Gas DAO: The New $SOS?
The recent surge in DAOs seeking to improve the crypto sphere has not been an unprecedented event. $SOS was one of the most recent to unleash a DAO with the mission to give NFTers a voice in the direction of the industry.
The newest of the bunch is Gas DAO, a unified organization with a mission to become the voice of Ethereum's users. Over the past couple of days, ΞGAS has erupted on Twitter, with some individuals FOMOing in while others remain skeptical.
So the question is: Is ΞGAS legitimate? And if so, what are the benefits of owning ΞGAS?
Let's get straight into it the details.
What is Gas DAO?
As I said, Gas DAO aims to form a decentralized union of the network's most active users. It strives to become the largest community in the crypto sphere, with future plans to become more than just a cog in the Ethereum machine.
So how will they accomplish this?
First comes building power through funding. And as we've seen in the past couple of months, airdrops are a beloved marketing tactic that benefits both the organization and its potential investors. Who doesn't like free money?
On December 27th, Gas DAO launched its ΞGAS token to help recover some of the network expenses of Ethereum's users. Unfortunately, gas prices have been ridiculously high in the past week, with prices reaching up to 150 Gwei.
There's no doubt that the Ethereum network is congested. While developers work towards Ethereum2.0, gas prices will remain high. Fortunately, if you've spent more than $1,559 on gas, you can claim your free ΞGAS airdrop!
And it seems like their strategy has been partially successful, with over 65,000 addresses claiming the airdrop and 40,000 unique investors holding the token.
Source: https://dune.xyz/0xroll/GasDao
The thing is, we have to take a deeper look into the allocation of the total supply to get a better understanding of the DAO's underlying goals.
Source: https://mirror.xyz/gasdao.eth/AwZGIpiVuIOkcwUaKqn4ZdcI4MetmYmvVdnuZsNZlaQ
As you can see in the above pie chart, there are 1 trillion ΞGAS tokens, with only 550 billion in airdrop supply and a circulating supply (total claimed from the airdrop) of 150 billion. That means that approximately 27% of the airdrop has been claimed.
In comparison, $SOS now has 80% of its total airdropped supply claimed. At this rate, ΞGAS won't ever reach the magnitude of OpenDAO's presence in the NFT community.
The roadmap
I believe the lack of trust from the community is significantly dependent on Gas DAO's late roadmap. I mean, it could've just been a rug pull up until this moment, right? No one wants to be left holding the bag.
Luckily, Gas DAO's contributors have finally released a roadmap; It's polished, forward-thinking, and most importantly, long-term.
Let's first begin by exploring token allocation.
55% airdropped from the total supply is pretty decent. $SOS only had 50% of its supply airdropped.
30% of the 1 trillion ΞGAS tokens will be going towards the DAO treasury. Again, this is something that could be good or bad depending on the goals of the treasury. For example, $SOS has a comprehensive list of uses for its 20% allocation of the total supply to the treasury.
Not only will the OpenDAO's treasury compensate victims of NFT scams, but most importantly, it will provide funding for emerging artists in the NFT sphere, NFT communities, and developers in the $SOS ecosystem. That's more than fair!
On the other hand, Gas DAO doesn't even remotely have a goal with its 30% token allocation to its treasury. So what is the DAO going to do with this money?
Next up, we have one of the most controversial allocations in their roadmap. 15% of the total supply is reserved for 25 core contributors. Take a look at what @0xQuit— an influencer in the NFT world—had to say about this issue:
Add on the little effort put into the original development code, and you have one of the most effortless rug pulls in crypto history.
Ok, so the allocation of funding isn't very appealing to be completely honest with you. Thankfully, the core contributors have changed the initial allocation, thus favouring the community and avoiding a dump in the millions. Thank goodness!
But, we haven't even looked at the actual roadmap.
I would recommend reading through the organization's mission whenever you have the time. If you don't though, here's a quick run-down:
Gas DAO wants to become the first DAO to propose to the Ethereum Foundation that Gas DAO snapshot votes become a part of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP)
EIPs provide improvements for the Ethereum platform. It's an integral feature in Ethereum's future
Want to offer developer grants for Ethereum's gas optimization
Will provide financial incentives to developers to research ways of reducing gas fees
In the future, they would like to release 10,000 unique ΞGAS NFTs, with a token amount set to be burnt
Contributor allocation will be reduced to 12% of the total supply by burning the immediate claimable amount. Therefore, core contributors will only be able to sell their ΞGAS tokens received in the six-month period
Staking will be integrated into the ΞGAS ecosystem
My final thoughts
So what should you do with all this information?
I may avoid investing in the ΞGAS ecosystem until their initial EIP proposal goes through. Without a say in future EIP proposals, the DAO will never take off. Its core mission is to become an essential aspect in Ethereum's decision-making.
Also, with the core contributor allocation, the team has listened to the community, put it to a vote, and reduced their allocation based on feedback. It seems like they're listening to their investors.
But again, I think it's still too early to decide if this will triumph or not. This goes with most DAOs emerging in the past two weeks. For example, BlockbusterDAO hasn't even bought Blockbuster, the main ingredient in the DAO's mission 😂.
Sources:
https://twitter.com/0xGasDAO/status/1476654045808971778
https://twitter.com/0xQuit/status/1476097136982839297
https://dune.xyz/0xroll/OpenDAO
https://dune.xyz/0xroll/GasDao
I am not a financial advisor. Please do your own due diligence before making a decision based on my article, as I am not responsible or liable for your investment decisions.
