Nantang DAO Chronicles (Part Two)

Find a way out

The story of the Nantan DAO continues, despite facing numerous challenges, everything is still developing naturally and continuously emerging. The community is exploring and moving forward through trial and error, digging for new possibilities in the pursuit of change. Some core members have gone to Jianta Village in Pujiang County, Chengdu, to try and launch a new project, attempting to find the true intersection of "rural construction and Web3," and to build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO." At the same time, some choose to stay in Nantan and propose the initiative of "living well," by organizing local young people to conduct blockchain co-learning, band activities, and so on, continuously digging deep into the community. One side explores outward, while the other takes root locally, with both paths running parallel without contradiction. Opening up new roads is always filled with hardships, but as the saying goes: "Pessimists are often right, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of the Nantan DAO are writing their own answers through action.

Attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. Cikey once reflected that the Nantang DAO failed to effectively attract "real talents who understand blockchain and Web3" in its early establishment, coupled with the general lack of mature rural construction experience among early members, which led the community to take a lot of detours in its exploration. Fortunately, the community has recognized this shortcoming and has taken a series of improvement measures. Currently, Nantang DAO plans to invite senior experts from the industry to form the "Nantang DAO Governance Advisory Group" to provide professional mediation for internal disputes and to offer systematic suggestions for the strategic direction of each quarter. In addition, through the "Rural Construction Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program", community members have participated multiple times in domestic and international Web3 events and have engaged in presentations at universities, which not only enhanced their own professional qualities but also attracted more professionals who are passionate about Web3 and rural construction to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new avenues for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Some of them excel in artistic creation, adding creativity to rural cultural activities; others are proficient in brand promotion, providing support for Nantang DAO's external communication; and still others have made significant achievements in organizational research, contributing wisdom to the optimization of community governance mechanisms. These new members not only bring professional skills but also pave the way for more possibilities for the future development of Nantang DAO.

Facing the world, drawing on experience

What are the real needs of rural areas? Can Web3 inject new momentum into rural development? The implementation of DAO is not only a topic for Nantang but also a global challenge. Nantang DAO has researched multiple international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after the earthquake, Yamakoji Village in Japan introduced the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "Nishikigoi" in response to the challenges of rebuilding and an aging population, viewing NFT holders as "digital villagers". The resulting DAO community attracted over 1,750 members from around the world and raised funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not adopt typical DAO elements such as smart contracts or on-chain funds, it effectively addressed local issues. The experience of Yamakoji Village is quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Yamakoji Village further proposed the concept of a "dual-layer DAO-driven governance revolution": using the Yamakoji DAO as a vehicle to achieve co-governance between physical and digital villagers through Snapshot voting decisions; simultaneously using the Shihua People DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration (such as in Shiye Village and Tianlong Gorge), constructing a "LocalDAO network". This model resembles the current development path of Nantang DAO and should provide valuable references.

Another relevant case is CabinDAO - a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to building network cities through community collaboration and technological innovation. Its development process is divided into four stages: the Creator Era from 2020 to 2021, establishing "Creator Cabins" as a funding project for creator residencies; from 2021 to 2022, as DAOs flourished, Cabin began to enter the DAO service provider phase, during which the community created numerous DAO media brands and developed DAO tools such as on-chain and physical passport systems for online communities; from 2022 to 2023, with the turbulence in the crypto market, the community began to significantly reduce the DAO team and focus on creating natural communities for digital nomads and building a global co-living network; starting in early 2024, the team's keywords became "family community," and the team decided to establish a deeper connection with local communities, initiating the Neighborhood Accelerator program, proposing to create a community where friends live nearby and raise children together.

What is worth learning and reflecting on is that after several years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team believes it is more suitable as a loose community network rather than a startup or DAO. On May 8, 2025, Cabin officially announced its dissolution on the X platform, deciding to abandon DAO grants and commercialization projects and shift to a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from a reflection on the different models of entrepreneurship, DAO, and community networks: "Venture capital-backed startups are best suited for small, focused teams that can quickly pivot and seek high-growth business opportunities that are financially viable in the short term. DAOs are best suited as a trusted neutral governance mechanism for distributing ecosystem grants from existing cash flow protocols. Community-driven networks are best suited to serve as loose connective organizations, allowing many people to independently explore adjacent paths and build what they find most interesting and valuable." For practitioners of rural construction DAOs, the question of how to find the positioning of DAOs in rural communities and what value DAOs can bring to local communities is undoubtedly a common proposition faced by the world.

Deeply rooted in the local area, seeking advantages

While learning from global pioneers, how to take root locally needs to be based on in-depth research and analysis of local realities. Nan Tang DAO needs to comprehensively assess local resources such as the economy, human resources, cultural spirit, politics, social capital, location, and natural environment in order to formulate practical goals and action programs.

