In 2021, a group of talented creatives came together. At first they were 10 in number: 4156, 9999, Dev Carrot, Dom, Gremplin, Kai of eBoy, Seneca, Solimander, Timpers, and Vape Ape.
These became the "Nounders," and together they created Nouns DAO. The pixel art was (and still is) a marvel in its own right, and the smart contracts can fairly be described as wonders of creative engineering.
The mission wasn't to make a ton of ETH through a simple NFT drop. The Nounders wanted to make a headless movement, underpinned by the CC0 Nouns art and daily avatar auctions, that would fund creative experiments that most other projects would overlook.
The vision became solidified in a motto: One Noun, every day, forever.
For nearly 5 years, this Nouns vision hummed along and attracted a tight-knit community of dreamers from around the world.
And while there's no question the DAO has been atrophying over the past year or so as a small group of whales have assumed dominance within it, its grassroots accomplishments to date are varied and the kind of stuff worth being proud of. For example, the Nouns have:
• Innovated the first DAO-native version of forking (Nouns Fork)
I'm glossing over many creative experiments, but you get the idea. In their prime, the Nouns would back the artistic, the charitable, the overlooked, the weird. And they did so out of a spirit of love and play, celebrating collaboration instead of worshipping profits.
In these ways, the Nouns have always been one of a kind in crypto, and crypto has been a better place with the Nouns around. I recognized this magic early on and have been writing on the group as something of an unofficial historian since they first launched.
Against this backdrop, it's with a strong sense of personal sadness that I relay the news that Nouns governance has finally been captured by that aforementioned handful of whales.
Mike Good, who I've followed for years and is an impeccable long-time Nounish community member, sounded the alarm on X yesterday. The barbarians are no longer at the gates; they have assumed control of the palace.
To make a long story short, a small coalition of anons have 1) accumulated enough Nouns to pass proposals unilaterally and 2) abstained from DAO governance for months to stall organic community proposals.