Recently, the PROOF Collective held a token-gated discussion about its upcoming decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), which has been teased for sometime now. On October 3rd 2022, the team stated in a Tweet that the Moonbirds DAO’s mission is “to empower the creatives to further the Moonbirds ecosystem, reputation, lore (and meme).” Before we explore the DAO further, let’s recap on what ‘Moonbirds’ is.
What Is Moonbirds?
Moonbirds is the official profile picture project by the PROOF Collective. The collection consists of 10,000 computer-generated pixel owl utility-enabled NFTs which unlocks private club membership and acts as a gatekeeper to its locked Discord community. Earlier this year in April, Moonbirds minted out its 10,000 tokens very quickly, which generated $281 million in sales at the time. Since then, Moonbirds has done a total volume of 172k ETH and its floor price is an impressive 9.01 ETH, even during the bear market.
The Moonbirds DAO
Just in case you are unaware, a DAO is a community that comes together to achieve a goal through common decision making, which happens largely through members voting on proposals. The team believes that the DAO serves as its vehicle to empower the most creative members of its community, which will lead to new products, NFT collections, companies, cultural moments and content. The intention of its creation is to elevate the Moonbirds brand with the hopes that it will eventually become a household name.
To achieve this, the PROOF Collective is allocating a total of $2.6 million into the DAO. $2 million of the total will come in ETH, $100k will come from Moonbirds from the PROOF treasury (approximately 7 Moonbirds) and $500k will come from Moonbird purchases (approximately 37 Moonbirds). Then, to provide ongoing support for the DAO, 35% of secondary sale royalties from Moondbirds and Oddities will go to the DAO in the form of ETH. Additionally, any other relevant tokens or airdrops from NFTs will go towards the DAO treasury.
The DAO is going to enable those who hold Moonbirds and Mythics tokens to endorse incoming projects with trademark rights. Meaning that they decide which projects can use the Moonbirds name. This is different to the art copyright rights which are already open to all via CC0. However, so far it appears that Moonbirds holders will have more voting power than Mythic holders, as there will be twice as many Mythics.
Who Will Control The DAO?
The DAO will be decentralized and the community will control all aspects of the organization. Similar to Nouns, PROOF is going to apply a cold-start system that allows the community to veto any rogue proposals to safeguard the voting process. Then, dedicated members of the PROOF Collective will shepherd DAO projects towards completion.
When Will It Start?
Right now, it looks as if it will all kick off in early 2023. The PROOF Collectives official document states that “early next year, we will have a website that allows you to authenticate with your Moonbird. Once authenticated, you will have the power to submit and vote on proposals and manage the DAO Treasury, which can include multiple assets, such ETH, future tokens, and NFTs.”
Looking at both the PROOF Collective and Moonbirds track record, it’s highly likely that this is going to be hugely successful. From looking at Nouns, we know that the DAO structure can work very well, and now only time will tell.
