VCDao

Inspiration

All inspiration stems from a problem and so was the case for us. The problem with current crowdfunding platforms and DAO platforms is that there is always one organization as the intermediary. This gives leverage to the people at the center of it all to twist and turn the outcomes in their favor. VCDao is here to give power to the public and eliminate the need for a centralized authority.

What it does

VCDao is a fully decentralized platform inviting other companies to build a DAO and perform crowdfunding on our platform.

How we built it

VCDao was built in mind with the aim of achieving a truly decentralized platform. We utilized the Openzeppelin libraries and other Chainlink smart contracts from Github to setup a base to start working on solidity. Our frontend was made in Next.js with TailwindCSS to create a fast and minimalistic UI. We used Web3Modal library to give support for multiple wallets.

The main goal was to create a Governance Token called VCDao and launch a Crowdfunding contract which would be used to initiate the first funding round on our site. The initial funding would set us up with the necessary monetary requirements to power the platform and distribute our tokens within our investors.

After the Crowdfunding stage, our platform would go on to operational stage where all those who contributed their Matic will receive their share of VCDao tokens. Now other people can come and launch a proposal onto our website which can be used to create a proposal which can be voted upon by VCDao owners on whether the project deserves to be on the space. After the vote passes, the VCDao approves the proposer's DAO and initiates its crowdfunding round after which both, the VCDao owners who approved the project and the venture capitalists that became funders of the DAO that registered on our platform.

The purpose of VCDao does not end here, rather the successful DAOs can even use our space to create polls or run their own communities in a highly decentralized space. Unfortunately, we were not able to create the complete polished project but we aim to keep working on it to create something brilliant even after the hackathon.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge was creating a DAO within a DAO. This had never been done before and we all could not seem to figure out how the architecture of the smart contracts needs to be established. Another challenge was indexing the listed DAOs where we found TheGraph to be the most optimum solution for the indexing our DAO proposals via event calls. And lastly, the most critical flaw we noticed was that the VCDao tokens could be exploited by their owners who may vote continuously on every project that would be proposed on our space. To counter that, we created a burning mechanism where 3% stake of tokens would burn for every vote one owner of VCDao token passes. In that way, people would only vote on deserving projects.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our team and VCDao came runner-ups in the Web3Disrupt hackathon. We are incredibly proud of it! Check out this post by Web3Disrupt's Instagram account :)

What we learned

On the technical side of it, we learned new technologies to incorporate into our work while we worked on the project. But so much of the learning was on the non-technical side. We learned how to work as a team and to think like designers. We learned how to reach out for help, suggestions, and advice. We learned how to make a judging panel (and people in general) believe in not only our project's value but believe in our team and our potential. Most significant of all, we understood the importance of decentralization and the power of the community more than ever.

What's next for VCDao

This is just the beginning. We will keep working till VCDao has transformed the crowdfunding industry for the better. VCDao is here for a change and VCDao is here to stay.