This community makes no sense. ICOs which only have a promise and song go to the moon, but an ICO that holds almost 12 million ETH in the till now has a market cap less than the assets it holds.
From an outside conventional view, it does make sense. Right now, The DAO is like a
closed-end fund holding ETH. Unlike ETF's closed-end funds traditionally trade at a discount to their underlying holdings because there's no way for the shareholders to get their share of the underlying assets. This illiquidity isn't literally true of The DAO, but withdrawal means going through a two-Proposal two-step that's going to take well over a month. Given how volatile Ethers are, it should be no surprise (really) that The DAO trades with an "illiquidity discount." Three's only one way to arbitrage: withdrawing. Unlike the case with an ETF, there's no way to deposit ETH & get more DAO.
Right now, there's not enough excitement about The DAO's future investments to get everyone dreaming big dreams about it. There's no "blue sky." This lack of excitement is going to continue not only because it's raised a huge amount of funds but also because it's structured as a long-term
investment fund - something like a venture-capital fund.
There's really only two way in which The DAO can become a ten-bagger:
1. It secures enough fees from successful fundings to be valued as a billion-dollar business, or:
2. Its ETH goes up ten times in value, and its investments are valued at cost.
[3: a mix of 1 & 2.]
So right now, if you want to trade it, it's best to view The DAO as a means to pick up ETH at a discount, provided you account for the illiquidity of withdrawal. It's a long-term investment, whose total roi would have to include the fun of participating in it.
