What the heck are the OpenDAO and its SOS token?

Late last week, a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called the OpenDAO suddenly emerged to distribute free tokens to users of OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace.

According to its website, the goal of the OpenDAO (not to be confused with a stablecoin minting protocol by the same name) and its SOS token is "to pay tribute, to protect, to promote" the NFT community. 

Specifically, anyone who has transacted on OpenSea before December 23 can claim free SOS tokens via the airdrop. All they have to do is connect a wallet like MetaMask to the OpenDAO website, estimate their rewards based on the total number of transactions and dollars spent on OpenSea, and initiate their claim for free tokens.

The total number of transactions has 30% weight, and transaction volume in ETH, DAI, and USDC has 70% weight for token distribution, according to the OpenDAO's website. That means the more money spent on transactions, the more SOS tokens one would get.

The total supply of SOS tokens is 100 trillion, and 50% of it will be airdropped to OpenSea users. From the rest 50%, 20% will be kept for the DAO itself, 20% for staking incentives, and 10% for liquidity provider incentives, the website says. 

OpenSea users have until June 30, 2022, to claim their tokens, after which any remaining tokens will be sent to the DAO's treasury. 

OpenDAO says it will use its 20% share to compensate verified scam victims on OpenSea, support artists and NFT communities, and provide grants to developers. 

Over 200,000 users have already claimed nearly 39 trillion SOS tokens, an amount currently worth almost $265 million. The SOS token has already been listed on major crypto exchanges, such as OKEx and Huobi. It is currently trading at $0.00000680.  

Who is behind the OpenDAO?

While the SOS airdrop is for OpenSea users, the marketplace itself doesn't have anything to do with the distribution.

"We're getting a lot of questions and want to clarify that we are not involved with the SOS drop," OpenSea tweeted on Saturday. "We love seeing the community find creative ways to drive the space forward, but we always recommend researching the contract and the source before claiming tokens."

It is not clear who founded the OpenDAO, but its core contributor is the anonymous user @9x9x9eth, according to OpenDAO's Twitter bio. Within four days of its Twitter presence, the OpenDAO account has gained nearly 125,000 followers, and @9x9x9eth has amassed almost 45,000 followers since joining Twitter in September 2021. 

@9x9x9eth is also the core contributor of 721DAO, which is aiming to create a decentralized entertainment metaverse. The Block reached out to @9x9x9eth for comments on this story, but they did not respond before press time.