Priceless DAO
Our Goal
The PricelessDAO is a fundraising mechanism for experimenting with new economic and cultural models that sustain human social fabric and the vitality of the planet.
PricelessDAO aspires to become a networked nation-state so that it can host these economic experiments and provide citizenship to its members free of the intervention of the dominant order.
“We sense that ‘normal’ isn’t coming back, that we are being born into a new normal: a new kind of society, a new relationship to the earth, a new experience of being human.” ― Charles Eisenstein
TLDR
- Priceless Economics funds projects to develop alternatives to the underlying “circulatory system of humanity”. We already have such projects planned and running.
- Contributors to Priceless will receive governance tokens in the PricelessDAO.
- The official mandate of the PricelessDAO is to become a networked nation-state, so the tokens represent membership or citizenship in the DAO.
- The Priceless treasury will be held in the Priceless legal entity which will be incorporated as an international religious sect, and managed by the Priceless Priestesses.
- The PricelessDAO tokens are priceless and not designed to have any investment value.
- Priceless is planning a set of NFTs that will be used to fund the Priceless canon, which will detail the cultural practices, beliefs, and stories that create the foundation for the Priceless sect. The canon will be co-written by the NFT holders.
About Priceless DAO
PricelessDAO is a cause-based DAO in the form of a networked nation, dedicated to creating a true alternative economy and alternative citizenship for its members.
PricelessDAO funds economic experiments that are designed to replace the current monetary system. The holders of PricelessDAO tokens can create whatever they want with the DAO, while the founders of Priceless Economics develop decentralized economic models that support life on earth.
At Priceless, we are convinced that the existing financial system is crumbling and at the end of life. While many projects seek to salvage what we’ve got, Priceless is looking forward to creating a completely new system that will be a destination for those trying to escape the collapse of everything.
I mean, you know everything’s collapsing, right? What can you do about it? At the very least you can give your sh*tcoins to PricelessDAO. Any funds we have will be used to research, design, prototype, and deploy economic models that respect humans and the planet.
This isn’t some anonymous project. You can trust us. I mean, you can probably trust us a lot more than the founders of 99% of the crypto projects out there. We’re doxxed. Look at our bios. We aren’t trying to hide anything. We are doing this all legitimately and legally. And honestly, what have you got to lose? The sh*tcoins in your wallet already tanked and the world economy is teetering. We at least have some ideas of what to do to save a few people, trees, and animals. We aren’t going to use the money for lambos and strippers. Most of us are Moms, for G-d’s sake. A decade-old Toyota is a status symbol in our circles.
Our values
Use of funds
Priceless is fundamentally a cause-based DAO. The cause we’re working towards is having a future for humanity on planet earth. We think everyone can align with that. We believe that fixing the “problems” is the wrong approach and that we need to look at infrastructure-level issues: the flow of information, the measures that drive societies, and the flow of resources.
The founders of PricelessDAO are truly concerned about the future of the planet and of humanity, and we know it will change at the level of the global infrastructure, but we aren’t arrogant enough to say we have the solution. We are experimenting with new models that can be tried at a regional scale to see if they are viable alternatives to the current financial system. Priceless projects need the flexibility to try new things, fail and try again, without the rigidity of one product or a gaggle of profit-seeking investors.
Information about our projects is at the Voice of Humanity website. As this is an experimental project, we reserve the right to pivot and try new things, fund projects that align with our values, and use the funds in ways that the team believes hold the highest potential for bailing the world out of this mess.
Our philosophy
The Priceless founders have extensive experience in DAOs, alternative currencies, and social activism. We have advised and worked with hundreds of cryptocurrency projects. We’ve watched the propagation of the same old ideas by the same young tech bros. Somehow the dream of the Etherean has evolved into an industry that has created even more inequality, a higher proportion of financial to productive capital, and less diversity than ever before. We didn’t even know that was possible.
You know what else is possible? Launching all kinds of experimental platforms and never admitting when they don’t work. Nothing ever fails in the blockchain world because blockchains, unlike everything else in the world, live forever. How did anyone come up with the idea that there should be One Verifiable Truth, One World Computer, Code-As-Law, or Soul-Based Tokens? How much life experience do you need to see that those are bad, if not outright evil, ideas? But we digress.
