EARTHFUND PLATFORM UPDATE. February 2023.
250+ DAOs being built, big plans for the next 12 months and making improvements.
Find out more about the start of EarthFund’s 2023 and the new causes getting ready to launch on the EarthFund platform.
👋 We’re EarthFund, the decentralized platform using blockchain, DAOs, and crypto to revolutionize the giving economy and give you more of a voice in the shape of tomorrow.
This is our February 2023 progress update reporting on everything from product progress to plans for the future.
Happy February, Earthlings 🌍
We’re only 32 days into the year and we’ve already had another 53 DAOs start using our platform to launch their world-saving communities.
As we’ve always said, the beautiful simplicity of the EarthFund platform is that each DAO will do its own marketing — made possible by the new operational budget feature we added in December — and as they grow, so too does the profile of the EarthFund platform.
Think of how Shopify grew. Stores started using it and seeing how easy it was to use. Then as more people noticed the “powered by Shopify” badge, more stores got set up and so on…
(Of course, this is a simplification. They did marketing too, but the point stands: users advocating for your product AND building successful businesses/DAOs/stores, etc… on your platform is WAY more powerful than drumming up hype.)
So, we’re going to leave most of the marketing to the DAOs when they launch, but here’s a little bit of what we can say about the DAOs on our waitlist.
🌍 A DAO to raise money for global disasters, including the war in Ukraine
🌍 A DAO to protect forests from deforestation
🌍 A DAO to support the people of Iran
🌍 A DAO to promote and support international learning and collaboration
🌍 A DAO to help abandoned animals around the world
🌍 A DAO to support tree-planting projects around the world
Interestingly, when you look at these 53 DAOs plus the 197 DAOs people began launching at the tail end of December, you can see that EarthFund is already starting to become a broad church for doing good.
We haven’t just got causes for climate change or humanitarian relief, we’ve got causes designed to just make the world a better place, from medical research to animal protection to tackling gender equality.
And by the end of the year, we hope to have an entire ecosystem full of causes that are all working together to make the world a better place.
Why aren’t these DAOs live yet?
We know this is the question you all want the answer to.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a simple answer. There’s lots of interest in signing up and people are completing the entire wizard, but not completing the last step of launching their DAO.
This isn’t unusual. The first months of a project — especially a project that creates its own category as we have — are usually like this. People play around with the product, get a sense for it and then sleep on their decision for a while before paying the $40–50 of gas fees to get started.
Mostly, we think it’s down to the macro market at large.
People just aren’t interested in launching a DAO — which requires a lot of sweat equity to grow to a decent size plus the gas fees — during a period of uncertainty when it’s not clear if people will join.
(We’re reaching out to people that have signed up to find out whether there’s anything we can do to help or find out what caused them to drop off. We’ll then use this information to tweak our onboarding.)
We also think some of it is down to the fear around speculation and the press around losses.
And as a crypto-native platform that mints cryptocurrencies and launches DAOs, the last thing we want is a platform that scares new users away because of the bad press, legislation, or fear of losing money.
So we’ve been focused on honing our loss-less platform where it’s only possible to make money from rewards and participation, not from speculation on a DAO token.
Now, anybody can pay to join a DAO and earn for making the world a better place, without having to worry about the token price, pump and dumps, or when to cash out or HODL.
When you buy the tokens, your USDT goes into the DAO’s organizational treasury to be used for running the DAO. (This can be used for things like social media campaigns, hiring staff, promoting the DAO, growing the DAO, appearing on podcasts, etc…)
But we also know that people don’t just get into crypto for the love of the planet or the cool tech, but to make some money too.
And while everybody making 20X on their NeverAlone investments was very cool to see, it wasn’t sustainable.
(In that specific case, it was EarthFund that lost. We provided the liquidity to allow everybody to exit without a loss.)
When somebody wins from crypto, somebody has to lose. That’s just the way it’s always been.
Until now.
We’ve created a system where when humanity or the planet wins, everybody wins. Nobody loses money because they were asleep when the market dipped or because they forgot to check a Telegram channel.
You pay to join. You do good. You get rewarded. Simple.
It’s not speculation. It’s rewards for participation.
Ultimately, this is a learning experience for us. We know there’s interest in launching DAOs — 250 applications in 60 days is a testament to that fact — but other factors are at play.
But the tide is turning.
Last week, International Policy Digest called 2023 “the year of the DAO” and said that they could see three big areas for winners in 2023.
Platforms that simplify starting a DAO: “Currently, the process for joining a DAO requires extensive knowledge of blockchain technology, as well as a hefty amount of money in order to buy in. New platforms have been created in order to make this process simpler and more accessible for anyone interested in joining a DAO.”
Specialized DAOs: “Another trend that we can expect to see in 2023 is an increase in the number of specialized DAOs. These organizations focus on specific tasks or goals such as managing a fund or providing a platform for a particular application or service. This means that investors and developers can join a DAO that focuses on their specific area of interest, making it easier for them to find success.”
