Launch a DAO on Arbitrum and build in a thriving ecosystem of protocols, assets and applications.
Arbitrum is a Layer 2 rollup scaling Ethereum. With over $7 billion total value locked and 55% of the L2 market share, Arbitrum is the industry’s most popular L2 solution.
Arbitrum’s battle-tested, market-leading technology makes Ethereum more accessible with lower gas costs and faster transactions. Its security is inherited from Ethereum, and is a time-tested solution for your DAO and its assets.
Deploy your DAO on Arbitrum using the modular DAO framework, Aragon OSx, or the no-code Aragon App today!
Arbitrum is by far the most adopted rollup in the EVM ecosystem, both in terms of TVL and protocols launched on the network. In addition to being home to impactful multichain projects like Stargate, Arbitrum has spurred many exciting native projects like GMX, Tenderize, and Plutus. We are excited to join such a vibrant ecosystem.
— Ivan Fartunov, Head of Ecosystem
Abitrum is your gateway to Ethereum, the largest layer 1 ecosystem
Ethereum mainnet has the most access to liquidity and highest security, but it also has high gas costs and slow transaction times. These barriers lead people to choose off-chain solutions, which lose some advantages of being deployed on a blockchain.
Arbitrum solves the problems of operating and governing on Ethereum mainnet. It gives you the scalability you need to run your DAO, without sacrificing on security. Transactions are significantly cheaper, so votes and actions are much lower cost. And bridging assets to Arbitrum is simple, so you can have access to the liquidity you need.
Think of Arbitrum as your starting point to access the entire world of Ethereum!
Why build your DAO on Arbitrum?
Save DAO resources and increase voter turnout with lower gas costs
Arbitrum transactions are just a fraction of the cost of using mainnet, which can save your DAO significant resources. Creating and running a DAO requires multiple onchain transactions, all of which cost fees. When deployed on Arbitrum, your DAO can save funds because actions such as casting votes, adding new members, and sending assets will cost significantly less.
Lower gas costs have another key advantage: they can help increase voter turnout. When members don’t have to pay gas fees, they might be more likely to participate in votes. Higher voter turnout also increases governance security, because it ensures more DAO members are making sure proposals are aligned with the DAO.
Reduce time spent on DAO admin and governance with faster transactions
Transactions on Arbitrum settle much more quickly than they do on Ethereum, saving you and your members time. Arbitrum processes around 40,000 transactions per second (TPS), while Ethereum only processes around 20-40. This means don’t have to wait the standard 9 minutes for each mainnet transaction to settle to get to your next task. Instead of waiting for your transaction to confirm, you can get back to building.
Inherit security from Ethereum and a time-tested solution
One of the primary reasons to deploy a DAO on mainnet is because of security. But with Arbitrum, you don’t have to sacrifice on security to get scalability, because the rollup inherits the security of Ethereum.
If any fraud is detected, it can be verified and then penalized on Ethereum. So, you can have peace of mind that your DAO and its assets are secure.
Full EVM equivalence makes building easy
If you’re building a custom DAO on Aragon OSx, you can deploy on Arbitrum without making technical modifications. Developers can migrate from Ethereum mainnet to Arbitrum with minimal modifications, making building on Arbitrum fast and easy!
Arbitrum and Aragon both build technology that opens doors for an onchain future
Arbitrum and Aragon have one key thing in common: building technology that opens doors to Ethereum and makes onchain actions attainable for all users.
Both Aragon and Arbitrum have a shared vision to bring the world onto Ethereum through more accessible gateways. Arbitrum’s rollup technology serves as a gateway to Ethereum, and Aragon’s user-friendly DAO tech stack makes it possible for anyone to build a DAO.
With the industry converging on Ethereum as the base infrastructure for a thriving ecosystem on top, value and resources don’t have to be fragmented across Layer 1 chains that all serve different purposes. Instead, with the thriving Layer 2 ecosystem and Arbitrum leading the way, assets and value will be accrued to the same base layer. Ethereum’s secure, decentralized technology underpins the revolutionary protocols and apps that will change the world.
Launch your DAO on Arbitrum!
Use Aragon OSx and the Aragon App to deploy your DAO on Arbitrum for faster transactions, lower gas fees, and inherited security from Ethereum!
Introducing Optimistic Dual Governance, an efficient governance design using plugins on Aragon OSx. This governance design enables DAOs to create two different stakeholder groups with different governance permissions, and then execute proposals optimistically.
The plugins are currently undergoing audits, but you can check out the progress of the first implementation here.
In a nutshell, Optimistic Dual Governance enables teams to work efficiently while allowing key stakeholders to veto proposals.
While any type of stakeholder group can be defined to meet your organization’s needs, this dual governance design was created for protocol DAOs with these two groups in mind:
Teams that are actively building a protocol or doing operational work: such as a core team, guilds, developers, and any other active participants that are making updates, parameter changes, and upgrades to the protocol itself.
Members of a Main DAO: any arbitrarily defined stakeholder group, which can be users, liquidity providers, stakers, investors, governance token holders, or another group that has an interest in protecting the protocol, but isn’t proactively involved in operations, development, or parameter changes.
Once you’ve defined your stakeholder groups, the next component of this design to understand is Optimistic Governance.
Optimistic Governance is when proposals pass as long as they’re not vetoed. Rather than standard token-based governance where proposals need to be voted on to pass, proposals in an optimistic governance structure pass automatically after a timelock period.
This means teams can move faster and don’t have to put proposals through a traditional governance process, however, this creates an attack surface if proposal creation is open to any wallet. For example, if the main DAO lets a proposal pass that misuses treasury funds, there’s no way to reverse the execution. So, it’s more secure for the DAO to have a defined group—in this case, an allowlist of addresses—that can be held accountable to proposals.
The design was largely inspired by teams that have been exploring Optimistic Dual Governance for their own DAOs, including Lido and StakedFLIP. The design by Jacob from Zora was also a significant inspiration.
Here’s how Optimistic Dual Governance on Aragon OSx works from proposal to execution:
Proposal creation: Multisigs or subDAOs on the proposal allowlist can create proposals to the main DAO.
Timelock period: During the timelock, the main DAO’s members can veto the proposal.
Execution: If the main DAO doesn’t veto the proposal during the timelock, the proposal automatically executes.
Check out the architecture in the diagram below:
The permission management system at the heart of Aragon OSx enables a lean and efficient Optimistic Dual Governance design. It enables a main DAO to have separate permissions from those of the subDAOs, but all DAOs are able to operate within the same governance system.
This is the first iteration of this plugin. There are thousands of versions that could be created to suit the needs of your organization.
For example, in a future version of this plugin, different types of proposals can have longer or shorter timelocks. Minor updates could have a shorter timelock so it’s easier for teams to push small updates quickly, and significant updates could have a longer timelock, giving the main DAO members enough time to review them.
We can work with your team to build the iteration of this governance design that best suits your protocol. If you’re interested in using Optimistic Dual Governance, inquire here.
“OSx is the Unix of Ethereum—a future-proof DAO framework to build the DAOs that we can’t even imagine today. Dual governance will play a key role in communities that need to iterate fast while keeping valuable assets and rights in the hands of the token holders.”
— Jordi, Core OSx Developer
Why use Optimistic Dual Governance?
Separate stakeholder groups into active and passive roles
Simple token-based governance puts all stakeholders into a single, homogeneous group with the same permissions. But in reality, stakeholders range from active and high context participants building the protocol to users and infrastructure providers who want protection, but aren’t actively involved.
This governance design allows you to separate stakeholder groups based on the role they need to take in governing the protocol. You can think of this as an active group of proposers and a passive group of vetoers.
Many key stakeholders might not want to actively create proposals, especially those containing technical upgrades. However, they do want to make sure that the proposals that are passed are safe and are not misusing funds, introducing vulnerabilities, or compromising the future of the protocol. Splitting stakeholder groups and giving them different permissions with Optimistic Dual Governance is a solution for this.
Efficient governance enables teams to ship faster
Optimistic execution of proposals means that teams’ proposals are executed as long as they’re not vetoed. This design enables teams to iterate quickly, benefiting the health of the protocol as a whole.
And, if voter apathy is a problem in the organization, the teams aren’t held back. They don’t have to wait for proposals to get the votes required to pass—they’re passed automatically after the timelock period. Teams also don’t need to take time out of their work to move proposals through multiple stages of voting or approvals. The main DAO stakeholders still have final approval over proposals, but the politics and process is significantly reduced.
Stakeholders in the main DAO keep control with the timelock and veto option
Stakeholders in the passive role — users, investors, liquidity providers, or others — don’t need to actively vote to make sure the protocol or product is being maintained. However, they are still in control, because they can veto proposals that aren’t aligned with the DAO.
This design gives token holders final control over what happens to the protocol without having to actively participate in creating proposals. They can review proposals if they choose to, but don’t need to exercise their voting rights unless something needs to be vetoed.
Option to have entirely tokenless governance
One of the possibilities of this design is that both the teams and the main DAO could be entirely tokenless. For the main DAO, you simply need an allowlist of addresses that have permission to cast a veto vote. On the team side, you need an allowlist of addresses that have permission to create proposals.
Whether you’re pre-token or are not launching one at all, you can use this governance design. There’s no component of the design that requires you to mint a token.
Furthermore, these permissions and their implementation can be customized in multiple ways, such as assigning voting power or adjusting time locks.
What’s next for this governance design:
More modularity
You can find the first iteration for the Optimistic Dual Governance plugin here, which will be undergoing audits.
For more complex organizations, a variation of this design could be a better fit, because it includes autonomy for subDAOs. Here’s what it could look like: the multisigs would be autonomous subDAOs, which could manage certain permissions by themselves, such as the ability to add and remove new internal members. They could also have their own governance process, such as token voting.
Governance minimization is a key goal of this governance design, and the future iterations will lean into this concept even more. By making the governance process lean and secure, both stakeholders and team members don’t need to spend so much time involved in governance.
We’re seeking partners to explore the boundaries of this model and feedback from more industry players. Inquire about using this governance design in your own DAO or protocol by filling out the form above to let us know what you need!
We can’t wait to learn about what you’re building.
We’re excited to announce Aragon OSx CLI, a tool that makes it easy to build, deploy, and publish plugins on Aragon OSx.
The CLI abstracts away the complexity of deploying and publishing a plugin, as well as providing better error handling so you can debug and solve problems faster.
Let’s dive into how Aragon OSx CLI makes development fast and easy, so you can focus on building custom functionality for your DAO!
“The CLI enables you to build faster and safer, and not have to work with the protocol in its raw state.”
— Aaron, Developer Experience Engineer
What’s a plugin?
Plugins are smart contracts that change the logic of your DAO. They can be installed, uninstalled, and upgraded. Think of plugins like apps you install on your computer. They add extra functionality that extend what your DAO can do!
Plugins can perform lots of different actions onchain. Here are a few categories:
Governance: alter the decision-making mechanism in your DAO, such as by installing a token voting plugin, cross-chain voting plugin, or something else.
Asset management: swap tokens with a Uniswap plugin, stake assets with a Lido plugin, or buy NFTs with an OpenSea plugin.
Membership: customize the voting census. Grant membership to individuals with a non-transferrable token plugin, to authorized wallets with a multisig plugin, or to token holders with an ERC-20 plugin.
Anything else that extends the functionality of your DAO onchain!
One example of a plugin is the multichain governance plugin. DAOs can install it to change their DAO from being single-chain to multichain.
Plugins make your DAO modular by giving you the option to create custom logic, install the combination of plugins you need, and uninstall the ones you no longer need. They make it possible for you to adapt your DAO as its needs change, without having to abandon the existing DAO and deploy a new one.
Modularity through plugins makes it possible for your DAO to operate in a complex, ever-changing world and tap into the latest innovations and best practices!
What is the Aragon OSx CLI?
The Aragon OSx CLI is a terminal interface making it easier and faster for developers to build plugins.
Here’s what you can expect from the CLI:
Faster development process
The Aragon OSx CLI speeds up the development process and ensures you’re building the way that fits with the protocol. By using the commands, you can publish and deploy your plugin without having to dive into how OSx works under the hood.
This creates a smoother builder experience overall, reducing errors, and making the process of building custom governance functionality for your DAO significantly faster!
More descriptive error messages
There’s nothing more frustrating than a generic error message that doesn’t describe what you need to do to fix it. Aragon OSx CLI has descriptive error messages, so you can debug faster.
