Backing a campaign

Here we'll walk through the process of backing a campaign on DAO Up!. By backing a campaign, you can support your favorite projects and become part of their DAOs.

This guide assumes no prior knowledge about blockchains or Juno. DAO Up! is for everyone. If you are already familiar with Juno, feel free to skip to the backing a campaign section.

Getting set up

Background

DAO Up! is built on the Juno blockchain. Juno is a proof of stake blockchain optimized for running programs. Because it is proof of stake, Juno's fees are low, and it has less environmental impact than many other popular blockchains.

In order to use DAO Up!, you will need a wallet and some Juno. Your Juno wallet is similar to the physical wallet you might already be familiar with. It holds your cryptocurrency and gives you tools for managing and running programs with it.

We recommend using the Keplr wallet. It is just a browser extension. You can go ahead and install it, then come back to this page.

A quick rundown of Keplr

Keplr has many features, but the two most important ones are viewing your balance (the amount of a given cryptocurrency you own) and viewing your address.

On a blockchain, your address is what identifies you. You can publish your address and connect it to your real identity or keep it secret. If you ever want another address, all you need to do is create another account in Keplr.

Keplr supports many blockchains which are all part of the Cosmos network. All you need to know about Cosmos is that you'll have a different address on each chain.

To view your Juno address, click the puzzle piece icon in the top right of your browser and then click the Keplr icon. At first, your wallet will show your balance and address on the "Cosmos Hub". To view your balance on the Juno network, click the letters which say "Cosmos Hub" at the top, scroll down to the word "Juno", and click it.

Your address is the circled text underneath your account name which starts with the letters "juno". Clicking your address will copy it to your clipboard.

Getting some Juno

Juno is a young blockchain, so it is not yet listed on any major exchanges. To buy Juno, you'll need to purchase another cryptocurrency and then swap that for Juno on a decentralized exchange. Here is one possible way to do that:

  1. Purchase Atom on a centralized exchange like Coinbase or Kraken.
  2. Withdraw your purchased Atom to your "Cosmos Hub" address.
  3. Go to the Osmosis decentralized exchange and deposit your Atom.
  4. Swap your deposited Atom for Juno.
  5. Withdraw that Juno to your Juno address.

If you do this, congrats! You now own Juno. You can get started joining DAOs and interacting with the various programs running on top of it.

Backing a campaign

First, pick a campaign to back. You can browse all active campaigns in the campaign listing.

Once you've found one you like, visit the campaign page, input the amount of Juno you'd like to contribute to the campaign, and press the "Support this campaign" button. In exchange for your contribution, you'll receive some fundraising tokens. Here's how those work:

  1. When you contribute to the campaign, you'll receive a number of fundraising tokens proportional to the percentage of the funding goal you contributed.
  2. At any time before the campaign completes, you can return those fundraising tokens for your money back.
  3. Once the campaign is complete, you can return your fundraising tokens in exchange for voting (i.e. governance) tokens in the DAO.

Importantly, the DAO will not receive the funds you sent until you swap your fundraising tokens for governance tokens. This means you always have control over your money. It also means that you need to remember to swap your fundraising tokens for governance tokens when the campaign completes in order to participate in the DAO as well as ensure the project receives your contribution.

Getting a refund

At any point before the campaign reaches its funding goal, you can return your funding tokens for a refund. To do this, visit the campaign's page, input the percentage or number of tokens you would like to refund, and press the "Refund" button.

Participating in DAO governance

Once you have swapped your fundraising tokens for DAO governance tokens, you can visit the DAO that you're part of by pressing the "Visit the DAO" button on the campaign's page. To vote in a DAO DAO DAO, you will need to stake your tokens to the DAO. Make sure to follow the prompt on the right side of the DAO DAO UI to stake your tokens.