The cool kids in crypto say that DAOs will replace companies as the way we work. In fact, lots of people in crypto are already looking to DAOs to earn all or some of their income.
So how do you find one to work for and invest in?
Well, there’s a DAO for that—or rather, a DAO aggregator. Wayfare, which launched on Discord last week, is helping people find DAOs—and DAOs find people.
“It’s the dream we all share,” said Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee, one of the principals behind Wayfare. “But finding our tribe or the correct path to follow to move into this space is a lot more challenging than many of us would hope.”
Wayfare relies on Discord bots to help match people and their interests to the 100-plus DAOs that maintain hubs on the social media platform. Users answer questions about their likes and dislikes, and then bots send them on scavenger-hunt like “quests” to relevant DAOs, encouraging them to connect with like-minded people.
The growing love affair between bots and DAOs was only natural.
The first Discord bots came online in December 2015 after a group of developers reverse-engineered the Discord API. Since then, bots have been an integral aspect of Discord server life. Thousands of bots are active on Discord, such as Chipbot, which streams music, MEE6, which provides social media alerts, and IdleRPG, which lets users play games with friends. Other bots automate memberships, welcome new members, remove trolls, and level up roles.
During the past year or so, Discord has become the social network that most DAOs use—DAOList counts more than 100 DAOs in existence, with new ones popping up daily. With the influx of DAO users has come new bots that cater to their needs.
Collab.land, for instance, is a community management system that relies on bots and can monitor member activity in a DAO. For instance, say a potential member must hold a specified amount of a DAO’s token to join. The bot can check that like a robotic doorman; if the member sells her tokens and falls below a threshold, the bot can remove the member.
MacKinnon-Lee said that Wayfare was designed and engineered at Digitalax, a Web3 protocol built on the Ethereum and Polygon networks focusing on fashion, gaming, and design, and where she is a CEO.
Introducing Wayfare!
Our very own DAO Quest and Contribution Aggregator!
Community is a huge part of the @DIGITALAX_ ecosystem and as we progressively decentralise into our own #DAO we’re always looking for ways to strengthen our meta connectivity.
https://t.co/wlKFRzgmo0
— DIGITALAX (@DIGITALAX_) October 4, 2021
“It’s about actually serving the needs of DAOs so that these communities can flourish,” Mackinnon-Lee said.
She listed a few ways people could use Wayfare: “For example, say someone’s looking for a solidity engineer that is really hard to find without a direct personal reference, or they need articles written on [Ethereum-based blogging platform] Mirror that are actually engaging to read and come from an informed source, or maybe someone’s looking for the best way to get into FWB.”
So why not just use Google or LinkedIn instead of Wayfare?
“Ultimately, it’s not for generic information that users can find through a Google search,” she said, “but rather, the latent information, connections, opportunities and economic value that we all have, but don’t realize that other people can make use of in a well coordinated time.”