Nantang DAO Chronicles (Part Two)

found a way out.

The story of Nantang DAO continues, despite facing numerous challenges, everything is still evolving naturally and continuously emerging. The community explores forward through trial and error, digging for new possibilities amidst the pursuit of change. Some core members have gone to Jiantai Village in Pujiang County, Chengdu, to attempt to start new projects, trying to find the true intersection of "rural development and Web3" and build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO". Meanwhile, some choose to stay local in Nantang, proposing the initiative of "living well", by organizing local young people to engage in blockchain co-learning, band activities, etc., continuously cultivating the community. One side explores outward, while the other is rooted locally; the two paths run parallel without contradiction. Pioneering new paths has always been full of hardships, but as the saying goes: "Pessimists are often right, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of Nantang DAO are writing their own answers through action.

Attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. Cikey once reflected that the Nan Tang DAO failed to effectively attract "real talent who understand blockchain and Web3" in its early stages, coupled with the general lack of mature rural development experience among early members, leading the community to take many detours in its exploration. Fortunately, the community has recognized this shortcoming and has taken a series of improvement measures. Currently, the Nan Tang DAO plans to invite senior experts from the industry to form the "Nan Tang DAO Governance Advisory Group" to provide professional mediation for internal disputes and to offer systematic suggestions for the strategic direction of each quarter. In addition, through the "Rural Development Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program," community members have participated in various domestic and international Web3 activities and have also gone into universities for presentations, not only enhancing their professional competence but also attracting more passionate professionals in Web3 and rural development to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new opportunities for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Some of them excel in artistic creation, adding creativity to rural cultural activities; some are proficient in brand promotion, supporting the external communication of Nan Tang DAO; and others have made significant achievements in organizational research, contributing wisdom to optimize the community governance mechanism. These new members bring not only professional skills but also open up more possibilities for the future development of Nan Tang DAO.

Looking towards the world, drawing on experience

What are the real needs of rural areas? Can Web3 inject new momentum into rural development? The implementation of DAO is not only a topic for Nantang but also a global challenge. Nantang DAO has researched several international DAO cases, many of which offer insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after the earthquake and addressing the aging population issue, the Japanese village of Yamakoshimura launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "Koi" and regarded NFT holders as "digital villagers." This DAO community attracted over 1,750 members globally, raising funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not adopt typical DAO elements such as smart contracts or on-chain treasury, it effectively addressed local issues. The experience of Yamakoshimura is quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Yamakoshimura further proposed the idea of a "dual-layer DAO-driven governance revolution": using the Yamakoshimura DAO as a carrier to achieve co-governance between physical villagers and digital villagers through Snapshot voting; simultaneously using the Shihua Ren DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration (such as in Chuiye Village and Tianlong Gorge), building a "LocalDAO network." This model bears a striking resemblance to the current development path of Nantang DAO and should provide valuable references.

Another relevant case is CabinDAO—a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to building network cities through community collaboration and technological innovation. Its development process is divided into four stages: the Creator Era from 2020 to 2021, establishing "Creator Cabins" as a funding program for creator residencies; from 2021 to 2022, as DAOs flourished, Cabin also began entering the DAO service provider phase, during which the community created numerous DAO media brands and developed DAO tools such as on-chain and physical passport systems for online communities; from 2022 to 2023, with the turbulence in the crypto market, the community started to significantly reduce the DAO team and focused on creating natural communities for digital nomads and building a global co-living network; starting in early 2024, the team's keyword became "family community," and the team decided to establish deeper connections with local communities. They launched the Neighborhood Accelerator program, proposing to build a community where friends live nearby and collectively raise children.

What is worth learning and reflecting on is that after several years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team believes it is more suitable to exist as a loose community network rather than a startup or DAO. On May 8, 2025, Cabin officially announced its dissolution on the X platform, deciding to abandon DAO funding and commercialization projects, and to shift towards a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from a reflection on the different models of startups, DAOs, and community networks: "Venture capital-backed startups are best suited for small, focused teams that can quickly pivot and seek short-term financially viable high-growth business opportunities. DAOs are most suitable as a trusted neutral governance mechanism for distributing ecosystem funding from existing cash flow protocols. Community-driven networks are best suited to serve as loosely connected organizations that allow many individuals to independently explore adjacent paths and build what they find most interesting and valuable." For practitioners of rural construction DAOs, finding the positioning of DAOs in rural communities and what value DAOs can bring to local communities is undoubtedly a common proposition faced by the world.

Deepen localization, seek advantages

While learning from global pioneers, how to root locally needs to be based on in-depth research and analysis of local realities. Nantang DAO needs to comprehensively assess local resources such as the economy, human resources, spiritual culture, politics, social capital, geographical location, and natural environment to formulate practical goals and action programs.