Our approach is to bring together developers in a living/learning environment and develop new economic models based on experience and contact with regional people and communities. Each project is an experiment which is good enough for now and safe enough to try. We don’t have to “pivot” or declare failure when something doesn’t work. We just share our learnings and move on to the next experiment.
The Ukraine Connection
It is our intention to connect displaced peoples to our projects. Within Europe, millions of talented people have been displaced recently. We have reached out directly to the Ukrainian Ecovillage network (GEN Ukraine) to develop best practices of absorbing people into co-housing and shared economy homes where they can rest and recover, upskill, and be an integral part of the PricelessDAO software development team. Whether these individuals and families wish to stay in co-housing, move to cities, or return to their home country, they will have developed additional professional skills as well as communications and community skills that will serve them in the next phase of their lives.
The need to humanely house, retrain, and reintegrate displaced peoples is only going to increase due to increasing political and ecological instability. Priceless Economics plans to develop an open source toolset that can be used by communities worldwide to address this need.
Our projects
Priceless takes an experimental approach. We are funding experimental projects in Kenya, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and Spain. The projects are designed to restore the fabric of communities as well as the relationship to location and land.
Spain
Co-stewardship of properties on an ecovillage location for restoring an abandoned resort to host local and displaced people in a software development center. Collaboration with GEN-EU and the Navarra Social Innovation Labs for a reputation-based economy among villages and cooperatives in the region.
Slovenia
Establishment of multi-village regional group for development of Web3 and distributed ledger technology. Upskilling of local and displaced people for Web3 technology, preservation of indigenous culture, restorative agriculture. Local collaboration and “green road” among a network of physical locations including Crypto Commons Association, the Global Ecovillage Network, and other nearby hubs.
Kenya
Shared economic systems for non-monetary outcomes, education, and co-living. Harmonized living with the environment, software development, and community currencies. Focus on systems that can be used on basic telephone technology and minimal server requirements for local resilience and independence. Cultural revival through indigenous storytelling, art, and local practices.
United Kingdom
Certificates and badges for environmentally-positive and community-positive actions. Non-monetary reward systems for outcomes the community develops independently, with participation of local businesses and government. In collaboration with Bristol Pay and local municipalities.
Join our community
Our commitment
- Funding innovative projects that have the potential to increase social and ecological capital on the planet.
- Use open source for our code and copyleft for our materials.
- Publish consistently and accurately, so our findings can be reused by other projects, and make ourselves available through media and training programs so that others can learn from the experiments.
- Focus on non-monetary systems of economy.
- Be jovial, cause laughter, and act compassionately.
- Support other projects that create regional and global infrastructure for alternative economies and networked states.
These are just a few of the initial experiments and projects our partners will be developing with the funds. We are also considering the communications and networking aspects of inter-community sharing economies.
Team
Grace Rachmany
Co-Founder
About Grace Rachmany
Rebecca (Grace) Rachmany is one of the leaders in the areas of tokenomics, blockchain governance and distributed technology. She is an expert in practicalities of how to lead a decentralized/distributed organization, DAO governance consultant and brings 25 years of hands-on management of teams and cross-team cooperation, She is also the founder of Voice of Humanity, which creates systems of collaboration, governance and currency design, and reconstruction of human economic systems.
Shaila Agha
Co-Founder
About Shaila Agha
Shaila Agha became interested in alternative economic systems In University, while studying traditional economics and finance, observing the systems flaws and failures. She worked in the development sector in Public Financial Management for Agricultural Development, then as an independent FinTech consultant for several Kenyan based institutions. Currently, she’s a Digital disruption Advisor for Grassroots Economics Foundation, a community Inclusion Currency in Kenya.
Diana Finch
Project Manager
About Diana Finch
Diana started her career in bookkeeping and the design and implementation of accounting systems. When her children were small, she became an activist in her local community, working on community development projects. From that point on, she decided to work in the non-profit sector, taking on senior roles in both environmentally and socially focused organizations. She joined Bristol Pay CIC (then Bristol Pound CIC) as Managing Director in 2018, where for the last two years she has focused on developing the concepts behind the Bristol Pay project.
