Nouns-inspired DAO Wants To Re-evaluate How Crypto Journalism Is Funded

Nouns-inspired HeadlineDAO is looking to find a way to sponsor crypto journalism through its media-focused decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

The purpose of Headline is to reward journalists for producing good content and to fund their projects.

Unlike a traditional newsroom, Headline does not have a core team of reporters and editors but relies on NFT token holders to determine which journalists are funded.

What is NounsDAO?

NounsDAO generates one NFT per day — known as a Noun — which is auctioned on its website to bidders. The purpose of the DAO is to create an on-chain hub of people and capital that supports community projects.

Recent Nouns have been sold for around 30 ETH (~$54,000) or more, and all money from the sale goes into an on-chain treasury, currently valued at about $24 million.

The concept has been likened to an investment syndicate, with each NFT analogous to a class A share — holders vote on how to allocate the ether held by the Nouns treasury.

The DAO distributes funding of varying sizes, from small grants for creators to larger proposals put forward on Prop House — the public infrastructure of NounsDAO.

Nounish DAOs

HeadlineDAO is one of many Nouns-inspired DAOs, otherwise known as a “Nounish DAO.” It was created via a proposal on Prop House in January 2023.

Reporters sponsored by Headline would be responsible for fact-checking their own work, and those who apply for funding do not necessarily need to have journalistic experience.

The first “request for content,” which enables creatives to submit their work, has been live on Prop House since March 8.

There are now 22 proposals looking to be funded, ranging from written investigative pieces to video coverage to tweets.

Only five projects will be selected, and winning proposals will be rewarded with 2 ETH ($3,500) each.

If selected, individual journalists will be responsible for the distribution of their own work, as there will not be a centralized collection of work.

Headline was founded by the pseudonymous “Brian,” pbrainandj on Twitter. The project’s notion of what “crypto journalism” means was left intentionally vague and imposes no restrictions on content creators in terms of format, length, subject or style.

The only requirement for work funded by the project is that it “make clear that they are funded by Headline,” the request for content states.

Pbrianandj told Blockworks that, “Lots of people have written about how the Nouns model can be applied beyond proliferating the Nouns meme but we’re one of the first groups to run the experiment for real.”

The submission deadline was extended from Wednesday to Sunday, March 25, to enable additional content creators to request funding, pbrianandj said.

“I’m thrilled that so far we’ve received 26 amazing proposals with more on the way,” he said.

Updated March 21, 2023 at 1:29 pm: Added comment from HeadlineDAO founder Pbrianandj.

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