Here’s an example of a more descriptive error message we added: When setting up the DAO’s subdomain (the dao.eth address) the protocol expects the subdomain to be unique, all lowercase, and to not include any periods.
If you submitted a subdomain like Aragon.plugin for your plugin, this would be invalid because it’s capitalized and has a period.
Prior to deploying the CLI, the error message used to say Invalid subdomain without giving much additional guidance. Now, in the CLI, we added more validations and context to be more specific about the error so you can fix it quicker, such as: Subdomain invalid: Your domain is capitalized and contains a period. Subdomains must be unique, all lowercased, and can’t contain any symbols beyond “-“.
“Before the CLI, to go from idea to plugin, there were a lot of things you needed to know about the protocol. This abstracts away all those steps.”
— Aaron, Developer Experience Engineer
What does Aragon CLI do?
Check out some of the commands you can use with the Aragon CLI:
Deploy Plugin [ deploy ]
Deploys a plugin to your network of choice. This is required before publishing it in the Aragon OSx protocol.
Publish Plugin [ publish ]
Publishes your plugin into the Plugin Registry so anyone can install it in their DAO.
View Plugin’s Info [ info ]
Allows you to see the information about your plugin after it’s been published to the Plugin Registry.
Simulate transactions [ –simulate ]
The –simulate option on the deploy and publish command will simulate the transaction for you using Tenderly, so you can review the trace and debug easier where the error may be coming from, without actually executing the transaction on chain. This is coming soon, so stay tuned for it to be added!
Install a new plugin into a new DAO
Create a new DAO and install a plugin into it.
What’s next for OSx CLI
We’ll be publishing the CLI and getting feedback from builders to decide what to tackle next. Two updates likely on the horizon next are:
Our developer tooling page has links to everything you need to get started, including the CLI, a quickstart DAO plugin guide, a custom DAO front-end, and more.
Multichain governance has arrived on Aragon OSx! The new plugin leverages the LayerZero protocol for cross-chain messaging and the zkSync Era rollup for low-cost and secure voting. The code is still undergoing audits but you can already explore it here.
This plugin enables DAOs to govern assets and permissions across EVM chains from one mainnet DAO smart contract. This is a major step forward for the governance of protocols deployed across chains.
Here’s how governance in multichain DAOs will work from proposal to execution:
Create a custom census with tokens across chains: Create a custom census using governance tokens across multiple chains using LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard.
Cast low-cost votes on zkSync: Once the census has been created, members will be able to vote settling on zkSync at a fraction of the cost.
Execute the action across chains simultaneously: After the vote, users can utilize the Aragon OSx permission management system to execute the action programmed into the proposal on multiple chains simultaneously from your mainnet DAO.
The architecture is diagrammed here:
The plugin code is open-source and currently being audited. If you’re interested in using this design, inquire here about a custom build. The plugin ill launch on the no-code Aragon App in the new year.
This specific multichain governance design would not be possible without Aragon OSx’s modular permission management system, making it simple to grant and revoke permissions to external contracts from a DAO contract.
Here’s what you can do with the plugin and why it’s exciting for the future of onchain governance.
What can you do with the multichain governace plugin?
Execute actions on any chain simultaneously
You can execute actions not just on mainnet, but on any chain that the main DAO has a proxy DAO deployed on. This gives you ultimate governance flexibility to adjust parameters and send assets on the precise chain you need to.
If you want to execute multiple actions simultaneously, you don’t have to create multiple proposals to execute the actions. You can execute all the actions from a single proposal, saving your DAO time and resources. This is thanks to the permission management system at the center of Aragon OSx.
Build a census with tokens from any chain
With the multichain governance plugin, voting rights are no longer fragmented. DAO members can hold governance tokens across any EVM chain and they can be counted in the same voting census on zkSync.
The plugin leverages LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token Standard (OFT) to extend the capabilities of governance tokens, enabling token holders to cast votes on zkSync, no matter which chain their token originated on.
You’re not limited to only fungible tokens, either. You can also use different tokens in your voting census, such as NFTs. This gives you more membership optionality, because your members can hold different tokens on different chains and still have them counted toward their voting power. As long as the tokens follow the Votes Standard, they can be used in the wrapper.
Vote on zkSync to save gas costs and increase token participation
With this plugin, you can save DAO members from having to cast expensive mainnet votes. All votes are cast on zkSync, so they’re just a fraction of the cost of what voting on mainnet would be.
This saves token holders significant gas costs when they vote. It can also increase token participation, because members might be more likely to cast votes if they don’t have to pay for them. Higher token participation can improve a DAO’s capture resistance, because it’s harder for a single entity to buy up the token and unilaterally pass proposals.
Have the advantages of security and liquidity on Layer 1, while increasing voter participation with Layer 2 scalability
Multichain governance gives you the best of Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains. Your DAO will have the security and liquidity benefits of being deployed on Ethereum mainnet, with the scalability of voting for a low cost on a Layer 2.
“It’s clear now that ethereum is scaling through rollups, but we’ve left behind the piece about connecting and managing accounts across them. By working on multichain governance, we’re enabling Ethereum to scale by helping distribute liquidity and offloading some transactions to L2s, while protocols will still be able to live on mainnet.”
— Carlos, CTO
Technology from industry leaders zkSync and LayerZero make multichain governance possible
We’re proud to integrate with zkSync and LayerZero to make multichain governance a reality. Here’s how it all fits together:
zkSync: the future-proof zkEVM on the mission to scale freedom for all
All votes in the new multichain governance plugin will be conducted on zkSync, a rollup leveraging zero-knowledge proofs.
zkSync is both hyperscalable, being the L2 with the highest total number of transactions, and secure, as it inherits 100% of Ethereum’s security. zkSync’s low-cost transactions and emphasis on security make it an ideal place to conduct your DAO’s votes.
zkSync’s technology also supports paymasters, making it possible for DAOs to pay for their members’ gas fees to vote.
LayerZero: Omnichain interoperability protocol
LayerZero powers the cross-chain messaging leveraged by the multichain governance plugin to offer novel and unparalleled ease of governance across chains in a gas efficient way. This is done using the widely adopted Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard.
LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard makes native multichain assets possible. You can wrap any token to become an OFT, making it usable on any EVM chain. Instead of sending your asset to a bridge, receiving a new asset minted from that bridge, and then trusting that bridge’s security to keep your assets safe, OFTs are native assets.
Here’s how it works: when you want to wrap your token, the token on the original chain is burnt and the new token is minted on the destination chain, with LayerZero relaying the cross-chain messages to complete this action. When you want to send the tokens back to the original chain, the process is conducted in reverse: they’re burnt and then minted back on the original chain.
These two industry-leading technologies, when paired with the modular permission management system of Aragon OSx, make multichain governance possible.
Aragon OSx: DAO framework with security and modularity at its core
At the center of the multi chain design is Aragon OSx, a modular and adaptable protocol that enables you to manage permissions to external contracts and addresses. Here are a few reasons that make Aragon OSx a perfect fit for building multichain governance:
Flexible permission management system: the permission management system at the core of the protocol is flexible enough to add a cross-chain condition using LayerZero.
Unopinionated protocol design: the design of Aragon OSx doesn’t conflict with the different choices of various L2s. OSx is simple and un-opinionated, so it’s easier to plug-and-play different EVM chains.
Replicable plugin system: The plugins you build are replicable across chains, so you don’t have to redo development.
Strong base plugin contracts: The base contracts handle the majority of the logic, making development easier.
Unlocking seamless multichain governance for the protocols and organizations of the future
We live in a multichain world. A thriving ecosystem of rollups have emerged as the solution to Ethereum scalability, so protocols need a way to govern assets and permissions across chains.
Multichain organizations now have an answer to govern entirely onchain. The multichain governance plugin will enable seamless management of the protocols deployed across chains without the security risks of deploying multiple DAOs or fragmenting their members’ voting rights. With lower gas fees for voters incentivizing participation, token holders won’t have any barriers to participate.
With powerful multichain governance, organizations will be able to run their full end-to-end governance stack onchain, leveraging the advantages of being built on trustless, permissionless, and censorship resistant technology.
Multichain governance for multichain protocols will change the way we govern onchain, forever.
We’re seeking partners and feedback for the multichain governance plugin!
Find us at Devconnect to chat.
The multichain governance plugin is currently undergoing audits, but you can check out the codebase here. If you’re interested in implementing this plugin for your own DAO, fill out this form and we’ll be back in touch! Or, if you’ll be at Devconnect, make sure to find our team members for a chat! We’ll have a booth at the Staking Summit and be attending the events listed here.
Delegate voting is live on the Aragon App! You can now delegate your voting power to another address to vote on your behalf. When you want to claim your voting power, you can do so at any time within the App. This is available for any token-based DAO.
Delegate voting, a form of liquid democracy, is when you delegate your voting power to someone else to vote on your behalf.
Delegate voting is a common governance choice for DAOs. It’s challenging to maintain context on all decisions happening in the organization, so it’s helpful to delegate to someone who is able to keep up with proposals and governance.
Being able to opt out of delegation is just as important as opting into it. In the Aragon App, you can change your delegation at any time. And, you don’t need to delegate to someone else—you can claim your voting power and exercise your voting rights on every proposal yourself! Delegated voting gives tokenholders the option of representative or direct democracy.
Why delegate?
Here are a few of the benefits of delegating your voting power:
Improve decision-making within your DAO
Not all token holders have the time to keep up with every discussion and new conversation happening in the DAO. Delegation enables token holders to choose an expert to vote on their behalf, removing the burden of making so many governance choices.
This can improve decision-making because a smaller group of individuals with specific expertise can make the decisions, rather than all token holders having to weigh in on everything.
“Members of Aragon DAOs can now delegate their voting power to other members with deep knowledge or experience in a particular area, allowing the DAO to make more informed and efficient decisions.”
—Ruggero, Senior Front-end Developer at Aragon
This is especially important for protocol DAOs, which are DAOs that manage smart contract protocols such as rollups, liquid staking derivatives, or decentralized exchanges. Often, token holders need to maintain significant context for voting in protocol DAOs, because the votes make direct changes to the contracts. This means the voters need to be able to read the smart contract code or have a technical understanding of what’s happening for them to be able to cast an informed vote. Delegation can solve this, because token holders can delegate their votes to representatives who do have this additional context.
Token holders can reclaim at any time – keeping delegates accountable
Delegates don’t have power unchecked—they are held accountable by token holders, because token holders can claim their voting power at any time—there’s no need to wait for elections to do so. If delegates are not best serving the interests of their token holders, the token holders can undelegate their tokens and start voting themselves, or delegate to someone else.
Enhance DAO security with increased token participation
Delegation can increase token participation, because DAO members that might have missed votes or purposefully skipped them because they didn’t have enough context on the proposal can have an informed expert vote for them.
This increased token participation enhances your DAO’s security because it makes it harder for an individual or coordinated group to purchase tokens and pass proposals unilaterally. The more tokens participating, the safer your DAO is.
Save on gas fees because of consolidated votes
By bundling votes together, you can save on gas fees because not everyone has to vote. For example, instead of 50 members each casting their own vote and all paying for them, maybe just 10 delegates would cast votes. Having more voting power does not increase your gas cost, so this can help the DAO members save on gas fees they would have been paying.
How delegation works in the Aragon App
Delegate your current and future voting power to any address
Go to “Governance” and click “Delegate” to delegate your current and future voting power to another address. So, if you purchase or receive more governance tokens, that voting power is delegated to the new address until you claim it. You can only delegate your full voting power—you cannot split your delegation.
Delegate the ability to create proposals
If your DAO has a token gate on who can create proposals, such as requiring holding one token to be able to create a proposal, the power to create proposals is delegated to the new address as well. If you want to reclaim your ability to create proposals, you will need to claim your voting power.
Claim your voting power at any time
You can claim your voting power at any time, but if you do so during a live proposal, you won’t be able to vote until a new proposal is created. This is because a snapshot of voting power is taken at the beginning of each proposal.
Delegation is permissionless—there is no process to become a delegate
You don’t need to become a delegate in the Aragon App—your address is already capable of receiving delegation. So, how do you get the word out to your other DAO members that you want to be delegated to? Simply give your address to other DAO members so they know that you’re interested in receiving delegation! You can post your address in DAO coordination channels like a forum, discord, or telegram chat. Or, reach the wider world by posting on social media or launching a delegate website.
