With the DAO fiasco and Bitcoin’s new strength, Ethereum is in the shade - but some are already anticipating a return to form, not just of Ethereum, but DAOs themselves.

In fact, operators in the smart contracts space are even confident that DAO technology is only in its infancy, and that the best is still to come.

DAO tech ‘still very young’

“The technology is still very young, and a lot of people really are just in the early stages of grasping the potential of such a new way of kickstarting and funding ideas,” Stas Oskin, core developer at DAO platform Wings.ai, told Cointelegraph.

Wings is something of a first mover in the ‘post-DAO’ space. With an alpha release planned for next weekend, the startup has already made clear that its product has little in common with its notorious namesake.

The platform lets devs of all levels launch and fund DAOs, with a segregated inhouse DAO providing consensus-driven improvements and governance. DAO tokens are used to reward useful contributions.

Oskin believes that individual use cases will open the floodgates for the technology as both developers and the community improve it.

“In our vision, DAOs applied to specific business cases or needs can let people across the world join a particular cause or business as easily as joining another chat group in their favorite instant messenger,” he explained.

Alpha testing ‘for anyone on the Internet’

The alpha release will see basic functionality tested by “anyone with an Internet connection” over a period of at least several weeks. Not all features will be available, but feedback will be gathered to make the user experience more intuitive in the longer term.

“There are three constituent categories: project creators submitting proposals, forecasters evaluating the project potential and funders backing the projects. We intend to get feedback from all these groups and improve the UX iteratively over time,” Oskin continued.

He added that “nearly 1100 donors as well as several hundred bounty participants” already compile the user base for testing. “This group will get compensated to evaluate projects and promote the ones they think deserve attention,” he said.

DAO security is Bitcoin

Interestingly, in the long-term, it is Bitcoin that Wings is focusing on. Its success translates to DAO’s success.

Oskin explained:

“It is important to point out that Bitcoin is the biggest DAO - even if it is a simple one. People contribute hashes and they get a reward. We believe that we will see this success repeating with other projects, bringing forward DAOs to the level of Uber and Airbnb and showcasing to the business world that such success scales are possible.”

In any decentralized community, however, collaboration and harmony are key to ensuring smooth operation.

“These teams also realize the importance of token holder engagement, meaning that they know they need DAO principles to build trust and let these networks become self-managed while harnessing the network effect for the benefit of their business,” he added.