April 2023 | EarthFund platform update
Get the first look at EarthFund 2.0, the AI-powered impact DAO launchpad
Get the inside scoop on our plans to level up the EarthFund platform and make it even easier to launch an impact DAO.
👋 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 April 2023 update reporting on our plans to level up the EarthFund platform in the next quarter.
Happy April, Earthlings 🌍
Boy, have we been busy since we sent our last update!
It’ll come as no surprise to any of you that we weren’t happy with the lack of DAOs launched through our platform, so we’ve come up with an idea that we’re all incredibly excited about.
But before we get into that, we want to break down why we think the platform hasn’t seen the uptake we were all expecting and predicting.
First of all, a number of things are at play here that aren’t within our control:
- We know a lot of people aren’t completely sold on launching a DAO. We’re in the midst of a period of uncertainty thanks in no small part to the reputational damage of the FTX scandal and other high-profile news items. We know that’s having an impact on the desire to start new projects in the space.
- Non-crypto audiences are spooked by the recent news that the SEC is filing against celebrities who have promoted cryptocurrencies. This compounds the idea — for newcomers — that getting involved in crypto is “risky”.
- After a year of making the right moves and building hype, we launched the platform just before the crypto winter hit in full effect, taking the wind out of our sails a little.
That said, there are also a number of things within our control that we think are hurting uptake.
- Usability.
Despite working with world-leading UX experts, we underestimated the importance of a very critical step in the process: adding copy, content and images. Designing a token, finding the right images, writing a DAO manifesto, etc… are tasks that most companies outsource to experts or hire experts for.
So while the actual onboarding UX was smooth, we found that the way users used it in the real world was causing them to get Blank Page Syndrome (AKA writers’ block) and stop building a DAO.
The process of setting up a DAO is complicated. You have to choose a token name, a token icon, write a manifesto, make decisions on who to allow in, how many tokens to mint, what kind of projects to fund…
In our efforts to keep the spirit of Web 3.0 alive across the platform, we wanted to give new users as much choice and free will as possible when starting their DAOs.
However, this large number of choices may have had the inverse effect.
Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls this the “Paradox of Choice”: an increased amount of choices often leads to better results but it also leads to greater anxiety, indecision, paralysis, and dissatisfaction.
In other words, if you have to choose between fries and baked potato it’s an easy choice. If you have to choose between fries, baked potato, mashed potatoes, skinny fries, waffle fries, tater tots, potato skins… you’re more likely to get overwhelmed and decide not to have potato at all.
And on EarthFund 1.0, we had all the potatoes.
On EarthFund 2.0, we’re still offering all the potatoes, but we’re making it easier to choose.
Meet EarthFund 2.0, the AI-powered impact DAO launchpad.
Over the next quarter, we’re going to be integrating the EarthFund platform with OpenAI and Midjourney to allow people to complete all of those decision-paralyzing tasks using AI.
That means that with a single click, users can automatically generate:
- Their crypto token image
- Their token symbol (like 1Earth or BNB or BTC)
- Their homepage headline
- Their subhead
- Their manifesto
- The imagery used across their DAO
Then, EarthFund will create a complete impact DAO in almost no time at all. (Our current testing MVP takes about 25 seconds to build an entire DAO, including images and content.)
Why do we think this will work?
This EarthFund 2.0 has been designed to shift the user out of the creative mindset and into the analytical mindset to get their DAO launched quicker.
If, for example, we asked you to draw a horse, you’d probably panic. You’d be worried about the proportions, the color, the shape, the head, the feet, etc…
If instead, we showed you a drawing of a horse, you could probably see where to colour it in, where to tweak mistakes, and how to improve it.
Why is that?
Because it’s much easier for us to spot what doesn’t work, what doesn’t match up with the ideas we have in our heads, and what isn’t quite right than it is to create something from scratch.
The study of productivity and conversion backs this up too.
As a species, we’re hard-wired to use the minimum amount of mental energy at all times. Psychologists call humans “cognitive misers” because we’ll go to any length necessary to avoid mental exertion.
One of the ideas behind this natural avoidance of mental exertion is Cognitive Load Theory, suggested by John Sweller in 1988, which shows us that humans only have a limited capacity for completing complex tasks.
