At first, that sounded impossible to me. How can anything run without someone in charge? A company has a CEO, a school has a principal, a PTA has a president. But in crypto, I discovered something new: DAOs, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
A mouthful, I know. But once I understood it, I realised it’s actually very simple: a DAO is a community that manages itself, with no boss in the middle.
The PTA Analogy: A School Without a President
Let me break it down with something close to home: the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA).
Normally, the PTA has a president. That president approves projects, handles the budget, and signs off on decisions. Sometimes, decisions take a while because they have to go through the president. And yes, sometimes favoritism sneaks in, “sige na, para kay ganito.”
Now imagine a PTA without a president.
- Every parent has a vote.
- The PTA’s funds are transparent, everyone can see where the money is.
- Proposals are made openly.
- Once the parents vote, the decision is final. No delays, no bias.
How would this work? The PTA rules would need to be written down somewhere everyone can trust, not in one notebook kept by the treasurer, but in a system that automatically enforces rules.
That’s what DAOs do.
- Parents = DAO members
- PTA funds = DAO treasury
- Voting = governance tokens
- Rules = smart contracts that can’t be tampered with
So just like a PTA where no single parent has all the power, a DAO is a group where decisions are made collectively.
Why This Matters
When I first understood this, I thought: wow, this could really change how communities work. We’re used to a “boss” or “leader” figure, someone who controls the money and makes the final say. But in DAOs, the community runs itself. It’s more democratic, and it’s powered by blockchain, which makes everything transparent.
It also reminded me of how moms often manage household funds. Sometimes, one person decides. But imagine if the whole family had a vote, even the kids. 😅 That’s the vibe of DAOs: decisions aren’t top-down, they’re shared.
Yield Guild Games (YGG): A Pinoy DAO Success
Back in 2021, during the Play-to-Earn boom, I learned about Yield Guild Games (YGG). And here’s the cool part: it’s one of the biggest DAOs in the world, and it started in the Philippines.
Here’s how it worked:
- Buying NFTs for games like Axie Infinity was expensive.
- YGG pooled funds, bought NFTs, and lent them to players (called “scholars”).
- Scholars played, earned rewards, and shared a portion with the DAO.
So the DAO acted like a community-owned lending library for NFTs.
But here’s what makes it a real DAO: governance.
- Hold YGG tokens, and you get a say in decisions.
- The community votes on which games to invest in, what projects to support, or how to expand.
- They even created subDAOs, smaller DAOs for specific regions or games, so local communities could decide for themselves.
In 2023, YGG even hosted their first SubDAO Summit in Manila, showing how global DAOs can still stay rooted in local communities.
For me, YGG was proof that DAOs aren’t just theory, they can be real organisations that impact lives. Thousands of Filipino scholars earned income through YGG’s DAO model.
Play It Forward DAO (PIF DAO): Another Pinoy Example
Another DAO close to home is Play It Forward DAO (PIF DAO). Their mission was similar:
- Collect gaming NFTs.
- Lend them to scholars.
- Share the profits.
Today, PIF DAO has 3,000+ scholars across the Philippines and Indonesia, a community of 40,000 gamers, and raised $6 million in funding to grow.
Again, no single “boss” decides everything. The community holds power through votes.
Why Moms Should Care
So why should we, as moms, care about DAOs?
Because they’re showing us a new way communities can work:
- Transparent – no hidden funds.
- Democratic – every voice counts.
- Automatic – once a decision is made, it’s executed.
If you’ve ever been frustrated at slow PTA decisions, unfair office politics, or even “sino ba talaga may say dito,” DAOs feel refreshing.
They’re not perfect (more on that in future posts), but they’re proof that communities can be organised without one person holding all the power.
✅ Takeaway: A DAO is like a digital PTA without a president. It runs on trustless rules (smart contracts), powered by votes (tokens), and guided by the community. And here in the Philippines, YGG and PIF DAO are leading the way.
Leave a Reply