You retain control of your tokens—delegates cannot access your tokens or redelegate
Meta-delegation is not allowed, so your delegate cannot delegate tokens to someone else. If you sell or transfer your tokens, the delegate’s voting power is reduced by the amount you sold or transferred. If you buy more tokens, the delegate’s voting power is increased by the amount you purchased.
Watch how to delegate your voting power in our guide below:
Next up: Delegate profiles
Coming up next in the App are delegate profiles. Being thoughtful around who you choose as a delegate is important, because delegates make decisions for the organization. You don’t want your DAO members to only delegate to familiar faces or popular DAO members— it’s best to choose people who actually have the context required for making the best decisions for the organization.
Stay tuned for profiles that show more detailed information about who your delegates are!
Any token-based DAO can delegate tokens. So, get started today! Head to the Governance page on the Aragon App to delegate your voting power to any other address. Or, check out this guide to learn more about delegation.
We have an important update for all stakeholders of the Aragon Project.
The Aragon Association (AA), the legal steward of the Aragon treasury, assets, and mission, has passed the following resolution:
Deploy most of the treasury to allow all ANT holders to redeem their ANT for ETH;
Dissolve the AA;
Continue the mission in a product-focused structure.
Token holders can redeem their ANT for ETH at a fixed rate of 0.0025376 ETH / ANT. The AA is deploying 86,343 ETH to a redemption contract for this purpose on Ethereum mainnet. Token holders can participate in the redemption here. The smart contract deployment in Etherescan can be consulted here.
The AA arrived at the best redemption rate it could achieve for all ANT holders by identifying the most compliant and tax efficient path forward allowing for the continuation and protection of the project. This decision could not be put to a public vote due to legal constraints, specifically regulatory risks triggered by token speculation and market manipulation. The discussions in the Aragon Forum were considered in the decision.
How We Got Here
Aragon was founded in 2016 with the mission to create better organizations that are onchain, borderless, and transparent. Since then, Aragon popularized DAOs, taking them to their first $1bn in AUM across thousands of deployments.
In 2017, Aragon raised 275,000 ETH (approx. $25m) with the ANT sale. The ambition for ANT was bold: a token to be used in a dispute resolution system within a new digital jurisdiction, the Aragon Network. The Fight for Freedom video brought together some of the most talented developers in the industry to build towards this vision.
Aragon kickstarted its grants program, Aragon Nest, in 2018. It was the second grants program to be launched in the Ethereum ecosystem, just after the Ethereum Foundation’s, seeding projects like DAppNode and Frame. It also funded Prysmatic Labs to work on the first Ethereum 2.0 client, Prysm.
Meanwhile, the early Aragon team built the majority of the tooling from scratch. From the world’s first decentralized frontend, to Ethereum’s first on-chain package manager, to aragonOS – a DAO framework to experiment with governance at the speed of software. Today, aragonOS powers DAOs that are fundamental to Ethereum, such as Lido and Curve, helping these projects govern more than $16bn in assets.
We succeeded at many things, and failed at others.
We tried, and failed, to launch a court system to allow DAOs to leverage human judgment.
We tried, and failed, to launch an appchain on Cosmos when Ethereum gas fees threatened product adoption.
We tried, and failed, to find a way to turn a DAO framework from a common good into a protocol with value capture.
The AA was created to oversee the project’s treasury, assets, and multiple teams. We attempted to balance these obligations by giving ANT holders and the community more control over the project. The AA’s purpose was always to sustainably support the Aragon mission.
Over the course of several years the AA experimented with different governance initiatives, such as decentralizing the project with multiple teams, implementing an Aragon Governance Proposal process, and creating a parallel optimistic governance DAO for the community. While the treasury grew significantly after several bull markets, bureaucratic complexity, misaligned stakeholders, and failed attempts at modifying the governance increased tensions within the project.
This led the AA to a rushed attempt to vest control of the treasury directly in the hands of ANT holders. However, too few ANT was in the hands of users, partners, and builders after years of product pivots, and a volatile gap existed between the value of the treasury and the token market cap. This put Aragon’s mission in jeopardy.
Rather than continuing down the current path, after several months of deep introspection we have concluded that the shaky foundations underlying the current structure cannot be fixed and have been holding back the project for too long. Neither the AA nor ANT are currently suited to govern the project. A fresh start is needed and nothing short of a total reset will do.
It’s time for a new chapter that will not only safeguard, but advance the project’s mission, under new leadership and a leaner product-focused structure.
What’s Changing
The Aragon Association has passed the following resolution:
Deploy most of the treasury to allow all token holders to redeem their ANT for ETH – sending 86,343 ETH to a redemption contract (≈ 87% of treasury held in non-native assets);
Dissolve the AA – committing $11m USD to cover outstanding obligations and mitigate against regulatory uncertainty;
Continue the mission in a product-focused structure – committing remaining funds to product development.
1. Deploy most of the treasury to allow all token holders to redeem their ANT for ETH
The AA has decided to deploy 86,343 ETH to offer all ANT holders the opportunity to redeem their ANT for ETH at a fixed rate of 0.0025376 ETH / ANT. The objective of this initiative is to redeem all outstanding circulating supply.
The AA will send the assets to a smart contract that will autonomously allow all ANT holders to execute the redemption transparently onchain over the course of 12 months. No further funds will be sent to the Aragon DAO. From this moment forward, there is no purpose in continuing to hold ANT.
At the end of the redemption period, the redeemed ANT will be burnt and any remaining ETH will be sent to the Ethereum address of the new product-focused structure. The funds will be allocated to advancing the mission via Aragon OSx development. Token holders can participate in the redemption here. The smart contract audit report and deployment in Etherescan can be consulted here. Questions regarding ANT redemption can be directed to ant@aragon.org.
Over the course of the next 12 months, frequent communications via multiple channels will be issued, including working with exchanges, onchain notifications, social media, the Aragon website, and weekly newsletters. Token holders have until November 2nd 2024 23:59 UTC to redeem their ANT for ETH. After this date, redeeming will no longer be an option and no more token redemptions will be carried out.
2. Dissolve the AA
The AA has approved a full liquidation and dissolution. None of the association members will have a role in the future of the project.
$11m will be safeguarded by the Aragon Shield Foundation (ASF) to cover outstanding obligations after the AA’s dissolution and mitigate against regulatory uncertainty. The funds will be held for a limited period of time and overseen by the ASF, a Swiss foundation that is immutably bound to Aragon’s mission and reports to a supervisory authority.
Any unused funds will be sent to the new product-focused structure, in order to fund project continuity and to comply with tax regulations.
3. Continue the mission in a product-focused structure
The Aragon Project’s mission is to provide the most flexible and secure tools for creating and managing decentralized organizations, allowing everyone to experiment with governance at the speed of software. In order to continue advancing this mission, the IP, critical infrastructure, and operational runway will be transferred to a new product-focused structure:
A Product Council that will receive and allocate resources; and
A company composed of the current Aragon OSx team that will continue product development.
The Product Council will be made of product stakeholders that are industry experts who will guide the development and governance of Aragon’s DAO framework. It will be seeded by a representative of Aragon Shield Foundation and a representative of the Aragon OSx team. To start, the Product Council will operate as a multisig, wrapped in a non-profit association, using the Aragon App.
The participation criteria for the new Product Council will be:
Ethereum infrastructure builders;
Experience building on, supporting, using, or integrating with Aragon products.
Outreach and recruitment will begin shortly. Any ANT holder who meets the above mentioned criteria and is interested in participating in the Product Council can also reach out here.
What This Means for Builders
For builders and developers, this changes nothing. The Aragon Project will continue its mission by doubling down on building resilient onchain governance tooling and infrastructure.
In March 2023, the Aragon team launched a new end-to-end tech stack. Aragon OSx is a permission management framework, with a secure vault at its core and modular plugin architecture. Aragon App is a user interface that enables anyone to deploy and manage a DAO with no code. The developer tools allow the ecosystem to extend and build on the stack to create novel and custom applications.
Restructuring to a product-focused set up will enable those who are most aligned with the project’s mission—its users and partners—to take a leading role. The goal of this new structure is to set a solid foundation for success, by onboarding Product Council members who are long-term users of Aragon’s DAO framework and partners who align with the project’s values.
The Product Council will advise on product development priorities, allocate funds, and oversee the governance of Aragon OSx. By creating a structure where decision-making is in the hands of those who are most directly affected, Aragon will be in a better position to serve industry needs and achieve long-term success.
By looking at the project’s origins, failures, and accomplishments, and taking these actions, we believe Aragon will be successful in putting the project back into the hands of developers and product stakeholders and pushing the mission forward, with an unwavering focus on building a resilient DAO framework for Ethereum and beyond.
We understand this fundamentally changes the relationship between ANT and the project. We want to thank those of you who have supported the project during all these years, and who have helped Aragon build impactful technology.
–
For media inquiries regarding this announcement, the Aragon Association, and the Aragon Network Token (ANT) please contact aragon@wachsman.com.
Redeem ANT for ETH
You can redeem your ANT at a fixed rate of 0.0025376 ETH until November 2nd 2024 at 23h59 UTC.
This year we launched the Aragon App, an easy-to-use homebase for anyone to launch and participate in a DAO. The no-code App makes it fast and simple to launch a DAO, and over 2,000 DAOs have been created since our launch in March! Now, we’re working on adding more governance models, plug-and-play onchain actions, and smoother ecosystem integrations to take the App to the next level. But we want to hear from you! Tell us what DAOs need in this jokerace run on Base.
We’re busy shipping new updates and working on features, so we need your help to prioritize what we move to the top of our Jira board. We’re asking you to propose your favorite feature or integration to help DAOs run onchain. Winning submissions will split a pool of 1,000 USDC and all voting wallets will split another pool of 1,000 USDC.
Prompt: propose your favorite feature or integration to help DAOs run onchain more smoothly
We have a long list of ideas, so we need your help to decide what to build next to make DAOs work better. Propose your favorite feature or integration to help run DAOs onchain more smoothly, rally support for it, and if it wins the contest, we’ll build it (unless the Product team vetoes it).
Voting and rewards will all take place on the Base blockchain.
Reward
The winning entries split a pool of 1,000 USDC.
All wallets that vote split a pool of 1,000 USDC.
Submission format
Include the following in your submission:
Your dream integration/feature in a sentence.
Why do DAOs need this in a paragraph (up to 500 characters).
Links to any relevant Github repos to help us make this happen.
Your Twitter handle (if you are doxxed).
Timeline
September 12, 2pm UTC: Submissions open
September 19, 2pm UTC: Submissions close and voting begins
September 26, 2pm UTC: Voting closes and winners are announced
Who can participate
Submissions: Any wallet
Voting: Wallets that have participated in proposals on the Aragon App before September 11.
Need inspiration for your submission? Here are some ideas.
Here are a few ideas of what to submit:
Have a favorite DAO tool that you want to see integrated in the App? Tell us about it and why DAOs need it.
Want a specific EVM chain other than Polygon and Base? Let us know which one and why.
Have an idea for a great governance mechanism? Explain how it works and why DAOs need it.
Want a UX feature for a better App experience? Let us know what it is.
How to connect to Base
You will need to connect to Base to be able to create submissions and cast votes. Here’s how to do that on Metamask:
From the list of blockchain networks, click “Add network.”
Click “Add a network manually.”
Fill in the fields using the information on this page.
Chat with other DAO builders in this Discord channel
Join the conversation! Our community is chatting all things DAO in the #jokerace-support channel in the Aragon Discord.
Submit your feature or integration before 2pm UTC on September 19!
Let us know what your DAO needs! Submit your feature or integration here before 2pm UTC on September 19 for a chance to have it built by our team and win USDC!
Voting begins September 19 and winners will be announced on the 26th. Good luck!
We’re excited to announce you can now launch your DAO on Base with the no-code Aragon App and modular Aragon OSx protocol. Incubated in the Coinbase ecosystem, Base opens the door for millions of individual and institutional users to move onchain and participate in the cryptoeconomy.
Coinbase and Aragon are among the longest standing projects in the industry and have earned the trust of users with a strong track record of securing billions in assets for the Ethereum ecosystem. Coinbase secures 128B in assets for verified individual and institutional users, and Aragon secures the governance of over 15B in assets for industry leading DAOs.
“The projects launching on Base will be instrumental to bringing the next billion users onchain. We’re thrilled that Aragon is deploying its secure, modular, and user-friendly tech stack for Base users to launch their DAOs, and participate in onchain governance.”
