Eigen LabsResearcher Says DAOs Will 100x as AI Crushes Software Costs

Constructing a software program product used to price round $215,000. Immediately, with AI instruments, that quantity has dropped to underneath $450. That hole is precisely why one professional believes DAOs are about to take off.

Kydo, a researcher at Eigen Labs, shared an in depth breakdown on X explaining why DAOs are not only a governance experiment. His argument is easy: AI has made constructing software program so low-cost that the price of establishing an organization now issues greater than the price of constructing the product itself.

The Numbers Behind the Shift

In a conventional setup, hiring one software program engineer for 12 months prices roughly $200,000. Add $15,000 for authorized and LLC formation, and also you’re about $215,000 to get an MVP off the bottom.

With AI instruments like Claude Code and Opus, a single builder can now ship a working product for round $200. Establishing a DAO prices $50 to $250. Complete: underneath $450.

“That’s not a marginal enchancment. That’s a structural inversion,” Kydo wrote.

When constructing was costly, no one cared that an LLC price $15,000. It was a rounding error. Now that AI has pushed manufacturing prices close to zero, that $15,000 is the most important expense on the desk. DAOs, at a fraction of that price, immediately have an actual benefit.

The Previous Pitch vs the New Pitch

DAOs have been all the time offered on ideology: decentralization, group possession, censorship resistance. Kydo argues these concepts alone have been by no means sufficient to justify the friction of working and not using a conventional firm.

The brand new case for DAOs is solely financial. And financial arguments, as he put it, “scale.”

He backed this up with actual examples. Nouns DAO hit a treasury value over $50 million with none company entity behind it. Botto, an AI-generated artwork collective, used a DAO to let group members direct an autonomous artist and share within the earnings.

What This Means for Solo Crypto Builders

Kydo highlighted an issue many builders already know too properly. Constructing is now low-cost. Getting distribution and funding just isn’t.

A working app constructed for $200 and not using a group behind it’s only a aspect venture. Add a DAO with a token and aligned contributors, and it turns into what Kydo calls “an financial organism.”

He additionally confirmed that Eigen Labs is engaged on options to make tokens “truly personal and imply one thing, not this speculative fluffy factor that we now have presently.”

Not Everybody Agrees

Crypto lawyer Gabriel Shapiro responded, arguing that regulation, not prices, is the true purpose DAOs haven’t taken off as fundraising automobiles.

Kydo pushed again: “crypto by no means had a lot reg readability but it surely didn’t cease tokens and firms making 100s of billions right here.”