Meet TemDAO: Cultural Heritage Preservation Through DAOs and Blockchain

The blockchain has introduced several use cases to the Web3 community through the use of smart contracts. One of them is the purposeful, coordinated, transparent, and structured corporation of people of like minds with a clear objective and common goal of global inclusion and acceptance. These organizations are called Decentralized Autonomous Organizations or DAOs, and they are one of the most popular concepts in the blockchain space. According to DeepDAO DAOfeed, there are 11,157 DAOs across all of the industry's active blockchains.

Some of the benefits of DAOs include easy global outreach to a larger community, encouraging community involvement and engagement, sharing the organization's stake, accelerating the organization's advancement, creating a democratic environment, and so on. These numerous benefits, applications, and use cases of DAOs have made the creation of DAOs possible in almost all fields and industries.

An Uncharted Territory

DAO creation is still relatively uncommon in some industries and market segments. One example is the field of Cultural Heritage Preservation, in which there is potential for the blockchain to be used to solve some of the challenges it’s facing.

Only a few DAOs with the primary objective of collecting and developing Cultural Assets (also referred to as Cultural Intellectual Property) and World Heritages have been established within the blockchain space.

An example of such DAOs is PleasrDAO, a group of DeFi pioneers, early NFT collectors, and digital artists who have built a formidable yet benevolent reputation for acquiring culturally significant pieces with a charitable twist. Among their collection is the single copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. A legendary, recognizable, and historic piece of physical music, the two-CD, 31-track album had previously remained unwrapped in private hands.

Another illustration is CityDAO, a DAO researching on-chain decentralized asset ownership. They are digitizing physical assets and democratizing DAO access to create a decentralized city on the blockchain. A piece of land in Blanca, Spain, and Parcel Zero in Wyoming, USA, are among their assets.

These DAOs are collectively categorized as collector DAOs, a type of DAO that pools funds from members to buy, sell and issue NFTs for a specific purpose, which could be anything the DAO decides, depending on the item purchased. However, these DAOs are not primarily responsible or mandated for protecting, maintaining, and developing the cultural assets or world heritages they buy. These assets and historical places preserve a wealth of histories occasionally regarded as the apex of human ingenuity and contain distinctive cultures that have long ago disappeared.

A new DAO that mainly focuses on these areas has emerged for the greater good of these assets and everyone associated with them, owing to the dangers and risks they face when neglected.

Introducing TemDAO

TemDAO is a decentralized membership organization that supports the preservation, expansion, and development of Cultural Intellectual Properties or CIPs and World Heritage sites. They aim to promote collective and transparent advancement and conservation of the world's cultural and heritage resources.

A World Heritage site is any place on Earth, natural or artificial, that has been recognized for its exceptional universal value and deserves special protection so that present and future generations can appreciate and enjoy it. The World Heritage Convention, an organization of UNESCO, nominates and designates these sites. Examples include Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji, and Otsu Cities), Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama in Japan, the Ninna-ji Temple in northern Kyoto, Japan, etc.

The primary stakeholders who should be the main beneficiaries of the present World Heritage and Cultural Assets, such as tourists, communities connected to the sites, and researchers of culture, history, and architecture, suffer greatly from the severe constraints and inefficiencies of the current preservation frameworks in which these assets operate.

On the other hand, Cultural Intellectual Property (CIP) is the native music, lyrics, skills, costumes, and innovations of a cultural group. It also includes their distinctive artworks and designs, customs and cultural heritages, traditions, and innovations. These groups frequently do not receive credit or financial gain from using these relics, even when others are profiting financially from them, due to the inadequate legal protections afforded to them. They also have little control over how or where these artifacts are used. This exploitation can be upsetting because, for many indigenous people, their identity is closely linked to these traditions.

TemDAO seeks to develop a one-stop-shop platform for protecting cultural and historical properties and offering solutions to these issues by integrating blockchain technology with Cultural Intellectual Properties (CIPs) and building collaborative ecosystems with a DAO structure. It also incorporates several additional mechanisms, such as a data storage and transfer system, a reputation system, and a behavior incentive mechanism to facilitate a better solution. This structure enables parties involved in heritage conservation to work together quickly and transparently to protect and bring priceless cultural assets back to the public's attention.

The Mechanics and Solutions of TemDAO

TemDAO has introduced some creative solutions to address the issues that CIPs and World Heritage Sites face. These mechanisms provide adequate resources, increase exposure, and make processes more efficient so CIPs and World Heritage Conservation projects worldwide can operate more successfully. By doing this, individuals and organizations will be more motivated to support those projects.