Daniel Kahneman’s idea of the two thought systems also comes into play here, but we don’t want this update to become a psychology paper.
Basically, we have two modes of thinking: easy mode AKA the tasks you do intuitively (like 1+1 or spotting a spelling mistake) and hard mode AKA the things that require thought (like 3801 divided by 23 or how to describe your DAO accurately).
Creating content, designing images and other creative tasks take up a huge cognitive load. Our brains constantly process a huge amount of thoughts.
What should I say?
How do I start this?
Should I reference a study?
Is this a good idea?
In other words, our brains have to work really hard to create something from scratch.
This is Hard Mode thinking. It takes effort. And it makes us likely to give up. (Or not even try in the first place.)
On the other hand, editing is a lot smaller in cognitive scope. It still requires a lot of thinking, but it’s intuitive.
Is there a better word?
Is this accurate?
Can I add something to make this better?
This lets us do most of it with Easy Mode thinking.
We all spot a typo at 100 yards, root out clunky sentences intuitively and feel that “hmm, this section doesn’t quite make the impact I wanted” on a gut level rather than a conscious, well-reasoned level.
TLDR: our AI-powered DAO platform is going to make it even easier for anybody to launch a world-changing DAO.
In EarthFund 1.0, we made it easy to launch a DAO from a technical perspective. We eradicated the need to set up your token off-platform, work out how to send grants out, weed out scammers, launch well-designed DAOs, gather crypto donations, convert donations into a stablecoin…
In EarthFund 2.0, we’re keeping all of those technical achievements and layering an even more user-friendly impact DAO launchpad on top.
Now, you don’t need to design your own token.
You don’t need to write marketing copy from scratch.
You don’t need to think of a creative name for your DAO.
You don’t need to get on-brand graphic design.
You don’t need to write a compelling manifesto.
(Although, of course, you still can if you want to.)
Instead, we’ll be training AI to build ready-to-launch impact DAOs for you.
All you need to do is tweak the content to be to your liking, make some high-level DAO decisions (more on those in the next update) and get ready to start changing the world.
Why we’re all incredibly bullish on EarthFund 2.0.
We’re not another Web3.0 project integrating with AI because it’s hype-y.
We’re bringing together two burgeoning technologies — AI and Web3.0 — to create a platform that isn’t about showing off technological progress, but about facilitating humanitarian progress.
We’re making world-changing technology accessible so people can launch impact DAOs, gather communities, raise money and change the world, even if they’re new to the technology.
What are we working on in the next month?
Over the next 30 days, we’re going to be working on getting this AI-powered EarthFund 2.0 ready for internal testing and developing our new, even more intuitive UI.
Here’s everything we’ll be working on this month:
- Integrating with the AI tools
- Training them and creating scripts that produce consistently high-quality DAO manifestos, token icons, etc…
- Reworking the EarthFund DAO UI to make it even more intuitive
- Starting work on a new waitlist feature for draft DAOs to build hype before they launch
- Scaling the discovery/search functionality to handle the growth
- Planning the details of our EarthFund grant awards: we’re postponing these awards until after the AI update as we want to ensure the most platform growth possible.
- Continue to optimize the grant claiming process → currently, we know that claiming a grant is fairly gas-heavy for the recipient. We’re working on creating an oracle that reduces the gas significantly.
By the next update, we hope to be able to show you a quick preview of just how easy it’s going to be to launch an impact DAO and change the world. 🔥
What’s happening with outside investment?
We’ve decided to wait to take further meetings until after EarthFund 2.0 is launched as we believe that this new update will put us in a significantly better position to secure the best terms for investment in EarthFund.
Another thing to note is that we had a really positive meeting with another planet-saving Web3.0 project about a potential partnership.
It’s early days right now, but with the AI update, the market shifting and more interest in EarthFund every day, we’re all feeling incredibly bullish about the next few quarters.
Let’s go! 🚀
How can you help? Help us spread the word
- Make some noise about our AI update on social media! 🔥
- 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.
CoinTelegraph
We’re building a better world, together. Come join us.
Read our whitepaper
Join us on Telegram
