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LinksDAO - The Crypto Golf Club - is an online golf community that launched in 2021 with the goal of owning and operating a golf club.

It’s a goal they achieved when they purchased Scottish Golf Club Spey Bay in early 2023, for a reported price exceeding $750,000.

The community of thousands of golfers raised ~$10.5 million worth of Ether by selling NFTs that provide two levels of membership; Global and Leisure. Their popularity extended into the secondary market, where they have seen 10s of millions of dollars of secondary market NFT sales. The early days of success also saw golf brand Kallaway take an equity stake in the Links Golf Club holding company.

The NFTs provide varying levels of DAO governance and a provide numerous perks. Most notable of which is access to ~450 golf clubs in the Links Play network. The NFTs also give holders access to limited-edition merchandise and discounts from a variety of leading golfing brands.

LinksDAO, the decentralised organization, doesn’t own or run the club. Links Golf Club is a standard company on the front end that takes care of that. The DAO itself is an organisation that votes on whether to move forward with acquisitions and other relevant proposals.

Even though LinksDAO have a predominantly US audience, and the golf clubs their holders have access to are based in the states, the purchase of Scottish golf club Spey Bay received a 88% ‘yes’ vote. More than 4300 votes were cast regarding the proposal to place a bid on Spey Bay, from 953 voters. Despite the NFT market bleeding and many DAOs struggling, LinksDAO have shown impressive retention rates from voters throughout their existence.

After the Spey Bay purchase, LinksDAO turned their attention to scaling through regular ‘Web2’ means — using more traditional membership models.

Fast forward to Q1 2025 and Links have announced two big announcements

Before we get into that, let’s summarise what has made LinksDAO a success up until this point:

Since its inception, the operational excellence and level of execution they have maintained has been awesome to see.

Everything is done with purpose and at a top-class level. Everything from their social posts, the branding, the NFT holder dashboard — it’s all best in class in the world of NFTs, and most definitely DAOs.

Psst. we interviewed their Co-Founder and head of community Cooper Sherwin on the Sporting Crypto Podcast which you can watch below! 👇

Now that you're up to speed with what Links is and why it has succeeded to date, let’s discuss their most recent announcement; launching $LINKS — a fungible token. It coincides with the partial acquisition of Hillcrest, a Donald Ross-designed course in Kansas City, subject to DAO voter decision.

The token will launch on the Base blockchain, with a third of its supply earmarked for LinksDAO NFT holders and smaller allocations for members of other prominent NFT communities such as Pudgy Penguins and Bored Ape Yacht Club.

NFT trading volumes have plummeted - with CryptoSlam's NFT Index down nearly 97% since January 2022, so it makes sense that LinksDAO is adapting their strategy to the current market conditions. It’s also unknown how much success the Links team have had with their non-Web3 related growth, and the positioning now changing to ‘The Crypto Golf Club’ — they are doubling down on those who straddle an interest in both the sport and the emergent technology.

Co-founder Mike Dudas said $LINKS will act as “a community token that has deep culture, embedded in the game of golf, whilst ensuring regulatory compliance”.

Fungible tokens and the Base Layer 2 scaling network on Ethereum have been huge winners in this crypto cycle, so directionally this makes sense for Links.

Co-founder Cooper Sherwin said “The goal is to have every single golfer have LINKS in their crypto wallet".

Until now, LinksDAO have demonstrated that their 'company in the front, community in the back' approach is how online collectives can get stuff done. Unlike many failed crypto projects, they have avoided over-engineering DAO mechanics — limiting member voting to several meaningful decisions per year.

This is crucial because one of the primary failure points I've observed in crypto DAOs is governance fatigue. When projects try to engage their community with weekly or even daily voting, it creates exhaustion instead of meaningful participation. LinksDAO understood that having too many cooks when trying to execute as a top-class business can hinder execution speed.

During the latest crypto bear market, LinksDAO pivoted towards traditional Web2 membership schemes, against a backdrop of NFT projects struggling with declining secondary market revenues.

This accomplished two things: establishing regular revenue streams and expanding their community beyond crypto natives.

It is however unknown how successful this was, and their pivot back to a more crypto-oriented community makes me think they know where their strengths lie.

With the $LINKS token announcement, we're seeing LinksDAO lean back into those crypto roots.

And the timing makes sense for three reasons:

I do think, however, that the token launch presents some challenges for the successful online golf collective.

On the positive side, it should drive additional revenue streams and create more liquidity. It also offers a mechanism to distribute value to their community and potentially engage a broader audience than their Web2 memberships.

As I have continued to say, however: consumer tokens are notoriously difficult.

No matter how successfully you operate the business on the front end, token value can fluctuate wildly due to market dynamics beyond your control; third-party traders, the macro environment or a black swan crypto event.

The token, and its price, become your business as soon as it’s launched.

How LinksDAO manages this balance between token market dynamics and their core mission of building tangible value in the golf industry will be interesting to follow.

Their track record suggests they'll approach this thoughtfully, but it's arguably their biggest challenge yet.

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