Notes from the Crypto Underground

<p>For two days in a Denver nightclub, blockchain enthusiasts explored the possibilities of a completely new type of organisation. Going to space is only the first step.</p> <p>As the usual crowds of investors and coders descended on downtown for one of the world's largest annual crypto gatherings, a more starry-eyed crowd congregated in the bowels of a cavernous nightclub here to plot the next stage of the techno-revolution.</p> <p>While cryptocurrencies have already threatened to disrupt financial systems, supporters of another blockchain-based innovation want to change the way people do almost everything else: fighting climate change, building infrastructure, preserving historic photographs, and exploring outer space, to name a few of their projects.</p> <p>The Decentralised Autonomous Organisation is their tool. DAOs are mission-driven organisations whose members use blockchain technology (also known as a distributed digital ledger) to raise funds and make decisions collectively online without centralised control. In a nutshell, it's as if an online chatroom were used to run a business.</p> <p>Private businesses, sovereign nations, and most other existing organisations, in their opinion, have little chance in the face of these new groups. While many sceptics believe DAOs will be nothing more than a passing fad — the technology is already vulnerable to hacking and regulatory scrutiny — scepticism was not the order of the day this week in Denver.</p> <p>"DAOs are the future of human coordination," said James Tunningley, a former British diplomat who left his post in Nairobi, Kenya, last year to immerse himself in the world of blockchain.</p> <p>Tunningley was among the hundreds of visitors from all over the world who came to hear talks and party at Temple Night Club, the site of DAODenver on Tuesday and Wednesday. The event was a satellite of ETHDenver 2022, a yearly gathering dedicated to Ethereum, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency network after Bitcoin.</p> <p>"It's such a showcase of what the