– Jesse Pollak, Creator of Base and Head of Protocols at Coinbase, Base
We share Base’s vision of making onchain the next online, and we are building to make it a reality. To move the world onchain, we need to govern the world onchain. DAOs are critical to achieve this vision and the new Aragon tech stack makes onchain governance more flexible and accessible than ever. Aragon, by deploying on Base, aims to make onchain governance user-friendly, cost-effective, and secure for builders and users.
Why Deploy Aragon DAOs on Base?
Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network, incubated by Coinbase. It offers a secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly platform to build onchain. It’s built on the open-source OP Stack, making it interoperable with the broader ecosystem.
Coinbase has played an important role onboarding millions of users and organizations to crypto, by creating a user-friendly and secure platform. We do the same for DAOs. The Aragon App allows anyone to launch, manage, and participate in a DAO with a no-code and secure user experience. User experience and security go hand in hand. When users can easily navigate and understand their onchain actions, they can make more informed decisions and safely interact with assets and contracts.
“Both Coinbase and Aragon are leading brands in their respective spaces in web3. This deployment will allow the entire Coinbase ecosystem to deploy their DAOs on Base, opening up a scalable solution to build quickly, safely, and in a cost effective way.”
– Anthony Leutenegger, Head of Growth, Aragon Project
Incubated by Coinbase and aiming to offer the benefits of an EVM environment, Base aims to usher millions of users into the broader cryptoeconomy. By making the Aragon App and Aragon OSx available on Base, we hope more users will have a seamless experience onboarding to crypto and into a DAO, becoming active participants in onchain governance.
Commitment to Decentralization and Onchain Governance
In order to create systems that increase economic and political freedom globally, we need robust and decentralized onchain infrastructure. Both Base and Aragon share a deep commitment to safe and progressive decentralization. To achieve decentralization, infrastructure must be governed onchain by a wide range of stakeholders.
Onchain governance allows us to align the incentives of these stakeholders with the security and growth of the ecosystem. A robust DAO framework, particularly a lean, secure, and modular one like Aragon OSx, is essential to achieving these goals. Onchain governance is key to creating the resilient, future-proof, and unstoppable technology necessary to power the new systems we envision.
There are many ways to onboard and participate in the cryptoeconomy, and Base is paving a trusted and secure path for a million builders and a billion users. We can’t wait to see the Base ecosystem grow and Aragon DAOs support its governance and decentralization.
We can’t wait to connect with you at EthGlobal Paris! Check out the talk and bounties to get inspiration to start building unstoppable organizations on the blockchain.
Aragon OSx: Meet the Unix of Ethereum
Friday, July 21: 2:00 pm Workshop Room 2
Our Lead Developer of the OSx team, Jordi, will be giving a talk at EthGlobal Paris. He’ll be sharing how the design of Aragon OSx is modular and adaptable, likening it to the Unix of Ethereum. You don’t want to miss this talk, especially if you’re thinking about building on our stack, so make sure to save this event info!
Bounties: build for a chance to win $2,500 per bounty
We have two bounties live at Eth Global Paris, each worth $2,500. So, get ready to code!
For help, you can join the EthGlobal Discord server and find the Aragon channel. We can’t wait to see what you create!
Bounty 1: Use Aragon OSx to solve a problem in your local community
Description: Like many other projects in the ecosystem, Aragon came out of the need to solve some of the world’s largest issues. Corruption, climate change, terrorism— these are threats the world must solve together. And yet building together often requires trust among strangers and can lead to centralization of power.
To solve this, Aragon OSx is a DAO framework, enabling communities to manage their assets in a decentralized and trustless way. Through its modular architecture, organizations can easily install and uninstall plugins into their DAOs, enabling greater transparency within communities.
Through this prize, we want to see teams use crypto to solve a pressing issue within your communities—be it the oversight of a property or public good (like a park or a school), the incentive of certain collective behaviors (like using tokens for rewards and voting power), the management of assets for a specific mission, or any other idea that comes to mind! Whether you decide to build your own plugin, dApp or custom DAO— we’re looking for fun, creative projects who want to leverage the power of onchain governance to solve a problem in their local community and make the world a better place.
Requirements
Must be a solution to a local problem or need (wherever local is to you) – i.e. park management, neighborhood elections, university clubs, etc.
Submission can be a dApp, an Aragon OSx plugin, or any other prototype.
Submission needs to leverage Aragon in some way (App, OSx, CLI, SDK).
Must submit a project description, a pitch including a demo, a Github repository with a README on how to run the project, as well as a working prototype.
Bonus points for creativity and innovation!
Judging Criteria
Having an innovative solution to a local problem
Understanding and usage of Aragon OSx
Meeting the requirements
Bonus points for a user-friendly UX and good docs
Bounty 2: Build a plugin that helps DAOs raise funds
Description: During the last bull run, DAOs proved to be a great mechanism for raising funds. Projects like ConstitutionDAO, for example, were able to show the world how raising funds in crypto could lead to “real-world” actions and impact.
Some examples of characteristics that have made this possible:
DAO tokens added to liquidity pools. This enables DAO tokens to be instantly exchanged with other assets, granting them liquidity and value.
Bonding curves as a way of ossifying the relationship between token price and supply.
Rage quit functionality, meaning a person can leave the DAO and take a representative share of the treasury’s value based on how many DAO tokens they own.
Other non-technical characteristics like good marketing, relatable mission, good roadmap, trusted team, etc.
With this bounty, we want to see an Aragon OSx Plugin that enables DAOs to raise funds easily—be it through facilitating any of the above mentioned examples, or through crafting your own strategy. All ideas are valid.
Requirements
The submission should….
Facilitate Aragon DAOs to raise funds
Leverage Aragon OSx
Be at least deployed to a testnet chain
Include a demo and documentation on how to get the project up and running locally
Judging Criteria
Effectiveness of the solution to raise funds for DAOs.
Understanding and usage of Aragon OSx
Meeting of the requirements.
Bonus points for a user-friendly UX and great docs.
The Aragon DAO Experts is a group of vetted and verified web3-native service providers that work with DAOs to help them with topics such as technical development, legal, product design, human resources, organizational design, and more.
Meet our seven new DAO Experts and learn how they can help your organization!
dOrg: Development services for projects seeking to make a real-world impact.
dOrg delivers cutting-edge solutions for DAOs, DeFi, and public goods projects. They serve projects with web3 development needs, ranging from DAO mechanism design to smart contract development to web3 integrations. They design and build dedicated front-ends and tailor-made smart-contract plugins.
dOrg has been operating as a DAO since 2019 and are experts in what it takes to build a DAO.
DAObox: developer and designer collective dedicated to building DAO tooling.
DAObox’s mission is to make DAOs accessible to everyone, creating more transparent and inclusive governance for individuals and organizations. They do this by building custom plugins for DAOs on Aragon OSx and integrations with third party protocols.
If you’re a DAO or protocol in need of a custom plugin, robust DAO architecture, or an intuitive frontend, DAOBox has you covered. Their team specializes in providing tailored solutions to enhance your Aragon OSx experience and unlock your organization’s potential. Whether you’re looking to revamp or fine-tune your existing DAO, they have the skills and knowledge to supercharge your DAO.
Services
Build a Custom DAO: Done-for-you custom plugins for DAOs on Aragon OSx.
Connect to the Ecosystem: Integration with 3rd party protocols.
Make it your own: Modify an existing DAO to better fit your needs.
Blockchain Lawyers Group: connect with a web3 lawyer in any jurisdiction
Blockchain Lawyers Group is a nonprofit global association of selected web3 lawyers. Connect with a global network of legal experts in blockchain, DAOs, and crypto in over 60 jurisdictions. Get answers to legal questions related to DAOs, taxation, and more.
Services
Legal advisory services in almost every jurisdiction covering topics like…
Deep Work: organizational design for DAOs and web3-native companies.
Deep Work provides DAOs with tools, norms, and frameworks to create resilient infrastructure and sustainable business models.
They aim to provide organizations and freelancers with a cooperative framework that reduces operational costs, supports fair profit distribution, and fosters a motivated, health-first work culture.
Through consulting services and software, Deep Work helps web3-native organizations nail operations so they can build better businesses.
Services
Consulting services: help DAOs create resilient infrastructure and sustainable business models.
Deep Teams: project and payroll management software. Streamline credential verification and promote mutual accountability in your DAO.
Deep Skills: recruitment and onboarding software streamlining contributor onboarding.
Turing Consulting: Designing tokenomics models that generate sustainable value for protocols and DAOs
Turing Consulting combines qualitative analysis with quantitative stress testing models to ensure your token economy is sustainable and successful in the long term. Whether you’ve had a token for years or are just starting to consider a token, Turing Consulting can help you design the model that best fits your community.
Successful projects include Unlockd, maxAPY, IDC Games, Berserk, and more. Get in touch with Turing to take the uncertainty out of tokenomics!
Services
When you hire Turing, they will put your token model through three distinct phases:
Design: The team will design your token economy from scratch to ensure the model generates value for the long-term interests of both the protocol and token holders by using the most advanced and battle-tested tokenomics techniques.
Stress Test and Audit: They will model and stress test your new or existing design to understand how it behaves in extreme scenarios and where improvements can be made.
Consulting: After the stress test and audit, they will get back to the drawing board to design improved mechanisms and parameters for your model.
Thing3: Specialized network of web3-native professionals
Thing3 is a network of specialized network of web3-native entrepreneurs and professionals that can serve businesses of all sizes. They’ll help you incorporate the blockchain into your business in a way that works.
They’re excited to work with early stage, crypto-curious startup organizations across sectors.
Definme: Blockchain development services ranging from custom DAOs to metaverse projects.
Definme is a web3 development team that is highly experienced in DAO development, DeFi, L1-L2 solutions, ZK, relaying, web3 infrastructure, and web3 security. This is a truly all-around team with skills in multiple chains and areas of crypto.
With Definme leading the way, you can get a custom solution for almost any type of development task!
Browse more DAO Experts to find the right fit for your DAO
DAO Experts take the uncertainty out of building your DAO. Check out all the Experts to find one that can help you realize your goals for your organization!
Don’t have a DAO yet? Get started on the Aragon App today to launch your DAO in less than 10 minutes without writing any code.
Anonymity protects voter privacy and ensures the free expression of opinions, mitigating the risk of coercion or retaliation. Censorship resistance, on the other hand, guarantees that no single entity can manipulate or deny voting rights, further enforcing a decentralized, fair, and open democratic process.
At Vocdoni, our main objective is to bring the technology stack for allowing frictionless and secure voting processes within the Ethereum blockchain, particularly for the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) ecosystem. We intend to create a novel system for off-chain, gasless, anonymous voting with binding execution.
This document outlines our approach to tackling this ambitious mission, organized into the following core areas:
Building and verifying a comprehensive census
Addressing the nullifier determinism problem inherent in ECDSA signatures
The mechanism for casting votes off-chain
The Role and Functions of the vote aggregator
The process of uploading voting results to Ethereum
1. The verified census
As the core component of any voting system, the census is responsible for enumerating eligible voters and attributing voting weights. However, generating a census based on Ethereum blockchain data presents its unique complexities. These include:
Data Structure: The Ethereum blockchain data is not structured in a format conducive to generating a census. For instance, for an ERC20 token, there isn’t a distinct data structure that maintains a complete list of token holders.
Cryptography Compatibility: Ethereum’s cryptography is not fundamentally compatible with zkSnarks, making creating and verifying zero-knowledge proofs more challenging.
The overarching challenge then lies in creating a zkSnark-compatible, token-based census in a trustless way, enabling off-chain voting. It is also crucial to consider that ERC20 transactions can occur at any time, implying that the census can vary significantly from one block to another.
To navigate these challenges, we propose the following approach:
Off-Chain Census: Build a zkSnark-friendly off-chain census.
Proof Generation: Generate a zkSnark proof to verify the correctness of the census.
On-Chain Validation: Validate the census creation proof on-chain using a smart contract.
Facilitate voting: Upon validation, the census can be utilized for voting purposes.
Census validation on Ethereum can be carried out in two ways:
Balance Check: The smart contract verifies the validity of all (or a subset of) holders by invoking the balanceOfAt() function. This approach, however, could incur high transaction costs for the sender.
