I won the auction for Lil Noun 1416 and am now a member of Lil Nouns DAO, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Lil Nouns is a connected project to Nouns DAO. Nouns DAO auctions a new “Noun” once a day, forever. Lil Nouns, launched on May 9, 2022, does the same, but every 15-minutes, and it is a “Lil Noun”. Both projects primarily use the Nouns to create a treasury that is then managed by the DAO, and funds proposals to extend the “Noun Ecosystem”, in whichever way the DAO members vote. Noun DAO has a tresury of over 24,000 ETH, or approximately $48 million. Lil Nouns treasury is nearing 1,000 ETH, or nearing $2 million.

The two projects are connected by Lil Nouns DAO sending Nouns DAO a Lil Noun every tenth mint, effectively giving the collective of Nouns DAO an 8% voting stake in Lil Nouns DAO, and Lil Nouns holding in its treasury a couple of Nouns. They also run on effectively the same code with slight modification for timing and the Noun images.

Many NFT projects the NFT is the thing that people really want, and there may be an organization behind it. Nouns and Lil Nouns is a DAO, and the way you gain access is by holding the NFT. The funds from the NFT go to the DAO to manage, not an organization building the NFT. There are already 13 [proposals] the DAO is considering, mostly early formation stuff.

I continue to think DAO’s are very interesting, and frame them broadly as a way to organize collective action. I wanted to be part of Lil Nouns because it looks like a great example of doing just that.