Preventing DAO Governance Attacks + Building a Music DAO and AI Agent Legal Entities (with Zaal / Better Call Zaal)

Adam Miller hosts Just DAO It and interviews Zaal (“Better Call Zaal”), founder of the ZAO, an on-chain music community incubator aiming to return profit-margin data and IP rights to independent artists. They discuss BonqDAO’s low-turnout governance “apathy attack” and mitigations like security councils, timelocks, and ZAO’s illiquid, soulbound “respect” governance tokens with extended voting/veto periods. The episode covers ENS’s newly adopted security council, Cardano and Solana governance updates, MetaDAO’s ownership coins and futarchy, Lido’s restructuring, and Arbitrum revenue sharing. Regulatory news includes the U.S. CLARITY Act ethics dispute and SEC safe-harbor proposals. In AI agent news, Adam critiques early agent hype and highlights emerging legal structures (Marshall Islands, Delaware draft, Bermuda). Zaal explains ZAO’s reputation-based governance, Wave Wars live-traded music battles that pay artists, upcoming ZAOstock in Maine, and plans for a community-weighted AI agent (“XOL/Zol Bot”) to manage funds via a legal entity.

00:00 Welcome and Introductions
01:11 BonqDAO Governance Attack
03:11 ZAO Defense Mechanisms
04:43 ENS Security Council Update
07:10 Governance Rapid Fire
11:58 Regulatory CLARITY Act
14:17 AI Agent News and Reality Check
19:03 Break and MIDAO Guide
19:47 Zaal Origin Story
21:21 Why Blockchain Matters
23:43 Inside the ZAO Respect System
25:32 Reputation Voting Challenges
30:10 Progress and Community Metrics
31:46 Wave Wars Explained
35:24 ZAO Festivals and ZAOstock
37:06 AI Agent Legal Entity Plans
40:01 Where to Find Zaal and Wrap Up

Contact / Links:
Zaal (Farcaster): zaal
Zaal (X): @bettercallzaal
Zaal (Email): info@thezao.com
Wave Wars: https://wavewarz.com
Adam (X): @0xthriller
Adam (Farcaster): The Thriller
MIDAO (X): @MIDAODS
MIDAO: https://midao.org
AI Agent incorporation guide: https://midao.org/guides

In this episode of Just DAO It!, host Adam Miller (CEO of MIDAO) sits down with Alex Soto (@alexsotodigital), a Mexico-based governance facilitator and author of "The Minimum Viable Institution: A Lightweight Coordination Model for DAOs and Purpose-Driven Networks."

In the news report, they break down:

• The ENS DAO "2026 governance crisis" — treasury fights, resignations, and whether founder voting power amounts to a veto
• The Ethereum Foundation's major reorg, layoffs, and shift toward EthLabs and a multi-org ecosystem
• Regulatory updates: the U.S. CLARITY Act and its "ethics clause," Europe's MiCA deadline, USDT vs. USDC compliance, and evolving SEC decentralization rules

In the interview, Alex shares his vision for the future of DAOs:

• Why good governance shouldn't require a benevolent founder — it should be designed to constrain power
• The critical difference between governance/meta-governance and day-to-day operations
• Separating capital from governance power ("raise money without giving power away")
• Role-based models, sociocracy, and holacracy as battle-tested alternatives to token voting
• Why he doesn't believe in progressive decentralization — start small and decentralized, then grow
• The role of AI agents and smart contracts in maintaining coordination, accountability, and institutional memory

A wide-ranging conversation on coordination without subordination, capture resistance, and why "DAOs aren't dead — they haven't even arrived yet."

Alex helps mission-driven organizations turn coordination challenges, disagreement, and distributed work into governance systems, shared practices, clearer decisions, and institutional learning loops.

Find Alex: @alexsotodigital on all platforms | alexsotodigital.eth.limo
Find MIDAO: @midaods | midao.org

Disclaimer: Not legal or tax advice.

Just DAO It | Ep. 2 — Kenny from poidh.xyz on Bounties, DAOs & AI Agents

Adam Miller (CEO of MIDAO) sits down with Kenny, founder of Pics or It Didn't Happen (poidh) — a permissionless bounty protocol the enables "ephemeral DAOs.” They break down the biggest crypto hacks of the past few months, the state of crypto regulation in the US and Europe, the reality of AI agents transacting on-chain, and why Kenny thinks the DAO model has been wrong from the start.

Chapters:
0:00 — Intro & Welcome Back (first episode in over a year!)
1:55 — News: Record-Breaking Crypto Hack Month ($600M+ lost in April)
5:42 — The Kelp/LayerZero Attack Explained
13:21 — The Trapdoor Campaign: AI Agents as Attack Vectors
17:21 — US Crypto Regulation: Genius Act, Clarity Act & Open Source Immunity
22:13 — MiCA in Europe: 85% of Firms Without a License
28:04 — 400K AI Agents On-Chain: Impressive or Just Testing?
37:16 — Interview: Kenny's Background & How He Got Into Crypto
44:07 — Deep Dive: What Is POIDH and How Does It Work?
48:05 — A Brief History of DAOs and Why They Failed
56:00 — The "Atomic Unit" of a DAO: Objectives, Not Organizations
1:03:24 — Progressive Decentralization & Token Strategy
1:07:04 — Working With DAOs: The Haberdashery & Breaking a Kickflip World Record
1:13:35 — Pump.fun Launches Bounties: What It Means for POIDH
1:16:19 — The Big Vision: Online Communities Pooling Capital IRL
1:16:47 — Where to Find Kenny & POIDH

Links:
* poidh: poidh.xyz
* MIDAO: midao.org
* Beta Briefing (AI news agent): betabriefing.ai
* Kenny on X/Twitter: @KennyIsTyping | Farcaster: @Kenny
* Adam on X/Twitter: @0xThriller | Farcaster: @TheThriller

Not legal or financial advice.

