The DisCO Manifesto is a deep dive into the world of Distributed Cooperative Organizations.

There are lots of ways to build and reimagine collective power, but one of the ones that has most intrigued us are DAOs–Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. DAOs promise, via smart contracts and blockchain technologies, to enable decentralized ownership and governance at scale – pretty exciting stuff! And while the hype around DAOs is huge, the reality is still to be determined. We have concerns about the ways this ecosystem is shaping up, and in particular the threats of replicating the same inequities on the blockchain that exist in other parts of society and the economy today. 

And yet, the promise is real! That’s why we were so excited to stumble upon DisCO.coop and The DisCO Manifesto, which names DAOs’ challenges with clear eyes, yet shares a vision for ways to leverage that technology and combine it with tried and true cooperative practices in ways that enable shared ownership and governance at scale. It’s a heady, visionary, and joyful examination of the opportunities DisCOs offer to reimagine shared ownership and governance, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it.