These strategies and solutions are grouped into five categories, which are:

1. Crowdfunding,
2. CIP-NFT Marketplace,
3. Information issuing and exchange platform,
4. Resource sharing and exchange platform,
5. and Project operation supervision and audits platform.

1. Crowdfunding Platform

The crowdfunding platform enables reputable teams worldwide to receive funds transparently, empowering them to advance the preservation of cultural assets and world heritage. These funds are also available to local groups responsible for safeguarding, maintaining, and preserving cultural treasures. TemDAO will also provide expert support to teams after the funding round to help them operate more efficiently on a larger scale.

The crowdfunding process starts with a proposal, and once it’s approved, the DAO members or contributors can donate to the project. $TEM, the governance token of TemDAO, can be staked to obtain veTEM, which is used to vote for fundraising proposals of projects.

2. CIP-NFT Marketplace

All Cultural Intellectual Properties (CIPs) and Heritage-related Intellectual Properties can be purchased and sold on the CIP-NFT Marketplace. CIP-NFTs are traditional CIPs that have been transformed into liquid and accessible assets using blockchain's distributed ledger technology (DLT) also known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). CIP-NFTs enable free and open investment, ownership, and transaction of CIPs, and provide better potential for their protection while safeguarding the confidentiality of non-registered CIP.

The marketplace provides teams of Heritage sites with a framework to promote their heritage protection projects, giving them more opportunities to be seen by potential investors and partners who can help advance their projects. As a result, it draws out the financial aspects of projects and gives teams quick financial gain.

3. Information issuing and exchange platform

This is a forum for discussions, sharing information and concepts, and offering ideas and feedback to projects. It is a platform where in-depth conversations can introduce projects to investors or collaborators. Teams can upload documents in PDF format, present their research findings in an associated blog or wiki, and discuss their discoveries in an open and easily accessible forum devoted exclusively to such a purpose.

Participants in the platform's discussions are rewarded with $TEM. Additionally, outstanding questions and answers earn members an extra $TEM reward. This high-incentive structure motivates DAO members to provide sustainable and high-quality contributions. Users will also be rewarded based on their actions and accomplishments using a reputation system that combines their real-life identity, on-chain address, and SBT (Soulbound Token).

4. Resource sharing and exchange platform

This is a resource-sharing platform where members of the DAO can exchange or trade resources like data, equipment, materials, etc. The platform was created to accelerate efforts in World Heritage protection by gathering shared resources and making them available globally. Such an exchange will ensure that a lack of financing, resources, or distribution channels does not limit any heritage protection.

The heritage exchange can be divided into three elements:

• Data exchange layer: Clients specify their available or required data using an API that is ready for querying. Project data is stored using the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).
• On-site exchange layer: Clients submit their heritage site instructions and objectives for conservation. Only tangible items present will be taken into consideration.
• A value exchange layer: Clients must fund the exchange escrow contract with sufficient $TEM to demonstrate their commitment, the trust that will be granted increases with the funds deposited.

5. Project operation supervision and audits platform

This quality-control platform gives an expert evaluation and assessment of projects that TemDAO will accept. The platform is critical in the quality control process for World Heritage projects and CIPs. The accessors are specialists that are incentivized to perform the task. They are referred to as “nodes.” A blockchain-based incentive system that rewards specialists for their efforts and establishes a reputational system for them based on their work is used to assure reliability.

For a node to participate in the project evaluation, $TEM must be deposited. A minimum of three nodes must carry out a project assessment to guarantee an unbiased assignment of votes. Each node must submit a score for the three categories (efficiency, budget, and quality), weighted according to the node's reputation. If the node provides a score similar to the average score, it will receive an extra reward. Every successful audit will raise a node's reputation.

Conclusion

TemDAO is the world’s first heritage protection and development DAO, supporting builders in the CIPs and World Heritage sectors with a range of products and infrastructure. They have developed a collaborative ecosystem that connects top World Heritage and CIP teams to funding, resources, mentorship, a shared network, and a collection of legal and smart contracts for protecting and advancing cultural and historical treasures.

According to UNESCO, some dangers that World Heritage sites and CIPs face include armed conflict and war, earthquakes and other natural disasters, pollution, poaching, uncontrolled urbanization, and unregulated tourist growth. Additionally, there are several challenges to their development and conservation, including centralization and a lack of funding, and their protection models have significant drawbacks and inefficiencies.

TemDAO has created a system that connects the stakeholders of these assets in a decentralized way so that their needs may be met—and promptly, too. TemDAO presents novel approaches to address these issues by utilizing blockchain technology. These structures serve as another instance of how effective DAOs using the blockchain may be.