Nantan DAO Chronicles (Mid篇)

What is the goal?

"Promote the integration of rural construction and Web3."

On the official homepage of Nantang DAO, there is a statement about the organization's goals: "Nantang DAO is committed to promoting the holistic development of local villages while encouraging mutual learning and exchange between rural construction and Web3 communities: 'Seeking community DAO from the land, seeking the path of universality from crypto.'" On the voting platform, the description of its organizational goals is even more specific: "By upgrading and transforming the cultural courtyard of Nantang Agricultural Cooperative, we aim to gradually establish a base for Web3 partners in rural areas; deeply integrating with the local Nantang Cooperative, striving to establish a system that can be used for governance and is economically sustainable."

From these goals, it can be seen that Nantang DAO essentially positions itself as a rural service organization, aiming to promote rural development through democratic governance and economic support. Specifically, it hopes to leverage cryptocurrency and Web3 technologies to establish a new democratic decision-making process, achieving democratic management and distribution of treasury funds to meet local needs in infrastructure development and cultural activities. However, there is a significant gap between ideals and reality. In practice, Nantang DAO currently resembles a rather rigid transplanting of other DAO models from online to rural areas, failing to closely align with the fundamental needs of the countryside, and its specific goal setting appears to be relatively scattered and lacks focus.

Democracy is not the democracy of villagers; rural construction is rural construction as an object.

In discussions about the relationship between DAO and rural areas, a consensus has largely formed — that is, the DAO is here to serve the countryside, with the countryside being primary and the DAO being supplementary. Villagers, as the basic components of the countryside, should be the main body of rural construction. However, in the Nantang DAO, only two members are local villagers (Fang Fang and Yang Zhen), and they are also employees of the cooperative. The DAO's purpose in involving them is to better carry out local work, whereas more ordinary villagers have not joined the DAO organization, let alone participated in the organizational decision-making process. Therefore, the democracy of the Nantang DAO is merely a small-scale internal democracy, failing to widely connect and mobilize the rural community. This practice inevitably degenerates into 'objective rural construction,' which is led by external entities rather than a self-driven governance model by the villagers. Due to a lack of deep embedding in the rural community, the sustainability of this model is concerning. Objectively speaking, apart from a few members who choose to settle in Nantang long-term, most members exhibit characteristics of high mobility and short active cycles, further weakening the deep connection between the DAO and the countryside. Currently, for the entire rural area, both the Nantang DAO and its members largely still play the role of outsiders.

The goals are scattered, each fighting for themselves.

"Promoting the integration of rural development and Web3" is an attractive and ambitious goal that carries inherent legitimacy and broad value concerns. Apart from the Nantang DAO, few domestic DAOs have ventured into the countryside with such a vision. However, this ambitious concept is fraught with challenges in practice, and both participants and observers inevitably ask: "How exactly can rural development and Web3 be integrated? What is the practical path of Nantang DAO?" The establishment of Nantang DAO and the departure of some core members to Chengdu to open new bases have increasingly highlighted the discrepancies in organizational goals, leaving the team clearly caught in a dilemma of goal misalignment.

"The goal of the soldier brother is very clear - to promote the integration of rural construction and Web3, but the members of the Nantang DAO each have unclear goals." Yang Yunbiao commented. When everyone cannot clarify the most basic direction and boundaries of their work, achieving collective consensus becomes extremely difficult. Reflecting on the initial preparations for Nantang DAO, Cikey's evaluation was that "the goals were too vague and the initiatives were too broad." She found that at that time, members were responsible for different sectors but lacked in-depth understanding of their respective fields, resulting in frequent changes in organizational goals and slow progress in seeking consensus. Even after several months of development, Xiaobai admitted in an interview that "Nantang DAO doesn't have any specific goals; it is exploratory. We only know what we hope it will become, but we haven't clearly set short-term or long-term goals."

Through observations at the proposal level, there may be a more intuitive understanding of the above description. As of April 23, 2025, there are a total of 49 completed proposals on the Nantang DAO voting platform, which can be divided into five categories: funding applications, project plans, institutional development, new member admissions, and other decisions. Among them, more than half (51.02%) of the proposals are related to funding applications, mainly involving local material procurement, space construction, and member incentives; project plan proposals account for 34.69%, most of which include funding applications and overlap significantly with the former. There are 13 proposals related to institutional development, covering the establishment and revision of organizational systems, such as novice tasks, contribution plans, reimbursement systems, and voting mechanisms. There are 6 proposals for new member admissions, involving the community deciding on new member qualifications through voting. There are 2 proposals related to other decisions, involving the cooperation between Nantang DAO and cooperatives as well as other DAO organizations.

The chart below shows the trend of the Nantan DAO proposals over time. Over the past 9 months, community proposals have primarily focused on funding applications and project planning, particularly prominent in the early and late stages (the first and last four months). Proposals related to institutional development mainly concentrated in December 2024, reflecting the preliminary formation of organizational systems. Subsequently, proposals for new member recruitment gradually increased, indicating that the community has entered a stage of normalizing the absorption of new members. A further analysis of the specific tasks in project proposals reveals a significant trend: shifting from an initial focus on "rooting locally" to "expanding outward." Specifically, early proposals were directly related to agricultural production (such as enzyme product production and learning, date palm planting, etc.) and local infrastructure construction (such as the construction of the Earth Library, book procurement); the later proposals diverged into two directions: one focusing on external communication and cooperation (such as the "Town Building Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program," cooperation with Chengdu Wuxiang), and the other emphasizing the operation and integration of local communities (such as the daily operation of the Earth Reading Room, organizing local activities).