PricelessDAO Blog
FAQ
Is this a joke?
IKR? Some dry humor may have been employed in the making of this website. But it’s not a joke.
We are the first project to ride the wave of Balaji’s book and Vitalik’s commentary on the book. We’ve been working on this for years and we are able to seize the opportunity with well-developed and carefully considered prototypes that just need some funding. Right time, right ideas, right place. Is it a bit off-the-wall? Yes. Out-of-the box isn’t enough to address the problems the world faces today. We need off-the-wall.
What types of projects are you launching?
The Priceless Economics projects focus on sufficiency economies that optimize for aliveness. In other words, everyone eats before anyone gets a new iPhone. Most people don’t think that way, and we don’t expect any of this to work overnight. Plus the world is pretty close to being able to produce enough food for everyone. So don’t worry about your iPhone, yet.
Priceless Economics focuses on the links between communities. Hundreds of community-based projects are emerging to bring people together at a local level, but to date we don’t have the infrastructure that ties community-to-community rather than individual-to-individual. We believe that culture and connection need to be restored in order to have a just and fair economy. We work with self-organized communities with their own set of values, and create the interoperability infrastructure between those communities.
Are you really using a religion as your legal structure?
Yes. Based on our emphasis on culture and community, we will be creating a legal entity as a new religious sect. Our upcoming NFT drop will include rights to contribute to the religion’s written canon. Our Priceless communities will develop rituals and community-based norms that are aligned with the values of each community.
We will be developing Priceless Priestess ordination schools, and until women are safe in societies worldwide, only women will be allowed to be ordained as Priestesses.
Seriously, you’re joking, right?
In case you hadn’t noticed, crazy is the new normal.
We’re serious about making this work. The situation is urgent. We are pioneers and innovators working both within the existing legal frameworks with the Priceless religion, and within the Solarpunk and Cypherpunk movements for the establishment of a network state outside of the Westphalian stack. Standing by is not an option. It’s time to take action.
Wait. Are you saying that the DAO and the treasury are separate?
Yes. We are saying that. You may be aware that most DAOs don’t manage the treasuries of the blockchains they supposedly belong to. DAO members hold these governance tokens that are supposedly worth something, and the founders get the money for the development of their project. Look at any metaverse or cause-based DAO. The only difference between us and them is that we are saying it out loud and up front. We don’t want any trouble or misunderstanding.
If it sounds unfair to you that the DAO tokens don’t allow you to control what the founders do with the funds, then you haven’t been paying attention. We don’t want to point fingers or name names, but take a look at the DAO tokens in your wallet now. How much decision-making power do you really have over the project? How often do you vote? How do proposals even get on the table? Can you hire and fire the core team?
But wait. There’s more. Take a look at your other crypto-assets. Are any of those utility tokens actually good for the utility written down in the whitepaper? Quite a few Layer 1s. Not much else. But we aren’t disappointed or discouraged. In the tech world, a 98% fail rate is pretty normal. The technology always wins. It’s just a question of who is able to leverage it beyond the limitations of current thinking. When you got into the crypto thing, you celebrated being able to invest like a VC in high-risk, high-return projects. And you have. PricelessDAO is using the money for activities that are lower risk than doing nothing about the collapse of society. Maybe you will benefit directly and maybe you won’t, but we need some alternatives that are addressing the underlying causes, not just fixing the symptoms.
Priceless tokens will not be utility tokens, but they will allow you to be part of a change in attitude away from DeFi, GameFi, CeFi, ReFi and FeeFiFoFum Fi. Being in on this project is the first time you can contribute to something that isn’t just a stopgap but considers the next three generations and a regenerative economy from the bottom up.
Look, we don’t want to get into any trouble. We want to tell you the truth. The PricelessDAO tokens are like fun tradeables, and people speculate on fun tradeables. Like any other governance token, you, the holder, can be part of a community, create proposals and vote on proposals. We are setting all of that up. If the tokens end up with value, we’ll be happy for you and happy for us. We’re keeping a small minority of the tokens for ourselves. But if they don’t go up in value, we’ll also be happy because we need to fund this work.