Nantan DAO Chronicles (Part II): Exploration of Goals, Incentives, and Governance

What is the goal?

"Promote the integration of rural construction and Web3."

Nantang DAO is committed to promoting mutual learning and exchange between rural construction and Web3 communities, upgrading and transforming cultural courtyards, establishing bases for Web3 partners in rural areas, and deeply integrating with local cooperatives to establish a sustainable labor points system. However, there is a significant gap between ideals and reality. Currently, Nantang DAO is more like a rigid transplantation of other DAO models to rural areas, failing to closely align with the fundamental needs of rural areas, and its specific goals are relatively scattered and lack focus.

Democracy is not the democracy of villagers; rural construction is the rural construction of objects.

The democracy of Nantang DAO is only a small-scale internal democracy, failing to widely connect and mobilize rural communities. This practice inevitably devolves into "objectified rural construction," which is led by external entities rather than a self-driven governance model by the villagers themselves. Currently, for the entire rural area, both Nantang DAO and its members largely still play the role of outsiders.

The goal is to decentralize, each fighting their own battle.

"Promoting the integration of rural construction and Web3" is an attractive and ambitious goal that carries inherent legitimacy and widespread value concerns. However, this ambitious concept is fraught with challenges in practice. The members of the Nantung DAO have unclear individual goals, making it difficult to form a collective consensus.

Build a community or commercialize?

From both individual and organizational perspectives, DAOs need to weigh the potential conflicts between commercial interests and the public good. Community building has always been a core issue for Nantang DAO, encompassing both the overall development in rural construction and the Web3 domain, as well as deep integration with the local Nantang community. At the same time, members are gradually realizing the economic unsustainability of the existing model and are beginning to explore the possibilities of commercialization.

Incentives and Circulation Experiment - Nantang Dou

Nantang beans, as a form of community incentive, serve the dual function of "contribution records" and "voting rights certificates." However, the current "contribution record" system has exposed a series of issues during the points application and evaluation process, such as unclear admission requirements, singular evaluation standards, and ineffective peer review mechanisms.

Limitations of Hourly System

Community members generally reflect that the "equal pay for equal work" model, which uses working hours as the sole evaluation criterion, has obvious limitations. Different members have varying work experiences and efficiencies; calculating compensation solely based on hours actually "indirectly encourages inefficiency".

Let Nantang beans circulate.

The "New Year Goods Debt and Labor Points Promotion Plan" implemented around the Spring Festival of 2025 is a representative event of the Nantang Bean circulation experiment. Although the system achieved short-term token circulation, this circulation has obvious defects. The circulation and promotion of Nantang Beans has always been misaligned with the villagers' core demand for "debt realization."

Is it decentralized enough?

External forces that cannot be ignored

The Nantang DAO, when issuing Nantang Beans, needs to limit its functionality in the top-level design to being used only for internal governance or local service exchanges, avoiding other financial attributes to mitigate legal risks. At the same time, although the official stance in mainland China has not explicitly prohibited the existence of such organizational forms like DAO, it closely monitors the influence of their specific actions.

The "monopolized" economic source

The establishment and continuous operation of the Nantang DAO is closely related to the social ideals of its sponsor, Liu Bing. This single source of funding has raised concerns about its financial independence.

Not decentralized enough voting

After March 2025, four core members held over 75% of the Nantan beans, becoming the true "whales" in the community.

Voting Mechanism: Balance of Power and Vulnerabilities

Nantang DAO has mainly gone through three voting mechanism changes: "one person, one vote", "weighted voting", and "weighted voting but no individual exceeding 20%". However, the current voting mechanism of Nantang DAO has some issues, one of which is a loophole that allows all holders of "Nantang Beans" to participate in governance voting without needing to be formal members of the community.