Decentralised Autonomous Organisations have a long and colourful history in the world of blockchain, the first emerging in 2016 following in the wake of Ethereum’s 2015 launch. A DAO is much like a corporate governance structure, albeit managed in decentralised fashion using blockchain technology and largely without the oversight of government regulation (for now). DAOs function by allowing holders of its tokens to vote on how funds within the DAO are directed. 2021 saw some big moves in the DAO space. Wyoming became the first state to formally recognise DAOs, granting them the same legal status as limited liability companies. ConstitutionDAO raised over $43 million to purchase an original copy of the American constitution at Sothebys. The DAO was outbid by billionaire hedge fund manager, Ken Griffin, but this episode clearly demonstrated the ability of DAOs to rapidly raise and deploy capital for a given purpose. We can expect DAOs to soar to new highs in 2022, with many DeFi protocols now using DAOs to govern their future. Meanwhile, a host of new NFT DAOs are emerging to support collective investment in NFT art. Those looking to direct the future of DeFi or invest in a protocol’s future might consider investing in DAO tokens like Maker, UNI, AAVE or BitDAO. More interested in NFT art? Look into FingerprintsDAO, SquiggleDAO, and FlamingoDAO. Ownership of these DAO tokens will give the holder voting rights in the DAO. DAOs An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a unique blockchain record managing ownership of a particular digital product like a piece of art and is sometimes also linked to a physical representation. 2021 saw an incredible boom in visual arts NFTs and this has been a serious boon for digital artists. The refrain of digital artists not being able to get a break in the pre-NFT, infinitely copyable world of digital art has been rapidly changed by NFT tech that makes these digital goods uniquely ownable and tradeable. While NFTs for visual arts have been around in their current form since 2017 (with many early, archaic renditions that predate even this) music is emerging as another hot NFT phenomenon to watch. Artists like 3lau, Nas and Mike Shinoda have all launched music NFT projects in recent months to high acclaim. Expect more established musicians to follow in their wake as the major record labels seek to wade into the NFT space. Existing major NFT marketplaces are not currently well placed for this new world of music-on-blockchain as their browsing experience and product offering is optimised for visual arts, not music. As such, we are beginning to see a new breed of NFT platforms emerge to service this space, like Catalog, Zora and Sound.xyz. Another such platform is TokenTraxx, which is introducing a marketplace and mint platform for music NFTs this year. TokenTraxx’s deep relationships with the major record labels and its team of music industry personalities mean that it is well-placed to capitalise on this trend. Music NFTs Finance Monthly. Bus i ne s s & Economy 21
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