ZAOfractal
Search cmd K

11 - Key People

The fractal-governance lineage is built by a small group of people who all know each other. Understanding who they are makes the rest of the lineage make sense.

Daniel Larimer - philosophical founder

  • Creator of BitShares (2014) - the first decentralized exchange (DeFi pioneer).
  • Creator of Steem/Hive (2016) - the first blockchain-based social media with token rewards.
  • Creator of EOS (2018) - EOSIO smart contract platform, $4B+ market cap at launch.
  • Author of “More Equal Animals: The Subtle Art of True Democracy” (Feb 20, 2021) - the book that defined fractal democracy.
  • Co-author of the Fractally white paper (Feb 22, 2022) and the Addendum 1 scoring revision.
  • Founded Eden on EOS (April 2021), the first practical fractal community.

After three platform launches, Larimer shifted to governance theory. He is the philosophical root of every fractal community alive today, even though he no longer runs day-to-day operations on any of them. Fractally itself went dormant; the live communities (Eden, Optimism, ZAO, Roy, etc.) carried the idea forward.

Dan SingJoy - founder, musician, governance innovator

The bridge figure. SingJoy is the link between Larimer’s theory and the live fractal communities, and the link between fractal governance and music.

  • Placed 3rd in Genesis Fractal (2022, ~130 participants).
  • Founded Eden Fractal (May 2022).
  • Founded Optimism Fractal (Oct 2023, paused Jan 2026).
  • Co-founded Optimystics, the dev studio behind ORDAO/OREC/frapps/Fractalgram.
  • Founded Eden Creators and Eden Town Hall.
  • 1,600 Respect points - the highest contributor to Optimism Fractal.
  • Hosts Creator Talk, Fractal Apple (a cinematic show combining music and public goods), and Dan’s Party (YouTube music).
  • Created “Fractal DJ” - a variant of the Respect Game for ranking music selections.

Critical for ZAO: SingJoy is fundamentally a musician-turned-governance-innovator. His personal brand is music + governance. He and Zaal are natural allies. His philosophy: “Well-designed social games are the key to leveling up our communities, societies, and civilization.”

Find him: @DanSingjoy on Farcaster, on X, on GitHub (26 repos).

Tadas Vaitiekunas (sim31) - lead developer

The technical core of every modern fractal community.

  • Co-founded Optimystics.
  • Built ORDAO, OREC, Fractalgram - all the core technical infrastructure.
  • 850 Respect points (Optimism Fractal).
  • GitHub: sim31 - the upstream ordao repo lives at sim31/ordao with 254+ commits, last push April 2, 2026.
  • Personally deployed zao.frapps.xyz for ZAO Fractal.
  • Released the original Fractalgram (Feb 2023) - the Telegram Web A fork that automates Respect Game sessions.
  • Relationship with Zaal: described as “very friendly, active daily/weekly discussions.”

If something on-chain breaks at any fractal community, Tadas is the person who fixes it.

Rosmari - community builder

  • Co-founded Optimystics.
  • 1,400 Respect points (Optimism Fractal, 2nd highest).
  • Podcast host, community building, content production.

Abraham Becker - next-gen Fractalgram developer

  • Building Respect.Games - the async-first web app version of the Respect Game.
  • UI improvements to Fractalgram.
  • Working on mainnet deployment of next-gen tools.
  • Respect.Games is MIT-licensed, vs Fractalgram’s GPL-3.0 - the licensing diversification is intentional.

Zaal Panthaki - ZAO founder

  • Path through the fractal movement:
    1. Joined Optimism Fractal at week 6 (early adopter, late 2023).
    2. Active in Eden Fractal - earned Respect on EOS and (later) Base. Served on the Eden council.
    3. Founded ZAO Fractal (August 2024) - applied fractal democracy to music community governance for the first time.
    4. Built the Discord bot - 7 major iterations (fractalbotv1old through fractalbotmarch2026), 52 slash commands.
    5. Deployed ORDAO for ZAO with Tadas’s help.
    6. Built ZAO OS - the Farcaster social client where the fractal lives long-term.
    7. 100+ continuous weeks running ZAO Fractal as of May 2026.
  • On daily/weekly terms with Dan SingJoy and Tadas Vaitiekunas.
  • Wallet: zaal.eth - one of two wallets that has ever submitted to ZAO’s OREC contract (the other is civilmonkey.eth).

Key ecosystem members

PersonRole
Jacob HomenixCo-developed Optimism Fractal Hats tree
BitBeckerRaid Guild developer, EasyRetroPGF contributor
JRockiOptimism delegate, Grants Council, Ambassadors
Matt LangstonGenesis Fractal simulation research, statistical analysis (the published source for Genesis stats)

Why the people matter for ZAO

ZAO is not a standalone DAO. It is a chapter in a 5-year governance movement built by a small group of people who all know each other. Larimer wrote the theory. SingJoy built the practical communities. Tadas built the software. Zaal applied it to music and is now the longest-running operator of a weekly fractal anywhere.

Any external pitch (grants, partnerships, press) is stronger when it tells this lineage rather than presenting ZAO as a one-off DAO.

Sources

View source on GitHub →