Regulation-friendly DAOs: “Finally, we can expect to see more regulation around DAOs in 2023. As governments become more aware of the potential of DAOs and the technologies they are built upon, they will likely create laws and guidelines that govern these organizations. These laws will ensure that only legitimate players are able to participate in the DAO marketplace.”
That’s three big checks for EarthFund. ✅✅✅
We know it’s not a hype-friendly response in a bear market, but we truly believe that we’ve built the next big blockchain platform. It’s just a matter of timing and waiting for our moment.
The sheer breadth of things our platform does, the simplicity and UX of it, the low costs, the mass appeal, the mass-adoption-ready design, the press-friendliness of our mission…
Put simply, there isn’t another platform out there that can compete toe-to-toe on all of those features.
We built a game-changing platform, got it ready to go live and then the crypto winter hit.
Now is the time for patience.
You can’t force an audience to use your platform.
However, you can build a platform that’s ready for them when the winter ends.
And that’s what we’re doing.
Building. Improving. Enhancing.
And getting ready to explode when the market conditions are right.
Looking ahead to a busy February 🚀
Aside from work on the platform, February will be about getting our ducks in a row to make more noise about EarthFund and test the waters for investment.
(On investment: Like we said before, we’re still looking for investors, but due to the bear market, we’re not rushing. We think we’ll have a better chance to raise the funds we want to grow the platform when the market bounces back. In the meantime, we’re polishing our pitch deck, taking introductory calls, and making in-roads to make sure we find the right partner at the right time to send this project to the moon.)
But, as we said before, we’re focusing on substance, not hype.
That means we’ll be working with the waiting-to-be-launched DAOs on the platform to see if we can get them set up, spread the word about their cause and our platform.
It means helping those new DAOs make a splash and raise the money they need to be successful.
It means going all-in on the idea that our users — the DAO members, DAO founders and donors — are our greatest source of marketing.
Of course, we’ll still be doing other marketing throughout the year. Press releases, events, takeovers, sponsorships, etc…
But in a bear market when our audience is already skeptical about the space, we don’t need to build short-lived hype. We need to build credibility and a reputation for being easy to use (AKA, mass adoption ready) and then create a real buzz that’s based on facts, statistics and social proof.
For us, the market conditions are a time for us to consolidate, launch successful DAOs and establish a reputation of trust and reliability that we can use as the foundation of our marketing when the conditions improve (hopefully in Q2).
This is called Product-Led Growth. And it forms the core of our strategy:
“At heart, Product-Led Growth is incredibly intuitive. It’s understanding that no amount of flashy marketing or hard selling can replace the value a customer receives from a product built to fit their needs. Make something that consistently provides value and you can rely on your customers to come back again and again.”
Kristen DeCosta, Growth Marketer, Churn Buster
So as soon as these DAOs are live, please give them your full support. Follow them on Twitter, donate if you can, join if you want to…
Successful DAOs are the ticket to a successful platform. And it’s going to take all of us to make that happen.
And when we’ve got there, think of what EarthFund will be…
A home of hundreds of decentralized communities raising much-needed money for worthy causes around the world.
In closed beta, the platform raised $172.5K and funded 5 projects across mental health, technology, climate change and carbon removal.
Just imagine what we’ll achieve when the market turns and everybody is bullish on DAOs, doing good and lossless crypto.
How can you help? Help us spread the word
- Leave a positive comment on KuCoin’s new comment functionality
- Follow us on Twitter and give our posts a like/retweet → this would be huge for us. Our Twitter profile is key to spreading the word beyond crypto and into the kind of spaces where future DAO members (and maybe even founders) hang out.
- Join our Telegram community (if you’re not a member already)
- Talk about EarthFund in EarthFund-adjacent spaces (maybe mental health communities or carbon/climate change communities on Twitter)
- Tweet about EarthFund or interact with us on social media (got to feed those social media algorithms!)
- Ask us questions — we’re always available to answer questions in Telegram. (And if our community team doesn’t have the answers, we’ll get them for you.)
- Leave a positive comment and bullish rating on CoinMarketCap
- Like 1Earth on CoinGecko
Until next week, a massive thanks for being part of this journey with us!
Let’s build a better tomorrow, together.
New to EarthFund? Here’s everything you need to know 👇
Start a world-changing DAO with its own token.
Join a community of like-minded people.
Donate crypto to change the world.
All from one place.
EarthFund takes the power of centralized organizations like governments and global charities and gives it to communities dedicated to causes.
It allows everyday people like you to affect change. And using crypto and the blockchain, it lets you have a voice in decisions and fund the causes you believe in.
Powering it all is the 1Earth token, an ERC-20 token that can be staked in exchange for governance tokens that give you a voice on the platform.
By buying the token and joining the EarthFund DAO, anybody in the world will have a vote on how the EarthFund treasury is used to fund planet-saving projects around the world.
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