase 22 more Keys (a total of 68 ETH spent) to break even upon resale.

Figure 3 - The amount of subsequent user payments required to achieve a paper profit after purchasing Keys at different times.

The rigid economic model clearly presents both strengths and weaknesses.

We offer the following analysis and assumptions about this model, supported by on-chain data verification.

Data Source: On-chain data from the Friend.Tech smart contract (0xcf20) on Base chain. As of September 19, there were 6,456,148 transactions involving the contract, of which 3,049,066 were related to buying/selling Keys.

Advantages of the Economic Model:

Avoids initial low liquidity and price volatility during cold start. The bid-ask spread encourages holders to promote Keys actively—profitability depends on continued growth in holdings, aiding early-stage adoption success (see Section 3.1).
Direct access to KOLs has real value, allowing early investors to identify promising creators (see Section 3.3).
KOLs benefit significantly from the value of one-on-one interaction (see Section 3.4).
High costs of late-stage speculation (including time and opportunity costs) reduce the likelihood of infinite price inflation (see Section 3.4).

Potential Issues with the Economic Model:

Encourages speculative behavior. Since prices only go up, early adopters and bots dominate (see Section 3.3).
Limited intrinsic value of one-on-one chats leads to capped demand. Rational fans won’t pay premium prices once the novelty wears off (see Section 3.4).
Rapid decline in activity after early hype. Once early sellers exit, high-cost holders struggle to find buyers (see Section 3.5).
Platform growth depends on constant influx of new KOLs. Without them, trading stagnates (see Section 3.5).

Finally, we explore a core question at the end of this report:

Does the project truly foster social interaction? (See Section 3.6)

Tokenomics · On-Chain Data Evidence

3.1 – First-Month Performance Test

Despite being in a six-month test phase, Friend.Tech saw immediate success. It launched on August 10, and recorded:

17,556 Keys created
136,000 daily transactions
Over 4,000 ETH traded on August 11 alone

On August 19, Paradigm, a top-tier Web3 VC, announced seed funding, sparking another surge. On August 21:

Over 10,000 ETH traded
525,000 transactions
Daily protocol revenue exceeded 500 ETH—higher than major chains like Tron and Uniswap

From August 10 to September 19:

206,706 users
203,953 Keys created
258,859 Keys held
3,049,066 transactions
Total volume: 139,530.09 ETH

Figure 4 - Project Daily Transaction Count and Trading Volume (as of September 19, 2023)

For a social networking project, attracting nearly 140,000 users in one month (regardless of engagement level) demonstrates significant growth potential and profitability for SocialFi applications.

3.2 – Three Main User Types

Most users have near-zero net profit/loss, but gains follow a long-tail distribution.

Overall:

Most users hold only one Key
A minority participate in additional trades (Figure 5)
Excluding gas fees, 90.2% of users had profits/losses within ±0.1 ETH
52.6% achieved positive returns, but only 2.17% earned over 0.1 ETH
Top 100 users earned 4,311.64 ETH, representing 47.9% of total earnings, despite accounting for less than 0.1% of users (Figure 6)

Earnings reflect realized PnL only—not unrealized gains/losses (e.g., unsold Keys).

Figure 5 - Distribution of Hold and Profit

We classify users into three categories:

Light Participants: Majority of users who lightly engage in social activity and try Keys trading occasionally, often motivated by celebrity fandom, narratives, or airdrop incentives.
Crypto KOLs: They build community value and attract followers to buy Keys for exclusive access. We define 4,718 users with ≥0.1 ETH in protocol revenue and connected Twitter accounts as KOLs.
Speculative Traders: Not active social participants but trade hot Keys aggressively for profit. Extreme traders may use bots. We define 44,843 users whose total transaction volume exceeds the volume of their own Keys' trades as speculators.

The latter two groups trade more frequently and may overlap (e.g., a KOL might also speculate). This report focuses on analyzing these two groups.

3.3 – Speculator Behavior and Earnings

Among the top 20 highest-earning users are well-known figures like Cobie and Zhusu, along with many unverified users, indicating clear speculative activity.

Figure 6 - Top 20 Users by Total Earnings (ETH)

Of the top 100 earners:

65 are speculators
52 are KOLs
13 KOLs also speculate
45 speculators earned zero protocol revenue
Average speculator gain: 53.49 ETH
Rest of top 100: 27.26 ETH (Figure 7)

Figure 7 - Comparison of Total Earnings Between Users with Zero Protocol Revenue and Other Users

Speculators Drive Transaction Volume

Represent 21.7% of users
Account for 78.9% of total trades and 88.4% of total volume
Only 28.8% of their trades involve KOLs, yet they contribute 82.5% of the value
Platform vitality heavily relies on speculators, particularly those targeting KOL-created Keys

Speculation ≠ “Smart Money”

Only 8,346 (18.6%) speculators made positive returns. Of these:

900 (10.8%) did not bind social accounts
Total smart money earnings: 5,443.32 ETH
Non-social accounts contributed 60.9% of smart money returns

Approximately 186 Bot-Like Accounts

As Web3 teaches us, human efficiency pales next to bots. Friend.Tech bots monitor and instantly purchase cheap Keys upon creation or during rapid growth phases.