Storage Proof: The census zkProof is created using storage proofs, and the contract checks its correctness in relation to a previous Ethereum State Root. While this method may be computationally expensive for the census builder, it offers a robust solution.
We believe the Balance Check approach better suits small DAOs (100-200 members). While the Storage Proof would better work for big organizations that can cover the costs of a larger computational infrastructure.
2. The Issue of Nullifier Determinism
When working with cryptographic systems, determinism is critical – the same input must always produce the same output. However, a hiccup emerges with Ethereum signatures.
ECDSA signatures include an arbitrary nonce – a number used once or very infrequently. The signer can alter this nonce to generate different signatures from the same payload. The result? Non-determinism – different outputs from the same input.
This non-determinism becomes a hurdle when calculating a nullifier, an essential tool in preventing double voting. A nullifier is a unique identifier for each vote. When a vote is cast, the nullifier is logged in a public list on the blockchain.
Generating a deterministic nullifier requires a deterministic signature scheme. And because ECDSA signatures are non-deterministic, they don’t play nice with nullifier generation. So, we hit a roadblock when trying to stop double votes in an anonymous binding voting system on Ethereum.
We introduce the concept of a Global Registry of Commitment Keys. A Smart Contract manages this registry and serves as a mapping tool linking an Ethereum address to a commitment key. Here’s the basic structure: Ethereum Address => hash(secret).
The commitment key, generated from a user’s secret, helps tie an Ethereum address to a deterministic output, thereby ensuring determinism, which is critical for our use case.
This key-address mapping information is stored on the Ethereum blockchain as a Snark-Friendly Merkle tree. Merkle trees are particularly suited for this purpose because they allow us to create a tamper-proof and efficient system for storing and verifying large amounts of data, an essential requirement in our case.
When casting a vote, a user has to provide a zkSNARK proof. This proof demonstrates that the user knows the secret of the commitment key, which forms part of the Commitment-Key Merkle Tree stored on Ethereum. This allows us to create a secure, anonymous, and double-vote-resistant voting system without the need for determinism in ECDSA signatures.
3. Casting Off-Chain Votes
With a verified voting census and the Merkle root of the Global Registry in place, the process of casting ballots can commence.
To cast a vote, a user needs to prove two things:
Census Inclusion: The user’s address and balance are part of the voting census.
Secret Key Knowledge: The user knows the secret key of the commitment assigned to his address in the Global Registry.
The user then builds zkSnark proofs, effectively anonymising their identity and generating a nullifier. This nullifier is deterministically calculated by hashing the secret key with a unique proposal identifier.
Note that with this mechanism, since the global registry is a zkSnark-friendly Merkle tree, we don’t need to use Ethereum cryptography (secp256k1) inside the circuit, resulting in a more efficient and browser-friendly ballot generation.
The ballot and the proof are bundled into a packet and distributed to a peer-to-peer (p2p) network of aggregators. A decentralized p2p network is fundamental to achieving censorship resistance, ensuring no single entity can control or manipulate the voting process.
4. The Vote Aggregation Process
Once the votes are cast, they need to be aggregated into a comprehensive zkSnark proof. This aggregation can be done all at once or in batches. The proof constructed during this process verifies the following:
A specific voting census root hash
A unique global registry root hash
A list of valid vote nullifiers
The correctness of the voting results
Given that the original votes are zkSnark proofs themselves, the aggregation process necessitates one level of recursion, implying a zkSnark proving the accuracy of another zkSnark.
However, given the current state of the art and the limited compatibility of Ethereum with elliptic curves, executing this recursive proof generation process is a significant challenge. The complexities involved mean we may need to wait for advancements in zkSnark frameworks and Ethereum to offer better support for zkSnark cryptography.
5. Uploading results to Ethereum
Once the vote aggregation is completed, any user can submit the final proof to an Ethereum smart contract. The smart contract’s responsibility is to verify the following:
Results Proof: The proof of results is correct.
Voting Census Root: The voting census root matches the one previously verified.
Global Registry Root: The global registry root is accurate.
Voting Time Frame: The voting period aligns with the predefined time frame.
Upon successful verification of these elements, the smart contract can execute the predetermined actions associated with the voting process on Ethereum. This process ensures the validity and integrity of the votes and facilitates the implementation of the outcomes of the vote in a decentralized, transparent, and secure manner.
Today, the Aragon Association acted on its fiduciary duty to secure its treasury and mission by repurposing the Aragon DAO as part of a new grants program. It’s purpose is to fund DAO builders who are launching DAOs, dApps, and plugins on the new Aragon tech stack. This will enable builders to kickstart their ideas faster on Aragon OSx and Aragon App. Since its inception, Aragon grant programs have played a key role in the industry, seeding important projects like Snapshot, Frame.sh, and Dappnode. Grants can be a critical first step when launching new projects.
This initiative ensures the Aragon treasury is allocated towards builders advancing Aragon’s mission to build tools that allow anyone to experiment with governance at the speed of software.
Aragon’s actions, a necessary response to coordinated attack
The recently deployed Aragon DAO came under a 51% attack by a coordinated group described as “Risk Free Value (RFV) Raiders” connected to the dissolution and liquidation of Rook DAO. This group includes a major asset management firm, Arca Capital Management. Evidence indicates that Arca’s involvement is aimed at extracting value from Aragon for financial profit. In response, acting on its duty to protect the Aragon treasury for the organization’s mission, the Aragon Association is repurposing the existing Aragon DAO with the goal to exclusively fund builders via a grants program.
The Aragon treasury was established with the explicit mission of supporting builders to advance decentralized governance infrastructure. Based on Swiss regulations that mandate the use of Aragon’s treasury for its stated social purpose, fiduciary duty compels Aragon Association to secure these funds from those seeking to access them for their own financial gains. There is clear evidence that the entities involved in Aragon’s attack are pursuing that end.
The Argon Network Token (ANT) – A utility token by design
In 2017, Aragon founders Luis Cuende and Jorge Izquierdo deployed the Aragon Network Token. The token was created to fulfill a bold mission: build decentralized governance infrastructure that would revolutionize social structures and organizations. This vision was a rallying cry for a visionary community of developers and, within 26 minutes, it became the 4th largest crowdfunding event in history at the time of the sale.
ANT is registered as a “utility token” under Switzerland’s financial regulator. That means ANT is designed to serve a specific purpose: to facilitate participation in Aragon’s technology, which exists to advance and protect Aragon’s stated mission.
The purpose of the token is to provide ANT Holders permissionless, trustless, and censorship-resistant control over Aragon’s public infrastructure with the aim of enabling decentralized governance.
As a technology, tokens can serve a range of purposes. Some tokens may be created and used as financial instruments, but ANT is not one of them. When utility tokens are manipulated to achieve profit-making ends, it can come at the expense of achieving a project’s social mission.
Due to the ambitious mission and long-term vision of the Aragon Project, the treasury raised during the 2017 ICO has been carefully managed and paced out to provide the necessary years of runway for builders to deliver public infrastructure and revolutionize human organization. From delivering the first DAO framework, to securing 12B in TVL for leading projects like Lido and Decentraland, the Aragon treasury has been used by builders to create significant value for the industry.
Over time, due in part to the volatility of crypto markets and the long path to protocol-market fit in an ever-changing industry, the treasury outpaced the value accrued to ANT. While small market cap tokens suffered across the board, the original $25 million treasury appreciated significantly since 2017. The value of ANT did not keep pace with the value of the treasury behind the project. This opened a significant vulnerability, which Aragon both understood and prepared for.
51% attack attempted by “Risk Free Value” Raiders
Risk Free Value (RFV) Raiders, who have self-described themselves as The Vultures of Crypto, are a sophisticated, well-resourced, and coordinated group of actors that target crypto projects with an imbalance between the value of their token and treasury. Their goal is to target treasuries and manipulate the price of tokens for financial gain, at the expense of the organization’s mission. It’s important to note, large financial players, in this case Arca Capital Management, often collaborate with RFV Raiders to achieve their ends.
The Aragon treasury was a clear target, and came under a 51% attack by coordinated RFV Raiders in the Aragon DAO. This group of actors has been complicit in breaking down many DAOs and their communities, including Invictus DAO, Fei Protocol, Rome DAO, and Temple DAO. It is worth noting that one member of the group has been jailed for his involvement in the Mango DAO exploit.
Most recently this group led thefinancial takeover of Rook DAO, attacking the organization with social engineering tactics and dissolving the DAO and liquidating half the treasury for their financial benefit.
The attack on the Aragon DAO began on May 2, when there was a sudden and suspicious uptick in Aragon Discord server activity. Moderators observed signs that this activity was coordinated; an observation that was validated through further investigation. A review of Discord analytics determined:
The majority of individuals engaged in this activity had joined the server less than 45 days earlier (for context, the server has been in operation for over 5 years);
Over that time period, the group posted less than 1 message per day (0.8);
On May 2, the group posted 69 messages within hours.
Based on these observations, moderators took action to temporarily ban a small group of users who were engaging in harassment in the channel and contributor DMs. On Twitter, individuals associated with the Rook DAO takeover attempted to use the temporary ban to generate a movement against Aragon.
Onchain data shows that, in the months leading up to this attack, Arca and the other RFV Raiders were actively stockpiling ANT. In the days following the attack, the Raiders began rapidly wrapping their tokens enabling them to reach a majority vote in the Aragon DAO. In the absence of clarity into the Aragon Association’s position, ANT could be misunderstood by token holders as being a financial instrument, ultimately taking funds away from the builders pursuing Aragon’s mission. An example of this lack of clarity is evident by members of this group advancing a platform on the Aragon forum seeking delegation to manipulate ANT as a financial instrument for financial profit, which the Association cannot uphold.
Foreseeing Risk, Pivoting Wisely
Aragon foresaw this risk. It is the key reason the association did not move its full treasury, $200 million, onchain at once by the soft dates originally proposed. Aragon’s progressive decentralization is a process and there is no shortcut to decentralizing safely; doing so requires both economic incentives and mission-alignment.
The actions undertaken by Arca and the other “RFV Raiders” pose a number of risks to the safe governance of the Aragon DAO. These include: the legal risks to the utility classification of ANT, the violation of Swiss association law, as well as the legal stewardship obligations of the Aragon Association to the treasury.
However, the DAO can, with some adjustment, safely serve the builder community in alignment with the Aragon mission to enable decentralized governance. To this end, Aragon is repurposing the DAO to operate and govern a new grants program for DAO infrastructure builders. This pivot will ensure that treasury funds are used as intended and legally required, that the ANT’s purpose as a utility token will be upheld, and that–ultimately–those working to advance Aragon’s mission are empowered and supported.
While the Aragon Association foresaw the risk of a 51% attack, the breadth and depth of the coordinated attack is both a wake-up call and a pivotal learning experience. Progressive decentralization is an ongoing process and we are committed to move the treasury into the hands of ANT holders when it’s safe, for the purpose of advancing the project’s mission. That said, these events have confirmed our conviction that no project can rush towards the ideals of decentralization at the expense of security.
Introducing the Aragon Grants DAO: Who it’s for, How it works
The Aragon DAO is unstoppable. Last week, Aragon transferred an initial payment of 300,000 USDC. The funds held by the DAO will remain onchain and are governed by wrapped ANT (wANT) Holders. Depending on the success of this grants program, Aragon Association plans to continue to use this DAO to further the growth of the Aragon ecosystem. A grants program is one step toward kicking off the growth flywheel of builders to extend the functionalities of Aragon OSx, as outlined in the Strategy to Become a Governance Hyperstructure.
For the time being, the planned transfers to this DAO will be limited to those necessary for running the grants program. This approach creates a more balanced incentive structure and better alignment with Aragon’s legal purpose and mission to enable everyone to experiment with governance at the speed of software. The funds in the repurposed Aragon Grants DAO will be available to our community of builders, using wANT.
Details on the grant program, criteria, and process will be coming soon. The aim is to seed the next wave of unique DAOs, governance experimentation, and aragonOSx plugins. Subscribe to Aragon’s weekly newsletter to stay up to date.
This year’s DAO Global Hackathon begins on April 10! We’ve brought together 20 web3 industry leaders to create bounties to inspire builders like you. Below, you can find summaries of the bounties from each partner. More bounties will be added soon.
Find a bounty you want to work toward, gather your team, and start building! You have until May 7 to create your project.
If you haven’t already done so, register here and join the DAO Global Hackathon Discord server!
