Compare the Types — OpenHaven

Last updated: 2026-08-24 · 5 types

Type	Primary Definition	Governance Model	Legal & Territorial Status	Membership Basis	Funding & Treasury	Representative Examples
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)	A collectively-owned organization coordinated by rules encoded in a blockchain's smart contracts rather than a traditional management hierarchy — decisions happen through open proposals and voting, and treasury funds require the group's collective on-chain approval to move.	Token-based or 1-member-1-vote on-chain voting; proposals executed automatically via smart contract once passed. Decision-making is decentralized (who decides), not necessarily networked (how they coordinate).	No inherent territorial ambition. Legal personhood is typically absent or bolted on separately (e.g. a Wyoming DAO LLC wrapper); operates purely as digital/financial infrastructure.	Token or NFT holding, or on-chain reputation; membership is fungible/transferable in most token-based DAOs.	On-chain treasury (multisig or protocol-controlled), funded by token sales, protocol revenue, or member contributions; fully transparent, proposal-gated spending.	See the DAO comparison page (linked from this row) for individual examples across governance models, treasuries, and legal wrappers.
Network State	An online community aligned around a shared mission, with enough collective capacity to crowdfund physical territory in multiple locations worldwide and pursue formal diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state from existing governments.	A 'decentralized startup society' united by shared ideology; can be one-member-one-vote or centralized if members choose. Core principle: exit-based governance — disagreement leads to forking a new network state, not overriding the majority. Critics have proposed reforms to prevent founder overreach as these communities scale — replacing pure coin-based voting with non-transferable citizen identity, and building in 'exit-to-community' mechanisms and formal representation for surrounding host communities.	Deliberately non-contiguous distributed physical territory (apartments, neighborhoods, towns worldwide) linked digitally, explicitly working toward eventual sovereign diplomatic recognition — the defining goal separating it from a DAO or Network Nation. No network state has yet achieved this recognition.	Voluntary, values-aligned, opt-in; population scale is explicitly part of the concept (on the order of 1M+ aligned members cited for legitimacy at scale).	Crowdfunded territory acquisition; funding mechanisms vary by project (venture capital, membership fees, token treasuries).	Praxis (territory-seeking, $525M+ raised); Prospera (Honduras ZEDE charter city); Liberland (7 km² territorial claim + Layer-1 governance).
Network Nation	'A digitally-native community that exercises functional sovereignty without exclusive territorial claims' — organizes around shared values and digital governance infrastructure rather than birth-determined citizenship. An active alliance organizes under this term, not just a research framing — a real cooperative alliance of builders, researchers, organizations, and activists, with named members and an active monthly-call cadence, not merely an academic concept.	Blockchain-based governance tooling: soulbound tokens / Proof-of-Humanity for portable identity, DAOs for treasury management, conviction voting / quadratic funding / participatory budgeting / futarchy for decisions.	Explicitly does NOT require territory (the key distinction from a Network State) — functions as a supplement to, not a replacement for, nation-states. No existing international legal category recognizes non-territorial polities of this kind.	Chosen identity, not birthright; portable across communities; members can hold simultaneous memberships in multiple network nations (unlike exclusive nation-state citizenship).	Collective crowdfunding and pooled member contributions (e.g. CityDAO's $8M+ land purchase); tokenized DAO treasury management for some examples — funding mechanisms vary by project, no single unified model.	CityDAO (5,000+ members, 40 acres in Wyoming); Zuzalu (2-month pop-up city, Montenegro 2023); Edge City (professionalized pop-up village format); Liberland (7 km² territorial claim + Layer-1 governance).
NAO (Networked Adaptive Organism)	DAOs whose populations are Trust Networks, with an innate capacity for 'extreme decisioning' beyond ordinary coordination. The NAO, stewarded by Allelo, is the only real-world instance known to be operating today — more NAOs may emerge as the concept develops.	Web-of-trust identity and liquid-democracy-style delegation, rather than token voting. The NAO, stewarded by Allelo, coordinates via Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), pooled resources, and incentive-alignment mechanisms across startups, investors, and communities.	No inherent territorial ambition — envisioned as a self-owning, self-governing social graph organized as a platform cooperative rather than a single legal entity. In practice, The NAO is stewarded by Allelo, a Netherlands-registered legal entity (jurisdiction not independently confirmed this pass), which uses SPVs as conventional legal wrappers for participating ventures and communities rather than one overarching entity.	Membership and trust are established via web-of-trust identity rather than token-holding — GreenCheck's three-friend authentication is one independent example of this approach. The NAO's membership, per Allelo's framing, spans purpose-driven communities, regenerative ventures, and patient-capital investors opting into a shared value-creation network.	Envisioned as capturing collective value at scale and allocating it emergently, 'as a fractal commons' — no specific treasury mechanism beyond that. The NAO, via Allelo, pools patient capital using SPVs and shared resource pools, oriented toward regenerative, civilisational-scale value creation.	The NAO — the only operating NAO known to exist, stewarded by Allelo (a Netherlands-registered legal entity per direct sourcing, not independently confirmed this pass; not itself a NAO); more NAOs may emerge as the concept develops.
cDPO (Commons-Oriented Decentralised Programmed Organisation)	A framework to bootstrap, develop, and sustain commons projects — the commons-oriented counterpart to a DAO. Rather than offering the commons good itself as the thing of value, a cDPO offers peer-participants shared stakes in the organisation that creates it: "much like offering people to join in a fishing trip instead of offering the fishes already caught."	Peer-participants receive an "equity-like currency" — tokens issued as recognition of the value they generate through interaction with/within the organisation, explicitly not payment for services and not company stock ("sovereign notions of value produced in the interaction"). Each token carries two functions: governance value within the project, and liquidity through third-party value recognition.	No inherent territorial ambition. Documented as a design pattern for structuring an organisation, not tied to any specific legal wrapper — the primary source describes the bootstrapping and token-issuance process in economic rather than jurisdictional terms, and no deployed instance exists yet to establish an actual legal precedent.	Peer-participants who generate value through interaction with the organisation, recognised via token issuance along one of two paths: "pre-issuance" (tokens sold upfront to bootstrap the organisation, e.g. to acquire a shared asset or fund initial development) or "emerging valuation" (tokens issued over time as contributions happen, no upfront asset needed).	Value recognition requires a third party and is drawn from three named sources: donations, grants, and pledges into a shared pool (cited as significant for retrospective valuation by public institutions); fiat from third-party commercial use or remixing of the commons output (e.g. via a peer production licence); and cross-organisation value recognition, where one project’s token is accepted in exchange for another project’s value offer — illustrated with a worked example of a city accepting a cDPO’s tokens as public transit fare.	No confirmed operating instance found as of 2026-09-04. The concept is documented by its originators as a design pattern and bootstrapping process, not (yet) observed deployed by any named organisation — unlike this table’s other rows, no real-world cDPO has been independently identified.

DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)

Primary Definition: A collectively-owned organization coordinated by rules encoded in a blockchain's smart contracts rather than a traditional management hierarchy — decisions happen through open proposals and voting, and treasury funds require the group's collective on-chain approval to move.
Governance Model: Token-based or 1-member-1-vote on-chain voting; proposals executed automatically via smart contract once passed. Decision-making is decentralized (who decides), not necessarily networked (how they coordinate).
Legal & Territorial Status: No inherent territorial ambition. Legal personhood is typically absent or bolted on separately (e.g. a Wyoming DAO LLC wrapper); operates purely as digital/financial infrastructure.
Membership Basis: Token or NFT holding, or on-chain reputation; membership is fungible/transferable in most token-based DAOs.
Funding & Treasury: On-chain treasury (multisig or protocol-controlled), funded by token sales, protocol revenue, or member contributions; fully transparent, proposal-gated spending.
Representative Examples: See the DAO comparison page (linked from this row) for individual examples across governance models, treasuries, and legal wrappers.

Network State

Primary Definition: An online community aligned around a shared mission, with enough collective capacity to crowdfund physical territory in multiple locations worldwide and pursue formal diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state from existing governments.
Governance Model: A 'decentralized startup society' united by shared ideology; can be one-member-one-vote or centralized if members choose. Core principle: exit-based governance — disagreement leads to forking a new network state, not overriding the majority. Critics have proposed reforms to prevent founder overreach as these communities scale — replacing pure coin-based voting with non-transferable citizen identity, and building in 'exit-to-community' mechanisms and formal representation for surrounding host communities.
Legal & Territorial Status: Deliberately non-contiguous distributed physical territory (apartments, neighborhoods, towns worldwide) linked digitally, explicitly working toward eventual sovereign diplomatic recognition — the defining goal separating it from a DAO or Network Nation. No network state has yet achieved this recognition.
Membership Basis: Voluntary, values-aligned, opt-in; population scale is explicitly part of the concept (on the order of 1M+ aligned members cited for legitimacy at scale).
Funding & Treasury: Crowdfunded territory acquisition; funding mechanisms vary by project (venture capital, membership fees, token treasuries).
Representative Examples: Praxis (territory-seeking, $525M+ raised); Prospera (Honduras ZEDE charter city); Liberland (7 km² territorial claim + Layer-1 governance).

