macro & long time duration thinking applied to daos + governance w/ unicornio

Welcome to the Armada Podcast, where we are focusing in on DAO governance. Let's hop into the show. If you could start with who you are and what you're working on.

I'm Unicorn. That's my online persona. Uh, started as a joke. Meanwhile, I kept adding Telegram groups and Discord groups, and the unicorn with the cat on the back kind of sticked. And now that's how everyone knows me. when I jump from one conversation to another one. My background is in computer science, but that's like decades ago. I'm old. After that, I did traditional finance for many, many years. I lived in many different countries, in, in Asia, in Europe, in the US. Um, I tried everything. I failed at almost everything also, but apparently I'm kind of good at crypto and DeFi. So here we are. That's it. That's me.

And I like to ask this question, but which fictional character would you like to have dinner with?

Man, I know I'm going to meet him soon. Uh, but if that could happen now, it would be really, really nice. I really would like to meet my guardian angel. Uh, this has been like a very fun and sometimes not so very fun ride here on this planet. So yes, if I could meet him before, uh, you know, before due time, that would be interesting. You know, this is a lovely place here. We have a nice beach, nice mountains. Great food, great wine. I would love to meet the guy here just for him to have a little taste of what's going on over here.

It's an interesting, profound answer. I certainly haven't heard that one, and I appreciate you going down that rabbit hole with me. You and I bumped into each other, I think, in the Oracle Protocol Discord, and you were kind of asking some awesome questions and having some conversation, and I wanted to reach out. But the thing that really caught my eye was you were kind of talking about this bull run narrative in 2027, 2028, and I was just I was just curious if you could explain the macro conditions that you're seeing that makes you have this theory. I'm just generally super curious.

Well, sure. I think the main point here is that I'm super bullish on crypto, but before the next You know, bull run, and I think we are in the middle of a bull run right now. So before the next one comes, it's you know it's pretty obvious or pretty expectable to have a you know what we usually have in these cycles. You know a bear market that's gonna wipe out you know ninety percent of of profits, ninety percent of wallets, ninety percent of projects, also protocols, ninety percent of people, and. And then when that process is done, then we are ready for the, for the, you know, for the next. The date that, that I have in my head and the one that you mentioned around 26th, 28th, it's just because, you know, I keep an eye on the ovening, the next one. And then we look at the charts and we look how The bulls are, you know, with each cycle, uh, getting slower and slower and slower to kickstart. Um, so, you know, take it with a grain of salt. This is not Nostradamus here, it's just a unicorn. So, um, you know, I'm, I'm expecting the next one, uh, to be far down the road. The last reason for that being is that I expect this one to be savage. This one is going to be really, really big. There is a lot of, you know, fundamentals pushing the current bull to levels that are, you know, if you follow predictions and you follow people, the numbers are all over the place. So I think this one is going to be really, really crazy. And for everyone to come to reason, and then after they come to reason, to, uh, you know, to make them all cry and to have blood on the street, it's gonna take, uh, longer than usual.

And so that, that's why you think it's a— it's not a year or two, it's sort of, uh, in the, you know, 5+ years type time frame because of how deep and kind of the, the rebuild will be required.

Correct.

Uh, you made a comment that like, you know, it'll wipe out obviously a lot of the profits and some of the protocols and people. And, and so is your hypothesis here that like as this goes into a bear run, uh, I guess is a way to call it, um, that you like— because a lot of these protocols and these projects have had such a growth in their fundamentals and their values across the board from Bitcoin, Ethereum, all the altcoins, It's sort of you're just seeing this hyper excitement. And so if that slashes, what I hear you saying a little bit is that we'll see some of these protocols either get disbanded or be neglected or whatever it may be, because there's really the incentive structure fully breaks down. Is that what you're getting at?

Well, here's the thing that noobs always miss. It's timing, okay? It's not about being right. You know, if you want to make money, you want to be— you have to be right at the right time. Okay. So I started— when we started this conversation, I started saying that I'm ultimately super bullish on crypto. That being said, crypto will not go up On a straight line, only with green bars every week. Okay, and that is what new you know new users, new investors, new developers, people new to crypto—they're gonna have to pay for that lesson. Okay, if if you have been here for a while, you know exactly where you are right now. You hear the conversations. The valuations keep being pushed up. The narratives are optimistic as ever. There is a lot of irrational thoughts and irrational expectations and irrational fundamentals and irrational valuations. And there is a lot of weak people building weak stuff and getting money from weak investors. So yes, we all have to be prepared for the day where, you know, all of this has to be— has to be normalized, let's call it like, like that.

