Nantang DAO Chronicle (Part II)

Find a way out

The story of the Nantang DAO continues, despite facing many challenges, everything is still emerging naturally. The community explores forward through trial and error, seeking new possibilities amid change. Some core members have gone to Jianta Village, Pujiang County, Chengdu, to attempt to launch new projects, trying to find the true intersection of "rural construction and Web3" and build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO." Meanwhile, others chose to stay local in Nantang and proposed the initiative of "living well," continuously cultivating the community by organizing local youth for blockchain co-learning, band activities, and more. One side explores outward while the other is rooted locally, with both paths running parallel without conflict. Pioneering new paths has always been full of hardships, but as the saying goes: "Pessimists are often correct, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of Nantang DAO are writing their own answers through action.

attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. Cikey once reflected that in the early days of the establishment of the Nantang DAO, it failed to effectively attract "real talent who understand blockchain and Web3", 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 taken a series of improvement measures. Currently, Nantang DAO plans to invite senior experts in the industry to form the "Nantang DAO Governance Advisory Group" to provide professional mediation for internal disputes and offer systematic suggestions for each quarter's strategic direction. Additionally, through the "Bilateral Enlightenment Program for Rural Construction and Web3", community members have participated in various domestic and international Web3 activities and have gone into universities for presentations, which has not only enhanced their professional skills but also attracted more professionals passionate about Web3 and rural construction to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new avenues for talent recruitment. Encouragingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Some of them are skilled in artistic creation, able to add creativity to rural cultural activities; some are proficient in brand promotion, providing support for the external communication of Nantang DAO; and others have made significant achievements in research organization, contributing wisdom to the optimization of community governance mechanisms. 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 several international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, in response to the challenges of rebuilding after earthquakes and an aging population, the village of Sankojimura in Japan launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "koi fish" and regarded NFT holders as "digital villagers." The DAO community formed as a result attracted over 1,750 members globally and raised funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not adopt typical DAO elements such as smart contracts or on-chain treasury, it effectively addressed local issues. The experience of Sankojimura is quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Sankojimura further proposed the idea of a "dual-layer DAO-driven governance revolution": using the Sankogijimura DAO as a vehicle for co-governance between physical villagers and digital villagers, making decisions through Snapshot voting; meanwhile, using the Shihuaren DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional cooperation (such as with Chuiye Village and Tianlongxia), constructing a "LocalDAO network." This model resonates with 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 also began to enter the DAO service provider stage, during which the community created numerous DAO media brands and developed on-chain and physical passport systems and other DAO tools aimed at online communities; from 2022 to 2023, with the turmoil 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 keyword became "family community," and the team decided to establish deeper connections with local communities. They launched the Neighborhood Accelerator program, proposing to create 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 on the X platform, deciding to give up DAO grants and commercialization projects, shifting to a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from a reflection 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 trusted neutral governance mechanism for distributing ecosystem grants from existing cash flow protocols. Community-driven networks are most suitable for serving as loose connective organizations that enable many people 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 whole world.

Deepen local engagement, seek 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, location, and natural environment to formulate feasible goals and action programs.

Nantang Village is known 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 backdrop of grand historical contexts — from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, civic movements surged, the rights protection lawyer movement and the environmental movement began to emerge, allowing citizens to maintain their rights through legal means and collective actions. 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; after establishing cooperatives, our daily work focuses on livelihood development, cultural construction, and the construction of rural autonomy for rights protection." Later, in the process of farmers' organization, they drew on Western civilization, introducing deliberative rules, achieving the localization of advanced governance concepts (in 2008), and during this phase, the economic and cultural undertakings in the village experienced rapid development. Yang Yunbiao pointed out in discussions on rural construction: "Rural revitalization is not simply industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization; it must return to 'people's revitalization' and consider how to enable people to live with smiles and dignity." Today, the establishment of the 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 Nantan DAO, Nantan has attempted various democratic governance methods over the past 30 years. However, it is essential to realize that regardless of how innovative the organizational form may be, 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 currently have produced a good "linking" effect. After living and learning together for some time, wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During my field study, I observed local young people actively applying Robert's Rules of Order to address the challenges of collective cooking by efficiently negotiating through "motions" and "reconsiderations" to reach a consensus on division of labor. I also sensed the budding awareness of equality among local youth, as they began to organize spontaneously to collectively reflect on issues such as lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities, and ambiguous rules in local work and life. This emergence of independent thinking and critical spirit will be a valuable asset for the future development of Nantan. On another front, cooperatives are broadening their horizons, planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, connecting a wider range of young people. Based on recognizing each other's needs, perhaps working in a mutually respectful manner could be the driving force for new possibilities to emerge in this land.

Conclusion

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 reach a consensus amidst the conflicts, forming a governance model that balances individual autonomy and collective cooperation. In future developments, Nantang DAO, while promoting Web3's technology 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 intersect: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing rural areas, while DAO reshapes trust and collaboration mechanisms with a decentralized technological concept. In recent years, these two fields have started to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners who are dedicated to rural areas and rural builders who wish to embrace new technologies. However, due to the short exposure time and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, this intersection inevitably produces friction, including the clash between decentralized autonomous logic and rural collectivist culture, as well as the integration of external concepts and local traditions.

The most core issue is how DAO, as a new type of organizational form, can find its role and capability boundaries within rural governance structures. 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 point system (such as the work point system), and its usability and ease of use are even difficult to surpass other existing "alternative currencies"; if the token-based voting merely translates to direct democracy on 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 common 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 advantages and disadvantages, and they coexist rather than replace each other. If we consider decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various historical organizations and different development stages of the same organization occupy different positions on this spectrum. Many DAO failures stem from a lack of adequate understanding of this issue; they want to undertake commercial projects and find that a more centralized approach is often better. They aim to allocate funds through DAO, but often most people are not beneficiaries, and economic benefits tend to be monopolized by a few individuals. Some DAOs that focus on building community networks find that after a period of operation, they seem unable to find their place as a DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation, during a vote, decided to provide $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain, which triggered anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation should spend money, while Uniswap.