CityDAO

I propose we start the world’s first crowdfunded compute cluster in Wyoming to take part in the AI revolution and earn income for the DAO.

TLDR

It’s time to do something big to bring CityDAO back to the forefront of the conversation and bring new life and energy to the DAO, and we are uniquely positioned to pull off building a large cluster of GPUs in Wyoming.

We have capital, land, and a Wyoming-based legal entity. And at ~6 cents per kWh, Wyoming has just about the cheapest electricity in the states, making it the perfect place to do this.

Budget:

Total proposed budget: $600,000 USD

• $500,000 - Purchase 300 Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090s (and potentially other GPU types)
• $70,000 - Servers, equipment, other setup costs
• $30,000 - Legal and misc expenses

Business Model

I believe this could generate about $30k / mo for the DAO treasury. Here is the full breakdown of the unit economics 27.

Upon passage of this proposal, Scott will lead implementation of the effort, setting up a fund with CityDAO LLC as the main limited partner and Scott (and potentially others at his discretion) as a General Partner. The DAO will spend $600k for shares in the new fund, and be paid quarterly dividends from the operation of the GPUs. The fund will have a standard 2/20 management fee model. The GPUs will earn revenue by being put on Runpod or a similar service.

Benefits to CityDAO

• A consistent income source for the treasury. These GPUs have an estimated payback period of 12 months and after that generate mainly profit.
• Status and reputation - the first cluster will be called the CityDAO Compute Cluster, and as the first crowdfunded compute cluster will be a hit on Twitter and a real contribution to the AI and crypto communities.
• Compute - having a bunch of compute is cool - we can let citizens use it at a discount and even train our own models on it.

Benefits to Citizens

• Access to a CityDAO Compute Cloud shared server Citizens can use to do things like host websites, run code, etc.
• Potential for discounted or free compute allocation (depends on the economics and will be considered depending on how fast the GPUs are paying off)

Why should we do this?

• Timing - This is the perfect time to start the world’s first crowdfunded GPU cluster.
• New energy and purpose - CityDAO needs an ambitious new project to rally around. The DAO can build tooling and projects around the cluster. Maybe we can all go to Wyoming and visit!
• Wyoming connections - We are uniquely already set up to operate in WY and I recently got connected with a Wyoming-based datacenter with just about the cheapest electricity anywhere - 6 cents per kWh that set up all the infrastructure to run GPUs.
• Future of AI - Demand for compute is projected to increase a lot over the next decade.

Risks

• I want to be transparent that it’s hard to predict the future and demand for compute or our specific GPU type could decrease.
• One reason 4090s are so appealing is they are underpriced in the market because Nvidia’s terms of service require they be used by consumers, not in data centers. One large risk here is that they somehow start enforcing this provision.
• AI may be in a bit of a bubble and demand for compute could decrease.

Updates - 2/13/24

• I’m lowering the ask to $600k - still enough to start up the cluster and run the experiment and a much smaller percent of the DAO treasury
• At the time the cluster goes live, Citizens will each get a free CityDAO Compute NFT to commemorate the moment.

Updates - 3/5/24

• Location: Upon passage, we will do a search for the best data center with the cheapest electricity pricing instead of being tied to Wyoming. For example, states like Texas and Arizona might be better since they have more data center infrastructure already built out.
• Marketing reel: We will take videos and create a marketing reel documenting the process to post on Discord and Twitter

Update - 3/8/24

• Added Risks section
• Added Citizen Benefits section
• Diversify beyond 4090s and purchase other GPU types