Within two weeks of launch:

186 MEV-like bots emerged
Conducted 27,648 sniper trades
Generated 463.21 ETH in volume
Realized 2,553.84 ETH in profit—28.3% of total user profits

Figure 8 - Top 10 Suspected Bot User Transaction Volumes

3.4 – KOL Behavior and Earnings

KOLs earn reliably through protocol revenue.

For most crypto users, the main draw of Friend.Tech is direct access to KOLs. Hence, early trades centered around KOL Keys, generating substantial income for KOLs.

86.5% of users received protocol revenue
4,718 users earned ≥0.1 ETH, totaling 93.2% of all protocol revenue
Avg: 1.37 ETH

Top 3 KOLs:

0xRacerAlt: 202.57 ETH
cobie: 139.19 ETH
HsakaTrades: 134.18 ETH

Based on average ETH price from Aug 10–Sep 19, daily earnings ≈ $6,000–8,000 USD

Figure 9 - KOL Account

However, a key observation is that most accounts hit a ceiling in Key holdings:

99.94% have <100 Keys (price <0.6 ETH)
Even top KOLs rarely exceed 250 Keys (price <4 ETH) (Figure 9)

Figure 10 - Relationship Between Keys Trading Volume and Current Keys Holdings

Self-Buying Isn't Always Profitable

Some users believe in their social influence and adopt a strategy similar to bots—buying Keys early and selling high later. In reality:

18.9% of users employed this tactic
29.3% (11,493 users) profited, averaging 0.28 ETH
Speculators had a higher success rate (18.6%) and higher average returns (0.65 ETH)
Higher self-holding correlates with narrower profit margins—limiting upside but reducing downside risk

Among KOLs:

68.1% (3,211 users) bought their own Keys
535 engaged in arbitrage, earning avg 0.14 ETH (max 3.89 ETH)
Top 3 KOLs (0xRacerAlt, cobie, HsakaTrades) largely avoided personal Key trading

3.5 – Lack of Platform Sustainability

Figure 11 - Holders, Trading Volume and Key Age

On-chain data shows rising Key prices lead to reduced trading activity (Figure 10), declining almost exponentially. Similarly, older Keys see fewer daily trades and lower volumes (Figure 11). Trading peaks occur on the day of creation (avg 7/day), dropping to 2/day by Day 2, and rarely exceeding 1/day afterward—a result of the tokenomic design favoring early buyers.

Figure 12 - Proportion of Keys Trading Volume by Keys Age Type Over Time

One month post-launch, nearly half of daily trading still involves new Keys. If Friend.Tech struggles to attract new KOLs, trading volume will dwindle, threatening platform sustainability.

Figure 13 - Top KOLs' Keys Trading Volume Over Time

Top KOLs’ Keys historically sustained volume, but except for 0xRacerAlt and 0xCaptainLevi, most Top 10 KOLs show declining trends. If top KOLs fail to sustain interest, the project's longevity will be challenged.

Beyond finance, Friend.Tech remains a social platform. From Key ownership relationships, 110,000 out of 140,000 users (79.2%) form a single connected community—linked via mutual friends. While average friend count is small (~3–4 friends), connections are dense: ~41.3% of friends of friends are also friends—far higher than any existing social platform.

Additionally, we observe reciprocal behavior—users buying each other’s Keys. Though technically redundant to establish dual chat channels, this strengthens social ties. 13.5% of social relationships are reciprocal.

Figure 14 - The social network among platform KOLs, where each node represents a KOL with more than 50 followers, and the size of each node is proportional to the number of followers.

4. Summary and Outlook

4.1 – Application Deficiencies

Currently in its early stage, Friend.Tech's core social features are relatively simple, lacking compelling retention mechanisms. Lack of verification allows impersonation (e.g., fake Twitter accounts like @punk9O95 mimicking @punk9059), frequent connectivity issues, message delays, and app crashes hinder usability.

Due to blockchain's openness, users can bypass the front-end and interact directly with the smart contract—for instance, generating Keys without linking a Twitter account. This undermines Friend.Tech’s original intent of promoting socialization through influence tokenization and weakens the effectiveness of the token economy.

Moreover, public API access to Twitter-X address bindings raises concerns about privacy in decentralized social products.

While these issues are expected during testing, and can likely be resolved by competent teams, what’s more concerning is Friend.Tech’s low barrier to entry. This became evident when the project tried to block cross-platform interaction for airdrop eligibility—an unpopular move that was eventually retracted on August 29 amid strong backlash. The founder admitted the action was driven by fear and zero-sum thinking, revealing Friend.Tech’s vulnerability in the SocialFi landscape—intense homogenized competition lies ahead.

