World's first fully anonymous DAO created to 'defend freedom'

A pioneering Bitcoin developer claims to have created the first fully anonymous onchain decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with a mission to “defend freedom.” 

In a post on X on Aug. 12, OG Bitcoin (BTC) developer Amir Taaki unveiled an anonymous DAO that cannot be seen onchain.

“More than ever, we need anonymous DAOs to defend freedom.”

He explained that everything about the DAO is designed to be completely anonymous and invisible on the blockchain, including the DAO itself, its treasury and transactions, membership and token ownership, and proposals and voting.

Any smart contract can be called such as sending funds from the treasury, he said before adding that DAO actions remain hidden and payments reveal nothing about the treasury as receivers remain anonymous.

Taaki, who was interviewed by Cointelegraph back in 2014, argued that DAOs should be anonymous and subversive, mainly to protect against oppressive regimes.

“DAOs were envisioned as the post-corporate online future for mobilization and wealth creation of communities. This vision got stuck and eventually fizzled out.”

The British-Iranian hacktivist criticized the current state of the internet and tech industry, claiming it relies too heavily on surveillance and data harvesting.

He said that anonymous DAOs were a solution for creating free, uncensored, and sovereign online organizations.

Taaki is working with DarkFi, which claims to be the only team developing anonymous tools for online organizations to harness “the true power of cryptocurrency.”

CEO of Factory Labs and founder of Factory DAO, Nick Almond, exclaimed on X that the anonymous DAO was “cypherpunk AF,” before adding:

“It’s a primitive. A privacy building block. My mind is bending with how this changes DAO game theory. Gonna be interesting.”

DAO game theory aims to create systems where individual rational behavior leads to optimal outcomes for the entire organization, balancing decentralization with effective decision-making.

DAO governance for crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects has been challenging.

Management challenges stem from the lack of traditional hierarchies, potentially leading to unclear leadership roles and responsibilities.

Additionally, unequal token distribution can potentially centralize control into the hands of a few whales and contradict decentralization principles, as evidenced by governance issues at several DeFi protocols in recent years, such as Uniswap and Compound Finance.