Nantang DAO Chronicle (Part 2)

found a way out

The story of Nantang DAO continues, despite facing numerous challenges, everything is still happening naturally and continuously emerging. The community is exploring forward through trial and error, digging into new possibilities amid the quest for change. Some core members have gone to Jianta Village in Pujiang County, Chengdu, to try to initiate a new project, attempting to find the true intersection of "rural development and Web3" and build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO." At the same time, Jiao has chosen to stay local in Nantang, proposing the initiative to "live life 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 conflict. Paving new roads has always been filled with 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 South Pond DAO failed to effectively attract "truly knowledgeable blockchain and Web3 talent" in its early days, and coupled with the general lack of mature rural construction experience among early members, the community took a lot of detours in its exploration. Fortunately, the community has recognized this shortcoming and has taken a series of improvement measures. Currently, South Pond DAO plans to invite senior experts from the industry to form the "South Pond 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 Construction Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program", community members have participated multiple times in domestic and international Web3 activities and have engaged with universities for presentations, which not only enhanced their professional skills but also attracted more professionals passionate about Web3 and rural construction to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new avenues for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Some of them are skilled in artistic creation, adding creativity to rural cultural activities; some are proficient in brand promotion, providing support for South Pond DAO's external communication; and others have made significant contributions in the field of organizational research, offering wisdom for optimizing the community governance mechanism. These new members not only bring professional skills but also open up more possibilities for the future development of South Pond DAO.

Facing 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 common challenge globally. Nantang DAO has researched several international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after facing the challenges of earthquake reconstruction and an aging population, the Japanese village of Yamakoshi launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "Koi", viewing NFT holders as "digital villagers". The DAO community formed from this has 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 treasuries, it effectively addressed local issues. The experiences of Yamakoshi village are quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Yamakoshi village further proposed the idea of a "dual-layer DAO-driven governance revolution": using the Yamakoshi DAO as a vehicle to achieve co-governance between physical villagers and digital villagers through Snapshot voting decisions; at the same time, using the Shihua People DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration (such as with Shuibao village and Tianlong Gorge), constructing a "LocalDAO network". This model resonates with 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: 2020-2021, the Creator Era, establishing "Creator Cabins" as a funding residence project for creators; 2021-2022, with the flourishing of DAOs, Cabin also began to enter the DAO service provider stage, during which the community built numerous DAO media brands and developed on-chain and physical passport systems and other DAO tools aimed at online communities; 2022-2023, amid the turbulence in the crypto market, the community started to significantly reduce the DAO team and focus 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 initiated the Neighborhood Accelerator, proposing to create a community where people live near friends and raise children together.

What is worth referencing and reflecting on is that after 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, deciding to abandon DAO funding and commercialization projects, and shift towards a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from a reflection on different models of entrepreneurship, DAO, 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 positioned to serve as loose connective 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, how to find 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 local ties, seek advantages

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

Nantang Village is renowned 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 is evident that the desire for democracy and rights has never ceased, with significant historical milestones consistently resonating with advanced organizational concepts in the larger historical context— from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, a wave of civic movements surged, with the rights protection lawyer movement and environmental movement beginning to rise, allowing citizens to defend their rights through legal avenues and collective action. Nantang also began organizing farmers' rights protection struggles, promoting grassroots elections and implementing villagers' self-governance. Starting from 2003-2004, the goal of farmer organization gradually shifted from rights protection to development. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "Previously, we approached rights protection with a confrontational mindset; after establishing the cooperative, our daily work focuses on developing livelihoods, cultural construction, and rural self-governance to protect our rights." Later, during the process of farmer organization, they drew lessons from Western civilization, introduced deliberative rules, and realized the localization of advanced governance concepts (in 2008), during which the village's economic and cultural undertakings achieved rapid development. Yang Yunbiao once pointed out in a rural construction dialogue: "Rural revitalization is not merely about industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization; it must return to 'the revitalization of people', contemplating how to enable people to live with smiles and dignity." Today, the establishment of Nantang DAO continues the tradition of organizational innovation, marking the latest attempt to integrate local ethics with modern civilization.

From rights protection organizations to meeting rules, from cooperatives to Nantan DAO, Nantan has experimented with different democratic governance methods over the past 30 years. However, it is essential to recognize that regardless of how innovative the organizational form is, 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 currently are already generating a positive "link" effect. After living and learning together for a while, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During field observations, I noticed that local youth, when faced with the challenges of collective cooking, actively employed Robert's Rules of Order to efficiently negotiate and form a consensus on the division of labor through "motions" and "reconsiderations." I also sensed the budding awareness of equality among local youth; they have begun 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. This budding independent thinking and critical spirit will be a valuable asset for the future development of Nantan. On another front, cooperatives are also broadening their horizons and planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, connecting a wider range of young people. Working in a mutually respectful manner based on recognizing each other's needs may become the driving force for new possibilities emerging from this land.

written at the end

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

How to view the exploration of DAO in rural areas?

Rural construction and DAO are like two originally tangent circles: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing rural areas, while DAO reshapes trust and collaboration mechanisms with decentralized technological concepts. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners who are dedicated to rural areas and rural builders eager to embrace new technologies. However, due to the short period of contact and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, friction is inevitable within this intersection, including the collision between decentralized autonomy logic and rural collectivism culture, as well as the integration of external concepts and local traditions.

The core issue lies in how DAO, as a new organizational form, can find its scope of influence and capacity boundaries within rural governance structures. Taking the practice of Nantang DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantang beans is merely a digital replication of the traditional rural governance points system (such as the work point system), and its usability and ease of use may even struggle to surpass existing "alternative currencies"; if token-based voting merely translates into direct democracy on a Web3 digital platform but effectively excludes villagers from the democratic decision-making process, how much change can we truly expect this so-called organizational "innovation" to bring to rural society? Although these questions are specifically embodied in Nantang DAO, they are actually a universal 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 address sustainable development challenges. Different organizational forms have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they coexist rather than replace each other. If we consider the degree of decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various historical organizations, as well as different stages of the same organization, occupy different positions on this spectrum. Many failures of DAOs stem from a lack of sufficient understanding of this issue; they want to undertake commercial projects, only to find that a more centralized approach is better. They wish to allocate funds in a DAOs manner, but often most people are not beneficiaries, and economic gains tend to be monopolized by a few. Some DAOs focused on building community networks, after operating for a period, found it hard to identify their position as a DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation decided to provide $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 should spend money, and