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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

#91

Post by c3534l »

drcode wrote: post #88
c3534l wrote: post #78

There's a reason corporations developed as they did. With a large number of owners, it becomes very difficult to tell what is actually going on in a company and making consistent, sensical decisions is difficult. The result is that we developed a board of directors who are elected by the owners to oversee the performance of the top employees at that company, and a complex of system of accounting to communicate the fi…

> There's a reason corporations developed as they did. Well, the counterargument would be "Because they didn't have computers back then and therefore couldn't develop alternative systems that are better but are impractical to implement manually."

Sure, but I don't see how this actually addresses the problems that corporations solve.

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

#92

Post by drcode »

c3534l wrote: post #91
drcode wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reason corporations developed as they did. Well, the counterargument would be "Because they didn't have computers back then and therefore couldn't develop alternative systems that are better but are impractical to implement manually."

Sure, but I don't see how this actually addresses the problems that corporations solve.

I agree that question doesn't have a good answer yet, and is why I am not participating in this experiment.

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

#93

Post by lsseckman »

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.

realistic & efficient, good thought

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

#94

Post by jrochkind1 »

> While The DAO is a group of people authorized to act as a single economic entity, no governmental body recognizes it as such.

They're really not legally incorporated anywhere?

Foregoing the limitation of liability that goes along with a corporation seems awfully legally risky -- any of the individual members can be sued, likely succesfully, for something done by the aggregate, with possible damages exceeding their 'investment'.

I'd think you could legally incorporate the thing how they wanted it with few problems, have bylaws saying decisions will be made with blockchain votes or whatever.

I guess the automated "splitting" the corp would be a problem.

Still, I don't think I'd want to be involved in such a thing without legal corporate limited liability protections.

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

#95

Post by cloudjacker »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #94

> While The DAO is a group of people authorized to act as a single economic entity, no governmental body recognizes it as such. They're really not legally incorporated anywhere? Foregoing the limitation of liability that goes along with a corporation seems awfully legally risky -- any of the individual members can be sued, likely succesfully, for something done by the aggregate, with possible damages exceeding their…

Right, and there are people that do want to be involved.

They want to be part of the case law incongruences that will arise to solve disputes. They want to bring this to light so that the legacy system is presented with a better or more efficient way.

Anyway, Slock.it a germany company is managing this asset, their liability is limited.

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

#96

Post by cloudjacker »

joshuaheard wrote: post #14

A corporation, being a legal fiction, can only act through physical persons. So in that respect, no corporation can be truly autonomous. It sounds like what they have done is taken all the paperwork associated with corporate activity: by-laws, annual meeting minutes, resolutions, etc., and put them into a block chain. A more proper description would be a paperless corporation.

Self propagating code can perform all the functions of a corporation. The only difference is that in the past the code had no way to acquire goods and resources from humans and other corporations because it couldn't control and transmit value.

Now code can.

The DAO is a start, code can do everything the DAO does.

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

#97

Post by dragonwriter »

j1vms wrote: post #90
dragonwriter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When it interacts with the real world, it will do so by transferring or receiving digital assets and entering into real-world contracts with outside parties (Contractors). Is the DAO a legal entity with recognized agents with authority to enter into contracts on its behalf? If not, how can this possibly work?

Like I said "to be determined" is what I understand, however they appear initially to be employing a real-world company avatar: DAO.Link, based in Switzerland. [0] [0] http://www.coindesk.com/the-dao-just-raised-50-million-but-w... Edit: Also, do keep in mind that the Contractor would be able to see the contract is in effect by viewing it in the "blockchain". The question is only a matter of real-world enforcement in…

> Like I said "to be determined" is what I understand, however they appear initially to be employing a real-world company avatar: DAO.Link, based in Switzerland.

Sounds to me like DAO.Link (which appears to be an offering of Slock.it) is the actual legal business entity involved, and that the legal basis and enforcement mechanisms for assuring that it acts as expected by the participants of the blockchain-based entities it interacts with is...somewhat murky.

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

#98

Post by will_brown »

drcode wrote: post #76
will_brown wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> I think as a lawyer who practices a great deal of corporate transaction Well, I think we can both see these systems are an attempt to circumvent individuals like yourself (At least partially, some human legal representation will likely still be used.) Taxi drivers similarly complained a lot about the legality of Uber. (BTW, my wife is also a corporate lawyer.)

I'm not sure if you are trying to compare my legal knowledge to that of a Taxi driver, or suggesting my position is not based on law but an irrational fear of competition, or maybe you are implying taxi drivers were wrong about Uber so I must be about DAO.

Maybe it helps my point, maybe not, but Uber is certainly illegal in many jurisdictions. Take Miami-Dade county, there are 10,000 Uber drivers and nearly 3,000 tickets have been issued ($1,010/ticket) something like $2.9M in fines. Moreover, Uber sends out training for Miami Drivers on how to avoid getting stopped/ticketed/impounded in Miami as an unlicensed ride for hire and when Uber drivers do get ticketed/impounded Uber provides the drivers a lawyer for their case (oddly its their FL corporate lobbyist not a traffic/criminal defense lawyer). Finally, the Miami-Dade ordinance carries a potential penalty of 45 days jail.

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

#99

Post by Canada »

lsseckman wrote: post #93
Canada wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

realistic & efficient, good thought

The DAO isn't constrained to simply giving money to some individual and hoping for the best. Its owners could decide to approve proposals that structure deals in ways that mitigate risk, such as providing funds in tranches and using custodians who are contracted to return unspent money in certain conditions.

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

#100

Post by sammydavis »

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…

There is the fascinating history of Athens and direct democratic voting that comes to mind. The citizens could all vote on anything, and that turned out to be a bad way to fight a war, especially with Sparta. Athens wasted their greater strength if I recall correctly. Could it happen with dao vs other companies? Sure, who can tell at this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

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