Emerald City DAO was founded by Jacob Tucker in November 2021, and was the first decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) founded on Flow. Since then, it has grown exponentially and has developed community-building services and tools used across the Flow ecosystem. 

Jacob Tucker started building on Flow in 2020, participating in the Flow Open World Builders bootcamp. “Within 3 months I was writing the contracts for MotoGP, one of the highest-earning NFT drops in Flow history up to that point. When I founded Emerald City DAO, I had never even joined or read about DAOs in my life. Five months later, we are the first ever DAO on Flow and arguably the most active developer and educational community,” Jacob said when reflecting on his journey thus far. Since then, he’s advised several projects, written the majority of smart contracts for Emerald City, and become one of the most respected developers in the Flow community. 

Today, Emerald City is a bustling community of builders separated into three guilds — Education, Building, and Governance — each representing a key area of focus. 

The Education guild’s mission, and a core part of the DAO as a whole, is to promote Web3 education. Their most recent initiative is Emerald Academy - a series of educational content including a beginner-friendly four-week bootcamp that introduces learners to blockchain, Web3 and how to develop smart contracts in Cadence, the smart contract programming language native to Flow. Bootcamp graduates receive a special on-chain certificate that gives them direct access to open developer positions and work opportunities in the space once they’ve completed the course.

 “There is a lot of demand for Cadence developers, so this gives Emerald Academy graduates a chance to work on real-world projects on Flow almost immediately,” recounts Jacob, “The opportunities to jump in and contribute are also abundant within the DAO itself; Emerald City has several bounties worth thousands of dollars, and everyone is welcome to get their hands dirty!”

The Building guild’s primary goal is to build core tooling to provide projects with the features necessary to build their products and communities, opening the door for more projects to get started on Flow. In the span of just five months, the Building guild has designed and deployed services that have already seen widespread adoption across the Flow ecosystem: 

• FLOAT: a novel proof-of-attendance platform that since launching on mainnet in April, already boasts 600+ events and 74,000+ attendance NFTs claimed. 
• Emerald ID: an identity and ownership verification service that has become the de facto standard tool for projects on Flow to enrich their community experiences. 

It’s also worth noting that both services are general purpose and interact seamlessly with one another, increasing the utility and flexibility; projects can fit them to their community, not the other way around.

Finally, the DAO’s Governance guild is tackling the challenge of aligning incentives in a decentralized context in a balanced and community-centric way. They are currently experimenting with a voting structure that is based on democratically earned on-chain reputation instead of traditional token-based voting. This would better align incentives and voting power around actual contributions to the DAO and across the Flow community.

“I stayed long term because of the community, and of all the projects I have worked on. I love all the people here and have built some amazing products and platforms, so I am in this for the long run,” Jacob said of what drew him to building on Flow after “falling in love” with Cadence during Open World Builders. 

Want to start learning how to build on Flow from Emerald Academy? Check out their GitHub Repo and get started!

Building on Flow with Cadence

Developer ergonomics have always been front and center in Flow’s architecture, and in particular behind the design of Flow’s smart contract programming language called Cadence. 

“What I loved most about it was that coding in Cadence felt like a video game. It was fun to do, I was early so I felt special, and the Flow team was incredibly kind and helpful the entire way.” Jacob said of getting his start as a developer building on Flow. Along his learning journey, Jacob also became an active mentor within the community. His YouTube channel is a treasure trove of content anyone thinking about dipping their toes into developing on Flow should keep handy. 

“One of Cadence's top selling points is how easy it is to read and understand. In Solidity, I find myself constantly questioning what on earth a contract is doing because of its structure and lack of separation between contracts and transactions. And this is coming from someone who has developed on Solidity for almost two years,” Jacob said when comparing using Cadence to other languages like Solidity.

In the realm of decentralized applications, bugs in production are harder to control compared to traditional applications so it’s even more important that the language enforces security while keeping the logic extremely readable before a contract is deployed. 

"Cadence is also very secure, and makes it very very hard for the developer to mess up. There's a reason you hear so many hacks on Ethereum but not on Flow. It's because Cadence's strict typing mechanisms and resource-oriented programming makes developing easy and messing up hard.”

Cadence introduces features that help developers ensure that their code is safe and secure. It’s also inspired by popular programming languages such as Typescript, Kotlin and Swift, making it familiar and approachable. Try Cadence in the Flow Playground.

Key Metrics

• 5,500 community members in our Discord
• Nearly every single project and DAO on Flow are using Emerald bot
• 20% of developers have landed full-time positions after graduating from Emerald Academy
• 74,000 FLOATs claimed across 600 events 

The Team

There are 5.5k other members in our Discord, and ~50 active developers at all times who are interested in working on various projects across the DAO. In addition, there are a few hundred actively learning Flow and Cadence development through our materials.

Jacob Tucker: Founder

Got started in the Flow ecosystem in the Summer of 2020 during the Open World Builder bootcamp. He’s been developing on Flow ever since then, and naturally rose to one of the community leads in the space (because of his unbeatable skills and natural born charisma, he claims). He founded Emerald City DAO and takes the lead on most projects within to help develop and guide contributors to where they need to be. He also runs this YouTube channel which is one of the the only up-to-date educational resources for Flow and Cadence developers.

Bam: Early Founder/Guild Leader

One of the first members of the DAO, Bam has been a member of Emerald City since its creation. At the beginning, Bam did not know much about Cadence development, but is now working on the .find team developing smart contracts. Bam has been an absolutely crucial part of encouraging and educating the community. He plays a large part of their Education Guild.

Kelcoin: Early Founder/Guild Leader

One of the first members of the DAO along with Bam, Kelcoin has been an integral part of their community building. He is always there to answer questions about where to go inside Emerald City, what to expect, how to contribute, and helps direct traffic. Kelcoin is a big part of their Governance Guild, as he constantly educates their community about DAO best practices.

Andrea Muttoni: Guild Leader

Andrea is a core Flow contributor and a Guild Leader at Emerald City. He got started with Emerald City DAO about a month after it started, and has been extremely helpful not only on the development side but also onboarding and encouraging tons of developers to be interested in Emerald City, and more broadly, Flow. Andrea co-developed FLOAT with Jacob, and helped to provide tons of support for Emerald Academy as well. Andrea plays a most active role in our Education and Building guilds.

Bjartek: Guild Leader

Bjartek began his Flow journey with Jacob during the Summer of 2020. He developed Versus and founded the .find project, and is a Guild Leader at Emerald City. Bjartek has been helping most in their Education Guild to teach new developers the Cadence ropes.

Dene Guild Leader

Dene is the founder of GENIACE and a Guild Leader at Emerald City. Dene has provided incredible support in the Building Guild. The GENIACE team developed our main website and designed all of Emerald City’s logos.

Support Monkey Guild Leader

Support Monkey is the founder of Atlas 3DSS and a Guild Leader at Emerald City. Support Monkey has played a crucial role inside the Governance Guild as he constantly provides DAO best practices and education on the "do"s and "don't"s in the Blockchain world.