Andrew Yang wants to use web3 to advocate for web3

Andrew Yang became a favorite among crypto enthusiasts when he ran for US president in 2020 because of his pro-crypto policy positions.

Now he wants to give his pro-crypto supporters a decentralized platform for reaching — and, in the process, teaching — DC policymakers about the topic.

Yang says that it was conversations with the support base he built in 2020 that inspired his latest project: Lobby3, a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, aimed at shaping the crypto conversation in Washington.

YangDAO

DAOs are member-owned organizations managed by their participants.

Typically they are built around crypto-tokens, and token holders make collective governance decisions through blockchain-based voting. Often, the groups pool funds from token holders to accomplish a common goal, like ConstitutionDAO’s bid to purchase a rare copy of the US Constitution or FriesDAO’s attempt to buy a fast-food restaurant for which token holders will vote on operational decisions.

In an interview with The Block, Yang said he thinks the DAO structure is a good fit for amplifying pro-crypto voices in Washington.

Unlike HODLPac, a decentralized political action committee that votes on how to contribute funds to political candidates, Lobby3’s funding will go to lobbying efforts. But part of Yang’s goal is also to use the project to directly connect influential policymakers to the smartest voices in the crypto community.

“Advocating for policy in D.C. over the last three years, I have a lot of friends in town,” he said. 

Though Yang did not share many details about the specific issues the group might involve itself with, he often talks about how he sees crypto as a tool that could be used to help societal problems. For instance, he said, “the potential for web3 to help alleviate poverty is something that more people should be excited about.”

Not totally a DAO?

Lobby3 also departs from the traditional DAO structure in part because members won’t necessarily be voting on every decision. In fact, much of the treasury will be devoted to the advocacy firm, which the DAO will defer to in some cases. 

The advocacy group will lobby and educate lawmakers in DC on crypto issues. It will be able to operate independently of the DAO and support issues its experts identify in addition to ones the DAO brings to its attention. 

Some may argue that this makes the DAO less decentralized and autonomous, but Yang views it as a more realistic approach to organizing and deploying resources in the institutionalized town of Washington.

“The way it's being rolled out is the majority of the funds are going to go to an advocacy organization, and a lot of that stuff is going to happen in offices by closed doors where it might not frankly be realistic to have members of the DAO making decisions in advance of each of those meetings,” he said.

Still, DAO token holders will eventually be able to vote on policy ideas, community priorities and where treasury funds should be deployed.

Initial members minted their membership tokens in a two-week period that closed Friday. There are three membership classes — to which the cost of admission ranges from 0.07 ETH to 40 ETH — providing varying degrees of access to certain policymakers (Yang wouldn’t provide specific names at this time), events, and even Yang himself. 

A limited set of 100 tokens, priced at 40 ETH, entitle holders to one-on-ones with Yang and the lobbying team and “intimate group meetings with influential lawmakers and decision-makers,” according to the Lobby3 site.

Now that the minting is closed, the lobbying can begin. The funds from minting will primarily be funneled into an advocacy organization on the ground in DC, though the Lobby3 team said it couldn’t yet share which firm it’s contracted. 

Yang said funding the lobbying firm, which works separately from the DAO even though it is guided by its input, and the governance of the DAO itself combine to reflect an “inside and outside strategy” aimed at getting through to lawmakers. He said he thinks this setup “can be extraordinarily powerful and also induce a certain degree of knowledge transfer.”

According to Yang, most lawmakers still think of crypto as an industry of speculative currency rather than a space with potential for civic innovation. Lobby3 is an attempt to fund advocacy and put the insights of DAO members front and center before lawmakers. 

But more importantly, he says, it’s also an attempt to show them a crypto structure in action — and to turn the medium into the message.