Nantang Village is renowned for its historical experience in democratic governance, and the attention from society is the greatest advantage of this land. Looking back at the history of Nantang, one can find that the desire for democracy and rights has never ceased, and its important historical nodes have always resonated with advanced organizational concepts in the context of great times - from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the citizen movement surged, the rights protection lawyer movement and the environmental movement began to rise, allowing citizens to safeguard their rights through legal means and collective action. Meanwhile, Nantang also began to organize farmers' rights protection struggles, implement grassroots elections, and practice villagers' autonomy. Starting from 2003-2004, the goal of farmers' organization gradually shifted from rights protection to construction. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "Previously, we approached rights protection from a confrontational perspective, but after establishing cooperatives, our daily work is to safeguard rights through livelihood development, cultural construction, and rural autonomy construction." Later, in the process of farmer organization, Western civilization was referenced, and deliberative rules were introduced, achieving the localization of advanced governance concepts (in 2008), during which the village's economic and cultural undertakings developed rapidly. Yang Yunbiao once pointed out in a rural construction dialogue: "Rural revitalization is not simply about industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization; it must return to 'human revitalization' and consider how to ensure that people live with smiles and dignity." Today, the establishment of Nantang DAO continues the tradition of organizational innovation, marking the latest attempt to integrate local ethics with modern civilization.

From rights protection organizations to meeting rules, from cooperatives to Nantang DAO, Nantang has attempted various democratic governance methods over the past 30 years. However, it is important to realize that no matter how innovative the organizational form is, the key lies in whether it focuses on "human connections" and whether it addresses the fundamental needs of local farmers. It is reassuring that the various attempts made in the past and those currently underway have already produced a good "linkage" effect. After spending time living and learning together, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly happening between DAO members and cooperative members. During my field observations, I noticed that local youth actively applied Robert's Rules of Order to efficiently negotiate and form a consensus on division of labor when facing the challenge of collective cooking. I also felt the budding awareness of equality among local youth; they have started to spontaneously organize themselves to collectively think about issues such as lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities and powers, and ambiguous rules in local work and life. This emergence of independent thinking and critical spirit will be a valuable asset for Nantang's future development. On another front, the cooperative is also broadening its horizons, planning to create a "third space" for digital nomads to connect with a wider group of young people. Based on recognizing each other's needs, working in a mutually respectful manner may become a driving force for new possibilities to emerge in this land.

Written at the end

Despite the conflicts, the integration of rural construction and Web3 holds promising prospects. Through the test of time and practice, both sides are expected to reach a consensus amidst the conflicts, forming a governance model that balances individual autonomy and collective cooperation. In future development, the Nantang DAO, while promoting Web3 technologies and governance models, must also be rooted in the cultural soil of the countryside and the vital interests of the villagers, focusing on addressing the most fundamental needs of rural areas, allowing new digital technologies to truly touch the soul of rural society.

How to view the exploration of DAO in rural areas?

Rural construction and DAO are like two circles that originally touch each other: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing rural areas, while DAO reshapes trust and cooperation mechanisms with decentralized technological concepts. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners dedicated to rural areas and rural construction individuals eager to embrace new technologies. However, due to the brief exposure time and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, friction inevitably arises within this intersection, with both the clash of decentralized autonomous logic and rural collectivist culture, as well as the integration of external concepts with local traditions.

The core issue lies in how DAO, as a new organizational form, can find its role and capacity boundaries within the rural governance structure. Taking the practice of Nantang DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantang beans is merely a digital replica of the traditional rural governance points system (such as the work points system), and its usability and ease of use may not even surpass other existing "Alternative Currencies"; if token-based voting only translates to direct democracy on the Web3 digital platform, yet effectively excludes villagers from the democratic decision-making process, how much change can we expect this so-called organizational "innovation" to bring to rural society? While these questions are concretely embodied in Nantang DAO, they actually pose a universal inquiry for all future rural construction DAOs or similar organizations.

Moreover, it must be acknowledged that DAO is not the ultimate answer to all organizational governance issues. No organizational design is perfect, and the trade-offs and choices in the governance process are key for organizations to address sustainable development challenges. Different organizational forms have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they coexist rather than replace each other. If we view decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various types of organizations throughout history, as well as different development stages of the same organization, occupy different positions on this spectrum. Many failures of DAOs stem from a lack of sufficient awareness of this issue; they aim to undertake business projects but find that a more centralized approach works better. They want to allocate funds using a DAO model, but often the majority are not beneficiaries, and economic benefits are frequently monopolized by a few. Some DAOs that focus on building community networks, after operating for a period, find themselves struggling to identify their position as a DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation, during a vote, decided to allocate $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain, which sparked anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation would...