[casi18]

Not anonymous, team is very public. because of US law this is the practical way of actually doing it, the alternative seems to be not doing it and thatd be boring. theres been long discussions for days in the discord, if people have suggestions of a better way to do this come join in.

people are very open to how else could we do this and how it can be improved and secured.

remember this was just a joke in a group chat last week, that speed of development will have issues, but community and reputation matter, and we can lean on that as we solve the legal structure.

[pdabbadabba]

There are any number of other, more rational ways of doing this. The only "problem" is that they don't involve crypto because, in this case, crypto brings absolutely nothing to the table that I can discern except an increased risk of getting scammed. The most obvious would be to sell shares in a corporation or LLC. That entity could then use the money raised to buy the constitution. That way the funders would actually have something of recognized legal value (fractional ownership in an entity that owns a copy of the U.S. Constitution) instead of a largely worthless "governance token."

Under the current approach, it seems like people are being asked to contribute money so that someone else can buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution, with the funders having--at best--merely a say in how/where it is displayed. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do this, unless they are misunderstanding what they are getting in return for their ETH.

[bugzz]

> crypto brings absolutely nothing to the table that I can discern except an increased risk of getting scammed

So you think it'd have the same chances of success if it didn't involve crypto? Of course not! Yes the point is it's crypto, it's experimenting with new ways of doing things, and that's what people want to be a part of.

[pdabbadabba]

But doesn't this just give the game away? It seems like you're simply agreeing that the only reason this is happening is crypto hype. There is nothing actually better about crypto for this application, it's just channeling (or taking advantage of) people's general excitement about crypto.

And, honestly, I get that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to participate in something new. But nobody should be deceived into thinking that DAOs are really creating any important new capabilities here.

[bugzz]

> There is nothing actually better about crypto for this application

> The most obvious would be to sell shares in a corporation or LLC

Well certainly you can do it faster with crypto. How long would it take to set up the corporation / LLC? How quickly / easily could people buy shares? Could anyone buy shares?

Yes there are more risks this way, but I don't think there are zero benefits to the crypto approach.

[pdabbadabba]

It's true that, in theory, you can do it faster with crypto. But I don't see how that benefit is material. It's easy to set up an LLC in approx. 1 day. With crypto, I guess you could theoretically do it in seconds. But, as this project demonstrates, delay in setting up the entity isn't the limiting factor. Actually raising the funds takes much longer.

And it's not as though setting up a DAO is easier. Both require either a substantial amount of domain-specific knowledge, or trust in general purpose tools/forms.

Can we think of a a similar case where the crypto speed benefit would be meaningful?

Edit: Your question about who can buy shares raises an interesting issue. It may be true that, if you did this in the traditional way, you could only sell shares to accredited investors. (I'm not sure. But that's my hunch.) But I wouldn't be so sure that these same rules don't apply to DAOs. It may be a complex legal question, and I haven't researched it, but I would certainly not assume that these solicitation rules don't apply to soliciting contributions to DAO's. After all, the same regulatory goal applies: preventing amateur investors from getting scammed, or taking on more risk than they had intended, through private-placement style investments where there are fewer market signals to help people make informed decisions. (Of course, it's a separate question whether we should have laws like that in the first place.)

[V__]

Setting up a LLC takes a day or two and about 100 dollars.

You dont even need to sell shares, just a contract which entitles you to a vote or a future share of the company.

[throwaway243]

Sounds boring. Nobody likes to deal with bureaucracy.

[MrMan]

I can create an LLC online in an hour. Then people can Venmo me or something. The tech part is not the interesting part, its interesting that this whole effort ignores or seems to ignore the fact that people are just donating money to help someone buy something - even if its "boring", it would be more honest to admit that tokens dont connote any rights, and shares in an LLC do.

[V__]

The team may be in the public, but neither on Twitter nor on their website is any imprint or personal information.

The proper way to do it, would be to set up a non-profit organization where each funding/paying member gets voting rights (no crypto needed).

It's funny as a joke and maybe the intention is good, but in the end this could just as well be a new crypto scam and funding this project is the same as gambling at a casino.

[wallacoloo]

> The proper way to do it, would be to set up a non-profit organization where each funding/paying member gets voting rights (no crypto needed).

You just can’t make something like this happen in < 1 week using the “proper”/traditional methods.

Put differently: those “proper” tools have existed for decades. If they were as easy to use as you claim then why haven’t we seen them used to achieve something comparable to this project yet? (or have we?)

[V__]

Sure you can. It's just a lot of work, which also makes sure nobody gets scammed.

> why haven’t we seen them used to achieve something comparable to this project yet? (or have we?)

This is a kickstarter (or scam) which will fail in one way or another. There is no achievement here.

[wallacoloo]

> This is a kickstarter (or scam)

The only kickstarters I’ve seen that are to fund just a single thing (instead of individuals each getting a product) are for funding R&D or medical bills. I haven’t seen any of those reach $30M, nor have I seen any kickstarters that intend to have open governance. And I’m doubtful many kickstarters have been quite as social as today’s DAOs either.

> which will fail in one way or another.

It might fail. That’s fine (though I’d prefer it pass). The novelty and enjoyment of it has already been worth the $.

[manbart]

One of the founders is listed as “Jango from the internet”

[shrikant]

...whose Twitter profile indicates that they're a Juicebox dev, i.e. the same service being used to "host" the DAO.

I can't put my finger on why exactly, but that seems all manner of shady to me.