Nantung DAO Memo (Part 2)

found a way out

The story of the Nantang DAO continues, despite facing many challenges, everything is still developing naturally and continuously emerging. The community explores and moves forward through trial and error, digging for new possibilities in the pursuit of change. Some core members have gone to Jiantai Village, Pujiang County, Chengdu, to attempt to launch a new project, trying to find the true intersection of "rural construction and Web3" and build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO." Meanwhile, some chose to stay in Nantang and proposed the initiative of "living well," continuously cultivating the community by organizing local young people for blockchain co-learning, band activities, and more. One side explores externally, while the other is rooted locally; both paths run parallel without contradiction. Paving new roads has always been filled with hardships, but as the saying goes: "Pessimists are often right, while optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of the Nantang DAO are writing their own answers through action.

Attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. Cikey reflected that in the early days of the Nantang DAO's establishment, it failed to effectively attract "talents who truly understand blockchain and Web3," and coupled with the general lack of mature rural construction experience among early members, the community took many 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 gone into universities for presentations, which not only enhanced their own professional qualities but also attracted more professionals passionate about Web3 and rural construction to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new prospects for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Among them, some are skilled in artistic creation, adding creativity to rural cultural activities; some are proficient in brand promotion, providing support for Nantang DAO's external communication; and others have made significant contributions in organizational research, offering wisdom for optimizing the community governance mechanism. These new members not only bring professional skills but also open up 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 common challenge globally. Nantang DAO has researched multiple international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after facing the challenges of earthquake reconstruction and an aging population, the village of Yamakoji in Japan launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "Koi", considering NFT holders as "digital villagers". The resulting DAO community attracted over 1,750 members globally, raising funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not use typical DAO elements like smart contracts or on-chain treasury, it effectively addressed local issues. The experience of Yamakoji Village is quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Yamakoji Village further proposed the idea of a "dual-layer DAO-driven governance revolution": using the Yamakoji DAO as a vehicle to achieve co-governance between physical villagers and digital villagers through Snapshot voting; at the same time, using the Shihua DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration (such as with Chuiye Village and Tianlongxia), building a "LocalDAO network". This model resonates with the current development path of Nantang DAO and should provide valuable reference.

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 residency; from 2021 to 2022, with the booming development of DAOs, Cabin also began to enter the DAO service provider stage, during which the community created numerous DAO media brands and developed DAO tools such as on-chain and physical passport systems aimed at 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 deeper connections with local communities. They initiated the Neighborhood Accelerator program, proposing to build a community where friends live nearby and raise children together.

What is worth referencing and reflecting on is that after several years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team believes it is more suitable to exist as a loose community network rather than a startup or DAO. On May 8, 2025, Cabin officially announced its dissolution, deciding to abandon DAO funding and commercialization projects, and to shift towards a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from reflections on the different models of startups, DAOs, and community networks: "Venture capital-backed startups are best suited for small focused teams that can quickly pivot and seek short-term financially viable high-growth business opportunities. DAOs are best suited as a reliable neutral governance mechanism for distributing ecosystem grants from existing cash flow protocols. Community-driven networks are best suited to act as loose connective organizations that enable many individuals to independently explore adjacent paths and build what they find most interesting and valuable." For practitioners of rural construction DAOs, 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.

Deepen into the local market, seeking advantages

While learning from global pioneers, how to take root locally must be based on in-depth research and analysis of local realities. The Nantang DAO needs to comprehensively assess local resources such as the economy, human resources, spiritual culture, politics, social capital, geographical location, and natural environment, in order to formulate practical goals and action plans.

Nantang Village is renowned for its historical experience in democratic governance, and the attention it receives 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, with its important historical nodes always resonating with advanced organizational concepts in the context of major historical environments - from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, a wave of civic movements surged, with the rights defense lawyer movement and environmental movement beginning to rise, allowing citizens to safeguard their rights through legal means and collective action. Nantang also began organizing farmers to defend their rights, promoting grassroots elections and implementing villagers' autonomy. Starting from 2003-2004, the goal of farmer organization gradually shifted from rights defense to construction. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "Previously, we approached rights defense from a confrontational perspective; after establishing cooperatives, our daily work focuses on livelihood development, cultural construction, and building rural autonomy to defend our rights." Later, in the process of farmer organization, they drew on Western civilization and introduced deliberative rules, achieving the localization of advanced governance concepts (in 2008), during which time the village's economic and cultural undertakings developed rapidly. Yang Yunbiao once pointed out in a rural construction dialogue: "Rural revitalization is not simply industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization; it must return to 'the revitalization of people', considering how to enable people to 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 parliamentary rules, from cooperatives to the Nantang DAO, Nantang has attempted different forms of democratic governance over the past 30 years. However, it is important to realize that regardless of how innovative the organizational form is, the key lies in whether it focuses on "human connections" and addresses the fundamental needs of local farmers. It is gratifying that the various attempts made in the past and those currently ongoing have already produced a good "linkage" effect. After spending some time living and learning together, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During my field study, I observed that local young people, when faced with the challenge of division of labor in collective cooking, actively utilized Robert's Rules of Order, efficiently negotiating and forming a consensus on division of labor through "motions" and "reconsiderations." I also sensed the budding awareness of equality among local youth; they have begun to spontaneously organize themselves to collectively think about issues such as insufficient transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities and rights, and ambiguous rules in local work and life matters. This budding spirit of independent thinking and criticism will be a valuable asset for Nantang's future development. On another front, cooperatives are also broadening their horizons, planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, connecting a wider group of young people. Based on recognizing each other's needs, working in a mutually respectful manner may be the driving force for generating new possibilities in this land.

written at the end

Despite the conflicts, the integration of rural development and Web3 holds promising prospects. Through the test of time and practice, both sides are expected to forge a consensus amid the conflicts, forming a governance model that balances individual autonomy and collective cooperation. In future developments, the Nantan DAO should not only promote Web3 technologies and governance models, but also root itself in the cultural soil of the countryside and the genuine interests of the villagers, focusing on addressing the most fundamental needs of rural areas, so that new digital technologies truly touch the soul of rural society.

How to view the exploration of DAO in rural areas?

Rural construction and DAO are like two originally tangent circles: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing the countryside, while DAO reshapes trust and collaboration mechanisms with a decentralized technological concept. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners dedicated to rural areas and those in rural construction eager to embrace new technologies. However, due to the short duration of contact and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, friction inevitably arises within this intersection, including clashes between decentralized autonomous logic and rural collectivist culture, as well as the integration of external ideas and local traditions.

The core issue lies in how DAO, as a new organizational form, can find its scope of action and capacity boundaries within the rural governance structure. Taking the practice of Nantan DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantan 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 are even difficult to surpass other existing "alternative currencies"; if token-based voting is merely a direct democracy that has transitioned to a Web3 digital platform, but 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? Although these questions are concretely embodied in Nantan DAO, they are, in fact, 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 consider decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various organizations throughout history, as well as different development stages of the same organization, are positioned at different points on this spectrum. Many failures of DAOs stem from a lack of sufficient understanding of this issue; wanting to run a business project, they find that a more centralized approach is often better. They want to allocate funds using a DAO approach, but often the majority are not beneficiaries, and economic benefits tend to be monopolized by a few. Some DAOs focused on building community networks find that after a while, they seem unable to identify their place as a DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation decided during a vote to provide $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain, triggering anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation needed to spend money, while Unisw