Yeah. And, uh, from some of the comments that you can make in the Discord, uh, it seems that you've been really digging in and understanding governance. What about governance is, is really interesting and intriguing to you?

Well, brother, you make an excellent question. So in the middle of all this euphoria I see DAOs as the most positive thing from this bull run. You know, some people are gonna say that, you know, they are super happy with, um, Ethereum upgrading to proof of stake and layer 2 solutions, and, you know, gas is not going to be a problem anymore, and We're gonna process these thousands of transactions per second that is gonna make the blockchains, you know, you know, even faster than Visa and Mastercard. That's all awesome. But personally, what is getting me more excited from this bull run is the, the way people are, the communities are organizing themselves with The DAOs. I think that especially when the bull run is over and opportunities start to become fewer and smaller and you have to work harder to get results, I think one of the survivors structures of all of this that is being built right now Are going to be the communities. So, you know, if you look at communities, that the community models that we have right now, let's let's use that. Let's look at Discord. Let's look at Telegram. Let's look at Facebook Facebook groups. Let's look at all of that. What DAOs are putting on the table is like light years ahead of everything that is available right now for, uh, you know, for, uh, mainstream, let's call it like that. Okay, DAOs are at this point a very niche conversation with very few people that are working on it, even you know, a little bit more people, but still very few people that actually use it and participate in it. But if you are involved in, in DAOs, you get immediately the type of opportunities that you are building for the future. So that is something that for me is the most exciting thing going on right now in this bull market.

Yeah, I agree with you that it strikes me as one of the most resilient spaces that I agree. It's sort of this infrastructure level and a big bear run certainly in some ways could be excellent for DAOs on a macro perspective, probably not at a micro perspective of being able to figure out governance and coordination and trust and trustless coordination. for society and Web3 broadly. And so I certainly agree with you that there's an opportunity to really step away from a big crash with a really positive net outcome. And it's certainly part of my fascination with DAOs is sort of how do we take these structures that are having a lot of bull run and hype and inflation, whatever, and build long-lasting institutions that can survive throughout time with that. And so certainly a spot that I resonate with. And You, you made a comment in the Discord as well of sort of like looking at ElasticDAO and dxDAO and Idle Finance. What are some things that you like about some of those projects?

They're trying. They're really trying. Um, at this point, uh, you have no— there is no one has an instruction manual here, okay? Uh, no one has all the answers. Um, all these teams, not only the 3 protocols that you mentioned, but, you know, others— you, you mentioned ARCA earlier— everyone is trying to do something with a slight twist, with the improvements. So these 3, and much more also, um, they are trying, they are trying really hard. Um, they are actually doing stuff. So you go to some protocols, and I'm gonna step away here from the 3 that you, that you mentioned, just, you know, just not for people to think I'm shilling any, any of them, which I would easily because they are good. But I'm gonna step away from the 3, and I'm gonna say that it's very important for people that are interested in this You call it organisms, self-organizing organisms, to, you know, research what is being done and try to build bridges between all of them. Because so far no one has came up with the perfect solution. It's also becoming clear that no one has the perfect solution. Because different communities are looking for different outputs and different people like to organize and get things done in different ways. But it's very important to do research and find out what options you have on, on the table when you are starting your, your own protocol or when you join a new protocol that, that has no governance yet. or you join a protocol that has governance, has issues, and they need to be fixed or improved. Those and many others are from, you know, from an intellectual point of view, sociological point of view, are very, very interesting. It's, it's, you know, really interesting to see how the community interacts. how members come and go, how they participate more or less, what, what catches the emotion and the interest, and what drives them further away or closer to the protocol. And if you can take lessons from that, you're gonna be able to provide value to the next DAO that you join or to the next DAO that you, uh, try to build a bridge with. And, uh, you know, that brings to the, to the, to the level of DAO-to-DAO alliances or cooperations, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah. And so that was actually my next question is you called it D2D. And so you're essentially saying it's, it's, that's a DAO-to-DAO Yeah,

