Author: DAOrayaki

PleasrDAO is a team composed of DeFi leaders, early NFT collectors, and digital artists who have built a strong and philanthropic reputation by acquiring culturally significant works in a charitable manner. Since purchasing the founding work, pplpleasr's Uniswap V3 NFT, using a DAO structure, the DAO has evolved and enhanced its ability to collect digital art, funding these digital art representations on-chain as NFTs to commemorate important ideas, movements, and causes. PleasrDAO has set a precedent for bidding on unique works, many of which carry powerful messages that transcend crypto.

Introduction

PleasrDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that quickly organized on Twitter to purchase the genesis NFT of pppleasr. This animation, titled x*y=k, was created to celebrate the launch of Uniswap V3, and all proceeds from the auction are intended to benefit the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, as well as other minority groups that PleasrDAO explicitly states they wish to support.

Additionally, PleasrDAO's white paper is beginning to take shape. It represents community, freedom, and decentralization of power. It is a collective built by the community, serving the community. While its early stages have focused on collecting iconic works, PleasrDAO looks forward to democratizing the ownership of the DAO and the works within it.

However, the 40 members of PleasrDAO did not disband after collecting their first NFT. Instead, they doubled down on their vision and strategy, quickly collecting Edward Snowden's Stay Free NFT for 2,224 ETH (approximately $5.5 million) on April 16, drawing attention once again. Beyond the headlines generated by its high sale price, PleasrDAO's acquisition also demonstrates the potential for DAOs to come together and pool funds to collectively own higher-value NFTs. PleasrDAO is one of many emerging DAOs leveraging the power of smart contracts, which allocate digital ownership and distribute a small portion of assets to each member. Moreover, as a collective entity, they aim to support good enterprises, stating that their goal is to collect NFTs that "belong to the people."

Despite most members never having met in person, and some remaining anonymous, PleasrDAO has its own way of thinking. PleasrDAO allocates DAO ownership in the form of tokens. This provides each member with a small portion of its assets—two NFTs and funds in the treasury. Each member participates in the governance of the DAO through group chats. If someone wishes to exit the DAO, their tokens will be contested internally. PleasrDAO's chief "pleasure officer," Jamis Johnson, stated, "Many members are excited to purchase it." Jamis Johnson coordinates and manages PleasrDAO's strategy; his semi-joking title is "almost a CEO role, but more fun."

After purchasing the Snowden NFT, the future direction of PleasrDAO remains uncertain. But three core areas will be art collection, angel investing, and incubation.

Foundation and PleasrDAO

On April 27, 2021, Foundation.app interviewed PleasrDAO's chief "pleasure officer," Jamis Johnson, to learn how the organization came together to purchase the fourth highest-selling NFT of all time.

According to the chief "pleasure officer," the work of pppleasr was chosen because she is the original DeFi artist, and everyone in the crypto space knows her influence. For PleasrDAO, it was simple to rally around her work because she enjoys a high reputation in the field and has turned DeFi from a meme into truly beautiful art. She also donated all proceeds from her sales to AAPI organizations, which served as an incentive. Everyone in PleasrDAO has benefited greatly from crypto, so they want to support good enterprises.

Since most members of PleasrDAO have programming backgrounds, they all recognize and appreciate Snowden's contributions to the field. The auction combines donations to the Freedom of the Press Foundation with personal freedom, which is important to us. If you program long enough, you start to see how much government impacts individual online freedom—this also became a significant reason for forming PleasrDAO.

PleasrDAO and NFTs

PleasrDAO is DeFi native. And with enough art collectors in DeFi, PleasrDAO does not attempt to compete with them. PleasrDAO has an internally distributed token, and more will be distributed each round—ultimately, PleasrDAO hopes to go public. Considering segmentation issues, they want everyone to have a share of ownership and use some pricing mechanism to circulate it publicly.

Additionally, PleasrDAO plans to establish industry standards that drive the entire system forward and showcase the possibilities of DAOs from a technical perspective. Ultimately, the team will do things like showcase art, but they hope to start moving more towards collective smart contracts. When you have a DAO and a collection of DAOs that have always existed, DAOs share collective assets, whether it's investments or art portfolios, but suddenly, you can segment your artwork, and that segmentation itself becomes DAO-managed, thus having voting rights. There will be many possibilities.

PleasrDAO Vision

What PleasrDAO wants to do is not much, including collecting NFTs, becoming angel investors, and operating as an incubator. The team hopes to make angel investments in early projects, similar to MetaCartel—but with a focus on NFT projects. PleasrDAO members are very talented, many of whom are VCs, programmers, and artists. The team aims to leverage funding to push the space forward and support teams that are doing so.

PleasrDAO is also interested in becoming an incubator platform for those with great and unique ideas that are not necessarily productized or turned into a mature protocol. The team hopes that people can propose ideas internally and then allocate some funds to them to pursue. Ultimately, PleasrDAO is about allocating resources to more exploratory ideas to push things forward.

PleasrDAO Team

• Jamis Johnson------Jamis Johnson is the chief "pleasure officer" of PleasrDAO. A machine learning engineer, blockchain investor, motorcycle enthusiast, aging skateboarder, New York City history buff, crossword and acrostic expert, contrarian thinker, and stand-up comedy fan.

• Twitter Account:https://twitter.com/_jamiis

• Tarun Chitra -- Founder and CEO of Gauntlet. Tarun has worked at D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES), Vatic Labs, and HFT firms, and graduated from Cornell University. He entered the blockchain space in 2011 while working on ASIC research at DESRES and observed how Bitcoin ASIC miners significantly delayed DESRES's ASIC production. For the past seven years, he has been dedicated to R&D in the intersection of high-performance computing and AI, applying this knowledge to the blockchain ecosystem.

• Twitter Account:https://twitter.com/tarunchitra

• Matt Condon------A full-stack software engineer with a strong interest in the developer community, blockchain, and infrastructure. Matt is currently updating PaperclipDAO, managing Digitally Rare, part of the Steak Network, and is currently building XLNT.

• Twitter Account:https://twitter.com/1ofthemanymatts

• Mariano Conti------Mariano works for MakerDAO, developing the Dai stablecoin system, specifically the Dai credit system. From smart contracts to price management, from infrastructure to user interface, and part of the DappHub project. Mariano's work experience includes: PaperclipDAO, ETH Dashboard, Element Finance, SelloutDAO, Maker, etc.

• Twitter Account:https://twitter.com/nanexcool

• Santiago Roel Santos -- An angel investor focused on technology and healthcare, founder of EON Capital, formerly a crypto asset investor at ParaFi Capital. Santiago began his journey into Bitcoin in 2013 after realizing its potential to disrupt the remittance industry and democratize access to information and services. Besides disrupting traditional businesses, he is most interested in the rise of new decentralized models driven by blockchain.

• Twitter Account:https://twitter.com/santiagoroel

• Cooper Turely ---- Cooper Turley is the editor of DeFi Rate and a Scout for MetaCartel DAO. Opportunity favors connected minds. Focused on building community by making crypto cooler. Passionate about helping early companies find engaging narratives from the start.

• Twitter Account:https://twitter.com/Cooopahtroopa