Network Nation

Primary Definition: 'A digitally-native community that exercises functional sovereignty without exclusive territorial claims' — organizes around shared values and digital governance infrastructure rather than birth-determined citizenship. An active alliance organizes under this term, not just a research framing — a real cooperative alliance of builders, researchers, organizations, and activists, with named members and an active monthly-call cadence, not merely an academic concept.
Governance Model: Blockchain-based governance tooling: soulbound tokens / Proof-of-Humanity for portable identity, DAOs for treasury management, conviction voting / quadratic funding / participatory budgeting / futarchy for decisions.
Legal & Territorial Status: Explicitly does NOT require territory (the key distinction from a Network State) — functions as a supplement to, not a replacement for, nation-states. No existing international legal category recognizes non-territorial polities of this kind.
Membership Basis: Chosen identity, not birthright; portable across communities; members can hold simultaneous memberships in multiple network nations (unlike exclusive nation-state citizenship).
Funding & Treasury: Collective crowdfunding and pooled member contributions (e.g. CityDAO's $8M+ land purchase); tokenized DAO treasury management for some examples — funding mechanisms vary by project, no single unified model.
Representative Examples: CityDAO (5,000+ members, 40 acres in Wyoming); Zuzalu (2-month pop-up city, Montenegro 2023); Edge City (professionalized pop-up village format); Liberland (7 km² territorial claim + Layer-1 governance).

NAO (Networked Adaptive Organism)

Primary Definition: DAOs whose populations are Trust Networks, with an innate capacity for 'extreme decisioning' beyond ordinary coordination. The NAO, stewarded by Allelo, is the only real-world instance known to be operating today — more NAOs may emerge as the concept develops.
Governance Model: Web-of-trust identity and liquid-democracy-style delegation, rather than token voting. The NAO, stewarded by Allelo, coordinates via Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), pooled resources, and incentive-alignment mechanisms across startups, investors, and communities.
Legal & Territorial Status: No inherent territorial ambition — envisioned as a self-owning, self-governing social graph organized as a platform cooperative rather than a single legal entity. In practice, The NAO is stewarded by Allelo, a Netherlands-registered legal entity (jurisdiction not independently confirmed this pass), which uses SPVs as conventional legal wrappers for participating ventures and communities rather than one overarching entity.
Membership Basis: Membership and trust are established via web-of-trust identity rather than token-holding — GreenCheck's three-friend authentication is one independent example of this approach. The NAO's membership, per Allelo's framing, spans purpose-driven communities, regenerative ventures, and patient-capital investors opting into a shared value-creation network.
Funding & Treasury: Envisioned as capturing collective value at scale and allocating it emergently, 'as a fractal commons' — no specific treasury mechanism beyond that. The NAO, via Allelo, pools patient capital using SPVs and shared resource pools, oriented toward regenerative, civilisational-scale value creation.
Representative Examples: The NAO — the only operating NAO known to exist, stewarded by Allelo (a Netherlands-registered legal entity per direct sourcing, not independently confirmed this pass; not itself a NAO); more NAOs may emerge as the concept develops.

cDPO (Commons-Oriented Decentralised Programmed Organisation)

Primary Definition: A framework to bootstrap, develop, and sustain commons projects — the commons-oriented counterpart to a DAO. Rather than offering the commons good itself as the thing of value, a cDPO offers peer-participants shared stakes in the organisation that creates it: "much like offering people to join in a fishing trip instead of offering the fishes already caught."
Governance Model: Peer-participants receive an "equity-like currency" — tokens issued as recognition of the value they generate through interaction with/within the organisation, explicitly not payment for services and not company stock ("sovereign notions of value produced in the interaction"). Each token carries two functions: governance value within the project, and liquidity through third-party value recognition.
Legal & Territorial Status: No inherent territorial ambition. Documented as a design pattern for structuring an organisation, not tied to any specific legal wrapper — the primary source describes the bootstrapping and token-issuance process in economic rather than jurisdictional terms, and no deployed instance exists yet to establish an actual legal precedent.
Membership Basis: Peer-participants who generate value through interaction with the organisation, recognised via token issuance along one of two paths: "pre-issuance" (tokens sold upfront to bootstrap the organisation, e.g. to acquire a shared asset or fund initial development) or "emerging valuation" (tokens issued over time as contributions happen, no upfront asset needed).
Funding & Treasury: Value recognition requires a third party and is drawn from three named sources: donations, grants, and pledges into a shared pool (cited as significant for retrospective valuation by public institutions); fiat from third-party commercial use or remixing of the commons output (e.g. via a peer production licence); and cross-organisation value recognition, where one project’s token is accepted in exchange for another project’s value offer — illustrated with a worked example of a city accepting a cDPO’s tokens as public transit fare.
Representative Examples: No confirmed operating instance found as of 2026-09-04. The concept is documented by its originators as a design pattern and bootstrapping process, not (yet) observed deployed by any named organisation — unlike this table’s other rows, no real-world cDPO has been independently identified.