Eurybia believes Web3’s long-term success hinges on attracting and retaining users unaffected by token speculation. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, areas like daily life, employment, health, and emotional belonging are full of potential—but also uncertainty.

Rebuilding a social network is no easy task. Compared to other products, switching costs for users are extremely high. Simply luring users away from existing platforms isn't enough—their entire social circle must migrate too. In the Web2 era, few new platforms have successfully challenged incumbents—Google+ and Clubhouse serve as silent witnesses.

Yet Web3 brings unique advantages—token incentives provide the most direct and explicit customer acquisition mechanism.

Attracting 260,000 users in a month is already a remarkable feat for Friend.Tech. However, current Web3 social platforms suffer from flawed tokenomics and inflexible smart contracts, negatively impacting long-term viability.

We assess Friend.Tech’s current economic model as unsustainable. Although Key prices may remain stable despite reduced trading, decreasing volume threatens profitability for both the platform and KOLs. At least until a mature peer-to-peer Key market emerges, token appreciation as a growth driver has clear limits. Community initiatives like airdrop points aim to mitigate this issue.

Web3 projects typically attract speculators and investors via token airdrops, hype, and profit incentives. The challenge lies in converting these users into genuine users of the platform’s services (social, gaming, etc.). Generally speaking, compared to users interested in service content, speculators tend to care less about the actual product. If they capture most of the economic rewards but offer minimal loyalty, is token subsidy (if costly to the project) still justified? This is a critical question all Web3 mass-adoption advocates must deeply consider.

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PANews Link

https://www.panewslab.com/zh/articles/98b2cs876436

Introduction

January 25, 2024 · 2 min read

We stand firmly by the tenets of collaboration and shared success, striving to create lasting value and positively influence Hong Kong’s societal landscape.

About Eurybia

Eurybia Technology Limited is a Web3 technology powerhouse spun off from the Laboratory for AI-Powered Financial Technologies Limited (AIFT) and City University of Hong Kong (CityU). With deep industry insights, technical prowess, and a rich background in research, our team offers comprehensive solutions to the Web3 sector. This includes industry consultation, data analytics, technological advancements, financial innovations, and trading decision guidance.

Market Positioning

As Hong Kong embraces Web3 innovations at a swift pace, we position ourselves as a bridge between CityU/AIFT and the local Web3 landscape. Our primary role is to transfer research and development expertise, thereby driving Web3 technology in Hong Kong, facilitating the onboarding of individuals, bolstering enterprise growth, and advancement of regulatory technologies.

Business Model

For individuals, we extend real-time, comprehensive market insights and Generative AI (GenAI) guided decision support. On the enterprise front, we offer Web3 enhancement services such as industry research, business consultation, coaching, and technical development. Furthermore, we develop regulatory technology solutions tailored for regulatory bodies.

Team Strenths

Under the leadership of Professor LIU Xiaofan and backed by the expertise of the AIFT technical team, alongside CityU research students and assistants, we possess a wealth of research achievement and market know-how. Our team’s strengths encompass tokenomics model crafting and analysis, blockchain data analytics, smart contract development, media data analytics, understanding of social psychology theories, financial innovations, and mastery over AI technologies.

Prospects

Our vision is to be recognized as Hong Kong’s premier Web3 technology powerhouse. We’re focused on expanding our reputation and revenue by establishing benchmark client cases and attracting investment from prominent institutions. We will continuously transfer research and development from CityU and AIFT to the local Web3 industry.

