Nantang DAO Chronicles (Part II): Blurred Goals, Limited Incentives, Insufficient Decentralization

What is the goal?

Nantang DAO is committed to promoting the integration of rural development and Web3, but there is a significant gap between its practice and original intention. The organization currently resembles an awkward transplantation of the online DAO model to rural areas, failing to closely align with the fundamental needs of the countryside, and its specific goal setting is also relatively scattered and lacks focus.

Democratic decision-making is limited to a small internal scope and has not been able to broadly connect and mobilize rural communities. Except for a few members who are long-term rooted, most members exhibit high mobility and short active cycles, which weakens the deep connection between the DAO and the rural areas. For the entire village, the Nantang DAO and its members are largely still outsiders.

The organizational goals are decentralized, and each is fighting its own battle. There are resource allocation conflicts between internally high-activity projects like the "Rural Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Plan" and the local community of Nantang. Some members believe that the existing model is economically unsustainable, but commercialization exploration is still in its early stages. The divergence in goals leads to resource dispersion and even competition, affecting organizational efficiency.

Incentive and circulation experiment - Nantang Bean

Nantang DAO will issue the token Nantang Bean ( NT) in August 2024, with an initial issuance of 10 million pieces, where 1 Nantang Bean is equivalent to 1 yuan RMB. Nantang Bean serves as a community incentive, fulfilling the dual functions of "contribution record" and "voting rights certificate."

However, the current "contribution record" system has many issues: unclear entry requirements, a single evaluation standard, and a dysfunctional peer review mechanism. The "equal pay for equal work" model, which uses working hours as the sole evaluation standard, has obvious limitations and has caused disputes among members. The peer review mechanism is virtually non-existent due to low participation.

To improve the incentive system, the community has begun to explore funding applications on a project basis and is trying "retrospective incentives." However, how to balance the flexibility and standardization of incentives, and how to ensure fairness while encouraging exploration, still needs further resolution.

Around the Spring Festival in 2025, the Nantung DAO will implement the "New Year Goods Debt and Work Points Promotion Plan", attempting to alleviate the cooperative's debts and create usage scenarios for Nantung Beans by allowing cooperative creditors to exchange Nantung Beans for New Year goods. However, the plan did not yield satisfactory results, as villagers have a low acceptance of virtual currency and the circulation of Nantung Beans is restricted.

Although the "New Year Goods Plan" failed to truly circulate Nantang Beans, the actions of DAO members voluntarily "lending" Nantang Beans to the cooperative to help alleviate pressure reflect the team's compassion and cohesion, becoming a significant event in the practice of "Rural Construction + Web3".

Is it sufficiently decentralized?

Nantang DAO faces challenges from external regulation, economic monopolies, and the centralization of voting rights, affecting its independence and level of Decentralization.

In terms of external regulation, the legal positioning of new organizational forms such as DAO in mainland China remains unclear, which may affect their specific actions. In addition, cooperatives hold "veto power" over local governance, which to some extent constitutes another form of "invisible regulation."

In terms of economic sources, the operational costs of the NanTang DAO are primarily borne by the sponsor Liu Bing, raising concerns about its financial independence. The single source of funding gives Liu Bing a special influence in decision-making; although he respects the voting results, he may still affect the direction of decisions in practice.

In terms of voting rights distribution, as of March 2025, four core members ( Yu Xing, Tiao, Liu Bing, and Fang Fang ) hold over 75% of the Nantang Dou, becoming "whales" in the community. The voting mechanism has gone through three stages of change: "one person, one vote", "weighted voting", and "weighted but no single person exceeds 20%", but the implementation of the new rules is not sufficient.

Moreover, the current voting mechanism has vulnerabilities, allowing all holders of Nantan beans to participate in governance voting without needing to be formal members of the community. Although this design was originally intended to encourage broad participation and enhance community inclusiveness, it may lead to a situation where a few individuals manipulate the results through concentrated tokens, embedding the risks of centralization.

To optimize the governance mechanism, the Nantang DAO may consider: restricting voting eligibility, introducing multi-stage review and emergency brake mechanisms, controlling the distribution of Nantang beans, and other measures to reduce centralization risks, ensuring long-term stability and fair autonomy.