BitClout founder's new project DAODAO: A DAO tool for the people

Written by: Jeff John Roberts

Compiled by: TechFlow Intern

TL: DR

• DAODAO claims it will do for DAOs what OpenSea does for NFTs. Its goal is to help people launch DAOs with just a name and a funding target.

• The project is the brainchild of controversial BitClout founder Nader El-Naji, also known as "Diamondhands."

• DAODAO is set to launch in April and will initially require people to purchase its tokens and NFTs.

DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) are one of the hottest areas in cryptocurrency right now. Often described as "internet communities with wallets," some DAOs are dedicated to everything from supporting Ukraine to creating crypto media to purchasing copies of the U.S. Constitution.

However, while DAOs are popular, they can also be chaotic and difficult to manage. This is why controversial cryptocurrency entrepreneur Nader El-Naji announced a new service that he says will provide the same work for DAOs that Coinbase does for buying and selling tokens.

The project is called DAODAO, which is itself a DAO designed to make it easy for anyone to create their own DAO.

In an interview with Decrypt, El-Naji explained how DAODAO works and why he believes it will usher in a new era of DAO-driven crypto activity. He made a compelling case, but El-Naji's past behavior—most notably with the notorious social media site BitClout—may raise eyebrows, after all, the internet has a memory.

A "Public Ownership" DAO Creation Platform

DAOs have become a new way to quickly raise funds and organize people—some groups have raised millions of dollars in just a few days. But the process is not easy. Running a DAO typically means collecting Ethereum from members, creating what are called governance tokens, and then arranging a series of votes to determine policies and expenditures.

There are already many tools available to help DAOs with tasks like voting and financial management, but DAODAO hopes to go further. The idea is to create a one-stop shop where anyone can launch a DAO, raise funds, manage votes, and engage in the kind of crypto discussions that typically happen on platforms like Discord and Twitter.

According to El-Naji, DAODAO aims to replicate the user-friendly service interfaces of NFT markets like OpenSea while also incorporating decentralized crypto principles. "The biggest winners in crypto are centralized entities like Coinbase and OpenSea," El-Naji said. "The next thing has a chance to be owned by the public."

On DAODAO, those looking to create their own DAO first enter a name and the target amount to raise. In terms of fundraising and financial management, El-Naji stated that the platform will support multiple currencies and public chains beyond Ethereum.

However, social media activity on DAODAO—some of El-Naji's critics see this as a serious warning—will be limited to DeSo, which El-Naji launched last year.

The DAODAO platform is already promoting future DAOs with names like PokéDAO, although these projects currently seem to be just a logo and a slogan.

All of this is set to launch in three weeks. Before that, DAODAO offers people a chance to get in early by purchasing NFTs, which will guarantee them a share of tokens and a portion of future DAO releases. DAODAO will also encourage people to buy DAODAO tokens and use them to start their own projects.

A counter on the DAODAO website claims that so far it has raised $500,000. El-Naji has raised hundreds of millions from VCs for past crypto projects, and he stated that DAODAO will not seek funding from professional investors.

According to Eshita Nandini, an analyst at research firm Messari, there may be demand for the services DAODAO plans to offer. She noted that some "integrated" solutions, including SuperDAO, already exist, but existing platforms may not necessarily meet the needs of every new DAO.

"Recently, there has been an increase in DAO tool providers to respond to the needs emerging from builders and contributors in the space. Given its early stage, each DAO still does not have the 'right' stack, as it depends on the composition and the tools required vary greatly by type," Nandini said.

While this suggests that DAODAO may be ready to compete in a hot new area of the crypto market, the fate of El-Naji's past projects may give some pause.

The Shadow of BitClout

A year ago, the blockchain world was buzzing about BitClout, a new type of social network where users could buy tokens associated with crypto celebrities like Vitalik Buterin or Elon Musk. The project garnered a lot of attention but also faced criticism—especially regarding how BitClout replicated Twitter profiles without permission and turned them into tokenized commodities. Today, BitClout has a dwindling user base, and its people-centric token trading seems to be on the verge of collapse.

El-Naji launched BitClout under a pseudonym and masqueraded as "Diamondhands" for months before revealing his true identity, which did not help. El-Naji later said he adopted "Diamondhands" to indicate that BitClout was a genuinely decentralized project whose founders would eventually disappear—much like the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin and then vanished. Regardless, the pseudonym added to the marketing hype surrounding BitClout.

The "Diamondhands" persona only increased distrust towards BitClout, especially when rumors surfaced that El-Naji and a group of wealthy venture capitalists were backing the project.

However, the controversy surrounding BitClout did not shake investor confidence in El-Naji. Last September, he raised $200 million to build the DeSo blockchain, which supporters touted as a decentralized challenger to social networks like Facebook.

The news was surprising given the amount of funding raised by an untested project—even by crypto standards, $200 million is no small sum—and because El-Naji had previously botched a prior crypto project, Basis.

Basis raised over $130 million from investors for an algorithmic stablecoin but collapsed quickly under regulatory scrutiny. (El-Naji returned the unused funds).

Today, El-Naji views both Basis and BitClout as learning experiences. He acknowledges that BitClout is nearly defunct but insists that it doesn't matter because other social networks on DeSo are poised for success.

It remains unclear whether the investors who put $200 million into the DeSo blockchain are indifferent to BitClout's implosion or what they think of El-Naji launching a new DAO venture. A well-known cryptocurrency investor, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed surprise at El-Naji's pivot to another major project that has not received backing from any of his previous investors.

El-Naji stated he does not want to view things through the prism of BitClout, DAODAO will benefit ordinary people rather than wealthy insiders, which he describes as "grassroots."

The DAODAO whitepaper makes a similar claim: "The possibilities are endless, but most importantly, this is not decided by us, but by the people—it depends on you."