Thanks to countless hours by hundreds in our community, Developer DAO is pleased to bring you the biggest announcement in our brief history, including:

• the formation of The Developer DAO Foundation,
• the launch of the $CODE governance token, and
• the kick-off of Season 1 today, August 22nd!

Developer DAO

For the uninitiated, Developer DAO’s mission is to accelerate the education and impact of a new wave of web3 builders. It’s part social club and part public goods studio, with a whole lot of experimentation throughout. The DAO’s outputs (e.g., conferences, educational resources, developer tools) are free and publicly available to anyone, not just DAO members.

Season 0

Season 0 brought us the formation of six guilds and a handful of project teams, each learning and iterating their way towards stability and measurable goals. Leaders emerged organically, and projects began to hit milestones. The brand grew with the help of the newsletter, blog, and Twitter account sharing content created by the community and celebrating the wins of its members. The cherry on top: the web3con conference and hackathon.

The Foundation

As ambitions grew, so too did the need to interface with the world beyond our walls. Following in the footsteps of ENS DAO, Gitcoin DAO, Nouns DAO, and others, The Developer DAO Foundation has been formed in the Cayman Islands. See the snapshot proposal for more context.

The $CODE Token

The original, free-to-mint genesis NFT bootstrapped the DAO's membership. Those NFTs were the tickets into the Discord community and the ability to vote on governance proposals via snapshot. Given the finite number (<8000) of them, those NFTs did not offer a way to scale membership in the DAO. Today's introduction of the fungible $CODE governance token changes that.

As of Season 1, membership in the community and access to the Discord server is conveyed by 400 $CODE tokens or one genesis NFT, but snapshot voting rights will pivot from the NFT to the governance token.

All details on eligibility and claiming $CODE tokens can be found here.

Season 1

Season 1 ushers in a new era. The governance token enables projects and guilds to create budgets and reward contributors in each season appropriately. The budgeting process undergone by each project and guild required them to think more critically about their focus and how they fit into the larger mission of the DAO.

Through this process, the community clarified two priorities: education and DAO sustainability initiatives.

Season 1 Focus: Education

Projects and guilds prioritizing education initiatives should be unsurprising, given our mission to onboard and educate web3 contributors. Education-focused Season 1 initiatives include:

• School of Code — a flagship education platform, starting with lessons on smart contract development in Solidity
• Mentorship — pairing mentors and mentees in the DAO
• Dev-N-Tell — a short dive into a member's project; "how I built this"
• Workshops — longer-form, more interactive instruction on a topic

Season 1 Focus: DAO Sustainability

Coordination is the quintessential challenge in a decentralized organization, and we've already learned that truth in a dozen different ways. Through the budgeting process, the community has nodded to the importance of laying more groundwork to foster better coordination and building a healthy environment for all members to thrive in. Related initiatives:

• The $CODE token — naturally, incentivizing the right types of activity will go a long way
• Grant Infrastructure — Fundraising Operators to set up guard rails for raising funds for internal projects
• OKRs — a team ensuring that initiatives have realistic goals that align with the DAO mission
• D_D Women — dedicated resources to increase inclusivity within the DAO
• AxisOne Program — inclusive pathways into the DAO
• Vibes IRL — in-person social gatherings
• Onboarding — onboarding calls and resources help members understand what opportunities exist and how to take first steps
• Eden Protocol — a project facilitating the connection of members to projects based on skills and interests
• Scribe Program — scribes document events, encourage accountability, and disseminate information
• Server Architecture Team — a team optimizing the flow of information in our unwieldy server
• P3RKS — a DAO membership benefits platform
• D_D Agency — an exploration into specialized teams for hire

Season Partnerships

Our membership is made up of prolific builders, talented developers, and ambitious learners. It’s exactly the kind of people that the most exciting web3 ventures want an audience with. Leading up to Season 1, Developer DAO met this need by helping our partners craft developer-focused content across our branded outlets. In Season 1, this program will become the Developer DAO DevRel incubator, where our industry-leading DevRel team will work to establish a standard of excellence in the discipline.

Teams looking to reach one of the largest web3 developer audiences on the planet will have an opportunity to work with the D_D DevRel team, while getting direct access to our membership. Season 1 sponsors will be featured on D_D channels, and receive coaching from some of the best in the biz, on how to make their DevRel content relevant and engaging. Interested parties can fill out our partner interest form for more information.

How to join Developer DAO

Got your attention? Most of the day-to-day activity occurs in the Discord server. Membership in the community and access to that server requires the holding of a genesis NFT or 400 $CODE tokens. Plenty of opportunities await to earn $CODE tokens in Season 1! A limited number of scholarships are also available on a rolling basis.

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