Messari Report: the part of the crypto market that will surprise you in 2023

One of the most promising growth trends of Web3, according to the new report Crypto Theses for 2023, is DAOs. Recall that a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a new digital form of legal structure that has no central governing body and operates on smart contracts only. What surprises are DAOs preparing for us in the new year, and what interesting trends will developers offer us in the near future?

Intro

Let’s review one of the most interesting predictions from the Crypto Theses for 2023 report from Messari, which collected predictions and deep trend analytics for 2023 for all crypto sectors.

As interesting as this report is as a whole, not many people will read all 157 pages. So below are the most intriguing points from the development of DAOs, which are in one of the chapters of this epic report.

Why did we choose DAOs for illustration? Unlike such prospective trends like the metaverse, building which will take years, DAOs will be the fastest growing sector in Web3, according to the report. Let’s take a look at the top seven points of growth in this area noted in the report. 

Note that these are not just fantasies, as each item contains references to already running or preparing to run services (or their prototypes).

Media DAO

We are living in difficult times for crypto media. Right now, the two biggest players in this media market (TheBlock and CoinDesk) are on the verge of an aggressive acquisition. CoinDesk partly suffers because of the FTX collapse, which launched a domino effect impacting DCG, which owns the media (right now, DCG/Gemini are clarifying relations about who should pay who).

Some journalists believe that now is the time to create a media DAO. This can be organized as a community that sponsors independent journalists on the principle of crowdfunding — the absence of a single investor eliminates conflicts of interest. You don’t even have to come up with some rocket science: just funding (like subscriptions or donations), and in return, you get news from really independent and popular journalists. You can look at some attempts to create this vision here, here, and there.

Decentralized Social (DeSoc)

DeSoc rearchitects Web2 social media on crypto rails, with the potential to provide

“… people on-chain reputation, organization (DAOs), & ownership of their content. DeSoc will change how value flows on the internet”.

A good example from the real world is a decentralized clone of Twitter — Mastodon. This analog of Twitter began gaining an audience very quickly, immediately after numerous bans of various topics on the original Twitter. Mastodon began to grow so fast that a number of big investors wanted to buy a share in this service, but the developers are still refusing to put it on commercial rails.

Talent Marketplaces

Finding talent on Web3 is not an easy task. It’s a process that needs to be modernized, and Web3 is great for that. Thanks to startups like Hirechain, the search for employees is being transformed from reading boring letters and resumes to a chain of connections that, in a couple of clicks, make sure the person is reliable. Partly this functionality is being implemented by LinkedIn, which allows you to read feedback from live human colleagues instead of traditional self-praising resumes.

In the beautiful Web3 future, we will all find jobs through services with a “friends-refer-friends” model rather than through endless resume mailings. When someone who is already working for you puts their rep on the line, advising you of another professional is a rare opportunity to choose something truly interesting.

The gradual transformation of DAOs into corporations

Along with the popularization of DAOs comes a change in the format of such organizations — increasingly behaving not as open and free Web3 communities (as described in cyberpunk fantasies) but as familiar global corporations. In part, this is inevitable as DAOs become mainstream.

Here are a few examples of DAO “corporate behavior” in 2022:

• The Balancer protocol has had a major confrontation with a whale of a large number of project tokens. Its accumulation of 35% of all assets allowed it to have unprecedented weight in voting on important issues. Fortunately, after a long standoff and many rounds of negotiations, both sides were able to find a compromise and reach a peace agreement.
• The Juno community voted to confiscate the user’s tokens totaling several million dollars, deeming him a fraud. Doesn’t that sound like a typical state?
• BitDAO, the world’s second-largest DAO, began buying up its tokens daily at an average of $1.5 million per day. This kind of manipulation drives up the price, which is exactly what the biggest corporations in the stock market are doing right now.

✅ BIP-18: $BIT Purchase Program, Jan 2023 has passed.

🎯 The Target Daily Purchase Amount (TDPA) will be set at 2.0M USDT per day starting Jan 1, 2023 for 50 days (total 100M USDT).

👉 Read the full proposal: https://t.co/F3SyRZ0tUJ

— BitDAO (now Mantle) (@BitDAO_Official) January 2, 2023

Evolution of DAO management

DAOs have traditionally been managed by smart contracts, which are executed based on collective decisions made by users. After several years of concept work, it is clear that this is often inefficient. The DAO management model needs to change.

The solution to this situation could be subDAO — tools that allow to divide the DAO structure into sublevels or separate segments. In real life, specialization is needed, similar to how a government is divided into ministries for better management efficiency. Metropolis (formerly Orca Protocol) already offers such a mechanism — they have created a protocol that facilitates the division of responsibilities between subcommittees.

Why DAOs Need to Adopt a 2-Treasury System

Blockchain infrastructure companies are trying to solve two complex and expensive problems: building sustainable protocols and dynamic ecosystems.#DAO #Treasuryhttps://t.co/dxIvAyyn5L

— Layer Zero (@LayerZeroMedia) January 2, 2023

Data standardization in Web3

For cryptocurrencies (and DeFi in particular) to reach their full potential in 2023, the industry needs to worry about on-chain data standardization. Existing solutions are often incompatible with each other, creating confusion and alienating mass adoption. Developing common standards would fix the problem. The emergence of standards is a clear sign that the industry is maturing.

Among decentralized services that work with on-chain data, The Graph is a leader. Last six months, it has seen serious growth in the number of users, which is associated with the release of subgraphs (specialized APIs that allow you to extend the functionality of dApps).

Decentralization AND Privacy

The ♥️ story of @graphprotocol & @hoprnet

All our @gnosischain Subgraphs migrated to the decentralized network 🚀 https://t.co/0V8N0NjIQV

— Sebastian | HOPR (@SCBuergel) December 28, 2022

Development of wallets and browsers

The main tool in Web3 is the crypto-wallet. It is used not only to store funds and make payments but also as a digital passport that gives access to many Web3 services.

In 2022, wallets made serious advances in their development. Nevertheless, crypto wallets still do not seem to be a friendly and simple tool for the mass user. At least against the backdrop of nicely wrapped CEX solutions like Binance.

The problem is especially acute on mobile devices, where progress is slowed down by Google and Apple themselves, unwilling to put dApps in their stores. Right now, the Web3 community is thinking about creating its own App Store-style ecosystem. There is a very good chance that we will get such a crypto marketplace for Web3 apps during exactly 2023.