Interview with Brian Magierski, Founder, Chairman & CEO of Cherubim Labs

What’s your motivation to launch Cherubs DAO?

Simply, with the emergence of Web3, we see the opportunity to democratize impact funding and, in doing so, accelerate advancements in key cause areas where traditional centralized impact funding has hindered progress. As a father to a child with Down syndrome, advancing preventative therapeutics and cures to Alzheimer’s disease is a massively crucial personal cause. Pursuing these therapeutics and cures over the past several decades presents a great example of why democratization of funding is needed.

While oversimplifying the situation, most research funding for Alzheimer’s disease comes from the US National Institutes of Health and one foundation. During this time, the scientific community had primarily focused its research efforts on a single hypothesis, the amyloid hypothesis. Other theories and projects without scientific consensus within these funding organizations were largely left unfunded or under-resourced. Research funding was dedicated to removing amyloid plaques and tau tangles in the brain – trying to cure a disease that was very well advanced and extraordinarily complex.

Alzheimer’s disease begins to form for nearly 20 years before any visible symptoms emerge, giving the disease plenty of time to establish itself in the body before any attempts to cure it can begin. These decades of research and billions of dollars yielded few results, and today Alzheimer’s disease remains the only significant disease with no known effective cures or therapeutics. What didn’t get funded (until recently)? Diagnostics – until these emerged, the only way to verify Alzheimer’s disease was through autopsy. Longitudinal life history studies – we still don’t know how Alzheimer’s disease forms, progresses, and risk factors.

By democratizing impact funding and engaging a broad, global motivated community, we believe we can take more shots on goal and more risk in research and solution development. Alzheimer’s represents one example, but the same situation occurs in many other conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, rare diseases, and so on. While my focus for Cherubs DAO is on Brain Health broadly, I think our model, once proven, can be replicated for other cause categories.

What is the vision of the project?

Our vision is to reimagine impact funding with Web3. We see Cherubs DAO as a new regenerative funding model for impact across investments and charitable grants. With a daily sale of NFTs to onboard new members and recycling the investment gains made to invest in new projects and fund new grants, we can create a perpetual global impact funding vehicle.

What are the causes you are aiming to fund?

The Cherubs DAO is 100% focused on a $30b brain health moonshot. Our ambition is to generate $30b of funding directed at brain health causes, including dementia, brain injury, mental health, and fair and equal access to high-quality education. We seek preventative therapeutics and cures to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, effective treatment of brain injury to prevent dementia onset, and overall effective diagnostics and treatments for mental health. Ultimately our goal is to improve public health and extend healthy lifespans by focusing exclusively on brain health. The longevity movement and science ensure that our bodies can live and function longer and longer. However, keeping our brain healthy while our bodies can live longer remains a barrier to genuinely extending healthy lifespans.

What does the NFT technology enable you to do?

A lot! Each Cherub NFT sale generates new funds for the Cherubs DAO treasury. Each Cherub NFT represents a single vote over how the Treasury is invested and how the Cherubs DAO is governed. So the Cherub NFT enables the democratization of impact funding – anyone can join the Cherubs DAO by buying a Cherub, and one Cherub equals one vote.

The NFT has the added benefit of being a beautiful and unique piece of digital art that can be shared and used across social media to advocate for the Cherubs DAO and specific causes within the DAO. If one owns a Cherub NFT, one can assign a cause icon and background color from our fundamental causes of dementia, brain injury, mental health, and education. This allows for social signaling within the DAO amongst its members and publicly calling attention to the cause that matters most to each Cherub NFT holder.

What are the economics behind your model?

We raise funds for the Cherubs DAO through the daily sale of Cherub NFTs. So functionally, this is a product sale to a buyer, just like other NFT sales. Cherub NFTs also contain membership rights to vote in the DAO’s use of the Treasury. For Cherubs DAO, the use of the Treasury is to deploy 80% of the net funds to making Impact Investments seeking investment gains and 20% of the net funds to nonprofit grants. The Cherub NFTs, as members, vote on-chain to make these investments and grants. The Cherub NFTs also have the right to make investment and grant proposals. All investments and grants align with the mission of Brain Health.

Therefore, the Cherubs DAO Treasury grows through the daily sales of Cherub NFTs and from investment gains generated by the DAO, net of taxes paid on the sales of the NFTs and investment gains. Charitable contributions offset the revenues and capital gains.

What is the role of the DAO in the project?

The DAO is the essence of the Cherubs project. The entire goal of this initiative is to democratize impact funding globally. By creating a member-owned impact fund governed using cultural artifacts such as NFTs, we seek to reimagine how communities and capital can form to impact significant causes such as Brain Health. This is in stark contrast to how funding occurs in the traditional system through centralized entities like government organizations, mega-billionaire foundations, and venture funds with an exclusive set of general partners.

How is the funding model sustainable?

Cherubs DAO is designed to be a regenerative impact funding system. Through daily Cherub NFT sales, new funding is provided to the Cherubs DAO treasury every day. Moreover, through the DAO’s impact on investment activities, investment returns also grow the DAO treasury. The more successful the DAO is in making high-impact investments, the more high-quality deal flow with future return potential will be available to the DAO. The more impact the Cherubs DAO achieves, the more demand will emerge for purchasing new Cherubs DAO membership.

What is the total supply of cherubs, and what are the price drivers?

Each Cherub NFT is generated algorithmically on-chain randomly from its parts based on the block’s hash in which the Cherub NFT is minted. Therefore each Cherub NFT is verifiable, and each is equally unique. No Cherub has any more rarity than another. Based on the combination of parts available, over 8 million unique variations of Cherub NFTs are possible. The number of Cherub NFTs auctioned per day will be determined by the Cherubs DAO. Given the mission of the DAO as a member-governed impact fund, only one to a few Cherub NFTs are likely to be sold each day.

The price of the Cherub NFTs will initially be determined by the demand from the market to be a member of the Cherubs Brain Health DAO impact fund. Over time, the value of a Cherub NFT should be determined by the value of the Cherubs DAO Treasury, the estimated value of its investment portfolio, and a premium ascribed to being a member of the community.

Who is Cherubs DAO for, and what are the barriers to entry?

Cherubs DAO is for people that want to be part of a global community that collaborates to decide how to invest funds to accelerate advancements in brain health across solution development and primary research funding. Cherubs DAO members want to make an impact by sourcing and funding new approaches to advance brain health and be part of such a community.

The price of a Cherub NFT representing membership in the Cherubs DAO may become a barrier to entry for some potential members. While entry price may be a barrier for individuals who otherwise would like to be part of the community and have value to contribute, through subDAO collaborations and other methods, we want to enable active and inclusive participation. These methods will be worked out over time to ensure access and inclusion. 

Why should one own a Cherub NFT? 

A Cherub NFT represents membership in a community seeking to reimagine how to create impact outcomes in Brain Health. It is a $30b moonshot to progress the critical challenge to longevity and extending a healthy human lifespan – Brain Health. The Cherub NFT can grow in value and the success in the Cherubs DAO investments and the growth of its community through daily Cherub NFT sales. However, the most critical value driver of owning a Cherubs is being part of this community as it achieves incredible impact outcomes for Brain Health.

Where can people participate? And how?

Join our Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cherubsdao

Join our Discord Community here: https://discord.com/invite/pSAbaHf7Rf/

Try the Cherubs DAO TestNet here: https://testnet.cherubsdao.com

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Please do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or NFTs.