As decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) continue to gain steam around the world, numerous use cases for these organizations also continue to emerge. Last time, we examined DAOs that are run as investment vehicles. This time, we will share all about operation DAOs that are completely reinventing the wheel when it comes to running projects — or companies.

In the Web 2.0 world, when you want to build a social media like Facebook, a matching platform like Airbnb, a game studio like Epic Games, or a P2P lending platform like LendingClub, you usually start by registering through a corporation. Your team is then built using the revenue or the capital raised by using equity and debt. Stock options are provided as incentives, but only to certain key employees.

In the Web 3.0 ecosystem, however, you are able to create a new token to be distributed to every contributor and/or patron for their contribution. Through this ecosystem, raising funds by using tokens from private and public markets is made possible.

Guild-Type Projects

1. Yield Guild Games (YGG) (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $5.6 billion): YGG is a Play-To-Earn gaming guild, bringing players together to earn via blockchain-based economies. Yield Guild Games has built a community of scholars (who earn money by playing games) and investors (who invest in the game assets that the scholars use to play). There are also community managers who make sure the scholars play according to the rules. Infinity Ventures Crypto invested in YGG’s $4.6 million Series A raise alongside a16z. YGG marked a16z’s first investment in the Philippines.
2. YGGSEA: YGGSEA, a joint venture between Infinity Ventures Crypto and YGG, is the first subDAO of YGG, focusing on creating communities in Southeast Asia.
3. Merit Circle (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $5 billion): Merit Circle is a similar business as YGG and a fast-growing late-comer. It was launched in November 2021, while its token valuation is catching up to the top players.
4. MetaFactory: MetaFactory is a crowdfunding platform for the creation of community-owned brands with an initial focus on fashion and apparel. It curates and manages the brand ownership (IP) and product auction marketplace, as well as handling product production and fulfillment on behalf of its brand partners.
   

Social Community-Type Projects

1. Friends With Benefits (FWB) (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $79 million): FWB started as a Discord group. To join FWB, one needs a written application, reviewed and voted by the community itself, and a minimum of FWB tokens to represent ownership in the DAO. As the amount of content added to FWB increases, so does the value of this community. Since its inception as a social experiment in September 2020, FWB has grown to nearly 2,000 members. In addition to a series of parties around the world, it has also launched the “token-gated events” application, NFT gallery, Web3-centric editor Business, virtual music studios, etc.
2. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC): BAYC is a community of Bored Ape NFT owners, which is a series of NFT art that is typically used as a profile picture. The highest price that a Bored Ape NFT has ever been sold is USD $2.8 million.
   

DeFi Protocol-Type Projects

1. Uniswap (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $15 billion): Uniswap (UNI) is an Ethereum token that powers Uniswap, an automated liquidity provider that’s designed to make it easy to exchange Ethereum (ERC-20) tokens. There is no order book or central facilitator on Uniswap. In regards to the market cap, Uniswap is the largest DAO.
2. Compound (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $1.9 billion): Compound (COMP) is an Ethereum token that enables community governance of the Compound protocol. The protocol is a series of decentralized interest rate markets that allow users to supply and borrow Ethereum tokens at variable interest rates. COMP token holders and their delegates can also debate, propose, and vote on changes to the protocol.
3. Aave (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $2.8 billion): Aave (AAVE) is an Ethereum token that powers Aave, a decentralized non-custodial money market protocol where users can participate as depositors or borrowers. Depositors provide liquidity to the market to earn a passive income, while borrowers are able to borrow cryptocurrencies in exchange for paying a variable interest rate.
4. Lido (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $3.2 billion): Lido is a liquid staking solution for Ethereum and other proof-of-stake chains. This allows users to stake their tokens without having to lock assets or maintain staking infrastructure. Users who stake via Lido receive daily rewards in the form of staking derivative tokens which are pegged 1:1 to the underlying staked assets.
5. Olympus (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $573 million): Olympus is an algorithmic currency protocol with the goal of becoming a stable crypto-native currency. Though sometimes called an algorithmic stablecoin, Olympus is more akin to a central bank since it uses reserve assets like DAI to manage its price. The goal is to achieve price stability while maintaining a floating market-driven price. The biggest difference between OHM and stablecoins like USDC is that OHM is backed but not pegged to a certain price.
   

Other Types of Projects

1. ENS (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $4.3 billion): ENS is an open, public, decentralized identity protocol that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. Users can register ETH names native to ENS or import in DNS domain names they already own, which they can use as their cross-platform Web3 username and profile, one name for all of their crypto addresses, and as a decentralized website.
2. Rarible (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $352 million): RARI is an Ethereum token that powers Rarible, a community-owned marketplace for creating, selling, or collecting NFTs. RARI can be earned by using the platform and can be used to curate content and vote on platform upgrades.
3. Gitcoin (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: $USD 961 million): Gitcoin (GTC) is an Ethereum token that enables community governance of the Gitcoin platform. The platform is designed to fund and coordinate open-source development by novel means such as quadratic funding. As of June 2021, Gitcoin has facilitated over $21 million in grants and bounties for open-source developers.

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