---
title: "Nouns DAO"
url: "https://caper.network/wiki/daos/social/nouns-dao"
updated: 2026-09-03
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Nouns DAO

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Name** | Nouns DAO |
| **Type** | On-chain NFT / collector DAO (Ethereum) |
| **Launched** | 8 August 2021 |
| **Membership** | One Noun = one irrevocable member = one vote |
| **Issuance** | Perpetual auction — one Noun every 24 hours, forever |
| **Governance** | Fork of [Compound Governor](https://docs.compound.finance/v2/governance/), fully on-chain |
| **IP** | [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/cc0/) — all Noun art is public domain |
| **Exit** | Fork / [ragequit](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights)-style redemption (V3, 2023) |
| **Site** | [nouns.wtf](https://nouns.wtf) · [docs](https://docs.nouns.wtf/) · [governance](https://www.nouns.camp/) |

**Nouns DAO** is a fully on-chain NFT DAO launched on Ethereum on 8 August 2021. It is the canonical example of an _auction-funded_, [fully on-chain](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/on-chain-vs-off-chain-governance) organization: instead of a fixed token sale, a smart contract mints and auctions exactly one NFT — a "Noun" — every 24 hours, forever, and routes 100% of the proceeds into a treasury the Noun holders themselves govern. Every Noun is generated deterministically on-chain from a fixed trait set, so the collection has no pre-mint, no team allocation, and no external issuer. Its combination of perpetual issuance, one-member-one-vote governance, and public-domain art has made it one of the most-studied [collector-DAO](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/types-of-daos) designs in the industry.

## The perpetual auction

The [Nouns Auction House](https://docs.nouns.wtf/protocol/deployments) contract is a self-sufficient generation-and-distribution engine. Each day it settles the previous auction, mints the next Noun, and opens a fresh 24-hour English auction for it; the highest bidder receives the Noun and **100% of the winning ETH bid is deposited directly into the [Nouns treasury](https://docs.nouns.wtf/)** — there is no founder cut on the auction itself (a small share of Nouns is periodically directed to the founding "Nounders" as a separate reward). Because supply grows by exactly one unit per day and demand sets the clearing price, the treasury is funded continuously by genuine buy-side interest rather than by a one-off raise. This makes Nouns a live experiment in whether a DAO can bootstrap and sustain a large treasury purely from ongoing primary issuance.

## One Noun, one vote

Governance runs on a fork of [Compound](/wiki/daos/lending/compound-dao)'s Governor contracts, adapted so that voting power comes from Nouns rather than a fungible token. Each Noun is an **irrevocable member** of the DAO and carries exactly one vote in every proposal, so the design is flat [one-member-one-vote](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) rather than continuous [token-weighting](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) — a whale must actually hold many distinct daily NFTs to accumulate power. Proposals move fully on-chain through the standard [propose → vote → queue → execute](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/proposal-lifecycle) lifecycle, and passed proposals can spend treasury ETH without any off-chain multisig in the loop. Nouns holders have used this to fund hundreds of proposals — from open-source software and films to real-world brand campaigns.

## CC0 and the derivative ecosystem

All Noun artwork is released under [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/cc0/), placing it in the public domain with no rights reserved. Anyone may use, remix, or commercialize the imagery without permission — a deliberate bet that giving away the intellectual property maximizes the brand's spread and, in turn, the demand feeding the daily auction. This has seeded a wide ecosystem of derivative projects, sub-treasuries, and real-world activations, and made Nouns a reference point in debates about [open-source and CC0 licensing](https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/introducing-nft-licenses/) for on-chain brands.

## Forking: exit rights at treasury scale

In 2023 Nouns shipped a **fork mechanism** as part of its V3 governance upgrade — a treasury-scale implementation of [exit rights](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights). When holders of at least 20% of the Nouns signal a fork, dissenting members can split off into a new "fork DAO," leaving with their **proportional share of the treasury's ETH and assets**, inside which they can then exit and claim funds at any time. The first fork in mid-2023 saw a large minority leave with a corresponding slice of the treasury; a [second fork followed in 2024](https://blockworks.co/news/nouns-fork-two-dao-treasuries-spending). Nouns thereby became the most prominent case study for a live tension in DAO design: an exit right protects minorities from [majority capture](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/analysis/dao-security-and-governance-attacks), but it also lets holders arbitrage any gap between a token's market price and its redeemable treasury value — the same dynamic that later surfaced in [GnosisDAO's 2026 redemption vote](https://forum.gnosis.io/t/gip-150-should-gnosisdao-let-gno-holders-redeem-their-pro-rata-share-of-the-treasury/12263). To give the on-chain organization legal standing, Nouns has since adopted a [DUNA](https://docs.nouns.wtf/) (Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association) wrapper — see [DAO legal structures](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/dao-legal-structures).

## How Caper approaches this

Nouns and [capers](/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) share the instinct that a member should never be captive: both fund a treasury from ongoing on-chain buying and both give holders a way out. The difference is the shape of the exit. A Nouns fork requires coordinating a 20% threshold and spinning up an entire fork DAO to leave with a share of assets. A caper builds the exit into the base layer — any holder who has voted or traded can [redeem individually at any time](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights), burning their tokens and vote record for a share of the [treasury](/wiki/markets/raising-funds) sized by their canonical vote weight, with no coordination threshold and no separate organization to stand up. And where Nouns funds its treasury through a daily NFT auction, a caper funds its through a continuous [bonding curve](/wiki/markets/bonding-curve) that also gives every holder a live price to [sell against](/wiki/markets/trading) between exits.