DAO is an innovation in how humans work together. It is the beginning of a new era and you have the opportunity to be part of this groundbreaking movement. Here you will find everything you need to know to join a DAO. First, let’s learn more about community building and the roles you can play in a DAO.
Community Building: the roles to play in a DAO
DAOs are crypto communities, a group of people with a mission, culture, governance and financial reserves. Investors in traditional companies hold stocks, community members hold tokens. They can be used for voting in proposals and to reward contributions to the project through grants programs.
DAOs solve problems by enabling human coordination on a global scale.
The figure below summarizes the 3 steps to build a community: attract, engage and consolidate ownership.
Source: https://medium.com/1kxnetwork/how-to-grow-decentralized-communities-1bf1044924f8
When attracting new members, DAOs want participants with a long-term mindset that are intrinsically motivated. They have passion for the problem being solved and to learn more about it.
The first contributions are important to build trust. You need to find your minimum viable participation. You can introduce yourself, say your background, your expertise and simply ask others and yourself how you can help.
Helping others is the way to build trust.
Participate in the calls, talk 1:1 with some community members and get an idea of what is being done at the moment. Opportunities to help will appear. Enjoy the journey and make new friends.
As time passes, the contributions you make and the relationships you cultivate create a sense of belonging and ownership. You feel you are part of the community.
A comprehensive survey with DAO participants found that the most common roles in DAOs are related to community building, governance, operations, marketing and development.
I see all these roles organized in 3 functions: build, cultivate and grow.
Builders create the product. In DeFi, they are developers that code the smart contracts, economists that think in the financial structures and incentives and the data scientists that create dashboards helping to manage these products.
The second group cultivates the energy within the community. They incentivize participation from community members and are responsible for modding, organizing operations/working groups, grant programs, etc.
The growth team brings new users and members. They create educational content, promote the project, establish partnerships and propose integrations.
Understanding the role you can play is key to better engage with a DAO.
How to engage with the Fei DAO?
Let’s go specific now and tell how you can engage with the Fei community, the Tribe. Fei is the stablecoin token pegged at US$1 and Tribe is the governance token responsible to take care of Fei.
A stablecoin project is an opportunity to have a comprehensive view of the DeFi world. As it is the base layer of all the financial services, it has relationships and potential partnerships with almost all DeFi protocols. The reserves owned by Fei Protocol (Protocol Controlled Value-PCV) can foster the growth of DeFi.
To join the Tribe, I would recommend first reading some online materials to have an idea about the project:
Understanding Fei:
Guide to Decentralized Stablecoins: have an overview of Fei and comparable stablecoin projects
Fei v2: description of the new version that will be deployed in the following months
Newsletters: check what happened in the last months
Fei History: all the history of Fei since its genesis in one place
Fei Docs: more detailed info about all aspects of the protocol (user guides, concepts, governance and developer section)
Fei website: explore the website
After reading some of these materials, it is time to engage with the community.
Engaging with Community:
Discord is the community digital home where most interactions happen.
Enter in the Discord and introduce yourself. Why are you excited about Fei? What do you hope to contribute to the community? You can use the #general or other specific channel such as #development if you are a developer.
In Discord, you can check all the news from #announcement channel and what is being said about Fei on Twitter (#fei-twitter). Just start to use Discord and the community will help you.
Read the Tribe Forum and the last posts.
Vote in the proposals with $TRIBE in the Snapshot. It is free to vote here! All the proposals start as a “Draft” in the forum, then move to the “Last Call” and stay at least 2 days in this stage. After that, the proposal goes to the snapshot. You have many opportunities to interact and give your perspectives before the proposal is approved by the community.
After the snapshot, the proposal can go to the on-chain vote on Tally. You can vote here with your $TRIBE but you will need to spend some gas.
Check the current Grants program. The grant categories are: education and transparency; usability; tooling; research and development. There is also a request for specific contributions:
You can participate in the monthly call, the Tribal Gathering
And finally, become a Fei “influencer” on Twitter by spreading the word about the project (you can follow me here and also the Fei Protocol). Twitter is the place where most crypto general discussions happen.
Feel free to reach and talk 1:1 to other community members, they will help you with this onboarding.
Have a good journey and enjoy the ride.
Please note that this letter is not intended as financial advice.