Introduction
Manta Ray was the brainchild of technology entrepreneur Mark Miller whole working in the UK Energy industry. At that time the Energy company was concerned that blockchain would ‘eat their lunch’ and remove the need for an intermediary — their role in the industry.
If you read the Web 3 article publish previously, you will know that it is all about decentralisation and ownerless data storage, handing back ownership of the internet to the everyday user.
DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) is a unique organisation of Web 3. Forbes wrote in Feb 2021 that we should pay attention to it, https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhackl/2021/06/01/what-are-daos-and-why-you-should-pay-attention/
A DAO drives the distinct advantage of the ownerless and distributed nature of blockchain and Smart Contracts and gives ownership to codified rules in the Smart Contract, resulting in all members of the DAO becoming owners with voting rights.
History
The concept of a DAO was first proposed by BitShares, Steemit and EOS (Block.one) founder Dan Larimer in 2015, and further refined by Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin in 2016.
A DAO helps to maintain safe and optimized network, without the need for manual intermediation by its members. Participants are not obligated by any legal contract, but rather incentivized by rewards in the form of native asset tokens that support and help them work towards a unified goal.
What is a DAO?
A DAO, or “Decentralized Autonomous Organization,” is a community-led entity without a central authority. It is fully autonomous and transparent: smart contracts lay the foundational rules, execute the agreed rules on decisions, and at any point, proposals, voting, and even the very code itself can be publicly audited.
A DOA has 3 key characteristics:
Member-owned communities without centralized leadership
A safe way to collaborate with internet strangers, and
A safe place to commit funds to a specific cause
Ownership & Operations
A DAO is governed by its individual members who collectively make critical decisions about the future of the project, such as technical upgrades and treasury allocations.
Often a DAO is referred to as “network” or “protocol”.
Generally speaking, community members create proposals about the future operations of the protocol and collectively vote on each proposal. Proposals that achieve some predefined levels of consensus are then accepted, and applied by the rules instantiated within the smart contract.
Familiar hierarchical structures seen within large corporations give way to community collaboration under this framework. Each individual member of the DAO is presented with an opportunity to oversee the protocol, at a level prescribed by its governance.
Incentives
Part of the unique elegance of this framework is the alignment of incentives. That is, it is within the individual’s best interest to be forthright in their voting, and only to approve proposals that serve the best interest of the protocol itself. At Manta Ray each token equals to 1 vote, and tokens are earned in a variety of ways, such as referrals, reviews, and verifying themselves through a KYC (Know Your Customer) process.
The result provides a healthy and robust protocol, significantly garnering more usage, and in turn, increasing the value of the tokens of which each DAO member is in possession of. So as the protocol succeeds, so do the token holders.
This network effect and sense of ownership is the key difference with Manta Ray vs other community charging Apps who have not scaled thus far. As Manta Ray exists on the blockchain and is ownerless it will enable exponential geographic expansion far greater than its competition.
Manta Ray has also allocated portion of their token for deflation through burning and reflection of token for each Manta Ray transaction between Driver and Host with Manta Ray.
Types of DAO
Token-based membership
Typically, a fully permissionless DAO is dependent upon the token used. Generally, these types of governance tokens can be traded permissionless on a decentralized exchange. Others must be earned through providing liquidity or some other ‘proof-of-work’. Either way, simply holding the token grants access to voting.
Typically used to govern broad decentralized protocols and/or tokens themselves.
A famous example
MakerDAO — MakerDAO’s token MKR is widely available on decentralized exchanges. So anyone can buy into having voting power on the Maker protocol’s future.
Manta Ray EV Charging marketplace is a token-based DAO
Share-based membership
Share-based DAOs offer more permissioned voting rights, however still quite open. Any prospective members may submit a proposal to join the DAO, usually offering a tribute of some value in the form of tokens or work. Shares represent direct voting power and ownership. Members can exit at any time with their proportionate share of the treasury.
Typically used for more closer-knit, human-centric organizations for example charities, worker collectives, and investment clubs. In addition, may also govern protocols and tokens as well.
A famous example
MolochDAO — MolochDAO is focused on funding Ethereum projects. They require a proposal for membership so the group can assess whether you have the necessary expertise and capital to make informed judgments about potential grantees. You can’t just buy access to the DAO on the open market.
Reputation-based membership
Reputation represents proof of participation and grants voting power in the DAO. Unlike token or share-based membership, reputation-based DAOs don’t transfer ownership to contributors. Reputation cannot be purchased, transferred or delegated; DAO members must earn reputation through participation. On-chain voting is permissionless and prospective members may freely submit proposals to join the DAO and request to receive reputation and tokens as a reward in exchange for their contributions.
Typically used for decentralized development and governance of protocols and dapps, but also well suited to a diverse set of organizations like charities, worker collectives, investment clubs, etc.
A famous example
DXdao — DXdao is a global sovereign collective building and governing decentralized protocols and applications since 2019. It leverages reputation-based governance and holographic consensus to coordinate and manage funds, meaning no one can buy their way into influencing its future.
How does a DAO work?
The rules of the DAO are created by a ‘core team’ which in the case of Manta Ray is the Team at Manta Ray through the use of smart contracts.
These smart contracts lay out the foundational framework by which the DAO is to operate. They are highly visible, verifiable, and publicly auditable so any potential member can fully understand how the protocol is to function at every step.
Once these rules are formally written onto the blockchain, the next step is around funding: the DAO needs to figure out how to receive funding and how to bestow governance. Manta Ray will mint MREV tokens on Ethereum blockchain and launch a presale on Decentralised Exchange IDO (Initial Dex Offering) in September 2022.
This is typically achieved through token issuance, by which the protocol sells tokens to raise funds and fill the DAO treasury.
In return for their fiat (£,$, €), token holders have distinct voting rights, typically proportional to their volume of token holdings. At the point when funding is completed, the DAO will be ready for deployment.
How to get Involved
Once you identified a project of interest, such as Manta Ray there are number of different ways to become directly involved.
If you believe that EV’s and its growth will help and support with climate change, become involved with Manta Ray and its future direction and mission to enable the EV infrastructure to support the exponential sales of Electric Vehicles.
Not all DAO’s operate with the same purpose, therefore it is essential to understand the core function of each DAO.
For DAOs focused on technical governance, as with Manta Ray, it’s vital to understand the types of voting rights are granted to token holders and what kind of proposals are at stake. At Manta Ray, Contributors, Investors and users holding the MREV token at Manta Ray can propose and vote on those product features and partnerships that contributing to the global growth of the EV marketplace.
In some instances, for example at Uniswap, token holders can vote on distributing a portion of the fees that the protocol collects amongst themselves. In other protocols, such as Compound, token holders may vote on distributing these protocol fees towards bug fixes and system upgrades.
As is the case with many alternative DAOs, the focus is centered around technical aspects, treasury pooling and allocation, rather than overall governance of the protocol.
For example, SharkDAO, exists primarily to facilitate the pooling of individual token holders’ funds as a means to acquire rare NFTs that would otherwise be far too expensive for the most people to afford (in this case, the goal is to acquire Nouns, which can be sold in excess of $250,000). This approach presents novel opportunities for individuals to leverage the power of a collective pool of assets.
Often DAO’s use Discord to call for votes and propose ideas and by using Snapshot to vote. Calls for contributors to help build capability or expand the DAO will also be in DAO’s Discord server as it is with Manta Ray Discord.
