Common.xyz Is Changing the Rules of Decentralized Collaboration

by
Victoria d’Este

Revealed: October 22, 2025 at 1:49 pm Up to date: October 22, 2025 at 1:49 pm

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October 22, 2025 at 1:49 pm

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Dillon Chen purchased his first Bitcoin again in 2013, marking the beginning of a journey that may finally lead him to discovered Common.xyz, a platform redefining how Web3 communities collaborate and govern themselves. On this interview, Dillon discusses how Widespread is constructing the full-stack infrastructure for decentralized communities, integrating AI brokers into DAO workflows, and shaping a future the place “one-person billion-dollar firms” might develop into a actuality.

Dillon, might you please introduce your self and inform us about your journey to Web3?

Yep, so I’m Dillon, the founding father of Widespread. I obtained my begin in crypto again in 2013 once I obtained my first Bitcoin. That was someplace between highschool and faculty. I wish to say I began with my ABCs: AI, bio, and crypto, and I used to be simply exploring varied concepts on the time. Buying Bitcoin was my entry level.

Throughout my time at college, I did analysis on Bitcoin transactions and later began mining Ethereum utilizing dormant electrical energy. I additionally labored on some crypto-focused faculty startup initiatives. Quick ahead to right now, Widespread was born out of our personal ache level. We participated, each as a blockchain membership and individually, within the unique DAO. The tooling round that have was actually laborious to make use of. There was a lot confusion taking place in every single place, particularly on Twitter.

I suppose we nonetheless dwell in an identical world right now, however hopefully, Widespread is now a spot the place customers and neighborhood members can speak about something inside their neighborhood, from grant proposals, new PRs, and have requests to memes and different matters. They will even fund these initiatives with incentives whereas participating in on-chain voting and DAO-based governance. In order that’s an extended reply for each my journey and the way we obtained to the place we’re right now.

Might you please clarify how Widespread distinguishes itself from different platforms centered on on-chain communities and DAOs?

I believe the core for us is constructing ourselves into a totally featured discussion board. There are numerous initiatives on the market, a few of which we accomplice with, that focus closely on the on-chain governance facet, like proposal execution. The best way I like to consider it’s just like coding: once you increase a pull request that will get merged right into a codebase, they deal with that course of, displaying who authorised or disapproved it and operating simulations.

DAOs work equally, the place proposals are voted on-chain and tracked. However we deal with the upstream facet, proper when somebody has an concept. We wish a neighborhood member to have the ability to create a thread, invite dialogue, run an off-chain ballot (token-weighted or not), and lead that concept by its total lifecycle.

I additionally consider DAOs in a broader sense, not simply token-based voting or giant treasuries. Something with a token that invitations collaboration is one thing we assist with. Meme cash, NFTs, and different community-driven tokens all have DAO facets, and we assist these as effectively.

One of many key elements of Widespread is its full-stack method. Would you stroll us by what a full-stack platform for communities seems like in sensible phrases?

It comes down to a few facets: launch, earn, and develop. Throughout the launch part, you may instantly launch a token on the platform, and it inherits all of the performance that we’ve constructed for different communities.

Within the earn part, there are completely different mechanisms that each customers and initiatives can leverage to distribute tokens to contributors. One instance is contests. Since Widespread has the shape issue of a discussion board, customers can put up new threads and get upvotes. Primarily based on the top-voted posts, communities can distribute native tokens for the perfect concepts. That’s simply one in every of a number of mechanisms. There are additionally methods to reward token possession, generate badges for members, or allocate off-chain factors for pre-TGE initiatives.

Lastly, within the develop part, which is de facto the governance part, upon getting a thread or matter, you may create a proposal, use Snapshot, and vote instantly on-chain by the platform. Launching, incomes, and rising ought to all occur in a single place.

What developments do you suppose will form the way forward for decentralized governance and DAOs? How is Widespread getting ready to adapt or contribute to those adjustments?

I believe an important factor is the autonomous facet. To interrupt down DAO: decentralized, autonomous, and group. Over the previous 5 years, individuals have centered primarily on decentralization, however now, with AI and brokers, the autonomous facet is coming to life.

A terrific instance was OpenAI’s current developer day. Brokers and fashions are transferring past being simply chatbots. They will now carry out helpful work. The workflow builder, as an illustration, permits you to chat with an agent who makes use of a number of purposes to provide significant outcomes. These instruments will proceed to enhance, suppose over longer time horizons, and contribute actual work.

Within the subsequent 5 years, I believe we’ll see “one-person billion-dollar firms” and even “zero-person firms,” the place token holders act like board members giving high-level suggestions to AI brokers doing the work. At Widespread, we’re already constructing towards this future, supporting new workflows and enabling brokers to contribute, vote, and collaborate towards a DAO’s shared purpose.