Aragon
Best decision-making plugin
Build and publish an Aragon OSx plugin (in either testnet, Ethereum mainnet, or Polygon) enabling DAOs to make decisions. Judging will be based looking for plugins which help DAOs make the best decisions for the long-term, all while making governance fun and exciting.
USD 4,000
Most creative use of OSX
Build the most creative use of Aragon OSx, ideally unlocking a fun new use case on the way. Judging will be on the most out-of-the-box thinking and most compelling use case.
USD 5,000
Permission Management Dashboard
Build a Permission Management Dashboard for Aragon DAOs enabling DAO members to better assess which addresses hold which permissions, and what those permissions enable them to do. Judging will be done based on the project providing the better user experience and making this experience the easiest to understand for users. The tool should be built for Aragon DAOs.
USD 4,000
Best quickstart dApp for DAOs
Build a dApp allowing users to quickly spin up DAOs based on their specific use case or industry. Judging will be based on use of Aragon OSx, easy-to-use user experience, and real-world usefulness.
USD 7,000 given to one or split between two winners
DAOLens
DAO Interoperability (2)
The goal of this bounty is to create the most seamless integration between two or more DAOs, enabling cross-DAO collaboration, communication, and data sharing. With the proliferation of DAOs in various sectors, it’s becoming increasingly essential to create interoperability between them. The successful integration of multiple DAOs will foster collaboration, innovation, and community growth and help advance the adoption of DAO technology.
USD 3,000 split between two winners
Mobile Notification System for Multi-Community Members (2)
The goal of this bounty is to create a mobile notification system for multi-community members that will keep them updated about important events. The winning project will be selected based on the quality, usability, and effectiveness of the notification system created. The system should be user-friendly and allow for customization based on the user’s preferences.
USD 3,000 split between two winners
Blockchain-Based Storage Mechanisms
The goal of this bounty is to encourage participants to develop innovative and secure blockchain-based storage mechanisms that can be used in various decentralized applications. The winning submissions will demonstrate the ability to store data in a decentralized, tamper-proof, and scalable manner.
USD 1,000
Creating a gamification framework for community engagement in DAOs
We’re seeking proposals for the creation of a gamification framework that will enhance community engagement in DAOs using DAO Manager. The framework should be designed to motivate users to participate in DAO activities and encourage collaboration among community members. The gamification framework should be flexible enough to work with various types of DAOs and should be scalable to accommodate growth in membership and activities.
USD 1,500
Utilizing AI in DAOs for Insights, Engagement, and Compensation
We are looking for innovative solutions that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the capabilities of DAOs. Specifically, we are interested in solutions that use AI to improve insights, engagement, and compensation in DAOs. The goal of this bounty is to find new ways to make DAOs more effective and efficient by leveraging the power of AI.
USD 2,000
Kleros
A New Frontier for DAOs: Unlocking Subjective Oracles
Dispute resolution is the go-to-market branding of Kleros. However, at its core, Kleros is a Schelling-point oracle able to return rulings/answers to subjective questions directly on-chain. It’s through this fundamental flow of [ask question -> get answer -> execute logic] that Kleros is able to address use cases such as escrow payment disputes, content moderation, decentralized data curation, and verification of real-world events on-chain.
Your mission is to further unlock the potential of this subjective oracle flow to solve problems, address use cases, or come up with entirely new solutions for DAOs. This can be done either through creating new arbitrable primitives using ERC-792, or using existing Kleros products like Escrow and Curate as building blocks for something new.
USD 10,000
Q
AI Safeguard for DAO Creation
With AI language models becoming more powerful and gaining traction, some legal prudence can be implemented and automated. By using an AI based plugin on a DAO-factory website, a provided free-text description of the DAO purpose shall be evaluated. Creating a DAO (using the factory-frontend) shall only be possible if no violation to the law (as defined by the frontend provider) is detected by the AI.
USD 2,000
Decentralized Contract Calls in DAO Votings
The goal of this bounty is to enable proposals including arbitrary function calls within the Q GDK and DAO Factory as an option for DAO architects to choose from.
USD 3,000
Native integration of Hats Protocol for DAOs on Q
We see immense potential in the combination of issuing or revoking a hat in correspondence to the membership of a given Expert panel, for example for the use of token gating on communication channels.
USD 4,000
Uniswap Foundation
Uniswap Governance Enhancement for the Decentralized Community (3)
The goal of this hackathon is to encourage innovation and development around Uniswap governance. Participants will focus on creating tools, services, and applications that enhance the efficiency, transparency, and inclusiveness of the decision-making process in the Uniswap community.
Notifying interested parties about governance proposals or working group meetings can be a tedious task. With the governance community spread across Twitter, email, and Telegram it would be great to give people the option to get reminders where they prefer. Not everyone hangs out in governance forums to stay up to date with notifications.
USD 2,000
Every ENS
There are over 400k DAO voters using ENS. Build something that helps improve the governance experience for ENS users or onboard more governance participants to ENS. Ideas include improving the social discoverability of governance participants with ENS, or tools to help build out profiles/identities for ENS users, or easy ENS registration tools.
USD 2,000
Discourse Delight
Build a plugin to make the Discourse forum experience more delightful for DAO forum users. Ideas include building integrations for Snapshot, Tally, Gitcoin Passport, Sign in with Ethereum or ENS.
USD 2,500
Ethermail
The cure for crypto payments anxiety (2)
The goal for this challenge is to develop a mechanism that makes it possible for someone to send cryptocurrency (ETH and ERC20) to a recipient, but for the transaction to not be finalized until the recipient takes an explicit action to claim the payment.
Winner – $2,000, Runner up – $1,000
USD 3,000
Lens
Best Lens web3 Social App (2)
Build an app with social features using Lens Protocol.
1st Place: 2000 USD, 2nd Place: 1000 USD
USD 3,000
Best Lens Integrations (2)
Best implementation of a social feature with Lens Protocol
$1,000 x 2 (two prizes, each $1,000)
USD 2,000
Ceramic
Best DAO tool created using ComposeDB on Ceramic (3)
For this hackathon, we are challenging developers to build DAO tools using ComposeDB on Ceramic. We want to see DAO tools that would make it easier to facilitate discussions and collaboration, tools that would make it easier to track user contributions and rewards members for their work, and any other tools that would make it easier to create, manage and scale DAOs.
Top 3 best projects will be rewarded $500 each.
USD 1,500
DeepDAO
Finding Ideal Wallets for Airdrops Among Governance Participants (3)
The purpose of this bounty is to create an algorithm for understanding which governance participants are best for doing an airdrop.
There can be at most 3 winners, and in cases of multiple winners, the prize money will be split between them.
USD 2,000
Onboarding DAOists to DeepDAO (3)
This bounty is a marketing challenge. Please submit a list of the people you referred along with wallet addresses and links to their DeepDAO profiles.
This bounty is for creating a dApp/frontend to showcase the various kinds of middlewares supported by the CyberConnect protocol.
USD 2,000
Token Gated Forum
Create a forum dApp (like reddit) powered by CyberConnect protocol.
USD 2,000
Most Innovative Middleware Use Case
Create one or more new middleware modules for either SubscribeNFT or EssenceNFT.
USD 2,000
Lit Protocol
Best Use of Lit Actions and PKPs to Automate DAO Onboarding or Governance
Improving the user experience in web3 is essential for the long-term success and adoption of decentralized technology. By making it easier and more intuitive for users to engage with the ecosystem, we can help create a more open, transparent, and user-centric internet for everyone.
Some ways that you can utilize Lit in order to create seamless onboarding or governance is through programmatic signing. Lit is the underlying infrastructure where developers can set up programmable signing based on on-chain and off-chain information.
USD 5,000
NFTR
The first NFT event indexer
The task at hand is to build a proof of concept indexer that indexes and displays examples of the events above, and anything else the developer might find interesting.
USD 3,000
Snapshot
Voting strategy for non-financial governance
It means that user’s voting power should not be calculated on the basis of the tokens they hold but by other metrics like badges received upon attending events, Github contributions, participation in Discord / Discourse discussions – possibilities are endless!
USD 500
Voting with Metamask Snap
Create a Metamask snap that enables wallet users to cast votes on Snapshot through the wallet.
USD 1,500
Dune Data Dashboard
The goal of this hackathon is to create a new data dashboard that provides a deep dive into the DAO ecosystem.
USD 1,000
Plugin – create a better voting experience
Create a plugin which enhances the voting process for Snapshot users.
USD 2,000
Mailchain
Composable Developer Components for DAO Tools and Platforms to Integrate Web3-Native Communication (3)
This challenge is to build or extend useful and composable components for developers, powered by the Mailchain SDK, for native-communication features in web3 DAO tooling or platforms.
Best Application for Enabling Web3-Native DAO Communication and Coordination
This challenge is open to anyone building applications that enable and improve Web3-Native DAO communication and coordination.
USD 600
Build or Extend DAO Tools and Platforms to include Web3-Native Communication
This challenge is to build or extend DAO tools or platforms to include web3 communication features using the Mailchain SDK.
USD 600
Contributor Posts: Developer Tutorials for DAO Communication Use Cases (3)
This challenge is open to anyone who would like to write a developer tutorial with code samples that demonstrates how to use the Mailchain SDK for DAO-specific use cases.
Bounty Prizes: 3x 100 USDC
USD 300
Join us to build exciting tools for DAOs!
You can find more detailed descriptions of the bounties here. Check back next week for more bounties from other partners. We can’t wait to see what you build!
For DAO technology to reach mass adoption, we need to make DAOs more accessible. One of the key ways to do that is through lowering the cost of launching and managing your DAO. We’re excited to offer Polygon to everyone building DAOs on Aragon OSx and App (beta) today! You can now launch your DAO on a scalable, gas efficient, distributed Proof of Stake sidechain.
Polygon helps make DAOs accessible to more people by significantly lowering the cost of building, managing, and participating in a DAO.
There has been a huge demand for Polygon amongst DAOs building on Aragon and in the web3 ecosystem as a whole, so it was a clear next step.
Polygon is a Layer 2, or sidechain, built on Ethereum. Transactions on Polygon are low cost and fast, but still EVM-compatible. The Polygon Proof of Stake chain is one of the most used blockchains today, with over 3 million daily transactions on average and $5 billion in TVL. Even with such high traffic, they are still able to keep transaction fees to just fractions of a cent.
Layer 2 blockchains like Polygon are essential for onboarding new entrants into the space. The high transaction fees of Layer 1’s are a barrier to entry for many DAO builders and members, but Polygon solves this with near-zero transaction fees. Not only can deploying a DAO on a Layer 1 blockchain be cost prohibitive, but the transaction costs of votes can add up for community members, which can decrease voter engagement. A Layer 2 solution is essential for highly active DAOs.
When deploying your DAO on Polygon, you get these benefits:
Near-zero cost of transactions
Faster transactions
EVM compatibility
Making DAOs and web3 technology accessible to all
Polygon makes DAOs and web3 technology accessible to everyone with faster and lower cost transactions. Some of the biggest projects in web3 and beyond use Polygon. From household names like Reddit and Robinhood to web3 native projects like Lens and Aavegotchi, Polygon has been the common denominator in all of these projects’ scalability.
Polygon has been particularly important for scaling protocols that have a high volume of transactions. Gaming and NFT projects such as Aavegotchi use Polygon to mint NFTs and power their metaverse, and Lens uses it to enable their decentralized social graph. These projects are great examples of the power of Polygon, because even with the protocol’s high volume of transactions, the protocol can still run seamlessly and provide a good experience for users.
Polygon Labs also prioritizes education, another key part in bringing mass adoption to web3. Polygon Labs supports a network of guilds based around the world to get involved with, tons of resources for developers, and even a curated guide for web3 game builders to help you launch your project.
“To date over 6,000 DAOs have been created on Polygon using our old products, now we are happy to offer this functionality on the new Aragon App! Polygon will help the next wave of DAO builders reach their goals with minimal gas costs and higher speeds, enabling DAOs to more efficiently experiment with governance at the speed of software.”
— Anthony Leutenegger, Head of Growth at Aragon
“Polygon Labs and Aragon have been at the forefront of helping onboard users into the web3 and DAO space for years. With today’s Polygon deployment we are enabling communities to work closer and faster than ever."
—Carlos Juarez, CTO of Aragon
"I am excited about the launch of the new version of the Aragon App on Polygon, which, thanks to innovative features, will allow the creation and management of multiple decentralized organizations in a simpler and more intuitive way. This renewed collaboration between Aragon and Polygon Labs opens the door to a new DAO season, moving from an experimental and exploratory phase to the consolidation of numerous new decentralized initiatives."
