Zero Knowledgpe Proof Tools for DAOs

During my presentation at DAO Denver 2023 I spoke about how DAOs can leverage ZKP tooling to make their communities more privacy friendly. Some examples I talk about are shielded treasures and anonymous voting.

DAOs have been struggling for a while with default financial transparency. Through the use zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs) DAOs could potentially make their treasuries private. This practice is a common occurrence in the traditional business environment, where it is unusual for an entity, be it a company or a non-governmental organization, to publicly disclose the entirety of their treasury.

While there are merits to maintaining a certain level of transparency in treasuries, it is not without its drawbacks. Currently, DAOs operate with open treasuries, leaving them vulnerable to being outbid in auctions as their maximum bid is publicly known. A potential solution to this issue might be the integration of Tornado Cash Nova and Juice Box, thereby enabling the creation of shielded treasuries.

Digital Assets & Financial Institutions: CeFi vs. DeFi

I recently moderated a panel discussion called “Digital Assets & Financial Institutions: DeFi Revolution,” featuring experts who shared their perspectives on the evolving world of decentralized finance (DeFi) during WOW Summit in Hong Kong.

I was joined on stage by:

A key takeaway from the discussion was the potential for DeFi to connect traditional finance with digital assets. The panelists highlighted the benefits of integrating DeFi solutions into current financial systems, creating opportunities for investors and institutions alike.

You can watch the full video here:

Can I say something controversial?

Back in November I joined a panel discussion with Maja Vujinovic, Managing Director at OGroup, Jeffrey Joh, independent consultant and angel investor, Lou Kerner, Venture Partner at Blockchain Coinvestors.

We discussed the meaning of community in Web3 and whether it’s always community first or whether Web3 stands for – IMHO – mainly decentralized infrastructure. Check out the video below for my “controversial” statement.

Thanks to Anjali Young from Collab Land for moderating this session.

DAOs: Past, Present & Future

I got invited by DAO Planet to speak at Dcentral Miami about the Past, Present and Future of DAOs.

Why do we need DAOs in the first place?

You can just incorporate a company, have shareholder agreements and voting rights. No Need for a DAO.

The true innovation of DAOs goes beyond everything being on chain, it goes back to one of the early memes of the 1990s Internet:

“Online nobody knows that you’re a dog.” 🐕

DAOs are meritorcracies and enable a pseudonomous economy. It doesn’t matter who you are and where you come from, instead your skills are front & center.

Digital Discourses – The Future of Internet

The internet is broken. While Web 2.0 is rampant with surveillance capitalism, the next phase of the internet will have decentralisation at its core. How would Web3, with blockchain as its backbone, be different? Could it lead to a more cooperative web? What is the future of the internet? Here’s my talk for Goethe Institut Jakarta, the Center for Digital Society and Engage Media.

Incentives IRL and the quest to own your data

Helium invited me alongside Matthew Fontana from Streamr, Danny O’Brien from the Filecoin Foundation and the Hivemapper founder Ariel Seidman to talk about how to incentivize the sharing of data through tokens. We discuss the different tokeneconmical models that help boosting data ownership and give an overview on the growing data economy landscape in Web3.