exactly. So let's be very optimistic or idealistic here. Let's imagine that in the future, every, every project that gains some traction and that is mildly, mildly interesting or mildly, mildly, uh, successful, uh, manage to build a community that is— that self-organizes itself in a DAO. In that future, the only way for protocols to negotiate, to dialogue with each other, is gonna be through these DAOs. So if you have a blog, if you have a YouTube channel, if you have a protocol, if you have a website, if you manage to— if you have a Telegram group, if you manage any kind of social presence, if you, if you manage a group of users around you, it's very natural that you try to use it now. to, um, reach your fullest potential. And if everyone follows that path, it's only natural that when people and projects want to talk with each other and collaborate with each other and work with each other and build together, which is what, you know, blockchains are all about, uh, you're gonna need a framework and the model for this DAO-to-DAO Alliances, syndicates, partnerships, whatever you want to call it.

I love that thinking beyond. I mean, I think that we're— and I'm stuck in this thinking as well— of just sort of thinking about how do we go from the centralized world to this decentralized world and the emergence of DAOs. And I love your sort of second-order thinking, which is, okay, now you assume you get there, and then what does the interaction between these organizations look and feel like? And we're obviously speculating pretty far into the future, at least from a, from a first second-order perspective, do you think it's going to be as simple as sort of like token swaps so that there's shared incentive structures? Or is it more complex as it relates to classic business deals where it's like, hey, we're going to do a joint venture on this particular thing. If I do X and you do Y, then outcome Z. Is it more programmatic governance between 2 DAOs, or do you just see it as a simple kind of token swap of some kind to just share incentives and move on?

Well, the way I see it is that, you know, if you want to set up a business relationship, you don't need to go as deep as a DAO-to-DAO partnership or alliance. The reason I call this DAO-to-DAO relationship alliances is because in my head, So take that again with a grain of salt because my head sometimes is like really weird. I see this more not from a business point of view or a technology point of view. I see this more in the directions of alliances between nations. Okay, so you have these communities with their own economies. They are working pretty well. They already proved themselves to be successful on their own. And here you come, okay, from outside, a foreigner, a foreign DAO, and for some reason you like them. You know, your community likes the other community, and for some reason the other community likes you. Why, why do these communities like each other? Is it because just of the potential to make money? Cool. Okay, you know, do a money Lego, uh, use composability where, you know, you reward each other, you swap shitcoins, you know, whatever you want to do. Um, that's in my head. That is not the DAO Alliance. The DAO Alliance is going to be much bigger than that. Okay, it's going to be long-term, it's going to be about money, it's going to be about incentives, it's going to be about sharing risks, um, sharing profits, sharing technology, building together, um, creating opportunities together that on its own you cannot do. Um, so from all of that, I like the, the concept of alliance as something that allows the DAOs to build a framework, create a framework to build together. For me, this would be the perfect outcome if DAOs-to-DAO relationships allow the creation of a model of frameworks where the protocols can build together. Um, that's going to be world-changing. Right now you have a lot of redundancy, uh, you know, look around, you have 20 protocols building the same stuff. 20, you know, that's a waste, okay? It's a waste. It's not efficient. It's not capital efficient, in my opinion. The investors making 10x or 100x in this bull are going to disagree with me. They're going to me I'm, I'm stupid. Uh, but when the bull ends, um, you know, 90% of these protocols are gonna be wiped out, um, including their investors. So this will strengthen the case of what I'm, I'm saying. There is a lot of redundancy here, a lot of, um, people, a lot of people building the same stuff. Um, for many different reasons. Uh, money is one of them. Ego for sure is another. Okay, uh, building stuff for ego is a huge problem in crypto right now, but that's another conversation. Okay, so I'm gonna let ego out of, of this. We're gonna focus on DAO-to-DAO. Actually, DAO-to-DAO alliances remove egos from this, okay? Remove egos from the, from the protocol. You have a lot of kings here, so, uh, DAOs minimize kings and prima donnas running the show in some of these communities. Um, so this is one of, one of the effects that you can already see, um, from, from the protocols that that are trying and using DAOs to manage their governance. And the last point here is that if we succeed, and we will succeed, to create a framework for these DAO-to-DAO alliances, we're going to be ready to use those models and use those frameworks and use the tools also and move the conversation and action from the online world, blockchain, on-chain world, to the real world. And that's, in my opinion, when the fun really will begin.

