Genesis DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization which runs on the Alchemy DApp. Alchemy has the capability of supporting several different DAOs, such as Genesis, and has the potential of enabling the community to create DAOs within it using a simple, turnkey solution, so that anyone can create a DAO.

The system currently works by using GEN, ETH, and Reputation to function and scale indefinitely. Participants in the Genesis DAO community can submit proposals for a project to receive funding for the execution of the project.

Users are also encouraged to participate in the system by being able to earn more reputation and GEN by promoting valuable proposals. Importantly, if a user does not follow through on their proposal, the DAO can punish that user.

Let’s take a closer look.

ETH

ETH serves as the funding for project proposals. Although a proposal can be simply used to request reputation, ETH is currently the only source of funding for proposals.

For any project, a person can request up to the amount of ether on the DAO at the time of the proposal. When a proposal is passed, the ETH requested is automatically transferred to the proposer’s wallet, but if it fails nothing happens.

GEN

GEN is the ERC20 token that Alchemy uses for staking, and may potentially use for proposal funding in the future. If you stake GEN on the correct outcome of a proposal, you can receive more GEN, but if you stake incorrectly you lose your staked GEN.

Unlike reputation, GEN has a real financial value, and is purchasable on exchanges such as Ethex.

If enough GEN is staked in favor of a proposal, it is “boosted” meaning that it is easier for the community to see, and takes less effort and time for it to pass/fail.

Importantly, the amount of GEN staked on your proposal doesn’t directly benefit you financially. However, there is real value in your proposal being expedited.

Reputation

Reputation is the representation of user voting power on Genesis, and without it no proposals can pass. You can request to receive some reputation in a proposal, however, it’s not directly transferable between users.

It can also be acquired through participating in the DAO in other ways. For example, by submitting and passing a proposal, you can receive more reputation. If you vote correctly on the outcome of a non-boosted proposal, you can receive more reputation, and if you vote incorrectly you lose reputation.

Reputation is quantifiable (for example, I have over 150 reputation), but it has no monetary value. However, it does represent how much influence a user has on the system, and that’s why it is integral to the system. By increasing the amount of reputation that you have, you have a greater ability to determine the outcome of proposals.

My proposal

I attempted to test every aspect of the Alchemy DAO by creating my own proposal and interacting with other proposals. My goal in creating my proposal was to create a proposal which supported the creation of this article. Very meta, I know.

When creating a proposal on Alchemy, it should be related to the respective DAO which you are interacting with. Since I wanted to write an article about the use case of Alchemy (what you’re reading right now), I wrote a proposal to pitch my idea.