How could you afford a noun?

Hello,

I’d like to ask this very sensitive question approaching you as an always accomodating community knowing that I might not get an answer on it. Nevertheless I first came across the nouns DAO around October this year when browsing through projects that were visually appealing to me. There were around 70 nouns that time and I could not believe my eyes how expensive one noun was. The website is giving more hints and I understand that it has been like that from the start with the very first noun being auctioned. So I kind of get the taxonomy behind it but what does simply not fit in my head everytime I visit the front page and seeing those astronomically high numbers I just have to work against it in my head. To formulate it drastically I’m getting a bad feeling of where I have missed out in life (mid age) so that I’m not able to fully participate within a community on the internet. Missing out on financial freedom via Bitcoin back then is and was acceptable for me because it did not directly exclude being part of a community I believe. You can still take part in it now. But nouns is a different kind of missing out for me because you can not be half or quarter of a noun.

Now I don’t want to share depressing personal facts solely but rather get an understanding of how people like myself that will probably never be able to afford a noun in their lifetime can have a different outlook.

Hello @17oclock!
While I agree that the entry point price tag can be pretty off-putting for most people, that same price tag is what filters for the people that can afford it. Those are the people that get to vote on dao treasury management and it only makes sense we want the best capital allocators to do it.
It is what ensures we have a prestigious collective of treasury managers.

I think the sentiment you’ve outlined is quite real and I appreciate you voicing it out.

Remember noun ownership is not imperative and non-owners are still part of the community.
There are changes that could be made to improve the nounlet experience, but the less depressing fact is that we can all be part of bringing them to life…

Great to meet you!

Hello @waterdrops,

Thanks for finding some words on my post here. In that sense I did not think of the weight that people bring in with their acquiring of a noun into the dao treasury. So it seems to be quite fair that such a high amount is managed by a equally wealthy community. It is elite in fact and I try to understand the positive but also negative effects on it.

I see ways of possible contribution without being a noun member like this forum offers. The implications I have is that it seems so far away of becoming a full member and instead keeping the status of a service member if keeping myself involved. Not in a too negative sense because it is exciting and the learning curve is huge on such a new form of organization. So it is beneficiary on a personal level right now - longer term I have struggles to think of keeping the status. Funnily the similarities to a real life workplace become more obvious whilst writing this.
Do you think there will be more fractional possibilities on voting or contribution affordable for low wage in future?

Nice to meet you too!

Hi! I hope it’s ok to jump in here given this is my first reply in the nouns discourse community… but this is an interesting topic and I understand how you feel.

My take is that the point of it all, and by “it all” I mean crypto, dweb, defi, etc., is that we all have the opportunity to take something from zero to one. Any of us can start a project that has zero value, zero people interested, and work hard to make it into something that organically attracts a community of supporters like you and I. Indeed this is the story of crypto. It’s the lucky nerds in the very beginning who adopted a protocol and supported it, then the crazy speculators who bought in very early, and even then crazy people like the nounders who try out an experiment like this. It’s hard work self-organizing like they did, to produce smart contracts and a protocol, so they’re rewarded like the early adopters of a cryptocurrency are rewarded. Fundamentally we all have an opportunity here, and zero to one examples in the space are popping up daily. This is what it’s all about to me. I’ve been interested in nouns b/c I love the art, the ethos and the experiment itself. It’s not about whether or not I’m a noun holder and can vote. I spend some time checking the latest noun, browsing discourse and discord, then I focus on my own plans for WORLD DOMINATION!!! lol, seriously though I hope I can make something cool too and be one small leaf in this massive and ever-growing tree of crypto, NFTs and community.

btw, you can own a fractional part of a noun: PartyBid
Party DAO for example, but you’ll notice in that search query I think only the very first party for a noun was successful, and the rest since haven’t done so well.

Hello color,

Great to read your reply and glad you gave your input on this sometimes controversial topic I have to agree. There is plenty of space in the here and now to explore and to get ones foot into the door. With having this decentralized and globally evolving technology of blockchain there evolves quite some responsibility in which we can take part right now and shape it. Taking the ETH chain as an example - it had its genesis not so long ago and we can contribute via swarm intelligence more or less to do its first steps while others in the far future that might need to rely on that technology will have less impact than what we have right now. I feel like thats the reason myself (and a majority) getting a bit anxious by being excluded (for financial reasons only) to shape this space. It is obviously very abstract and we can barely assume what else is going to come in the close future.

I’m also working on a project focusing on bringing some footwear designs into the space (since focus is very much on profile pictures above chest still) assuming there will be more full body representation in the far future “metaverse”. Its so exciting and on a fast pace. Actually hoping for bit of a slowdown to collect my memories again Interested to see some of your executions of your plan!

Thanks for sharing the PartyBid option. This could be very well a way of sharded contribution. Personally I don’t feel so secure about it (legally and potential ownership supression) and hope that there will be something more official put in place sometime. Have you tried that before?

Cheers @17oclock
And I haven’t used partyBid but as I understand it each winning bid becomes it’s own DAO. It’s still quite new, so it’s not without risk but I think the risk can be low depending on your contribution.

hi @17oclock - thank you for taking the time to write this

I understand the price tag to a Noun can be a little daunting. As others have pointed out, there are ways to acquire a partial Noun - that is something many have done. However, there are many community members who do not own a whole or partial Noun. If you contribute to Nouns, you ARE a member of the community, and your efforts will be rewarded… we give out Small Grants all the time to contributors

However, when you say:

To formulate it drastically I’m getting a bad feeling of where I have missed out in life (mid age) so that I’m not able to fully participate within a community on the internet.

I could not disagree more. With crypto, there are endless opportunities for anyone to find and join a community that is personally fulfilling and potentially very financially rewarding. Just by virtue of making it here, I have no doubt that you can find such an opportunity. Think about who you are, what has brought you here, what you’re good at - everything that makes you unique - and you can find a way to contribute and join a community, whether its Nouns or something else. This entire ecosystem offers endless possibility.

Most of us can’t afford it too bud but we are here because we are drawn to the promise of what Nouns DAO can do and there are some compelling ways to own a Noun but with their own drawbacks.

I will also add my couple of cents. I joined the crypto community pretty lately, but I believe that you’ll receive more than you gave by providing value to people. I have a small wallet, but I want to build fun stuff on the chain so that ppl wouldn’t have FOMO. Blockchain is not just about wealth; it’s also a tool to engage with other folks.

Found shark dao recently. People pooling their resources together…

Crypto/NFTs feels like a space sometimes that is either 100% FOMO, or 100% hindsight trading. With Nouns, I have serious FOMO because the project is so interesting, but it’s slow-burn FOMO as I am prepared to wait! In the meantime I will look with longing at my lostnoun.

Hi all, and thanks to @waterdrops for the in-depth explanation. At this point it’s absolutely a project worth keeping an eye on, and I agree with @KoroMonjya that for most of us it’ll be a while before we can get in. What an exciting project though!

I also wanted to thank @color and @noun22 for their insightful explanation of the project. Helps me understand its purpose quite a bit better. One day I will have a noun to call my own!

Make sure to check out SharkDAO and Goop Troop. Both are communities that collectively own Nouns and are very active and influence in the Noun universe.