The short answer is: No.

The district0x project didn’t just pop out of nowhere, it emerged out of Ethlance.

It is possible you have a portfolio of ERC20 tokens, and somehow have never heard of Ethlance. That’s because Ethlance doesn’t have a token.

While other projects were raising millions by waving their whitepapers, Ethlance stayed under the radar.

So, what’s Ethlance?

Ethlance is a 0% fee decentralized job marketplace governed by 14 smart contracts governing the following basic set of functionalities:

Creation of an employer/employee profile

List, apply, or even subsidy open positions

Reputation system

Sending/receiving invoices

Ethlance

Who built Ethlance?

Ethlance was built single-handedly by a crazy Slovak guy named Matus. He started building it in October and had it deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, bug free, by January. He did this while working a full time job.

At the time of Ethlance’s launch the number of post-ICO projects live on the mainnet was 0 — even now, six months later, there’s only 3.

Matus

Soon after launching Ethlance, Matus realized he cannot sustain doing everything himself, he is a human, after all — and was soon joined by Joe Urgo as a Director of Operations.

The two clicked and work on district0x commenced.

How did Ethlance become district0x?

It didn’t, the scope just broadened.Ethlance counts as the first district deployed on the district0x Network. With the basic set of functionalities for governing virtually any type of marketplace, Ethlance represents the perfect building block.

district0x

The code behind Ethlance is being forked to create d0xINFRA; an open source framework comprised of Ethereum smart contracts and front-end libraries anyone can use to deploy a new district and build their own modules/new sets of functionalities as needed.

The next district to launch will be ENS Bazaar, but the list of markets that could function, on this basic set of functionalities alone, is as far reaching as one can imagine.

If you already started imagining the possibilities — there’s tokens to be earned by proposing promising district ideas.

What’s the purpose of DNT?

DNT tokens will be used to govern the district0x Network using Aragon.

People will be able to use the tokens for voting on things such as current issues, new districts to be opened, their branding and revenue streams etc.

But, perhaps the more important reason for buying the district0x Network token is simply getting money in the hands of people like Matus — people that just go out there and build great things, for free.

It’s really important people like Matus are provided with the means necessary for continuing their pursuits of building world changing software.

If you’re only in it for the money, don’t worry, there’s a plethora of ways districts could decide to make a profit — from less creative methods such as paid advertisements or simple imposition of fees to anything you can come up with and build a module for.

When can I buy some DNT?

The district0x contribution period starts on the 18th of July — 16 hours from now.

You’ll be able to see a precise time and other necessary information on their website, which I will inconveniently not hyperlink to.

Google district0x, bookmark it, and never access it from a link.

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DISCLAIMER:

This is not an investment advice. Opinions are my own and may or may not be shared by the whole of “The Etherian World”

Some notes on author’s potential biases:

I am a big fan of the project and Joe is one of the biggest supporters of The Etherian World (despite running a “competitor” — dApp Daily)