Introducing Rift: The Vision
In a three-part series, we introduce Rift Finance. This is the first part: The Vision.
This is the first post in the “Introducing Rift” Series, parts two and three can be located here:
Introduction Rift: The Problem | Introducing Rift: The Future
We believe that DAOs represent the latest evolution in human organization. This is a progression that has happened over thousands of years that originally started with family units, expanded into hunter and gatherer clans, to the first farming societies, and has come to abstract representations like joint-stock companies. As time has passed, we have created increasingly complex and effective forms of organizations resulting in the nation-states and mega-corporations of today.
The internet created our first global society. For the first time, people were able to find like-minded individuals, independent of where they lived on the planet, and create groups with a shared mission. However, the platforms facilitating these communities lacked a way to empower users to coordinate capital. DAOs are revolutionizing the way communities operate. These internet native organizations now have the power to transparently and efficiently coordinate capital.
DAOs Today
Today we are already seeing the tremendous potential of DAOs. A community of golfers wanted to democratize ownership of golf courses? The LinksDAO community raised $10M in days to achieve this vision. A group of people wanted to buy a U.S. constitution and share its ownership? They raised $47M from thousands of members. Contributors to the Yearn Finance DAO have come together to build a system that controls over $4B. These are exciting examples of what DAOs are achieving today, yet they will be looked back on as early small-scale experiments.
The Future of DAOs
DAOs today are in their infancy. They are very difficult to create and operate, yet they still have the potential to scale to control tens of millions of dollars in just a few weeks. Several DAOs already govern billion-dollar treasuries including Uniswap, BitDAO, and ENS. These organizations will scale to govern hundreds of billions, and eventually trillions. They will become some of the most powerful organizations in our new, internet-native society. To achieve this, we must first build the infrastructure necessary to empower these communities.
Our Goals
We care deeply about accelerating the growth of these new organizations. Given the nascency of this technology, the most meaningful impact we can have is by building technologies that make it easier to start and operate a DAO. Today, running a DAO requires a deeply technical skill set and there are complex issues to deal with like managing the liquidity of the DAO’s governance token. Rift is building towards a future where any group with a vision can utilize this technology to affect their desired societal change.
Introducing Rift
In this three-part series, we will introduce Rift Finance. This is the first part: The Vision. To learn more about Rift and sign up for the waitlist, visit our website.