— Grendel Marco, Head of DAO Business Development at Polygon
The History of Aragon on Polygon
Aragon and Polygon have a long history together. The original Aragon OS was deployed to Polygon in September 2021. Since then, Aragon DAOs have been able to deploy on Polygon using the old Aragon Client.
Now, with our new modular, adaptable tech stack, we’re excited to offer Polygon to DAOs building on Aragon in 2023 and beyond!
Aragon OSx on Polygon is a powerful combination. Polygon offers scalability, and our new tech stack has the modularity that is needed for DAOs to swap out plugins easily, making it easier to adapt your organization. With scalability and modularity combined, mass adoption of DAOs can get much closer to reality!
Polygon is also opening doors for developing countries to adopt web3. Projects like Impact Plus are using Polygon to bring blockchain-based solutions to solve real-world problems. Without Polygon’s low cost, it would be significantly more difficult to use the blockchain for good. We hope low-cost DAO creation and management can begin taking root in the places that need it most!
How to deploy your DAO on Polygon
Open the Aragon App and click “Create a DAO.” The first thing you’ll do is select the blockchain you want to deploy on. Choose “Polygon” in this step, and then follow the steps in the DAO creation flow.
Build your DAO on Polygon with the Aragon App today
Head to the Aragon App to launch your DAO on Polygon today! Or, dive into the protocol and SDK in our Developer Portal.
This token swap formalizes alignment between the two projects, which are both working to build better tools for human coordination on the blockchain. Onchain governance (Aragon) and digital jurisdictions (Nation3) go hand in hand and need to evolve in lockstep.
Digital jurisdictions like Nation3 have the potential to unlock novel dispute resolution mechanisms for DAOs, so they don’t need to rely on nation states’ legal systems.
This is particularly impactful at a time when traditional nation state jurisdictions have not yet adapted to the needs of DAOs and create legal uncertainty for participants. As onchain-native organizations, DAOs should have the choice to resolve their disputes and enforce their rights in a jurisdiction that meets their unique needs.
DAOs provide the infrastructure for digital jurisdictions to govern themselves onchain. DAO technology allows digital jurisdictions to manage citizenship, make and enforce decisions, and govern shared resources.
"Aragon is excited about Nation3’s broader vision of a decentralized jurisdiction, and in particular a new dispute resolution system. We acknowledge that Aragon does not need to build everything itself and delivering this new system is not in our current roadmap. Thus, partnering with organisations to build these capabilities could have a substantial impact in super powering DAOs.
We are very excited to see continued strategic alignment between our two organisations."
– Anthony Leutenegger, Head of Growth at Aragon
"There is already significant ideological alignment and team alignment, and this proposal would take this a step forward by formalizing financial alignment as well. This proposal would also enable Aragon to superpower its offering to DAOs and DAO contributors with legally-binding agreements, while being able to remain laser-focused on DAO tooling and the DAO framework offerings."
– Luis Cuende, Founder of Nation3 and Cofounder of Aragon
In the proposal put forward on the Aragon forum, Luis described what Nation3, the first internet-native jurisdiction, can bring to Aragon:
Disputable voting: DAO token holders can deposit collateral and make a proposal to undergo a vote, but if such proposal contradicts the DAO’s charter, anyone can dispute it. This mechanism can help keep the DAO mission-aligned.
Disputable payment streams: Nation3 can introduce disputable Sablier or Superfluid crypto payment streams. For example, DAOs could enter an agreement with each guild, and then have their operations guild oversee their work and pause the stream if needed. Any of the parties can open a dispute if they feel the agreement has been breached.
Charter enforcement: The DAO’s charter could define actions that are illegal, such as funding or undertaking any criminal activities, or paying out dividends. This could outsource the need for third party intervention to a digital jurisdiction.
Eventual legal recognition for DAOs in SEZ (Special Economic Zones): Nation3 aims to prove that it can run an Internet-native jurisdiction and a system of law first, and then negotiate the creation of Special Economic Zones in traditional jurisdictions.
He also described what Aragon can bring to Nation3 in the proposal to the Nation3 community:
Distribution to the world’s top DAOs: Aragon can help Nation3 introduce Internet-native legally binding agreements to DAOs and their contributors.
Battle testing the Nation3 Jurisdiction: If Aragon chooses to secure its treasury in the Nation3 jurisdiction, this would help test the protocol and increase confidence in its security.
Powerful DAO infrastructure: Aragon OSx allows DAOs to experiment with governance at the speed of software. Nation3 can leverage these tools to continue advancing digital jurisdictions.
The terms of the swap are 1,000 NATION for 300,000 ANT, and 1,000 NATION for 1 million USDC. All NATION and ANT are subject to a one year linear vesting.
About Nation3
Nation3 is an online-first, zero-tax nation with its own jurisdiction, court, and system of law. It gives you the legal guarantees you need to safely transact on the Internet, without using traditional jurisdictions and processes.
They create agreement templates that DAOs and their contributors can use to make binding agreements. Pick your collateral assets and the amount, agree on terms, and sign the agreement. Then, if either party breaches the agreement, Nation3 judges can make a ruling enforced with the collateral.
Their constitution outlines the rights of citizens in Nation3, and anyone can become a citizen in the jurisdiction.
Aragon’s approach to metagovernance
Metagovernance is when a DAO holds voting power in another DAO, typically through holding their native token. Metagovernance is important for increasing alignment between projects and making the DAOs stakeholders in each other’s projects. This token swap with Nation3 is an example of metagovernance.
Token swaps with value-aligned projects are a key part of Aragon’s strategy to build a governance hyperstructure.
To stay up to date on future token swaps and metagovernance at Aragon, subscribe to The Eagle, our weekly newsletter.
The DAO Global Hackathon is an exciting 4-week virtual event where hackers will leverage cutting-edge governance primitives and existing tools to enable the next generation of DAOs.
Running from April 10 to May 7, the Hackathon will bring together hackers, builders, and DAO operators to create solutions that DAOs will use in the real world.
For this hackathon, we will be leveraging the “legos thesis” that enabled DeFi and applying it to DAOs. Hackathon participants will find novel use cases for existing tools and create integrations that haven’t yet been explored, choosing from a variety of bounties defined by the sponsoring partners.
In the first DAO Global Hackathon in 2021, 23 partners and over 1,000 hackers worked together to build exciting governance and coordination tools. The event had a significant impact on the DAO ecosystem, and we are excited to build on that success with this edition of the Hackathon.
To find your team and join the DAO Global Hackathon community, join the discord server.
Hack Tracks
Integration track: Combine existing tools to address a user need or create a DAO process flow.
Use case track: Create new and interesting use cases for an existing DAO tool.
Solution track: Solve an organizational challenge that a DAO partner is facing.
Partner List
Aragon is a leading funder and host of the event, providing bounties and organizing the hackathon. We’re excited to work with these DAO industry leaders to put on this event!
DAOLens: AI-powered community management. Combine everything from discussion management, bounties and task management, voting, payouts, education and rewards.
Kleros: decentralized arbitration service for the disputes of the new economy.
Mantle: high-performance Ethereum layer-2 network built with modular architecture delivering low fees and high security.
Vocdoni: the most open, secure, and universally verifiable voting protocol, used by hundreds of organizations worldwide.
Uniswap: the largest decentralized exchange (or DEX) operating on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users anywhere in the world to trade crypto without an intermediary.
ENS: providesdecentralized naming for wallets, websites, and more. No more sandboxed usernames. Own your username, store an avatar and other profile data, and use it across services.
Lens: the social layer of web3. It provides a protocol and a suite of tools and APIs for easily building social apps or integrating social features into existing apps.
Ceramic: a decentralized data network that powers an ecosystem of interoperable Web3 applications and services.
Deep DAO: the #1 discovery engine for DAOs, and the top tool for listing and analyzing governance.
Exponent: a risk and treasury management partner for decentralized communities, with expertise in protocol and treasury risk management.
Lit Protocol: a decentralized key management network that lets you create and manage distributed cryptographic keypairs for condition-based encryption and programmatic signing.
NFTR: a decentralized NFT name registry that creates a universal name space with a single instance of each name across all ERC-721s.
POKT Network: an unstoppable protocol for open data. Provide open RPC and APIs for developers to access blockchain data.
Snapshot Labs: a voting platform that allows DAOs, DeFi protocols, or NFT communities to vote easily and without gas fees.
Weezi: a simple, easy to use treasury management interface for DAO asset managers. This tool aggregates all your DAO’s treasuries in one place with sophisticated integrations to grow your treasury safely.
Cyberconnect: a decentralized social network protocol that helps Web3 applications bootstrap network effects and build meaningful social experiences, while empowering users to truly own and monetize their social data and content.
Ethermail: allows fully anonymous and encrypted P2P communication and rewards its users for reading relevant content in their inbox.
Stay tuned to learn about specific bounty information, which we’ll announce in the coming weeks leading up to the Hackathon!
Bounty Pool
$120,000+ distributed across bounties provided by leading organizations in the global DAO ecosystem!
FAQ
Who can participate in this Hackathon? Anyone from anywhere in the world can participate. The goal is to open up DAO technology to all communities globally.
What if I’ve never been to a hackathon before? No worries! It’s helpful to have some software engineering experience, but it’s not a requirement. Projects often need designers, front-end engineers, project managers, and more. Find a team that needs your skill set and join the fun!
Do I need to pay to register for this Hackathon? No, it is free to participate.
Do I need to have any specific qualifications to be a participant for the Hackathon? If you love to code, you are more than welcome to participate in the Hackathon.
Do we need to have a fully working prototype to submit a bounty? Not necessarily! Ideally you showcase as much as you can about your ideal solution, but the most important thing is to meet the bounty requirements outlined in the bounty.
Do I need to be online and available for the entire duration of the Hackathon? No, you don’t need to be online for any specific hours during the Hackathon. However, we will be hosting workshops and events you’ll likely want to attend. The idea is that you develop your solution locally with a team (or by yourself) and then simply submit it through the HackerEarth hackathon platform on the specific bounty page.
Do I need to give a demo for the product that I have built? Requiring a video demo is common. Please review carefully the submission requirements for the specific bounty you are working on.
Who will own the IP (Intellectual Property (IP) Rights to the product that I have built? Developer(s) will retain all rights and own the IP of the product. However, all code needs to be open source upon submission and remain open source in the future.
We’re proud to announce a partnership with the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation to launch a course that will teach Ukrainians how to create and manage DAOs. This course puts simple, easy-to-use tools into the hands of all Ukrainian citizens.
We’re honored to work with one of the first nation states to bring web3 technology to their citizens.
In the midst of a war and humanitarian crisis, Ukrainians need access to censorship resistant tools to coordinate their communities. By the end of the course, each student will have created their own unstoppable organization on the blockchain, so they can coordinate without risk of interruption of critical infrastructure, losing access to funds, or censorship.
From planning the delivery of relief services, to anonymously and securely receiving donations, DAOs have proved to be useful in Ukraine during this crisis. In 2022 we supported Unchain Fund and Ukraine DAO, both of which have brought aid to Ukrainians on the ground, so we’re excited to continue providing help during this time of need.
Our goal with this course is to equip Ukrainians with everything they need to know to start a DAO, regardless of their previous knowledge.
The course will be delivered on the national governance app, Diia, used by over half the adult population of Ukraine (18.5+ million). Currently within the app, citizens can manage and access crucial documents and other government materials that they need, which is especially critical in this time of uncertainty.
The app has been so successful that the USAID is working to bring it to other countries as well. We’re excited about the prospect of opening and growing partnerships with nation states to further the adoption of web3 technologies. Situations like the war in Ukraine are the most timely, real-world use cases for this technology, so we look forward to bridging the gap between ideation and adoption.
Our DAO modules are just one part of a larger web3 course that is being designed. Partners such as Filecoin, ZKsync, Optimism, and Safe are working on other parts of the course, which range from theoretical blockchain learnings to practical self-custodial best practices. Over 100 hours of educational content are available on the platform, giving Ukrainians a gateway into the web3 ecosystem.
Our modules will cover the basics of DAOs, examples of how they can be used, and a step-by-step guide of how to launch them on the new Aragon App. By the end of the course, students will have launched their own DAO onchain.
