Every Monday night at 5 p.m. I sign in to a private Discord channel and tune in to history in the making. One member a week shares their screen and says, “Here is my entire net worth, how much money I make a month, a breakdown of my expenses, and the complete view of my portfolio, any thoughts?” Over the next hour the attending members on the call give their insight, ask questions, and learn a ton. Talk about vulnerability!
Back in 2020, Eve Wealth started as a few women around the world meeting over Zoom. I honestly don’t remember how I got connected to Alana in the early days, but I do remember sitting in my office with womxn from Australia, New York, etc. discussing finance, business strategies, and investing. Very rapidly, demand grew to join these discussions and we had more and more womxn on the calls. One zoom call turned into multiple “circles”. Alana quickly recognized that womxn were hungry for financial empowerment and peer-to-peer learning in a supportive community.
Fast forward to 2022 and Eve has become the first female wealth DAO. We are a “global community of womxn who share portfolios, co-invest and support each other in self-guided wealth management through peer-to-peer learning. We are redefining what wealth means and who gets to build it.” The members contribute to the DAO’s development and govern the DAO. While Eve Wealth is Alana’s brainchild, and she and Amanda deserve all the credit for getting it up and running, it is now the responsibility of the members to keep building the organization and continue to grow its value in the world.
What the Heck is a DAO?
A Decentralized Autonomous Organization is an organization whose rules and financial transactions are controlled by its members and are maintained on a blockchain. Ownership is represented through NFTs and tokens, which act as access codes and governing rights of the DAO. Tokens are held in a cryptocurrency wallet and can be used as currency for voting power within the DAO.
NFTs
Many people only associate NFTs as collectables, like a piece of art. However, NFTs are primarily a technology and have more use cases than just the collectables market. For example, people are using NFTs as access passes to various organizations around the world. Think of it as a barcode that unlocks your membership access. One comparison that has helped me make sense of it is the example of a gym membership. You have a gym membership but it is the physical card that you scan at the door that gives you access to the gym and all the gym classes. That barcode on your access pass is connected to you and your unique membership. The same idea is relevant for an NFT, except it lives in the digital world and everything it accesses is also in the digital world. And just like a membership card that can unlock different discounts and other perks - holding a membership NFT means the community can send you (commonly known as “airdrop”) different benefits depending on which batch of NFTs you own.
There are various NFTs a member can own being a part of Eve. I received my first NFT by paying a membership fee to join an Eve Wealth Circle. A Circle is a small working group of Eve Wealth members who follow a course journey as a cohort and deep dive into opportunities that emerge from the collective expertise of the group. This master NFT enabled me to begin accessing the channels on discord, courses, and other Eve Wealth content. Subsequent NFTs were acquired as I completed various levels within the discord. For example, sharing my portfolio and completing the DeFi course resulted in a new NFT. Each of these NFTs were the key to opening the “next level” of the financial learning journey.
Tokens
As the website states, “community members earn $EVEW for providing value in a number of ways, including - being active in the chat, attending community calls, hosting events, leading talks or programs, sharing portfolios anonymously, and more.” This means that everyone in the community is literally invested in the community's success and gets to participate in the value we create together. One way I personally have earned tokens is by being “a contributor”. I lead the Impact Investing Channel on Discord. I hold office hours where people can come and discuss impact related finance questions, I post relevant content, and I coordinate guests to come and speak to the group. I also do some other business development type work in which I try to bring in more members or have people sign up for our DeFi course.
$EVEW tokens can also unlock access to the DAO like the NFTs but they are different from NFTs as they hold governing power. One earns tokens by contributing to the DAOs growth and those tokens give you voting rights. Any revenue the DAO generates goes back into the treasury and then token holders vote on how the DAO will reallocate those funds aligned with the goals and priorities of the community. The group could reinvest the funds in more educational content, the podcast, or maybe we could buy the community a private island. Sunny vacation in the Caribbean, anyone?
Creating Access Points into a Digital Future
I knew very little about web3 and defi before joining Eve Wealth and I am still in the early days of my journey. Participation in this community has helped me recognize that there is currently a technological shift happening. Joining a DAO gives me a front row seat to this transition. Decentralized autonomous organizations transition power away from a founder and towards the community. This shift sets the expectation on the community to build what they find most valuable. The technology behind the DAO facilitates this process. Alana sums up its impact best when stating that “blockchain technology (NFTs, Tokens) are creating new ways of organizing across borders, beliefs and banking systems. Eve is an organizer and access point. We bring together people and information - motivating people to bring best practices and share. In some ways we are doing our own research and creating a community space to benefit from that research. Then we create a container - through our discord and voting - to organize that information so others can benefit in their wealth journey.”
Are you excited to build your wealth journey alongside a group of diverse womxn around the world? We would love to have you! For more information visit Eve’s website here.