DAOstack (GEN)

Basics

• Started in: 2018
• Based in:
• Mainnet launch:

• "DAOstack is an open source project advancing the technology and adoption of decentralized governance. The DAOstack project is building a modular, open-source software stack for DAOs that includes a library of governance protocols and friendly interfaces for creating and managing DAOs."
• An further explanation can be read here (19-8-2019)
• Alchemy is a platform by DAOstack.

Token

Launch

• In 2018, DAOstack launched an ICO

Utility

• From their website (as of 20-1-2020):

"GEN is the native token of the DAOstack platform, and it plays a fundamental role in successful DAO governance. GEN is used in a prediction layer that allows DAOs to scale their decision-making frequency without sacrificing representativity. Read more about the utility of the GEN token here."

• From their blog (26-1-2021):

"Since the launch of DAOstack, the GEN token has only played one role: the utility token in our Holographic Consensus-based voting protocol. But requiring GEN has negatively impacting the experience of users and projects, and in 2021, we will be announcing an updated model for the GEN token."

Tech

• Whitepaper can be read here (22-4-2018).
• Code can be viewed [insert here].

Alchemy

• Alchemy; "Alchemy lets projects seamlessly govern themselves, allocating shared resources and making effective decisions at scale."
• Not to be confused with Alchemy Coin.

• From their website:

"To provide a variety of fiat wallet and cryptocurrency payment and settlement industry solutions for online and offline merchants and users worldwide."

• Went live (17-8-2020). From EthHub #127 (17-8-2020):

"Alchemy, a platform that supports the growth and development of blockchain applications, announced its public launch on Tuesday."

• Grew a lot in 2020, from which a recap can be read here.
• Is partnering with Flow (26-3-2021).

Their Other Projects

The Genesis DAO

• The Genesis DAO is a Grants DAO launched by DAOstack to support the development of the project.
• From their blog (26-1-2021):

"Shortly after DAOstack raised funds in their ICO, Genesis DAO was launched. It survived a hack, grew to nearly 300 members, and had hundreds of proposals submitted and were funded by the DAO. In March 2020, the Genesis DAO experiment was halted to allow us to shift our focus on building a new app, Common.

Governance

• From one of their news letters (22-1-2020)

"DAOstack is setting out to create the building blocks for values-aligned, large-scale decentralized organizations. Our approach features three strategies: 1) the ‘Holographic Consensus’ approach, a strategy for managing collective attention within DAOs; 2) open-source, modular architecture for rapid, community-driven evolution of governance protocols; and 3) ease of use for everyone, regardless of one’s familiarity with blockchain and technology in general.

The Holographic Consensus approach ensures that a DAO stays true to its members collective values in each decision, even if only a small, rotating portion of the membership can actually participate in each decision-making procedure. 
The approach centers on a special kind of prediction market using GEN, DAOstack’s native token. With such a protocol in place, a DAO can identify the most pertinent places to direct its members’ attention, even with potentially thousands of proposals to sift through. This Holographic Consensus approach is part of what can enable DAOs to scale to thousands or potentially millions of members without succumbing to corruption or gridlock. For more on the Holographic Consensus approach, check out this keynote by DAOstack architect Matan Field.

DAOstack has built an easily-modifiable, open-source codebase because we want our platform to evolve as new organizations and ideas emerge. This commitment to modularity is perhaps most evident in Arc, the base layer of the DAO stack, a Solidity framework of governance plugins that organizations can mix, match, and modify to create the governance model for any organization. Arc represents not so much a fixed set of protocols for governance of decentralized organizations but rather the building blocks from which to construct and evolve protocols over time.

Finally, DAOstack is designed to be user-friendly for everyone from blockchain governance programmers to the most non-techie DAO participants. There’s a javascript API, Arc.js, that enables front-end developers to easily build collaborative applications on Arc without familiarity with blockchain or smart contracts. And the first application built on the stack, Alchemy, will allow anyone to participate in decentralized decision-making, or even set up a decentralized organization, with a few clicks."

Roadmap

• Can be found [Insert link here].
• From their new year blog (8-1-2020):

"2019 also brought technological progress, including better blockchain user experiences, the stabilization of our first frontend application, and the DAOcreator for easy DAO deployment, as well as brand new bottom-up DAOs like the FestDAO, the organization behind the recent global series of DAOfests. These developments lead us to believe that DAOs are finally ready to serve more than just cryptocurrency insiders. As such, we are adding a new focus in 2020: collaborative networks.

This year, the DAO continued to grow up to 250+ members, and the Genesis DAO funded a number of major proposals, including this recent list:

• Alice: Alchemy Moon
• Underscore Protocol: On-Chain Wiki For Genesis
• Ape Unit: DAO Signal Scheme
• dOrg’s Recurring Work

Audits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here]. None according to Blockchain Security DB (29-6-2020), which does show 1 audit(1-2019).

Usage

Projects that use or built on it

• From their website (as of 20-1-2020):

Polkadot, Portis, Bitfwd, The Graph, dOrg, DutchX, Caribbean Blockchain Network, Distrupt Digital, Gnosis, Kyber Network, 3Box, PragueDAO, Never Stop Marketing, DAOIncubator, DeversiFi, dHack, DAOfund and The General Store DAO

• Omen uses their tech (1-7-2020).

• NecDAO
• CuraDAO
• PrimeDAO uses Alchemy during the first two parts of its roadmap.

Competition

• Aragon, Colony and DAOHaus
• More info here (5-5-2020).

Team, investors, Partnerships, etc.

Team

• Matan Field; DAOstack architect
• Molly Zheng; CEO "Over 20 years experience in payment industry. Served as Senior Consultant of Paypal China, SVP of HSBC China, Direct of GE Money and Chief Representative of MasterCard China."

Partners 

• Collaborates with CuraDAO (7-9-2020).

• From their website (20-4-2020):

Xapo, HUSD, Binance, OKeX, Stanford, Forbes, New York Times, CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Bitcoin.com, Harvard, Gemini, and more.

• Member of the PrimeDAO (17-9-2020).