Weekly newsletter of DAO highlights | Issue #42

Hey DAO Enthusiasts, welcome to the new DAO Times Newsletter!

DAO Cartographer Kaf has compiled the latest grants, funding opportunities, community insights, and latest readings from the decentralized world.

Grants & Opportunities

• Mode AiFi Accelerator offers up to $10M in seed funding and $100k in prizes for AI x DeFi startups.
• Soneium, Sony's Layer 2 blockchain solution, has launched Soneium Spark, an incubator program offering mentorship, advanced tools, and market connections. 
• ApeCoin DAO is gearing up for Thank APE's Season 7, rewarding valuable contributions with millions of $APE.
• ETHGlobal Singapore's prize pool has reached $350,000, with final days to apply. Partners like AirDAO, 1inch, and Mina Protocol are each offering $20,000 in prizes for the hackathon.
• Ethernity offers grants from $15,000 to $150,000 for projects in Games, Blockchain Infrastructure, DeFi, and more, with a total pool of $10 million.
• Chainlink's first Certification event in Singapore offers 100 developers the chance to earn an official Blockchain Certification, in partnership with CollegeDAO.
• ENS DAO has allocated ~$45K to grantees expected to meet milestones by year-end. Next Small Grants round is planned for month-end, with details on Questbook.
• Octant's funding round is live with 35 projects competing for a 10 ETH matching pool.

Voices of the Community

• PaperImperium argues that many DAOs are nearly broken.
• Dr. Nick urges trust in only DAO-controlled or fully decentralized projects from day one.
• Andrew N. Green resigned from the Arbitrum DAO's GCP Council, citing misalignment with the project's pace and vision.
• Squiggly Hair Shanks criticizes DAOs, calling them mismanaged and prone to founders cashing out, leading to drained treasuries.
• Jesse Walden proposes DAOs centered around AI, with humans at the edges, like BottoDAO.
• Matt says rollups have revitalized DAO governance.
• Niko believes DAOs will prove that collective action can surpass traditional philanthropy.
• C-node argues DAOs are a regression from cypherpunk ideals.
• TapTools questions the current relevance of DAOs.
• Josh Stark argues that grants aren't always the right funding model and can sometimes harm projects.
• Karel Vuong defends Treasure DAO's move to zkSync, stating it's about long-term vision and mass adoption, not grants.

Latest Readings

• Recent token theft at Compound DAO exposes flaws in governance voting. Andrés Fábrega, Amy Zhao, and Ari Juels suggest improvements
• ZKsync has announced on their blog the launch of their new governance system on mainnet, which is now fully decentralized and controlled by the community.
• Former Apecoin DAO member Captain Trippy shared a 16-part thread on $APE, revealing why he believes the coin’s best days are ahead.
• IDC forecasts that by 2028, decentralized technologies like DAOs and blockchain will become central to industry ecosystems
• DeXe Protocol highlighted a deep dive on how AI can help DAOs scale and achieve their missions.
• Nath C compared Arbitrum DAO's governance with traditional models.
• Push DAO Marketing Lead draws parallels between roles in an ant colony—such as the queen, workers, and soldiers—and roles in DAOs, connecting their activities and communication methods.