There are times when web3 is reminiscent of a dystopian landscape - a wasteland of failed projects with communities left pulling themselves out of the rubble. The world is a volatile place and we’re made to believe that we have to continue playing zero-sum games in order to survive. But amidst the chaos, a squad has risen from the settling dust to build us a safe haven, a place to call home. A new, revolutionary domain to forge sustainable positive-sum communities for future generations to come. That’s right, I’m talking about Silo, the post-apocalyptic refuge for crypto-anarchists and cyberpunks alike. And this squad? They are a gritty outfit of rebels that have navigated through the most barren of lands, while overcoming countless conflicts, and avoiding total annihilation. Only to emerge on the other side with tools sharpened and many difficult learnings acquired.

Through those learnings the squad now lives by three principles:

1. We win together, or we lose together.

2. Self-sovereignty is a right, not a privilege.

3. Protect the Silos at all costs.

Now follow along as we journey into the depths of the silos to uncover the inner workings of the infrastructure and ideologies on which this haus is being built.

Sticking to their principles, the squad incorporated three primary elements into SIlo that enable communities to create positive-sum outcomes for themselves:

1. A custom launchpad to easily deploy shared treasury initiatives on DAOhaus.

2. The ability to crowdfund by selling custom ERC6551 NFTs memberships.

3. Automated strategies that instantly zap the raised funds into DeFi positions.

The main premise of Silo is to create long term sustainable microeconomies for protocols and projects. Sustainability is achieved through coordination on the participation layer - those who hold tokens, use the products, engage in the community. The idea is to encourage positive-sum games within these groups, where the outcomes benefit everyone.

Typically, both fungible and nonfungible token strategies follow the same old pattern. There's a bunch of initial hype, people join in hopes that it’s going to the moon, the token pumps, then some of the larger holders tend to dump. It's basic degen ponzinomics shit. There's always going to be someone left holding the bag, and unfortunately it’s usually the little guys who make up majority of the community. With Silo this pattern drastically changes.

Various protocols and projects can now implement more stable and secure financial structures for their communities through the use of siloDAOs. Crowdfund multiplayer DeFi strategies and streamline onboarding via ERC6551 NFT DAO membership sales. Funds from the sales are then instantly zapped into locked DeFi positions (liquidity positions, vote escrow tokens, liquid staking derivatives, etc.). The NFTs are freely tradable on secondary markets and are always backed by the DAOs locked DeFi positions, creating a fluid membership experience and a stable market.Two major problems are being solved here:

1. Token volatility

2. Zero-sum communities

To highlight the solutions:

1. Project tokens are siloed within the DAO’s locked DeFi positions, creating a stable market.

2. Every single NFT holder is in it together, with peace of mind knowing their NFTs always retain inherent value as a proportional representation of those shared DeFi positions.

There are a plethora of other solutions this system enables, but we’ll get to those later. Now that you have a basic understanding of the Silo fundamentals, let’s get into the nitty gritty of how it all really works.

Launchpad

To understand the sheer power and capabilities of the Silo Launchpad, you must first understand Moloch. Named after the demon god of coordination failure, Moloch is a governance framework designed to slay the very demon from which its name is derived. With a dual token model, ability to RageQuit shared treasuries built on Safe, and proposal tools for voting on simple to complex transactions, Moloch enables robust coordination tools for multiplayer experiences.

Then in comes the hard hitting team DAOhaus, who has built badass tools and interfaces on top of Moloch. The DAOhaus Protocol provides the decentralized infrastructure to streamline development on Moloch with their SDK. The DAOhaus team has been experimenting and iterating for years, shaping their products into lean, efficient, and effective governance solutions.

It’s through Moloch contracts and the DAOhaus protocol that Silo is possible. And I’m sure at this point you’re wondering what the hell this launchpad will actually be capable of. Without going too deep on all of the technical features, let’s just provide a high-level overview of what’s to be expected:

• Fully on-chain DAOs, deployable on several EVM compatible networks.

• No coding required, but is optional for more advanced players.

• Composable governance structures to meet specific requirements.

• Shared treasuries + as many side vaults as needed, all built on Safe.

• Plethora of proposal types for treasury management, from simple to complex.

• Crowdfunding via ERC6551 NFT membership sales directly from the DAO.

• Importable custom designs and contracts for your NFT collections.

• Instantly zap funds from the NFT sales into various DeFi positions.

• Interoperable with just about any protocol or tool via Shaman technology.

• In-haus service providers for all additional design, development, operations, and strategy needs.

siloNFTs (ERC6551)

siloNFTs are the standard from which all siloDAO NFT collections are created. Leveraging the ERC6651 token standard, siloNFTs provide holders with a highly portable governance and value accrual mechanism that is freely tradable on secondary markets. siloNFTs control smart contract accounts that can store and manage anything a normal wallet can.