I love that. Yeah, I love your analogy of thinking about it as alliances. And as you were kind of talking through the example, my mind was wandering through nation states and So I go, it's like, well, there's military joint alliances, there's full-on alliances, offensive and defensive, there's these defensive pacts, there's trade agreements, there's environmental ones, there's obviously cultural ones and religious ones. And so I think to your point, it's a really, I think, a broad macro thought process to say like, hey, alliances are going to perhaps be very specific and they could cut across a bunch of different variables and they also could be very holistic and cut across all of the variables. And It's a really interesting framing of thinking about it as opposed to a simple token swap or some sort of simple partnership. I love that thinking.

If you follow, if you follow the discussion of a DAO for, um, for a period of time, you will see that the DAO has a collective mindset. You know, we can pick up the concept of Of hive, you know, it's like a hive collective, a hive mindset, hive conscience, whatever you want to call it, you know, depending on what books you are used to reading here. They go with the flows, okay? On one week, the consciousness of the Tao is focused on one thing, and two weeks later, one month later. The consciousness of the Tao is focused on a different subject. So these alliances, they will change. You're gonna have the same way when you have alliances between countries. They might start for military reasons, and then years later you have cultural cooperation and travel support or whatever. So it really will get to that on the DAO. So it comes to the core question of what is the glue between people? Okay. What makes this protocol or this DAO sexy and so exciting that you want to be very close to them? Okay, that will change with time, but there has to be some common glue that keeps you coming to this community when you want to do stuff, when you, when you want to get stuff done. Okay, it's very important that this alliances are long-term because it's pretty obvious that the on-chain world and the real world, and I'm going to use the simple example here of finance. So traditional finance and DeFi are getting more and more merged at some point in the very, very near future. very near future, um, there will be bridges everywhere between DeFi and, and the real world, let's call it like that. Um, so what happens at that point? What happens when you have a company in the real world, in the physical world, with a board of directors, with shareholders talking with a DAO, with users like Commodore and Unicorn and people that are anonymous. And, uh, but it's gonna happen. Um, it's gonna be, uh, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens at that point. I think there's gonna be a clash of mindsets a clash of frameworks, how the structures operate. And in the end, the winner is going to be the structure who adds value to the people. And I'm very biased on my answer, but I think that the structures that add value to normal people right now are all in, in DeFi, in crypto, in DAOs, on You know, on-chain,

right? And to be, to be clear, the clash you're suggesting is sort of the, the old framing of the world, sort of this centralized world, and then the clashes with this, this new model of a decentralized one, correct?

Correct. In the way the structures are, are built, are managed, are, um, the way products are designed, the way future forecasts are, are done, responsibilities, accountability, all, all, all, you know, when, when you look at all the things that are present in day-to-day operations of a corporation, a DAO will have, will have an impact on that. It's a different way of looking at the situations and fixing them.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. It's certainly something that on the podcast thus far that I've had some good conversations with different people obviously working in this space. And I think I'm probably closer to you in that it's not going to be a simple transition into this decentralized world and that the current establishment and centralized organizations and power that exists in this globe are going to just be like, oh yeah, decentralized is more efficient. Like, let's let that happen. I think it is going to be a clash. And I do agree with you that decentralized will win out. predominantly on the fact that it's more efficient and it's the future for multiple reasons. But I agree with you that there's going to be certainly a clash is probably the best word to describe it of sorting that out. And I agree with you on which side will win. Any closing thoughts or otherwise tell people where they can find you or not find you if you don't want anyone to find you too, whatever you'd like. But thanks again for joining the show.

No, thank you for having me here. Um, it was also very good from my side to pick up your brain. Um, I hope we can, uh, we can keep in touch. If, uh, if this conversation, uh, ringed any bell, uh, to anyone out there, feel free to, uh, look for Commodore or Unicorn. Online, and I always reply to people even when they are trying to scam me. I'm— I always try to be nice to them. I, I love scammers.

All right, thanks again for joining the show. Be well.

You too, likewise, brother. Thank you.

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