Rural DAO Practice Record: The Exploration Path of Nantang DAO

Find a way out

The story of Nantang DAO continues, despite facing numerous challenges, everything is still emerging naturally. The community is exploring forward through trial and error, digging for new possibilities in the quest for change. Some core members have traveled to Jianta Village, Pujiang County, Chengdu, to attempt to launch new projects, trying to find the true intersection of "rural construction and Web3" and build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO". At the same time, some chose to stay local in Nantang, proposing the initiative of "living life well", continuously cultivating the community by organizing local young people to engage in blockchain co-learning, band activities, and more. One side explores outward, while the other is rooted locally; the two paths run parallel without conflict. Pioneering a new path has always been full of hardships, but as a famous saying goes: "Pessimists are often right, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of Nantang DAO are writing their own answers through action.

attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. Cikey once reflected that the Nantan DAO failed to effectively attract "truly knowledgeable talents in blockchain and Web3" during its early establishment, coupled with the general lack of mature rural construction experience among early members, which led the community to take many detours in its exploration. Fortunately, the community has recognized this shortcoming and has implemented a series of improvement measures. Currently, Nantan DAO plans to invite senior experts from the industry to form the "Nantan DAO Governance Advisory Group" to provide professional mediation for internal disputes and to offer systematic suggestions for the strategic direction of each quarter. In addition, through the "Rural Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program", community members have participated in various domestic and international Web3 events multiple times, and have also engaged in presentations at universities, which not only enhanced their professional quality but also attracted more professionals passionate about Web3 and rural construction to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new opportunities for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Some of them are skilled in artistic creation, adding creativity to rural cultural activities; some are proficient in brand promotion, providing support for Nantan DAO's external communication; and others have made significant achievements in organizational research, contributing wisdom to 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.

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 multiple international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after the earthquake, the Japanese village of Yamakoshi launched the "Nishikigoi NFT" centered around the local specialty "Koi", viewing NFT holders as "digital villagers". This DAO community attracted over 1,750 members globally, raising funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not adopt typical DAO elements such as 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 idea 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 using the Shihua People DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration ( such as Chiyoye village and Tianlongxia ), constructing a "LocalDAO network". This model shares similarities with the current development path of Nantang DAO and should provide valuable references for it.

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 residency; from 2021 to 2022, as DAOs flourished, 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 aimed at online communities; from 2022 to 2023, with the turbulence in the cryptocurrency market, the community began to significantly reduce the DAO team and focus on creating natural communities for digital nomads and building a global co-living network; starting in early 2024, the team's keyword turned into "family community", and the team decided to establish deeper connections with local communities, launching the Neighborhood Accelerator (Neighborhood Accelerator), proposing to create a community where friends live nearby and raise children together.

What is worth learning and reflecting on is that after several years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team believes it is more suitable to exist as a loose community network rather than a startup or DAO. On May 8, 2025, Cabin officially announced its dissolution on the X platform, deciding to abandon DAO funding and commercialization projects, and to turn towards a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from a reflection on different models of entrepreneurship, DAO, and community networks: "Venture capital-backed startups are best suited for small, focused teams that can quickly pivot and seek high-growth business opportunities that are financially viable in the short term. DAOs are most suitable as a trusted neutral governance mechanism for distributing ecosystem funds from existing cash flow protocols. Community-driven networks are best suited to serve as loosely connected organizations, allowing 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 in the local market, seek advantages.

While learning from global pioneers, how to take root locally must be based on in-depth research and analysis of local realities. The 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 and feasible goals and action programs.

Nantang Village is known for its historical experience in democratic governance, and the attention from society is the greatest advantage of this land. Looking back at the history of Nantang, it can be seen that the desire for democracy and rights has never ceased, with important historical nodes always resonating with advanced organizational concepts in the broader historical context. From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the civic movement surged, and the rights protection lawyer movement and environmental movement began to rise, allowing citizens to protect their rights through legal means and collective actions. Nantang also began to organize farmers to fight for their rights, implement grassroots elections, and practice villagers' autonomy. Starting from 2003-2004, the goal of farmer organization gradually shifted from rights protection to development. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "In the past, we approached rights protection from a confrontational angle. After establishing cooperatives, our daily work focused on rights protection through livelihood development, cultural construction, and rural self-governance." Later, during the process of farmer organization, they drew on Western civilization, introduced deliberative rules, and localized advanced governance concepts. In 2008, this phase saw rapid development in the village's economic and cultural undertakings. 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' and consider how to make people live with smiles and dignity." Nowadays, 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 parliamentary procedures, from cooperatives to Nantang DAO, Nantang has experimented with different democratic governance methods over the past 30 years. However, it is essential to recognize that regardless of how innovative the organizational form is, the key lies in whether it focuses on "human connections" and whether it addresses the fundamental needs of local farmers. It is reassuring that the various attempts made in the past and those currently underway have already produced a good "link" effect. After living and learning together for a while, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During my field observations, I noticed that local youth, when facing the challenge of dividing tasks for collective cooking, proactively applied Robert's Rules of Order, efficiently negotiating and forming a consensus through "motions" and "reconsiderations." I also felt the budding awareness of equality among local youth, as they began to spontaneously organize themselves to collectively think about issues such as the lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities, 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 the other hand, cooperatives are also broadening their horizons, planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, connecting a wider range of young people. Based on recognizing each other's needs, doing things in a mutually respectful way may be the driving force for new possibilities to emerge in this land.

Final Words

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

( How to view the exploration of DAO in rural areas?

Rural construction and DAO are like two originally touching circles: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing rural areas, while DAO reshapes trust and cooperation mechanisms through decentralized technological concepts. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners dedicated to rural areas and those in rural construction eager to embrace new technologies. However, due to the short duration of contact and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, friction is inevitable within this intersection, including clashes between decentralized autonomous logic and rural collectivist culture, as well as the integration of external concepts and local traditions.

The core issue is how DAO, as a new organizational form, can find its role and boundaries of capability within rural governance structures. Taking the practice of Nantang DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantang beans is merely a digital replica of the traditional rural governance points system ), such as the work points system ###, and its usability and ease of use are difficult to surpass other existing "alternative currencies"; if token-based voting is merely a direct democracy translated onto a Web3 digital platform, while effectively excluding 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 issues are embodied in the specific case of Nantang DAO, they are indeed universal questions for all future rural construction DAOs or similar organizations.

Moreover, 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 for organizations to meet sustainability challenges. Different organizational forms have their own pros and cons, and they coexist rather than replace each other. If we view 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 DAO failures 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 aim to allocate funds through a DAO mechanism, but often the majority are not the beneficiaries, and economic benefits are usually monopolized by a few. Some DAOs focused on building community networks, after operating for a while, find it difficult to determine their position as a DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation, during a vote, decided to allocate $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain, which sparked anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation needed to spend money, while U