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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

#141

Post by vkou »

cloudjacker wrote: post #96
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.

What stops non-blockchain code from making purchases, hiring people, etc? Just because it uses a third party (A bank account) to store value doesn't make my WidgetFactoryFactory AI any less of an autonomous corporation.

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

#142

Post by unimpressive »

binaryanomaly wrote: post #131
drcode wrote: post #7

TLDR; A computer program living on the ethereum blockchain is currently in control of 107+ million dollars, making it the second largest crowdfunded project in history. Shareholders vote on proposals to give money to other entities (probably also programs on the ethereum blockchain) that they hope will make money and send it to the parent contract. All votes are managed by a program written in EVM code, which runs on…

Your summary somehow reminds me of TRON... ;) I guess it comes down to the question whether one beliefs that mankind is naturally good or bad. As I still believe in the first one I may give this idea a chance. I still have a dream...

>I guess it comes down to the question whether one beliefs that mankind is naturally good or bad.

Incentives and structures rule all. They're much more powerful than the individual goodness of people, or even their collective goodness.

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

#143

Post by machinshin_ »

numlocked wrote: post #140
a3camero wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the "proposals" themselves are Ethereum "contracts" (programs), the thing that the money goes towards doesn't have to be a program. The most popular proposal for The DAO to invest in is actually a German corporation called Slock.it UG: https://www.online-handelsregister.de/handelsregisterauszug/... .

And Slock.it is the creator of The DAO...

Sounds like money laundering to me

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

#144

Post by rboyd »

will_brown wrote: post #64
drcode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ow…

>This changed in July 2015, when the ethereum network went live. I know the term exists and I know people are operating as though it is a thing. But if you and I enter a contract whether it is a written agreement or a smart contract on Ethereum network, that has no more or less bearing on the legal enforcement in the event of a breach. In either case the non-breaching party must file suit for the breach and there mus…

>But if you and I enter a contract whether it is a written agreement or a smart contract on Ethereum network, that has no more or less bearing on the legal enforcement in the event of a breach.

These contracts are enforced by math. Breaking them isn't a possibility.

Whether or not The DAO works out or is a scam, I think it's a sign of things to come. We're in the beginning stages of seeing our traditional corporations and nation states morphing into something new and barely recognizable.

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

#145

Post by cloudjacker »

vkou wrote: post #141
cloudjacker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What stops non-blockchain code from making purchases, hiring people, etc? Just because it uses a third party (A bank account) to store value doesn't make my WidgetFactoryFactory AI any less of an autonomous corporation.

That entirely depends on if we are talking about this DAO or DAOs in general.

A DAO focused on gaining revenue doesn't need to hire people to achieve that.

There a decentralized asset exchanges where other companies have raised capital. A DAO could access those to buy shares completely programmatically, for example. It could trade oil futures till eternity if it wanted. It could create a contract for an agent at a particular address that promises payment for the construction of a robot factory in Shenzen, in that example a human would be the agent on the other side of that address, but the DAO doesn't need to know that.

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

#146

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Freak_NL wrote: post #85
kuschku wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Admittedly I think enabling this kind of democracy in a company is a bad idea. It might actually wind up being less nimble than an actual corporation because of the extra consensus required. This stuff is also known as a cooperative, and is a very common concept for democratic companies – almost all housing in europe is owned like this.

> […] almost all housing in europe is owned like this. Did you mean social housing rather than housing in general? Because home ownership exceeds 50% in most European countries, just like the US. Social housing is often managed by cooperatives, but decades of neoliberalist thinking caused a lot of the larger of these cooperatives to invest in boondoggles and grandiose development projects completely unrelated to thei…

In the UK flats - apartments - are often run by a limited liability management company which collects maintenance fees and makes sure maintenance is performed.

Some or all of the flat owners are directors, and company accounts have to be filed in the usual way.

They're not co-ops in the usual sense, but they're not so different in practice. Obviously these companies aren't run for profit, but it's not unusual for companies to accumulate rainy day reserves and to make a little from interest.

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

#147

Post by HillaryBriss »

will_brown wrote: post #81
zardo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In any case, whatever these ethereum-based things are, they aren't corporations. They may end up creating and operating corporations, but DAOs are their own thing.

To expand on Dragonwriter's point just a little. Lets pretend DAO somehow autonomously filed Articles of Incorporation in DE. What is required by DE? A DE physical address for the corp.; a registered agent located in DE; and a incorporator (doesn't need to be shareholder, but must be an individual). Already we see it is an impossibility for DAO to do this autonomously. But lets pretend it wasn't impossible, DAO auton…

> won't be able to pay taxes

Sounds like the ultimate corporation to me.

Until now, corporations have had to spends millions of dollars on accountants and lobbyists to avoid paying taxes. Well, friends ... no more. Because this organization is genetically incapable of paying taxes!

Forgot the Cayman Islands and Nicaragua! Forget double Dutch reverse corporate inverse backdoor Irish LLCs with a post office box in Nevada! Gentlemen, put down your cigars and cognac and get to know your new best friend: little DAO ...

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

#148

Post by pjc50 »

drcode wrote: post #7

TLDR; A computer program living on the ethereum blockchain is currently in control of 107+ million dollars, making it the second largest crowdfunded project in history. Shareholders vote on proposals to give money to other entities (probably also programs on the ethereum blockchain) that they hope will make money and send it to the parent contract. All votes are managed by a program written in EVM code, which runs on…

100% secure

AFAIK the formal verification mechanism for EVM programs is not yet complete, so that's a risky claim. Not to mention that the people involved are interacting with it using ordinary PCs, so spear-phishing them might be the easiest way to steal the $120m.

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