MetaMask launches DAO and Token plan, what does it mean?

In the early morning of March 16, Beijing time, Joe Lubin, CEO of Ethereum infrastructure development company ConsenSys, said that MetaMask will soon launch a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The new DAO will not participate in the management of MetaMask, but the DAO will Funding MetaMask's updates will help MetaMask's gradual decentralization development.

DAO will be a new challenge for MetaMask
As a browser extension and mobile application, MetaMask provides global encryption users with keystore, secure login, token wallet and token exchange services, and also has the function of testing Ethereum smart contracts, supports the most comprehensive Dapps, can interact with Hardware wallet Ledger and Trezor compatible. These advantages make MetaMask the most popular crypto wallet and the most important infrastructure for Web3.

In a statement, ConsenSys said: "MetaMask now has over 30 million monthly active users, a 42% increase over the past four months. The global user base relies on MetaMask to mint and store NFTs, join DAOs, and participate in DeFi protocols. U.S., The Philippines, Brazil, Germany and Nigeria are the most active markets for MetaMask.”

This time, MetaMask’s decision to launch a DAO also indicated its readiness to decentralize power and allow users to participate in governance and voting. Jacobc, head of operations at MetaMask at last month's Ethereum Denver conference, further confirmed the idea: "We strongly believe in progressive decentralization and do it in a meaningful way over time — and Do it without grabbing cash,"

The encryption field has been pursuing "decentralization", but we can't deny that the initial team formation and project development started from "centralization". And "decentralization" is realized in the gradual development process. The development and improvement of products and the stable use of users provide a strong guarantee for "decentralization". In this process, the team can gradually withdraw power and hand over responsibility to users to achieve the form of DAO.

MetaMask has experienced massive growth over the years, expanding its services. It's not just the number of its users that has surged, but its revenue has also soared. In October 2020, the team launched the "Swap" feature and charged 0.875% of the transaction volume as a fee, a move that also brought MetaMask's revenue to $200 million in 2021.

These advantages of MetaMask also allow it to survive the high-speed changes in 2021 and maintain its leading position. At this time, the launch of DAO is also the beginning of its adaptation to the new environment and acceptance of new challenges.

MetaMask plans to issue tokens


The governance of the DAO allows users to be compensated through tokens, and decisions on protocol changes and treasury allocations also require tokens to be voted on. Therefore, it is inevitable that MetaMask will issue tokens after DAO is launched. Joe Lubin, CEO of ConsenSys, also confirmed that MetaMask intends to release the token.

However, Jacobc, head of operations at MetaMask, sought to temper expectations for the event, saying: “It’s not something we need to take a risk, nor do we want to keep our project in regulation or hand over governance to “airdrop farmers.”

In fact, MetaMask has been rumored to issue tokens earlier. Erik Marks, a senior software engineer at MetaMask, once said that MetaMask is open to token issuance and airdrops, but the team does not want to create tokens without use cases, so there is no immediate issue. plan.

But now it seems that MetaMask's launch of DAO can apply tokens to more use cases, and issuing tokens will also generate more value capture.

For ordinary users, the potential airdrop opportunity will increase the usage of MetaMask by the "Web3 population". If the airdrop details are as speculated by the masses, the crypto world may usher in the largest (and most decentralized) airdrop.