Build a community or commercialize?

Whether from the perspective of individuals or organizations, DAOs need to weigh the potential conflicts between commercial interests and public interests. In many DAOs, many members only care about short-term commercial returns and do not pay attention to organizational governance, leading to frequent "Free Rider" problems, which conflict with DAO builders who have a long-term vision. From an organizational perspective, pursuing production efficiency and commercial value growth may require a centralized power structure to improve decision-making and operational efficiency; whereas emphasizing public interest necessitates a democratic organizational structure and decision-making mechanism to ensure equal participation and information transparency among members, but this may lead to a slow decision-making process.

During field research, I often hear this saying: "Nantang DAO is the DAO that lacks money the least." Investor Liu Bing provided sufficient funding support for Nantang DAO, which is undoubtedly enviable but also harbors risks. Yang Yunbiao raised doubts during the interview: "Many people engage in speculative behavior." This reveals the contradictions faced by Nantang DAO at both the individual and organizational levels: the choice between individual participation in community building and taking shortcuts, as well as the tension between the organization promoting community integration and pursuing commercial value. However, the "original intention" of individuals joining Nantang cannot be enforced, as Bi Bing stated in response to the doubts, it should be "based on actions, not intentions." Therefore, the following discussion focuses on the goal selection at the organizational level.

Community building has always been a core topic for Nantan DAO, encompassing both the overall development in rural construction and the Web3 field, as well as deep integration with the local community in Nantan. As an internally highly active project, the "Rural Construction Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program" was proposed and funded by Liu Bing, and is jointly managed by core member Bi Bing and Teacher Liang Shaoxiong from the rural construction field. By facilitating communication between the rural construction team and the Web3 community through funding, the program supports team members' participation in various domestic and international Web3 events and outreach in universities, creating a certain influence within the industry. Regarding integration with the local community in Nantan, Yu Xing believes that "everyone agrees on the integration itself, but the disagreement lies in how to integrate." Tiao, as a representative concerned with "public goods," is recognized as a steadfast advocate and practitioner of local integration, stating, "When there is no necessity to make money, I hope to do truly valuable things." He emphasizes that he does not advocate for being idle, but rather believes that such efforts will definitely yield returns, including economic value.

At the same time, community members have also reflected from a commercial perspective. In an interview, Cikey talked about his initial confusion: "What economic benefits can be obtained by continuously relying on investors' funds without doing anything?" After a period of exploration, members gradually realized the economic unsustainability of the existing model. For example, Yu Xing believes that "money-burning local integration" is meaningless, and the lack of market competition pressure can lead to resource waste. "If we keep taking money from Brother Bing, we cannot prove that we are an independent and self-governing organization." However, compared to pursuing short-term profits, the community's current exploration is more practical, focusing mainly on the real project needs and feasible scenarios in rural construction. As Bi Bing stated: "Although the community's primary goal is not profit at the moment, everyone needs to hone their abilities by doing some concrete things, understand more real needs, and then consider the possibilities of commercialization and profitability."

For an organization that has just started, having too many goals may lead to dispersion, making it difficult to form a deep emotional and value recognition, thus hindering close collaboration. Meanwhile, rapid changes in goals can cause concerns about continuity. Most members believe that commercialization and community building are not contradictory; everyone is simply exploring different directions based on their own experiences. However, an objective fact is that internal goal discrepancies often lead to resource dispersion or even competition. It was mentioned in the interviews: "The side that is better at writing project proposals and applying for funding support often has more say within the community and occupies more resources." As I concluded my research, core members Yu Xing and Bi Bing had already gone to Jianta Village in Chengdu to explore the feasibility of promoting the "Entrepreneurship Incubation Project" using the DAO model; while Tiao chose to stay in Nantang, organizing local members to carry out daily Web3 activities (such as translation groups, writing groups), continuously promoting local integration. He said: "I feel that my attempts are not over yet."

Incentives and Circulation Experiment - Nantang Dou

DAO implements organizational governance around tokens, which, as a virtual currency asset with both incentive and governance attributes, are often held collectively by all members for voting on community proposals. Less than a month after its official operation, the token issuance plan for Nantang DAO was also put on the agenda. On August 20, 2024, Nantang Bean (NT) officially launched on Optimism, with an initial issuance of 10 million tokens. In terms of value anchoring, one Nantang Bean is equivalent to one Chinese yuan.

Functionally, Nantang Bean serves as a community incentive, fulfilling the dual roles of "contribution record" and "voting right certificate." On one hand, Nantang DAO employs a work-hour system to record member contributions, allowing members to independently log their working hours through the Fairsharing platform. According to the community's current standards, each work hour corresponds to a reward of 60 yuan worth of Ether and 60 Nantang Beans. Although the validity of work hours primarily relies on mutual evaluation among community members, it may also be flexibly adjusted based on specific circumstances (such as initiating a vote for adjudication), with the final validity depending on community consensus. On the other hand, Nantang Beans also possess the attribute of governance right certificates. Members holding more Nantang Beans will have greater voting weight in community decisions. This design, which directly links contribution records to governance power, is essentially a governance incentive mechanism that theoretically can.