Contact Us

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EurybiaWeb3

Preface​

Paving a New Path​

Attracting More Professional Talent​

Facing the World, Learning from Experience​

Rooting in the Local, Seeking Strength​

Final Thoughts​

How Should We View DAO Experiments in Rural Areas?​

Is Decentralized Governance Suitable for Nantang?​

The Expectations of Nantang DAO Members​

My Reflections​

Re-evaluating the Meaning of DAO​

Beyond Research​

Notes and References​

PANews Link​

Preface​

What Are the Goals?​

Democracy Without Villagers, Rural Building Without Locals​

Scattered Goals, Fragmented Efforts​

Observations from the Proposal Process​

Building Community or Commercialization?​

Experimenting with Incentives and Circulation — The Nantang Bean (NT)​

Limitations of the Labor-Hour System​

Circulating the Nantang Bean​

Collective Effort: The Heartwarming New Year Goods Plan​

Is It Decentralized Enough?​

The Unignorable Influence of External Forces​

Monopolized Economic Resources​

Insufficient Decentralization in Voting​

Voting Mechanism: Power Balancing and Vulnerabilities​

Issues and Risks in the Current Voting System​

Notes and References​

PANews Link​

Preface​

Origins​

Nantang’s Democratic Roots​

Formation of Nantang DAO​

Gathering and Conflict​

The Seven Founders of Nantang DAO​

Conflict: Two Groups with Divergent Backgrounds​

A Third Path: Nantang Buzhi DAO​

Notes and References​

PANews Link​

Preface​

Bitcoin: The Prototype of a New World​

Satoshi Nakamoto's "Retreat" Becomes a Spiritual Symbol​

Cryptocurrency: Hype, Bubbles, and Stigma​

Interest Groups Behind the Terminology​

The Birth of Blockchain and Reconstructed Meaning​

Metaverse and Web3: Industry Self-Redemption​

Local Markets: Policy-Driven Innovation​

Conceptual Innovation Isn’t Always Technological Innovation​

Conclusion: There Is Nothing New Under the Sun​

PANews Link​

Overview​

Key Data Sources​

Blockchains​

Media & Community​

Market Data​

Core Metrics & Analytics​

Detailed Catalog Download​

1. Emergence: What is a DAO? What are its features?​

2. Contrary to Expectations: Emerging Governance Challenges​

3. Breaking the Deadlock: Strategies for Sustainable Governance​

4. Epilogue: Reflections on DAOs​

Abstract​

What is FRIEND.TECH?​

The Latest Work from a Pioneer of the SocialFi Model​

Friend.Tech Links Influence Value with Economic Value​

Tokenomics · Token Economy Concept and Analysis​

A Rigid Economic Model​

Advantages of the Economic Model:​

Potential Issues with the Economic Model:​

Tokenomics · On-Chain Data Evidence​

3.1 – First-Month Performance Test​

3.2 – Three Main User Types​

3.3 – Speculator Behavior and Earnings​

Speculators Drive Transaction Volume​

Speculation ≠ “Smart Money”​

Approximately 186 Bot-Like Accounts​

3.4 – KOL Behavior and Earnings​

Preface

Paving a New Path

Attracting More Professional Talent

Facing the World, Learning from Experience

Rooting in the Local, Seeking Strength

Final Thoughts

How Should We View DAO Experiments in Rural Areas?

Is Decentralized Governance Suitable for Nantang?

The Expectations of Nantang DAO Members

My Reflections

Re-evaluating the Meaning of DAO

Beyond Research

Notes and References

PANews Link

Preface

What Are the Goals?

Democracy Without Villagers, Rural Building Without Locals

Scattered Goals, Fragmented Efforts

Observations from the Proposal Process

Building Community or Commercialization?

Experimenting with Incentives and Circulation — The Nantang Bean (NT)

Limitations of the Labor-Hour System

Circulating the Nantang Bean

Collective Effort: The Heartwarming New Year Goods Plan

Is It Decentralized Enough?

The Unignorable Influence of External Forces

Monopolized Economic Resources

Insufficient Decentralization in Voting

Voting Mechanism: Power Balancing and Vulnerabilities

Issues and Risks in the Current Voting System

Notes and References

PANews Link

Preface

Origins

Nantang’s Democratic Roots

Formation of Nantang DAO

Gathering and Conflict

The Seven Founders of Nantang DAO

Conflict: Two Groups with Divergent Backgrounds

A Third Path: Nantang Buzhi DAO

Notes and References

PANews Link

Preface

Bitcoin: The Prototype of a New World

Satoshi Nakamoto's "Retreat" Becomes a Spiritual Symbol

Cryptocurrency: Hype, Bubbles, and Stigma

Interest Groups Behind the Terminology

The Birth of Blockchain and Reconstructed Meaning

Metaverse and Web3: Industry Self-Redemption

Local Markets: Policy-Driven Innovation

Conceptual Innovation Isn’t Always Technological Innovation

Conclusion: There Is Nothing New Under the Sun

PANews Link

Overview

Key Data Sources

Blockchains

Media & Community

Market Data

Core Metrics & Analytics

Detailed Catalog Download

1. Emergence: What is a DAO? What are its features?

2. Contrary to Expectations: Emerging Governance Challenges

3. Breaking the Deadlock: Strategies for Sustainable Governance

4. Epilogue: Reflections on DAOs

Abstract

What is FRIEND.TECH?

The Latest Work from a Pioneer of the SocialFi Model

Friend.Tech Links Influence Value with Economic Value

Tokenomics · Token Economy Concept and Analysis

A Rigid Economic Model

Advantages of the Economic Model:

Potential Issues with the Economic Model:

Tokenomics · On-Chain Data Evidence

3.1 – First-Month Performance Test

3.2 – Three Main User Types

3.3 – Speculator Behavior and Earnings

Speculators Drive Transaction Volume

Speculation ≠ “Smart Money”

Approximately 186 Bot-Like Accounts

3.4 – KOL Behavior and Earnings