FAQs

Collection of AMA and community questions

WHO…

Who is OpenDAO?

We (Moresh and Sean - Founders) have backgrounds in real estate finance - development finance in particular. The rest of our team is spread across the globe, helping us to build the community that will be the engine of OpenDAO in the future. We started OpenDAO originally because crypto and defi seemed like a good way to widen the investment distribution for real estate specifically, but the project gradually expanded. Now, it has morphed into a much bigger project than what we originally had in mind - a protocol for interfacing multiple real world assets with DeFi.

Who are your non-crypto partners?

We deal with property developers, real estate financiers, small and large funds, brokers, real world lenders and so on. In fact, this project actually came out of those real world firms and enterprises!

Has OpenDAO been audited?

We have another one in progress for USDO once it moves on to it’s next version. Currently, the minter is a fork of Compound V2, which itself has been audited and performance also speaks for itself.

WHAT…

What is OpenDAO’s APPROACH?

OpenDAO originally developed 3 protocols, which when used together, would allow real-world assets to be utilised by DeFi in a meaningful manner.

These are: ● Cash Box + Open Stake - How we provide on-chain liquidity against off-chain assets and handle off-chain enforcement. ● USD OPEN Stablecoin (USDO) - How real world assets can serve as collateral to mint a stablecoin. ● Open Market (OPM) - How users can lend against real world assets for a stable and high return, and conversely, how borrowers can utilise their real world assets as collateral. As you may have noticed, some of our ideas have been ‘co-opted’ by the Omni Consumer Protocols team, and there are more than three 'prongs' to the system now. We are happy to be coordinating with the brilliant team there to complete our goals! Just a little further…

What does OpenDAO have happening in the NEAR FUTURE?

Real Estate NFTs and we are exploring many other applications for NFTs that we don’t want to spill the beans on too early, but think about art or corn… HAHA!

Also, we’re looking at increasing our ability to onboard and offboard assets, and should see some major utility in that department soon. Aside from that, we’re looking at adding more quality assets in the short mid and long terms.

Lastly, we can look forward to the handover of admin control from the core DAO team members to the community, and further decentralization efforts. Let us know what you’d like to see!

What are your long term goals and plans for adoption?

Our goal is to become the largest stablecoin in circulation in a few years time. Unlike USDT, the OpenDAO stable coin will be backed by a pool of productive assets, from crypto to tokenised real world assets.

We aim to have billions of real estate tokenised and onboarded for use both within our protocols as well as other DeFi protocols. The existence of our protocol will transform real estate finance entirely, and we expect there to be 'secondary effects' that impact other industries in a similar manner.

What is the incentive for holding OPEN tokens long term?

Those who understand the market cap opportunity of what we're tackling will want to hold long term. We only have 100M supply after all, and we are working with potentially trillions in assets.

That being said, it will be harder to get OPEN tokens in the near future, as incentives will be sold to prevent dumping and create more scarcity. Farming with OPEN can be very lucrative, and claiming ownership of a promising company on the cutting edge of FinTech? If that doesn’t scream ‘value,’ I don’t know what else does.

What is the purpose of USDO?

The purpose of USDO is to create an easy on ramp for anyone with real world assets to approach us and mint it on demand (provided collateral benchmarks are met.)

The frictionless connection to these real-world assets will facilitate mass adoption as the ways for funding projects, both on an individual and corporate scale, will be revolutionized.

WHAT are RISKS of beng COUNTERPARTY to REAL ESTATE?

Worst case scenario is you’re holding the asset token, which can be redeemed for the underlying shares of the AREIT.

Now if there’s another black swan event, where say commercial real estate in Australia dips a further 20%, then technically your portfolio is worth 20% less.

WHAT ARE THE AREIT DETAILS?

You can see those here! https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmZFNvPYgTq7XcKgNNXFRYbiTBM4Z4ZMRK7QuqYfzhUGpR/AREIT%20Information%20Memorandum%20October%202020.pdf

What is the LIQUIDATION RATE on LOANS?

Liquidation rate depends on the collateral type, but will be similar to current trends in the space. real estate is usually 65% - 80 % LVR (Loan-to-Value Ratio). It is the inverse of collateralization ratio. Regarding stocks, it depends on specific stocks - it starts at 30%, avg 50%, max 80-90% for blue chip.

WHY…

Why is OpenDAO called OpenDAO?

We don't really get to choose where we are born... However, our life outcomes are often dictated by it. Access to opportunities is islanded, and so is access to capital for good value-creating projects. Unfortunately, we are all a victim of these outcomes that we have no control over.

Defi meaningfully promises to change that by opening up barriers to opportunity that has traditionally been reserved for the wealthy who were born in the right places…

OpenDAO takes this goal further by meaningfully expanding the reach of DEFI beyond zero-sum “winner takes all” games. OpenDAO is called OpenDAO because the project opens up access to value, opens new opportunities, breaks open the barriers to entry for opportunities.

Why is OpenDAO better than other projects?

