What is OpenDAO (SOS) crypto coin? A complete breakdown of its origin, value, and current status

OpenDAO (SOS) isn’t your typical crypto coin. It didn’t launch with a whitepaper, a team of founders, or a big marketing campaign. Instead, it dropped unexpectedly on December 25, 2021 - Christmas Day - as a surprise gift to people who had traded NFTs on OpenSea. If you bought, sold, or swapped any NFT on OpenSea before that date, you were eligible to claim SOS tokens for free. No sign-up. No KYC. Just a simple wallet connection. And for a while, it felt like magic.

But here’s the truth: OpenDAO (SOS) is now a ghost of its early hype. It’s still on the blockchain, still tradable, and still held by nearly 190,000 wallets. But its price? It’s barely worth a penny. Its trading volume? Almost zero. And its purpose? Still unclear.

How OpenDAO (SOS) was born

OpenDAO was created by an anonymous group with no public names, no Twitter account, and no roadmap. Their only statement? They wanted to build "the token of the metaverse" - a community-owned asset that would help fix problems in the NFT world. Specifically, they aimed to:

• Compensate users who got scammed on OpenSea
• Support emerging NFT artists
• Preserve digital art
• Fund developers building tools for the SOS ecosystem

They didn’t create a new platform. They didn’t build a wallet. They didn’t even launch a decentralized exchange. All they did was distribute 100 trillion SOS tokens - a number so huge it’s hard to imagine.

Half of those tokens - 50 trillion - went directly to OpenSea users based on how much they traded. The rest was split: 20% for staking rewards, 20% for a DAO treasury, and 10% for liquidity on exchanges. The catch? You had to claim your tokens by June 30, 2022. After that, unclaimed SOS tokens went into the DAO treasury, not burned. That’s unusual. Most projects destroy unused tokens. OpenDAO kept them.

It’s an ERC-20 token on Ethereum

OpenDAO (SOS) runs on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token. That means you need an Ethereum wallet - like MetaMask, Trust Wallet, or Coinbase Wallet - to hold it. You can’t store SOS on Solana, Binance Chain, or any other network. And despite what some websites claim, there’s no "Solana Swap (SOS)". That’s a completely different, unrelated token with the same ticker.

Claiming SOS back in 2021 was simple. You connected your wallet to the OpenDAO website, verified your OpenSea trading history, and got your tokens instantly. It took less than five minutes. But now? There’s no official claim portal. The site still exists, but it’s frozen. No updates. No new features. Just a static page.

Why SOS lost its value

Right after launch, SOS spiked. Prices jumped over 1,200% in days. People were buying it on Uniswap, posting about it on Reddit, and hoping to get rich. But that excitement didn’t last. Why?

Because SOS had no real use.

Compare it to ApeCoin (APE), which powers the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem. You need APE to buy virtual land in Otherside. Or LooksRare (LOOK), which rewards traders with tokens for buying NFTs on its marketplace. Those tokens have built-in demand. SOS? Nothing. You can’t use it to pay for NFTs. You can’t vote on governance proposals (there’s no active DAO). You can’t stake it for meaningful rewards. There’s no app that accepts it. No game, no platform, no service.

That’s the core problem. OpenDAO was built on generosity - not utility. It gave away tokens to people who already owned NFTs. But it never gave them a reason to keep using them.

By November 2023, SOS was trading at around $0.00000215. That’s less than a millionth of a dollar per token. Its market cap hovered around $200,000 - tiny compared to even the smallest real crypto projects. Trading volume? Often $0. On the days it did trade, it was under $200. That means if you tried to sell 1 billion SOS tokens, you’d likely crash the price because no one else is buying.

Who still holds SOS?

Over 189,000 wallets hold SOS. That’s a lot of people - wider distribution than most crypto tokens. But most of them are just sitting on it.

On Reddit, users in r/opendao are divided. One top post says: "Claimed my SOS back in January 2022 thinking it would be valuable, but I’ve never found a single legitimate use case for it." Another says: "I’m holding for the long term because eventually someone will build something useful with it."

That’s the split: speculators who bought in early hoping for a rebound, and idealists who still believe in the original vision - even if nothing’s happened in over two years.

There’s no official team to update the community. No GitHub commits. No blog posts. No Twitter updates since mid-2022. The Telegram group has a few hundred members, but moderators rarely respond. The project is dormant.

What experts say about OpenDAO

Crypto analysts are blunt.

Alex Thorn from Galaxy Digital called it "a solution in search of a problem." Delphi Digital’s Matthew Graham labeled it a "digital fossil" - interesting historically, but economically dead. Blockchain economist Dr. Jason Potts wrote in a 2023 paper that OpenDAO proves one thing: "Massive token distribution alone can’t create value without demand mechanisms."

The biggest failure? No burning mechanism. No revenue share. No fee redistribution. No utility. Just 100 trillion tokens floating in wallets with nowhere to go.

Can SOS ever come back?

Technically, yes. Someone could rebuild it. A new team could take over the treasury. They could launch a marketplace, a staking app, or a grant program. But no one has.

And why would they? The treasury holds 20 trillion SOS - worth about $43,000 at current prices. That’s not enough to fund a serious project. Even if they sold half of it, they’d only get $21,500. That’s less than a developer’s annual salary.

Without funding, without a team, and without a plan, SOS has no path forward. It’s not dead - it’s just forgotten.

Should you buy SOS today?

If you’re looking to invest? No.

There’s no upside. No catalyst. No reason to believe the price will rise. Even if it did, the liquidity is so low that selling your tokens would be nearly impossible without losing 90% of your value.

If you already hold SOS? You’re not alone. But you’re holding a token with no function, no support, and no future. The only value it has now is as a reminder - of how hype can create a bubble, and how quickly it can collapse when there’s no real purpose behind it.

OpenDAO (SOS) is a lesson in tokenomics. It shows that giving away free tokens doesn’t build a community - building real utility does. It’s not about how many people get the coin. It’s about what they can do with it.

Today, SOS is just a number on a blockchain. A relic of a moment when the NFT world thought magic could replace mechanics. And that’s all it will ever be.