By way of onboarding new customers to Web3, do you see any obstacles that should be overcome? What methods do you employ to simplify the consumer expertise?

That’s a terrific query. The tooling has improved rather a lot by way of usability. A pockets remains to be the core of your id, whether or not it’s from Privy, Magic, or one other supplier. The pockets expertise has come a good distance, however onboarding nonetheless must be seamless as a result of social apps are inclined to lose customers shortly if the method is tough.

The subsequent necessary issue is use instances. We’ve moved past simply saving cash or holding digital gold. Now we see use instances which might be extra human and sensible, like stablecoins, funds, and playing cards. These are issues individuals use day by day. The subsequent frontier can be social use instances — prediction markets, DAOs, subreddits, and communities.

As tooling and use instances increase, individuals will begin utilizing Web3 of their on a regular basis lives somewhat than checking their crypto as soon as each few years. That’s what brings new customers in.

In keeping with your roadmap, you propose to combine AI brokers into Widespread. What particular duties will they carry out inside communities?

We see three phases for integrating AI brokers. The primary is addressing neighborhood wants instantly, akin to summarizing threads or drafting new posts. These are low-hanging fruits, and we’ve already carried out them.

The second part focuses on integrations. We wish to pull information from the place communities already dwell, akin to Discord, Twitter, and even on-chain information. Brokers may also join with on a regular basis instruments like Google Sheets and Drive to boost productiveness.

The third part ties again to what I discussed earlier, enabling brokers to suppose long-term, collaborate, and plan actions. As fashions enhance, they’ll have the ability to work independently towards neighborhood objectives. For instance, an agent would possibly collect consumer suggestions from Discord, format a PR doc, prototype a characteristic, and submit it for human overview, all with minimal oversight. We’re getting very near that actuality.

Widespread has collaborated with a few of the most revolutionary organizations in Web3. What partnerships or case research are you most pleased with? What do they reveal about Widespread’s influence?

A serious milestone for us was helping with the LayerZero launch. They’re one of the crucial revered and well known communities in crypto, touching nearly each token ecosystem. That belief meant rather a lot to us.

The method we supported was their airdrop distribution and neighborhood dialogue. We had tens of hundreds of posts from customers worldwide. They used each characteristic on our platform — token-gated posting, a number of matters for triage, and structured dialogue for a fancy airdrop computation.

It went comparatively easily, which isn’t simple behind the scenes. Any founder will inform you how chaotic issues can get, however we managed to climate the storm and assist them execute efficiently.

What about future partnerships? Do you might have something upcoming?

We’re presently working with a number of EVM and non-EVM Layer 1 ecosystems. You’ll begin seeing these launches within the subsequent few months. These are the highest 50 initiatives by market cap, which is a good signal of belief. Hopefully, by the point this interview is revealed, these collaborations will already be seen.

How do you see the business evolving over the following three to 5 years? What function will Widespread play on this evolution?

If we have a look at crypto’s evolution, early use instances like Bitcoin had been centered on high-value, low-frequency transactions. With DeFi, it turned lower-value however higher-frequency. Stablecoins introduced day by day interactions. And with social purposes, interactions are much more frequent however lighter.

Widespread suits squarely inside this social layer. Whether or not by brokers or neighborhood discussions, customers will ship lots of of messages day by day throughout their communities. We goal to be the always-on hub for that exercise.

As new tokens and initiatives launch, we count on our neighborhood rely, already above 80,000, to develop into the lots of of hundreds. Our imaginative and prescient is to have a neighborhood for each token and a token for each neighborhood concept. We’re effectively on our approach there.

Lastly, what are a few of the most fun improvements in Web3 you’re maintaining a tally of? How do you propose to combine them into Widespread?

It’s been wonderful to see how a lot progress the business has made. Again at DevCon Prague, phrases like stablecoins, DAOs, prediction markets, and layer ones had been simply concepts. Now they’re all actual, practical merchandise.

One space that’s turning into more and more necessary is privateness. As we attain mass adoption, privateness turns into important for funds, the place you don’t need everybody seeing your espresso purchases, and for social conversations that ought to stay personal.

For DAOs, privateness is very very important. Communities typically focus on early-stage concepts or methods that shouldn’t be public. Integrating zero-knowledge proofs for id, so members can show token possession or contributions with out revealing their id, will assist foster extra open but safe discussions.

That’s one of many largest improvements we’re specializing in now, and we hope to productize it simply as different applied sciences earlier than it have come into their very own.

About The Writer

Victoria is a author on quite a lot of know-how matters together with Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her in depth expertise permits her to put in writing insightful articles for the broader viewers.

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