Co-ops, DAOs, and the way forward for collectives

Worker co-ops or companies that are owned by employees is not a new concept. In fact, during the Great Depression, farmers who were struggling to access energy resources because investor-owned utilities were not interested in serving rural areas, set up electrical cooperatives that they collectively owned. That said, despite demonstrated benefits l... See more

Having one foot in the platform cooperativism movement and another in the DAO space has been illuminating, and I have come to believe that both spheres are giving rise to valuable new tools when it comes to human organization, collective ownership, and cultural production. While it can sometimes seem like these innovations are happening in parallel... See more

While it is possible for DAOs to emulate cooperative governance, it’s more common to observe the easier-to-implement governance pattern of one-token, one-vote, since verifying one’s personhood is still a nascent field in the world of blockchain.