This week's guests:
On this week’s Just DAO It, we welcome guest Jan Brezina (Puncar), who recently released his book, How to DAO: Mastering the Future of Internet Coordination. Beyond drafting this book, he’s currently working on another DAO, MotherDAO, a decentralized network where AI agents work, govern, and grow. Puncar is truly a DAO OG, as he co-founded Bankless Consulting, the DAO Governance Collective, and Workout DAO, among other projects. We look forward to having this DAO expert on the podcast!

Check out the book here:
How to DAO: Mastering the Future of Internet Coordination: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729257/how-to-dao-by-kevin-owocki-and-puncar-foreword-by-don-tapscott/

Find us on Socials:
@PuncarH2D on Twitter
@puncar on Farcaster
@0xThriller on Twitter
@thethriller on Farcaster

@leohenkels on Twitter
@leohenkels on Farcaster

This week's guests:

On this week’s Just DAO It, we welcome guests Travis and Sam from DAOHaus, a no-code DAO launchpad built using the Moloch V3 governance toolkit. Beyond working together on DAOHaus, they’ve also helped build or contribute to: Yeeter, Bootleggers, Raid Guild, Meta Cartel, and RaidBrood, among other projects. Most recently, they’ve been experimenting at the intersection of DAOs and Farcaster, a sufficiently decentralized social network. Their current project is called Farcastles, and they’ve received a grant from the Octant Accelerator to continue developing it. We look forward to having these DAO experts on the podcast!

Relevant Resources Mentioned in the Show:

California Court Rules DAO Members Can Face Legal Liability as Business Partners

BIO Protocol DAOs Get Backing From Binance Labs and Tarun Chitra on Twitter / X weighs in

Decentralization Is Why We Fight for Crypto

ICOs are back? Good Conversation Sparked Under This Tweet: Haseeb ＞|＜ on Twitter / X

Aave DAO considers exiting Polygon after a proposed bridge

Find us on Socials:
@samskuhlmann on Twitter
@samskuhlmann on Farcaster
@earth2travis on Twitter
@earth2travis on Farcaster
@0xThriller on Twitter
@thethriller on Farcaster

@leohenkels on Twitter
@leohenkels on Farcaster

Introducing the Just DAO It Lawyer Series:
On this episode, leading Marshall Islands DAO Lawyer Tatyana Cerullo and MIDAO Co-Founder Adam Miller sit down for a discussion about DAO legal issues, Tatyana's experience with DAOs, Operating Agreements for DAO LLCs, and a recent controversial post on X from Gabriel Shapiro

Find us on Socials:
@RMILawyer on Twitter
@0xThriller on Twitter
@thethriller on Farcaster

@leohenkels on Twitter
@leohenkels on Farcaster

This week's guest:

On this week’s Just DAO It, we welcome guests Anthony Leutenegger, CEO of Aragon, and Jessica Smith, Head of Communications at Aragon. Aragon is a no-code DAO platform that lets you launch a DAO. You can mint tokens, create a governance structure, and onboard your community from the same Dashboard. They've been one of the leading DAO tools in the space for several years now and have helped launch some of the most prominent DAOs in crypto. It's exciting to have these two esteemed guests join our stream!

Relevant Resources Mentioned in the Show:

Mango Markets Mull $500K CFTC Settlement Amid ‘Ongoing’ Investigation
Snapshot, Popular DAO Voting Platform, Finally Moves On-Chain, Atop Starknet
Aragon Unveils Gasless Voting On-Chain
DAOs Need a Vibe Check - Compound Governance Overview
Crypto Governance is Slept On
@votecaster Is the First GovernancePplatform for Farcaster-first DAOs

Find us on Socials:
@A_Leutenegger on Twitter
@leuts.eth on Farcaster
@heyjessicasmith on Twitter
@heyjessicasmith on Farcaster
@0xThriller on Twitter
@thethriller on Farcaster

@leohenkels on Twitter
@leohenkels on Farcaster

This week's guest:

On this week’s Just DAO It, join Leo Henkels and Adam Miller from MIDAO as they break down the recent DAO Regulation passed in the Marshall Islands. They'll dive into what it means for Marshall Islands DAO LLCs and the regulatory landscape for DAOs in general! Tune in to learn more about the Marshall Islands and its relationship with DAOs!

Relevant Resources Mentioned in the Show:

RMI DAO Regulation: https://docsend.com/view/ku2747hgg4ean8b7

RMI DAO Legislation: https://docsend.com/view/duyb4848wvpkr5cw

Balaji Podcast: https://thenetworkstate.com/episode/cryptoislands

MIDAO Blog Page: https://www.midao.org/blog

Find us on Socials:

@leohenkels on Twitter

@leohenkels on Farcaster

@0xThriller on Twitter

@thethriller on Farcaster

@MIDAODS on Twitter

@JustDAOItPod on Twitter

@MIDAO on Farcaster