Exposure to real world assets. And we're not just talking about it - it's already in progress. I've already mentioned the stocks and gigantic amounts of capital that OpenDAO will be the point of interchange - Long term investors, inside and outside of crypto, have already noticed this value proposition and our forecast predicts a steady inflow of capital.This exposure allows OpenDAO to offer high stable APY to lenders through it's platforms, and will be one of the features that allows OpenDAO to create passive income for users - far and away the best option the market has seen.

APY from yield farming exceeds 200%. Last, but not least, can you imagine a stable coin that is backed by REAL TANGIBLE assets? Let that sink in. No more stable coins backed by assumptions.

How…

How did this project get started?

We (Moresh and Sean - Founders) have backgrounds in real estate finance - development finance in particular. We were always struggling to reach more investors, as the project sizes are massive. The returns were good, but filling the deals was hard.

Crypto and defi seemed like a good way to widen the investment distribution for real estate specifically, but the project gradually expanded. Now, it has morphed into a much bigger project than what we originally had in mind - a protocol for interfacing multiple real world assets with DeFi.

How is OpenDAO better than other projects?

When it comes to legitimate projects with strong fundamentals, it is hard to say ‘better’ or ‘worse’, but we can make some fair comparisons: --- Compared to other projects that are tokenizing non-cryptocurrency assets, OpenDAO specializes more in off-chain assets, namely seamless access to real estate and stocks.

Compared to DAI, OpenDAO’s USDO uses a different code for maintaining its peg, but it will be backed by real world assets.

The MAJOR difference between OpenDAO and other market players is that OpenDAO has figured out how to achieve enforcement against offchain defaults in a seamless manner, thus truly linking real world assets with the digital permissionlessly - that, I believe, is our biggest value proposition.

How do you value real-world assets?

Different assets will have different valuation methods. Stocks for example are easily valued because of liquidity, and can be executed via APIs. Real estate also has standardized valuation methods, which our off-chain enforcement partners/lenders will utilise at the tokenisation step. All of this comes together to make the crypto-user’s experience more or less seamless.

How do you enforce and maintain security of off-chain assets?

The Golden Question!

Technically, these are not synthetics like they are on Synthetix, but they represent true assets in the real world.

Let me give you an example of how this would work in practice: Some of you might be aware of realt.co which is a property fractionalization platform where property is tokenized in the form of ERC20 and investors get the ERC20. This is an investment in a fund and people are getting shares, those who hold the ERC20 are essentially partial owners of the fund that owns the property. With a charge, in the form of a mortgage on the property, estate baron and konkrete did something similar as well - this is so someone cannot just sell the property.

Typically, if you are an investor in these funds, and you have an ERC20 that represents a property fraction, you can come to the OPM and borrow against it; the real world interfacing is happening via 3rd parties with proper legals, but beyond that if someone who borrows on the OPM using their property fraction collateral and does not pay, then liquidation occurs - similar to Compound. The liquidator now has the original collateral, and they can approach realt.co and get his ownership, however we are adding an essential interface step in between so the liquidator does not even have to worry about that whole process and simply gets cash in the form of stable coins… Seamless!

Detailed here: https://medium.com/opendao/opendao-universal-real-world-asset-enforcement-and-liquidation-protocol-def108090140

How will OpenDAO aid in the mass adoption of cryptocurrency?

I think DeFi has proven that liquidity will find good opportunities. Our job is really to bring more quality assets to DeFi, so the ecosystem can utilise these assets to grow, rather than onboard non-crypto people into DeFi.

I believe over time more and more people will naturally get into crypto, and there are some other great projects tackling this issue, including a few of our asset partners...

How can REAL ESTATE OWNER TOKENISE their ASSETS?

Firstly, we need to establish that the tokenisation step is not something that OpenDAO will do directly, but instead we’ll be working with tokenisation / STO platforms to do this. Also, the advent of NFTs has sped up this process considerably, and we should have some ‘industry-rattling’ announcements in this regard shortly… a few of them.

Secondly, at least initially, we will be working with 3rd party lenders such as private lenders to property developers in the real world who will be undertaking any enforcement actions. Our role will be primarily to provide the funds for these lenders, so think of lenders on the OpenDAO as the line of credit to these real world lenders.

Over time, once there is enough distribution on the platform, individuals with real estate assets can come directly to the platform to access funding, however that’s a little while off at this stage.

How do we know that the OpenDAO team will not Rug Pull?

Rug pulls usually happen with anon teams. Secondly, they are also common with fly by night operators who cook up an idea overnight and try to maximize their gains before everyone realizes how worthless the concept is. We have the tokens locked, and we are doxxed, but let's be frank - it's a wild world out there, and it's hard to trust anyone:

Don't trust us! Trust the code!

Team Token Lock: https://shorturl.at/hxBEO Token Lock Transaction: https://shorturl.at/mpBW2

OpenDAO has been an idea in formation since 2015, back in our (Sean and Moresh’s) equity crowdfunding days... Perhaps this is a little shocking, but instead of saying "Trust us!" I will say "Trust human nature" and watch us act in our own self interest just like everyone else!

Our self interest is best served by maximizing the potential of this project.