When a new DAO is launched from Silo, it can then natively host an NFT sale to onboard its members. As the NFTs are sold, they are automatically allocated nontransferable DAO tokens into their smart accounts, providing governance and economic rights to the holders. Each NFT then acts as a silo for their DAO tokens, hence siloNFTs. There are now many interesting patterns that can emerge from a technical, economic, social and governance perspective.

As portable and tradable storage units, siloNFTs create a really unique speculation game. Protocol and project microeconomies can now remain stable, while the NFT holders can still freely trade on secondaries without directly impacting the DeFi token strategies managed by the DAO. Taking into consideration that the funds from the NFT sales undergo automated zaps into DeFi positions, the NFTs themselves hold inherent value from the moment they’re minted. And they will continuously accrue value from the yield generated by those positions, creating stability for the NFT market as well.

Every siloDAO can customize their NFT collections and start a sale in a few clicks by simply importing a premade design and setting sale parameters. siloDAOs can also use their own ERC721 token contracts to offer uniquely identifiable DAO memberships for communities through generative and 1:1 PFP collections. By offering unique PFP collections for DAO members to identify with, they will generally be more likely to hold long term and publicly promote it.

There’s clearly a lot of potential with siloNFTs. Let’s highlight all the features covered from above:

• DAO memberships with governance and economics rights.

• Social identities for DAO members.

• Portable, value accruing storage units for holders.

• Inherent value through nontransferable DAO tokens.

• Proportional representations of DeFi positions.

• Freely tradable for fluid DAO memberships.

• Enables speculation without directly affecting the DAO’s DeFi positions.

Get Zapped!

We’ve went over a lot so far. From the Silo ethos to launching a DAO, and the awesome capabilities of siloNFTs, and now it all leads to the super powers of zaps. It’s been mentioned that funds from the NFT membership sales can be instantly zapped into liquidity positions, vote escrow tokens, liquid staking derivatives, etc. all managed by a siloDAO. What hasn’t been said, is how these zaps are managed and what kind of patterns they create.

First, let’s paint a picture. Zaps will eventually have their own marketplace in the SiloHub, and act as a sort of plugin, or Boost, to give DAOs super powers. In the beginning, Silo will develop several of these Boosts to bootstrap the marketplace, with plans to enable developers to build and sell their own Boosts. Using the DAOhaus SDK and Shamans, developers will have all the tools needed at their disposal. DAOs will also be able to request custom Boosts through the SiloHub to meet their specific needs.

Now that the potential power and scale of these zaps have been explained, let’s breakdown management and patterns a bit. When it comes to management, the objective of the game is to create a flywheel effect so that the DAO’s DeFi positions are continuously compounding on itself. Essentially, this is achieved by creating a strategy that generates yield through fees, emissions, rewards, bribes, etc. Then take that yield and compound it to grow the positions. By doing so, all of the siloNFTs for a given DAO strategy will be constantly accruing value. As proportional representations of DeFi positions, there are a few ways to manage value accrual for siloNFTs:

1. Let the DAO manage the flywheel by restaking/locking yield via proposals.

2. Automate the flywheel to continuously zap based on some logic.

3. Split a % of the yield to accrue in the DAO treasury.

4. Split a % of the yield to accrue directly into the siloNFTs.

5. Variations of all/any of the above.

Zap patterns are what determines the overall strategy and success for a DAO. Depending on what a DAO is trying to achieve will ultimately impact a pattern’s design. Patterns can be as simple as zapping into a standard LP position, or as complex as splitting funds into LPs, vote escrows, and bribes. The latter is an example of how to create a sustainable flywheel effect on a platform like Velodrome or Balancer. There are endless possibilities when it comes to designing patterns though, only limited by one’s imagination. Just about any protocol, app, or tool can be integrated to meet a DAO’s needs.

Patterns can include but are not limited to:

• Liquidity positions

• Vote escrow tokens

• Liquid staking derivatives

• Lending protocols

• Leverage trading

• Automated compounding

• Diversification strategies

• Swap/trade strategies

• Other types of token escrows/staking

Stay tuned for an article that will be going deep on Silo Patterns.

Join the Squad

As we make our way back out of the silos, just remember that the dust is still settling. The very foundation on which we build is not yet stable. The air and surrounding elements are still volatile. If we’re to learn, build, and grow from the wasteland of failed projects, we need to stick together. A few squad members may have found this refuge within Silo, but it will take a community of skilled warriors, operators, and technicians to make it truly sustainable. We’re only just getting started and there’s a big vision to fulfill. If you find yourself aligned with our ethos, our principles, our objectives, then strap on your boots, sharpen your tools, and join our mission.

- The Silo Squad