CityDAO grant application
Title
CityDAO is putting land on the ethereum blockchain and creating a DAO to govern said land.
Description
CityDAO is building a city on chain, starting by tokenizing land in Wyoming. Each parcel of land is an NFT that can be owned collectively by the DAO collectively or by individuals. By taking advantage of Wyoming’s new DAO law, DAO LLCs can own land. This paves to way for digitizing ownership of land parcels. We are starting small by tokenizing Parcel 0, the first on chain community-owned and community-managed land parcel.
Manifesto/Vision
Land is just the beginning - CityDAO is building the city of the future. We believe in the Ownership Economy - where ownership and governance of land is controlled by people. CityDAO will provide a protocol that anyone can build on, for example, imagine community owned affordable housing or farms with income sharing and voting across a collective.
Problem
Land and real estate is opaque and illiquid. Most land is tied up in REITs (real estate investment trusts) which are groups of wealthy investors. Because land is not digitally legible, the current market is inefficient and slow.
Solution
CityDAO digitizes land, opening it up to crowdfunding parcels, easy, instant transfers, and compatibility with the DeFi ecosystem for things like lending.
Product
CityDAO version 1 is a single parcel of land in Wyoming, owned by the members of CityDAO. Future versions will include fancier governance mechanisms and expansion into real estate like apartments, farms, and industry.
Validation
We have a very engaged discord (~1,000 members) and support from Syndicate Protocol help launch and do DAO structure and consult on legal matters.
Progress
Initial website, 250+ interested in participating in first parcel launch, and incorporation of Wyoming DAO LLC. Next steps are mechanism design and implementation for Investor DAO which buys land and Community DAO which governs it.
Differentiation
There are companies like RealT which have taken a centralized approach to tokenizing real estate assets like apartments. Because of their emphasis on investing and returns, they have to do lots of KYC. We are aiming to build a decentralized, crypto-native UX like Uniswap for land. CityDAO will also be community-owned and governed, and interoperable with the ethereum ecosystem.
Team
Scott Fitsimones - founder of real estate tech company AirGarage. As we ran parking lots, I saw how inefficiently land was managed and transacted. By adding a digital layer on top of land, it can be liquid, transparent, open, and interoperable with crypto. For fun, I do Capture the Ether and other fun crypto puzzles.
We also have several other team leads and very active contributors to the project
Grant Request $
$30,000 to support legal consultation, solidity development,
Funds
None yet, but some offers
Help
Looking for advice from people who have started DAOs on things like ownership, moving to decentralization, tokens, and legal structuring.
Additional Resources
Feel free to join our discord, the link is on our website: https://citydao.io
Thanks for your consideration!