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Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

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Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#51

Post by mangeletti »

I think the idea is great, but only if the ETH can never be withdrawn without the board's consent, much like funding a a corporation where you'd need to be paid a distribution or something, etc. - you don't just withdraw your money after the next VC enters the scene and drives the price up. If the ETH can be withdrawn at any time, then this is no different than a publicly traded stock... which is currently undergoing a pump-and...

As such, I've flagged the post, to avoid contributing to what's turning out to be a free(?) viral marketing campaign.

Am I wrong about the "withdraw" part?

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#52

Post by dragontamer »

drcode wrote: post #35
dragontamer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, Apple Computers is worth $500+ Billion and is a public company. Don't forget that the stock market is the original mass-crowdfunded project. Anyone can become an owner if you go to a brokerage account, and ownership rights entitles you to a vote for the board of directors and a share of the profits (ie: the dividend)

Agreed, "crowd funding" is an inexact term- I described it that way to help explain why some people think the project is novel. Certainly there is a lot of arbitrariness as to what belongs on a list of "top crowdfunded projects".

Yup. I just want to bring up the fact that this thing seems more akin to a classical public company, but in many regards is less transparent.

There's the fact that all the code and mechanisms is public, but that's the part that everybody trusts anyway. When you're a shareholder in Apple, the votes are tallied, all relevant information from the board of directors is published, etc. etc. And the SEC forces the company to publicly disclose financial information in the form of 10k, 8k, and publicly announce insider trades.

At the moment: I don't know who the "insiders" of this company are. Maybe one dude has $50 Million USD and effectively controls the entire damn "movement". Or maybe not. Knowing the identities of large shareholders is a BIG DEAL in public companies.

Still, the digital form probably has some advantages. Maybe future companies will find a compromise and manage to exist as digital contracts akin to this DAO? But I don't expect this first version to actually work. Its pretty much a learning experiment, to see what is and isn't possible with technology.

If any lessons are to be learned from Bitcoin: politics will affect this entity eventually. The technology currently serves as a mask to the politics. But politics always rears its ugly head eventually.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#53

Post by zekevermillion »

The concept of a decentralized organization is cool. The implementation in DAOhub is dangerous to all participants. Both curators and contractors of DAOhub projects risk violating US securities laws if they use the platform to "crowdfund" projects. Participants, as is obvious, risk losing all their contributions, paid into the pockets of "contractors" who may possess voting control over project funds.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#54

Post by tonyswish »

will_brown wrote: post #50

What a bunch of snake oil. If you invested or are thinking of investing ask yourself a few simple questions. Who are the Shareholders/Directors/Officers of this corporation? Do you know what state it is incorporated in or going to be incorporated in? Just a few buzz words. Decentralized? No shit, any corporation with more than one shareholder is decentralized. Smart contracts? Defined as a self enforcing contract, gu…

I think there are many legitimate concerns about this project, but what you are saying address none of them. In fact your first questions mean you don't understand it.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#55

Post by btown »

Canada wrote: post #43
nxzero wrote: post #22

Anyone know how to legally assign a corporation over to an autonomous system?

The company Articles could require its directors to obey the direction of the autonomous system. And if it doesn't the autonomous system could direct the creation of another corporation with a mandate to sue the non compliant one.

It's a legal interop layer! Now we just need to create a code-generation utility that takes the conceptual source code for the contract and generates legal code that can adequately enforce it... oh, wait...

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#56

Post by dwaltrip »

beachstartup wrote: post #20
mfringel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do the paperwork for creation" has only a passing resemblance to "found and fund."

"found" means to do the paperwork and setup a bank account. that's it. there's no deeper meaning. "fund" just means putting some money into a bank account for it. you could fund a company with a dollar (and many people do, for symbolic reasons).

"With reasonable hope of success" is an implied clause of the original sentence. You might have not considered this aspect.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#57

Post by drcode »

will_brown wrote: post #50

What a bunch of snake oil. If you invested or are thinking of investing ask yourself a few simple questions. Who are the Shareholders/Directors/Officers of this corporation? Do you know what state it is incorporated in or going to be incorporated in? Just a few buzz words. Decentralized? No shit, any corporation with more than one shareholder is decentralized. Smart contracts? Defined as a self enforcing contract, gu…

> Defined as a self enforcing contract, guess what they don't exist

This changed in July 2015, when the ethereum network went live.

> I'd like to see how this code is independently filing annual reports and preparing taxes sending out K-1's to its shareholders autonomously

Just wait- It's pretty likely the DAO shareholders will vote to have a contractor produce this information on behalf of the DAO.

> ... for your own "DAO" as an Investment Club

Go for it! An ethereum smart contract would be a great way to implement the operational details for this.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#58

Post by hugozap »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #44

An interesting concept, but I'm not buying the hype. At the end of the day a bunch of people bought shares in a company (or did they? Legality is weird) with the special condition that in addition to owning a share of said company they also get to vote on what the company actually does, and even submit proposals for what it should do. Oh, and they also bought said shares with cryptocurrency. Magic internet money guys…

If you vote a proposal is because you agree with it and you can't blame someone else.

There's more flexibility than traditional structures with concepts like "splits" where if you don't agree with a proposal you can opt to not participate.

It's new ground , has new concepts and it's still evolving. Really interesting stuff.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#59

Post by dragonwriter »

tonyswish wrote: post #54
will_brown wrote: post #50

What a bunch of snake oil. If you invested or are thinking of investing ask yourself a few simple questions. Who are the Shareholders/Directors/Officers of this corporation? Do you know what state it is incorporated in or going to be incorporated in? Just a few buzz words. Decentralized? No shit, any corporation with more than one shareholder is decentralized. Smart contracts? Defined as a self enforcing contract, gu…

I think there are many legitimate concerns about this project, but what you are saying address none of them. In fact your first questions mean you don't understand it.

Actually, his first question indicates that the people calling this a "corporation" have no idea what that word means.

Re: Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

#60

Post by will_brown »

tonyswish wrote: post #54
will_brown wrote: post #50

What a bunch of snake oil. If you invested or are thinking of investing ask yourself a few simple questions. Who are the Shareholders/Directors/Officers of this corporation? Do you know what state it is incorporated in or going to be incorporated in? Just a few buzz words. Decentralized? No shit, any corporation with more than one shareholder is decentralized. Smart contracts? Defined as a self enforcing contract, gu…

I think there are many legitimate concerns about this project, but what you are saying address none of them. In fact your first questions mean you don't understand it.

I think as a lawyer who practices a great deal of corporate transactions, I have a much better idea than most on the legal structure and compliance issue with corporations on a state by state basis.

But instead of telling me my question shows I don't understand, please answer any of the following:

-Are the token holders shareholders?

-If shareholders do the token holders also get to vote for the board, or are their tokens/shares non-voting?

-How many members are on this board? Since it is all autonomous how do you know the DAO has the minimum amount of board members are required by law? If say DAO is a DE corp (min 3 board members) and DE amends the law, how is DAO's code going to keep up?

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