Crypto DAOs need to move to a ‘post-token’ model, JokeRace co-founder says

“Everyone everywhere needs to be making decisions. How are we going to enable that in the best way possible?”

article-image

dRender/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Decisions, decisions.

It’s what DAOs — decentralized autonomous organizations — are all about. Usually involving a token-holder voting process, the decisions can get pretty serious and technical in nature — determining the funding policies of blockchain communities or even the fate of ecosystems, for example.

Even with such weighty potential consequences, it’s tough to get people really engaged with all the technical barriers, expenses and — frankly — boring mechanics of most token-based communities. 

Sean McCaffery thinks about decentralized decision-making on a much broader and casual scale. “Everyone everywhere needs to be making decisions. How are we going to enable that in the best way possible?”

With its latest iteration, JokeRace V3 is making it easier — and more fun — for people to make decisions about anything, “with high levels of customizability at almost every layer,” McCaffery, co-founder of JokeRace, tells host Chase Chapman on the On the Other Side podcast (Spotify/Apple).

“I always get very excited about the extent to which you can parameterize and go on any chain that you like,” McCaffery says. “Those are fun technical things. But when it comes down to it, it really is the best way for communities to make, execute and reward decisions.”

Historically, blockchain DAOs have struggled to keep token holders engaged, with low levels of voting participation. McCaffery aims to reduce existing friction by making participation easier. 

“Governance is not just a crypto native concept and actually governance can be particularly useful in communities outside of crypto, which I definitely want to get into,” they say.

The key is to move beyond tokens, McCaffery says. With a “post-token” DAO, they explain, “you can decide who you want to submit or vote in your contest, not based solely on tokens anymore. It’s a broader subset.”

“All you need now is a CSV of addresses and the number of votes that those addresses can get, and you can be off to the races.”

McCaffery explains that on-chain governance using Ethereum mainnet is “not feasible whatsoever” due to the high expense of gas fees.

“If an NFT community can have their collection on Ethereum mainnet and then shop around to see what [layer-2] they want to use for governance, we can enable them on any of those chains,” McCaffery says, “and for negligible amounts of gas compared to how much it would cost to do that sort of decision-making on mainnet.”

“Blockchains are really just like universal APIs,” they say. “You can just call that API for whatever data you care about and then enable whoever you want to participate in your contest and engage in your community’s decision making.”

Blockchains as universal computers

Often, DAO decision-making can be pretty dry and serious, but McCaffery says it doesn’t have to be. “We even had a group out in the west of America that was just a hiking group. They were physically decentralized. They were all living in different cities, and they’d put out a contest that was like, ‘hey, where should we go hiking next?’”

“They’re not the highest impact or risk,” McCaffery admits, but “even that, we’re useful for.” The blockchain’s “superpowers” of on-chain execution and participation rewards can be used to make decision-making a fun and engaging experience. 

“It’s fun to put things on a universal ledger,” they say. “There is something intangibly cool about doing stuff on the blockchain.”

“When I talk to people about this,” McCaffery says, “one of the first things I always hear is like, ‘oh my gosh, my HOA [Homeowners Association] could use this. It is such a pain in the ass to do voting and all this stuff. It would be amazing to just have something that can spin up and go and you don’t need to set up an Amazon web server or anything.’”

“We’re going into a period of time where blockchains will actually start to be able to be used like the universal computers that they are, whereas before we were heavily constrained by block space and how expensive it was.”

“That’s just a massive paradigm shift and is why I’m excited.”

“Blockchains will become the best way to run anything,” McCaffery says. “There are very real technical advantages to running your infrastructure on something that is publicly audited, available, and secured and by a network that doesn’t have special interests.”


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

kamino cover.jpg

Research

Kamino has solidified its position as the leading money market on Solana and is emerging as a DeFi bluechip. Although DeFi competition is fierce, Kamino has kept iterating on its product to provide the best-in-class UX, paired with a robust risk management framework and battle-tested infrastructure. Given the rollout of Kamino Lend V2, the protocol may scale aggressively over the coming months, penetrating previously untapped markets in Solana DeFi.

article-image

As part of the deal, Arcium will take over Inpher’s core team and technology: Lightspeed exclusive

article-image

Platforms like Polymarket and Drift’s BET show higher probabilities for a Trump victory, reflecting current market sentiments

article-image

While DAOs promote transparency and community involvement, underlying centralized mechanisms reveal the challenges in achieving full decentralization

article-image

Also in the tokenized fund space, Franklin Templeton launches on Base and Securitize hits $1 billion in tokenized RWA onchain

article-image

It turns out that bitcoin never actually hit an all-time high in March. Thanks a lot, inflation.

article-image

Spire, Citrea and Nillion also announced raises this week