Nantang Village is well-known for its historical experience in democratic governance, and the attention it receives from society is the greatest advantage of this land. Looking back at the history of Nantang, it can be found that the desire for democracy and rights has never ceased, and its important historical milestones have always resonated with the advanced organizational concepts in the context of the great era— from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, civic movements surged, the rights protection lawyer movement and environmental protection movement began to rise, allowing citizens to maintain their rights through legal means and collective action. Nantang also began to organize farmers' rights protection struggles, promote grassroots elections, and implement villagers' autonomy. Starting from 2003-2004, the goal of farmer organization gradually shifted from rights protection to construction. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "In the past, we approached rights protection from a confrontational perspective. After the establishment of cooperatives, our daily work is to use livelihood development, cultural construction, and rural autonomy to protect our rights." Later, during the process of farmer organization, they drew on Western civilization, introduced deliberation rules, and localized advanced governance concepts (in 2008). During this stage, the economic and cultural undertakings of the village achieved rapid development. Yang Yunbiao once pointed out in a rural construction dialogue: "Rural revitalization is not simply about industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization, but must return to 'the revitalization of people,' and think about how to allow people to live with smiles and dignity." Today, the establishment of the Nantang DAO continues the tradition of organizational innovation and marks the latest attempt to integrate local ethics with modern civilization.

From rights protection organizations to parliamentary procedures, from cooperatives to the Nantang DAO, Nantang has experimented with different forms of democratic governance over the past 30 years. However, it is important to realize that regardless of how innovative the organizational forms are, the key lies in whether it focuses on "human connections" and whether it addresses the fundamental needs of local farmers. It is reassuring that the various attempts made in the past and those ongoing have already produced a good "linkage" effect; after living and learning together for a period, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During the field investigation, I observed local youth proactively using Robert's Rules of Order to efficiently negotiate and form a consensus on division of labor when faced with the challenge of cooking collectively. I also sensed the budding awareness of equality among local youth; they began to organize spontaneously to collectively reflect on issues such as the lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities, and ambiguous rules in local work and life affairs. This emergence of independent thinking and critical spirit will be a valuable asset for the future development of Nantang. On the other hand, cooperatives are also broadening their horizons, planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, connecting a wider range of young people. Working in a mutually respectful way based on recognizing each other's needs may be the driving force for new possibilities to emerge in this land.

written at the end

Despite the conflicts, the integration of rural development and Web3 holds promising prospects. After the test of time and practice, both sides are expected to reach a consensus through conflicts, forming a governance model that balances individual autonomy and collective collaboration. In future development, Nantang DAO, while promoting Web3 technologies and governance models, needs to be rooted in the cultural soil of the countryside and the genuine interests of villagers, focusing on addressing the fundamental needs of rural areas, so that new digital technologies can truly touch the soul of rural society.

How to view the exploration of DAO in rural areas?

Rural construction and DAO are like two circles that originally intersect: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing the countryside, while DAO reshapes trust and collaboration mechanisms with a decentralized technological philosophy. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners dedicated to rural areas and rural builders eager to embrace new technologies. However, due to the short duration of contact and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, this intersection inevitably generates friction, including clashes between decentralized autonomy logic and rural collectivist culture, as well as the integration of foreign ideas and local traditions.

The core question is how DAO, as a new form of organization, can find its role and capability boundaries within rural governance structures. Taking the practice of Nantan DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantan beans is merely a digital replica of traditional rural governance points system (such as labor points system), and its usability and ease of use might even struggle to surpass other existing "alternative currencies"; if token-based voting is simply a direct democracy transferred to a Web3 digital platform, yet effectively excludes villagers from the democratic decision-making process, how much change can we expect this so-called organizational "innovation" to bring to rural society? Although these questions are embodied in Nantan DAO, they are actually a common inquiry for all future rural construction DAOs or similar organizations.

Moreover, it must be acknowledged that DAO is not the ultimate answer to all organizational governance issues. No organizational design is perfect, and the trade-offs and choices in the governance process are key for organizations to respond to sustainable development challenges. Different organizational forms have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they coexist rather than replace each other. If we regard decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various types of organizations throughout history, as well as different developmental stages of the same organization, exist at different positions on this spectrum. Many DAO failures stem from a lack of adequate understanding of this issue; wanting to run a business project, they find that a more centralized approach works better. They wish to allocate funds through a DAO but often find that most people are not beneficiaries, and economic benefits tend to be monopolized by a few. Some DAOs focused on building community networks, after operating for some time, find it difficult to identify the position of the DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation decided to allocate $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain during a vote, which sparked anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation...