Nantang DAO explores the integration of rural construction and Web3, facing both challenges and opportunities.

The Interweaving of Rural Areas and Web3: Nantang DAO Chronicles (Part Two)

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 moving forward through trial and error, exploring new possibilities in the quest for change. Some core members have gone to Jianta Village, Pujiang County, Chengdu, to attempt to launch a new project, looking for the true intersection of "rural construction and Web3" to build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO." At the same time, some members have chosen to stay local in Nantang, proposing the initiative of "living well," by organizing local young people to engage in blockchain co-learning, band activities, and so on, continuously deepening the community. One side explores outward, while the other takes root locally, with two paths running parallel without contradiction. Pioneering new paths has always been filled with hardships, but as a famous saying goes: "Pessimists are often correct, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of Nantang DAO are writing their own answers through action.

Nantang DAO Chronicles (Part 2)

Attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. The community has recognized the shortcomings in attracting blockchain and Web3 professionals early on and has taken a series of improvement measures. Currently, the Nantan DAO plans to invite senior experts in the industry to form the "Nantan DAO Governance Advisory Group" to provide professional mediation for internal disputes and to offer systematic advice on strategic direction for each quarter. In addition, through the "Rural Building Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program," community members have participated multiple times in domestic and international Web3 activities and have gone into universities to give presentations, not only enhancing their own professional qualities but also attracting more passionate professionals interested in Web3 and rural development to join. This bidirectional interaction has opened up new avenues for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Among them are those skilled in artistic creation, who can add creativity to rural cultural activities; those proficient in brand promotion, who provide support for the external communication of Nantan DAO; and those who have made significant contributions in the field of organizational research, offering wisdom for the optimization of community governance mechanisms. These new members not only bring professional skills but also open up more possibilities for the future development of Nantan DAO.

Nantang DAO Memoir (Part 2)

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 global challenge. Nantang DAO has researched several international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after the earthquake, the village of Yamakoshi in Japan launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "Koi" to address the challenges of reconstruction and an aging population, viewing NFT holders as "digital villagers." The resulting DAO community attracted over 1,750 members globally and raised funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not use typical DAO elements like smart contracts or on-chain treasury, it effectively addressed local issues. The experience of Yamakoshi village is quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Yamakoshi village further proposed the concept 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; while also using the Shihua people DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration (such as in Shuiye village and Tianlong Gorge), building a "LocalDAO network." This model has similarities 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: the Creator Era from 2020 to 2021, establishing "Creator Cabins" as a funding project for creator residencies; from 2021 to 2022, with the thriving of DAOs, Cabin also began to enter the DAO service provider stage, 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, as the cryptocurrency market experienced turbulence, the community began 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 changed to "family community", and the team decided to establish deeper connections with local communities, initiating the Neighborhood Accelerator program, proposing to build a community where friends live nearby and raise children together.

What is worth noting and reflecting on is that after several years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team believes it is more suitable 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 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 to seek high-speed growth business opportunities that are financially viable in the short term. DAOs are best suited 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 take root locally must be based on in-depth research and analysis of local realities. Nantang DAO needs to comprehensively assess local resources such as economy, human resources, spiritual culture, politics, social capital, location, and natural environment in order to formulate practical goals and action programs.

Nantang Village is known for its historical experience in democratic governance, and the attention of 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 here, and its important historical nodes have always resonated with 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 movement began to rise, and citizens were able to safeguard their rights through legal means and collective actions. Nantang also began to organize farmers' rights protection struggles, implement grassroots elections, and practice villagers' autonomy. Starting in 2003-2004, the goal of farmers' organization gradually shifted from rights protection to construction. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "In the past, we were protecting our rights from a confrontational perspective. After establishing cooperatives, our daily work is to use livelihood development, cultural construction, and rural autonomy to protect our rights." Later, in the process of farmers' organization, they drew on Western civilization, introduced deliberative rules, and realized the localization of advanced governance concepts (in 2008), during which the economic and cultural undertakings of the village achieved rapid development. Yang Yunbiao pointed out in a rural construction dialogue: "Rural revitalization is not simply about industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization; it must return to 'the revitalization of people', thinking about how to enable people to live with smiles and dignity." Today, the establishment of the 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 Nantang DAO, Nantang has experimented with various forms of democratic governance over the past 30 years. However, it is important to recognize 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 encouraging to see that the various attempts made in the past and those currently ongoing have already produced a good "linkage" effect. After living and learning together for a period of time, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During my field research, I observed local young people proactively using Robert's Rules of Order to efficiently negotiate and reach consensus on the division of labor when faced with the challenges of cooking collectively, utilizing "motions" and "reconsiderations." I also sensed the budding awareness of equality among local youth; they have begun to spontaneously organize themselves to collectively think about issues such as lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities and rights, and ambiguous rules in local work and life affairs. This emergence of independent thinking and critical spirit will be a valuable asset for Nantang's future development. On another front, the cooperative is also broadening its horizons, planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, connecting a wider young audience. Based on recognizing each other's needs, working in a mutually respectful manner may become the driving force for the emergence of new possibilities in this land.

Nantang DAO Record (Part 2)

written at the end

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

Nantang DAO Record (Part 2)

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 its 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 exposure time, differences in values and cultural backgrounds, this intersection inevitably generates friction, including the collision between the logic of decentralized autonomy and the collectivist culture of rural areas, as well as the integration of external ideas with local traditions.

The core issue is how DAO, as a new type of organizational form, can find its role and capacity boundaries within the rural governance structure. Taking the example of Nantang DAO's practice, if the issuance of Nantang beans is merely a digital replica of the traditional rural governance point system (such as the labor point system), and its usability and ease of use may not even surpass other existing "alternative currencies"; if token-based voting is just a direct democracy transferred to the 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 specifically embodied in Nantang DAO, they are, in fact, a universal inquiry for all future rural construction DAOs or similar organizations.

Furthermore, 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 to an organization’s response to sustainable development challenges. Different organizational forms each have their advantages and disadvantages, and they coexist rather than replace one another. If we regard decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various historical organizations, as well as different stages of development of the same organization, are positioned at different points on this spectrum. Many failures of DAOs stem from a lack of sufficient understanding of this issue; they want to run business projects but find that a more centralized approach works better. They wish to allocate funds using DAO methods, but often most people are not the beneficiaries, and economic gains tend to be monopolized by a few. Some DAOs that focus on building community networks, after operating for a while, find that they seem unable to identify the position of the DAO. A vivid example is when a certain foundation, during a voting process, decided to provide substantial liquidity mining rewards for a project, which sparked anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation should spend money while centralized entities earn millions of dollars from frontend fees?

Therefore, rather than pursuing the establishment of a perfect DAO, practitioners of rural construction should think about and explore some practical issues: under what circumstances is it necessary to organize people in the form of a DAO? DAO

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TrustlessMaximalistvip
· 13h ago
This pie chart is too big, where's the funding??
View OriginalReply0
DegenDreamervip
· 07-23 03:02
All day long shouting about the cold winter, I really don’t understand why some people are still doing practical things.
View OriginalReply0
AltcoinHuntervip
· 07-23 02:56
DAO is truly a remedy for the unsolvable problems of the world.
View OriginalReply0
SolidityJestervip
· 07-23 02:55
Rural construction play dao? There are very few successful cases in reality, right?
View OriginalReply0
SelfRuggervip
· 07-23 02:54
The people in the countryside can't even afford to eat, yet they're getting into web3.
View OriginalReply0
TokenSherpavip
· 07-23 02:53
actually this dao's governance structure needs serious optimization. empirical evidence suggests 84% failure rate
Reply0
GovernancePretendervip
· 07-23 02:49
After all this effort, I'm back in the countryside, which feels a bit like going against the grain.
View OriginalReply0
LiquidatedDreamsvip
· 07-23 02:37
There is hope, it's not too difficult... fighting
View OriginalReply0
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