Japan’s Government DAO Could Outpace Its Private Sector in Web3
World governments have recently shown a growing interest in blockchain technology’s ability to simplify the difficult process of governance. As of now, examples include institutional NFT marketplaces that may do away with trips to the DMV, while NFT sales see Web3 as a means of raising money for political campaigns and even the military.
However, it’s possible that the Japanese government will be among the first to look at the potential of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
The Web3.0 Study Group initiative of the Digital Agency of Japan will be transformed into a full-fledged DAO, the organization declared on November 2. The goal is to give a study group the tools they need to explore Web3 in greater detail and all that it has to offer in order to influence the Japanese government’s decision to continue investing in Web3 systems and technology.
Additionally, depending on how things go in Japan, new test cases for a key Web3 feature may emerge, serving as a crucial example for the rest of the globe and maybe outpacing some private sector blockchain technology implementations.
A DAO is what? Do governments need to create them?
One of the fundamental principles of Web3 is decentralization, which implies that no centralized center of authority has excessive control over the decisions and experiences of the larger community. Therefore, it makes sense for the internet’s next phase to arrange itself so that it may operate independently. DAOs are, in theory, perfect mechanisms for communities to carry out internal checks and balances. Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is the abbreviation for this phenomenon.
In addition, DAOs theoretically permit Web3 communities to expand and thrive without running the risk of devolving into an oligarchy in which a select few dominate the majority. For the majority of Web3 DAOs, joining a DAO might be as easy as paying for an NFT or donating a set amount of cryptocurrency to a crypto wallet address. You’re in once you’re in.
What does that imply then? On paper, each DAO member has an equal amount of control over the organization’s direction and future. It operates as a single unit and divides decision-making democratically so that everyone in the group can participate. While some might view this as an open invitation to chaos, DAOs are also kept together by smart contracts, a piece of technology that members of the NFT community use on a daily basis. These smart contracts serve as the DAO’s regulations, ensuring that they are applied in a fair and impartial manner.
As a government agency-led initiative, Japan’s DAO aims to improve the capabilities of the Japanese government. In particular, the DAO hopes to be “a role model in the future” and pledges to publish its “establishment template” along with any other relevant documents, according to a translation of the announcement from the Digital Agency of Japan. If the Japanese government decides to create a DAO again in the future, it may be able to do so more quickly, even if it does so with the help of a state-sponsored organization.