Foundry: A DAO for Economic Freedom

Foundry is a for-profit DAO that seeks to build and profit from projects and ventures in the blockchain space--specifically, projects that traditional institutions cannot pursue, and which increase financial freedom.

DAO stands for Distributed Autonomous Organization. A DAO is similar in function to a traditional corporation or organization, but instead of being legally constituted, it is built on top of cryptocurrency/blockchain technology (usually Ethereum, as is the case with Foundry). Because a DAO is not a legal entity, it can operate outside all jurisdictions, and it can't be shut down, stopped, or sued by any nation on earth.

Several DAOs already exist. Maker, the system that provides the DAI stablecoin, is a good example. Augur is another. However, these and other DAOs typically focus only on blockchain development, rather than interacting in the "real world".

Foundry's mission is to build technology and tools that increase worldwide financial freedom, especially when those tools are difficult/risky for traditional institutions to build. Our existing two products illustrate this. DAIHard facilitates unstoppable entry and exit into crypto, even in jurisdictions where this is illegal. SmokeSignal facilitates unstoppable and uncensorable chat, and is similarly designed to work even in jurisdictions hostile to free speech.

Foundry's profit motive is based on a simple premise: there is a niche of profitable, ethical, illegal products, which a DAO can pursue with more freedom than traditional corporations or individuals. DAOs are inherently resistant to legal pressure or other bullying and threats, and Foundry is designed to magnify this dynamic; thus it can explore these niches with far lower costs and greater flexibility.

In short, Foundry is expected to build profitable enterprises that are too hot for conventional institutions to build safely, with a philosophical focus on radical freedom for individuals.

Right now, Team Toast manages the Foundry Treasury. Once governance is complete, Foundry will be controlled entirely by FRY holders: they will be responsible for proposing usages of the Foundry Treasury, and responsible for voting in or voting out any such proposal.

Specifically, FRY holders will control Foundry via a Liquid Democracy system. This allows FRY holders the option of voting directly or delegating their voting power to FRY holders they trust. More on this below.

As governance is implemented, Foundry Token (FRY) holders will be able to submit and vote on various "proposals", which if passed, will execute a specific transaction from the Foundry Treasury. This transaction could be a simple payment (such as paying a contractor for an improvement to SmokeSignal) or a more complex transaction involving smart contracts (such as converting half of the DAI treasury to ETH, investing in other DAOs, or creating a Burnable Payment).

Initially, the Foundry Treasury will simply hold all the funds raised by the sale. In addition, Foundry-built products will be designed to capture a profit stream, and this will be directed to the treasury. DAIHard and SmokeSignal already capture and redirect profit in this way.

Foundry may, after its initial presale, enter a "perpetual sale" where FRY tokens will continuously be sold for funds. This would dilute existing holders, but preserve the value of their FRY tokens by pulling in more funds for the additional FRY minted.

A liquid democracy system allows some voters to delegate their votes to other voters. This is similar to having a representative democracy, but with several layers of representation. For example, many of your friends might delegate to you, while you delegate Alice who you met a conference, and Alice delegates to a Bob, a pseudonymous identity with a good online reputation. Now whenever Bob votes, his vote carries the weight of not just his FRY, but also your FRY, your friends' FRY, and Alice's FRY.

In our liquid democracy system, individuals can change their delegation at any time. If you see Bob make a bad vote, you can remove your support immediately. You'll bring your friends' voting weight with you when you do this, and any active proposals Bob has voted on are instantly re-counted to reflect this drop in support, possibly reversing the ultimate pass/fail decision on the proposal.

See our Liquid Democracy whitepaper for an in-depth discussion of the design.

Yep. That's why our token sale is not open to US investors, qualified or otherwise. We block participation from aggressive jurisdictions.

You can head over to sale.foundrydao.com. To participate, you will need a web3 wallet (we recommend Metamask), a small chunk of Ether (ETH) to pay for the gas of the transaction, and however much DAI you want to bid for FRY.

The hard part will be getting crypto of any kind. Typically the easiest route will be to use a cryptocurrency exchange, which you'll have to select based on the country you're in.

Once you have crypto, sites like 1inch.exchange and Changelly will allow you to trade any crypto for DAI and ETH.

The DAI goes into the Foundry Treasurey contract. As described above in Who controls Foundry, initially the Treasury will be owned by a simple multisig controlled by Team Toast. We'll use these funds to iterate SmokeSignal and DAIHard, and develop the Foundry Governance system.

When Foundry Governance is capable of making autonomous, intelligent decisions, it will take over control of these funds. At this point, the only way for anyone to influence usage of the Treasury will be to hold FRY and participate in governance.

Initially, Team Toast is in control of the Treasury, because Foundry is still being built. Ultimately, the Treasury will be control of Foundry Governance (and therefore FRY holders). You're welcome to wait to participate until after Foundry Governance is fully operational and FRY holders have control over the Treasury.

Just under 20 months, ending in Feburary 2022.

60,000,000 will be minted and sold in total--30,000 every 7 hours after launch.

At the end of the sale, there will be 100,000,000 FRY tokens.

After the initial sale, we are considering initiating a perpetual sale. This would dilute FRY tokens at a rate of 5% per year in exchange for new, spendable funds in the treasury.

30,000,000 FRY tokens will go to Team Toast.

10,000,000 FRY tokens will be put in the Foundry Treasury, so governance can onboard long-term talent in exchange for FRY.

The sale has 2000 buckets, each of which will mint and sell 30,000 FRY. The first bucket closed 7 hours after the sale started, the second one 7 hours after that, and so on. Participate at the sale.foundrydao.com.

Once a bucket has concluded, you can withdraw your FRY tokens. The proportion of your DAI to the total DAI entered, is the proportion of the 30,000 FRY you receive. For example, if 1000 DAI total was provided to that bucket, of which you supplied 100 DAI, you will be able to claim 10% of the total 30,000 FRY in the bucket: 3,000 FRY tokens. Thus, for any given bucket, the effective price per FRY increases every time another user enters DAI into that bucket.

Yes.

To incentivize marketers for bringing in participants to the sale and to retain marketing expertise within the FRY token holder group.

10% of the value you enter into any bucket gets entered into the next bucket in your name. So if you are using a referral code when buying 100 DAI in bucket 20, then you will also be credited for 10 DAI in bucket 21.

When someone buys with your referral code, you are credited as if you bought into the next bucket. Your credit in the following bucket starts at 10% and can go as high as 20% of the purchase of the person buying with your referral code. The bonus % is based on the amount of total sales referred with your code; 1% for every 1,000 DAI referred.

For example, if you generate a referral code and share it with someone and that person buys 1,000 DAI in bucket 23, then you will be credited with a sale of 11% (110 DAI) in bucket 24. If someone later buys another 2,000 DAI in bucket 40 with your referral code, then you will be credited with 13% (130 DAI) in bucket 41.

See this tutorial video.