War is a humanitarian crisis that affects critical infrastructure and services for citizens creating an urgent need for alternative forms of coordination. Blockchain technology can provide unstoppable infrastructure that is a more resilient alternative when a nation state is under attack.
We’re excited to empower Ukrainian citizens by expanding access to web3 education. We hope they will complete the course understanding the power and potential of blockchain technology to build censorship-resistant, unstoppable organizations!
A sneak peek into our course on DAOs
We’ll break down key aspects of the technology, starting with the blockchain. We’ll explain why DAOs run on blockchains and cover a few other key components that make up a DAO.
We’ll also cover the basics of governance, such as voting methods, quorum, and pass rate.
Students will also learn about some of the most popular use cases of DAOs and how these applications exemplify their vast potential. Any new student entering the course with no prior knowledge will leave having a foundational understanding of the subject and practical experience launching their DAO with the new Aragon App.
The modules will be broken down into the following categories:
– 1: Brief history of human organization and introduction to DAOs
– 2: The foundation of DAOs: the blockchain
– 3: Wallets, tokens, and how they’re used in governance
– 4: DAO frameworks and “autonomous” organizations
– 5: Bring your DAO to life on the blockchain!
Our mission is to build unstoppable organizations
Aragon was founded to help organizations become unstoppable in the midst of a constantly changing world. Ukrainians need the stability of the blockchain within these uncertain times. We’re excited to continue supporting Ukrainians and helping their efforts!
We’re hopeful DAOs can increase coordination and provide relief in times of crisis. With the right education and tools, the possibilities for ingenuity are infinite. We hope more nation states will put these powerful tools in the hands of their citizens.
To learn more about the partnership, tune in to our Twitter Space with representatives from the Ministry and web3 partners on March 17, 4:30pm UTC.
You can launch your own DAO on the Aragon App today! You can also stay up to date on this course and our education efforts by subscribing to The Eagle, our weekly newsletter covering everything happening in the Aragon ecosystem.
We’re incredibly excited to launch our new modular, adaptable, easy-to-use stack: Aragon OSx and Aragon App!
The entire stack is live on Ethereum mainnet. You can find the OSx protocol contracts here and the App here.
When building these tools, we took a modular and user-centric approach, to allow you to create any custom DAO you can imagine. You can also easily deploy a DAO with a few lines of code using the SDK, or in the no-code Aragon App.
Fast, easy-to-use, tools for every builder
As a DAO builder, you need the right tools to build your organization. So, we built a stack with a tool to serve every builder:
Aragon OSx: Lean by design, our smart contracts lay the foundation for organizations we can’t yet imagine today. Plugins make it easy to customize your governance.
Aragon App: User-friendly app with no coding required. The App provides a simple, easy-to-use home base onchain for your community to create proposals, cast votes, and onboard new members.
Let’s dive into each tool in the stack!
Aragon OSx: The foundational governance layer enabling adaptable organizations
Use the new Aragon OSx protocol to extend the logic of what’s possible with your DAO.
With our permission management system at its core, you can grant or revoke permissions for addresses to perform actions within the DAO. This enables the "installing" and "uninstalling" of governance plugins, embedding experimentation into your organization as it evolves.
You can even build custom governance plugins to adapt the decision-making model used in your organization.
Using governance plugins, you can add new types of governance mechanisms to your DAO and simply “unplug” them when you want to try something new.
A plugin is a connection to an external contract that your DAO grants permission to. When you want to use the plugin—for example, for ERC-20 voting—the plugin is granted voting permission. But when you want to change your governance model—maybe to delegated voting—you simply revoke the voting permission to the ERC-20 voting plugin and grant it to the delegated voting one. And now, your DAO has a new governance model!
This means your organization can change and evolve, even though it’s deployed on the blockchain. With our permission management system at the center, the OSx enables mutable organization on an immutable blockchain.
Unlimited potential to build the organizations of the future
The DAOs we see in the world today won’t look the same as the DAOs 10 years from now. So, we wanted to create a framework that allows you to build anything, not just the functions that you see in the world today.
The governance logic in the smart contracts can be extended indefinitely, allowing for use cases we can’t yet imagine today.
OSx was built strategically lean, simple, and modular, so you can mix and match what you need and skip what you don’t. It is drastically simplified from earlier versions and entirely adaptable to your needs, so you aren’t held back to build what you want!
Run experiments that move the entire ecosystem forward
The plugins and DAOs you build will help the entire ecosystem innovate. With a modular design system, you can use plugins built by other developers without needing to fork the entire system.
Simple, low barrier to entry experimentation is what will move the ecosystem forward, and we can’t wait to experiment alongside you!
Use the SDK to build DAOs with just a few lines of code
In our new software development kit, you can launch a DAO without needing to write a line of Solidity! Access the power of the OSx without getting into the weeds of the smart contracts.
Use the power of the SDK to grant and revoke permissions to other addresses, create and vote on proposals, add or remove members to your DAO, as well as many other features our SDK enables.
Aragon App: Launch a DAO onchain with no coding required
The Aragon App makes it easy to build and deploy your DAO onchain in minutes without having to write any code.
The App is simple and easy to use, with resources and education every step of the way.
Here’s the easy-to-use creation flow :
1. Choose your blockchain
Select from a variety of testnets or the Ethereum mainnet. More chains, like Polygon, are coming soon!
2. Define DAO details and claim ENS subdomain name
You can customize it to fit your DAO’s branding, too. Add a logo, links, and description. Your DAO can claim its own custom ENS handle under the subdomain .dao.eth! You set the exact subdomain name you’d like in this step.
3. Select membership type: wallets or token holders
Next, you’ll select how membership is defined in your DAO. This can be done through authorized wallet addresses or by minting tokens and distributing them to wallets. If you choose to mint a token, you can set a token name and determine how many tokens you would like to mint. You can always mint more later and distribute to the community.
4. Set voting parameters
In this step, you’ll determine voting parameters such as minimum participation rate, pass rate, minimum vote duration, early execution, and vote change. Guides and helpful tips are included along the way to make it easy to set these parameters without worry!
5. Launch your DAO homebase
Tired of having your DAO members spread across tons of different platforms? Our simple, user-friendly homebase brings DAO governance and management in one place. Create proposals, cast votes, track the lifecycle of a decision, manage your treasury, add members, and manage governance all from the App homepage.
Education and resources to help along the way
You don’t have to build a DAO alone. With our education and resources baked into the App creation flow, you can get information on how to build your DAO without having to leave the App.
We know that there can be tons of uncertainty when starting a DAO, which is why we created a comprehensive education portal to help you launch your organization with confidence.
Roadmap for Aragon OSx and Aragon App
As DAOs evolve, they will take many different forms. From network states and digital cities to small investment groups and collector clubs, DAOs are not one-size-fits-all. And they will keep growing in ways we cannot predict.
With the power of plugins, Aragon OSx will enable any type of organization you can imagine.
But this is just the first iteration of OSx and App. On the horizon for our stack you can expect:
Launch on Polygon.
Add more functionality for the App with our smart contract composer.
Publish the Aragon Open Design System (ODS), which will provide tokenized UX components so anyone can customize the App on the UX level.
Provide more custom functionality through our SDK, so dApps can tap into our protocol easier.
Build more governance plugins, such as delegate voting, subDAO capabilities, and private voting.
Private voting
Sub-DAO functionality
Support/importing for your existing tokens
Walletconnect: Enable proposals (upon successive conclusion) to execute any external contract through ABI and Walletconnect
To stay informed on what’s coming up next, subscribe to The Eagle, our weekly newsletter.
Build better, together: Come join us!
Building technology to power the next wave of organizations isn’t easy. And we know that we’ll get much farther with more minds working on the problem. So, come join us!
We would love to hear what organizations and applications you’re dreaming up.
Want to get more involved?
Check out some ideas for plugins and dApps to build with Aragon OSx.
How do you adapt and evolve your DAO once it’s deployed on an immutable blockchain?
That’s the question our engineering team at Aragon has been working on. We interviewed Carlos, Aragon’s CTO, to gain insight into the building blocks of the new Aragon OS and how our DAO framework enables adaptable DAOs.
What’s the architecture of the new protocol?
Our DAO framework is made of two main parts: the core contracts and the framework contracts. The core contracts run each DAO and the framework contracts run all the connections, such as the factories, registry, and plugin manager.
The core contracts are very simple. They make up the DAO Vault, which is where assets are stored, and the DAO’s permission manager, determining which addresses have permissions to execute which action within the DAO.
“Simplicity is one the biggest features you can have in a smart contract,” said Carlos. Simplicity can help make a contract more secure because there is less potential for bugs and hidden exploits.
The simplicity of the core contracts means there’s less immutable logic, so it’s easier for DAOs to adapt their organization as it evolves through time.
“If you force logic into it, you have that logic forever,” said Carlos. “That’s why you need a very lean contract that holds your funds and doesn’t do anything. Everything else is programmable and based on your needs [through plugins].”
Think of the architecture as a stack, with the protocol on the bottom and plugins on the top.
Protocol: base layer, contains very simple contracts that interact with the blockchain.
Plugin manager: Manages the plugins by allowing the base layer to grant or revoke permission to the plugins or other wallet addresses (externally owned addresses).
Plugins: external contracts that can extend the logic of the base layer, but be “unplugged” by revoking permission.
What is the plugin manager?
The plugin manager is where you add logic into your DAO. Plugins are connections to other contracts that can integrate with DAOs built on Aragon. For example, a DAO might want to use NFT voting. In that case, they would grant permission to the NFT voting plugin via the permission manager.
“Once you have the vault that holds the treasury, and the logic that is able to execute anything on governance plugins, you need to tie them together. That’s where the permission management comes in. You can set the permissions from different contracts to the vault.”
For example, X contract can execute Y if Z happens. But how does the contract know that Z happened? In these cases, you might want to use an oracle.
An oracle is software that tells contracts on the blockchain things that the contract couldn’t “know” itself. For example, a contract couldn’t know if it’s Tuesday. If there’s a plugin that only sends funds on Tuesday, the oracle tells the contract if it’s Tuesday or not.
“Permission management with oracles that check parameters, like guardians, allows programmable flows into your main contract,” said Carlos. “That’s one of the biggest features we have.”
Carlos gave some more details on how the plugin manager works on a technical level. “Basically, this is a modifier,” he said. “When you program the plugin, you set the permissions it needs in bytecode. Whenever you want to use that permission you just call a function.” Then, when you call the function, it calls a modifier to ask if that address has permission. When the modifier answers “yes,” the function executes.
How do you adapt a DAO built on immutable contracts?
Typically, when you want to change a contract deployed to the blockchain, you need to upgrade the entire contract. This is cumbersome and can open up security risks because you need to move your treasury.
But the new Aragon protocol is built to solve this problem. Instead of deploying an entirely new DAO, simply grant permission to the new plugin that gives you the adaptations you need.
“You’re almost never going to upgrade the DAO vault. It’s very simple. But you will want to upgrade the next layer—governance—from time to time. Maybe every few months or every year.”
That’s why the logic is separated away from the DAO itself. The logic is in the plugins, which are not deployed in the core contract.
This means organizations can adapt, even on an immutable blockchain.
For example, maybe you want to start your DAO as a multisig. Say you have a small DAO of just five people, and everyone is a signer on the multisig. You have a pass rate and quorum of three out of five of the signers.
Once your DAO grows to 20 people, a pass rate and quorum of three is probably not sufficient anymore. Typically, if you want to upgrade this DAO to a new type of voting, you would have to deploy a new DAO contract and migrate your treasury there.
In our new protocol, you’ll simply unplug the multisig voting plugin by revoking permission in the plugin manager, and then grant permission to the ERC-20 plugin to adapt your governance.
This system is highly composable and grows with the changing needs of your DAO and the ecosystem as a whole. If a new governance model becomes popular, you can simply develop a new plugin to apply that model to your organization without needing to start over from scratch. Our protocol enables organizations we can’t yet imagine today.
With the new protocol, “You have full mutability of your DAO without having to upgrade your contracts.”
What apps can be built on top of this framework?
On top of this stack, developers can build apps, or UIs that the end user interacts with. We’re building one UI, the Aragon App, but anyone can build a UI for their own use cases.
“Our app will do the most basic core things a DAO needs, but do them well,” said Carlos. “We’ll ensure those basics have the best user experience and the most human-centric design possible.”
For reaching beyond the basics, other interfaces could be built on top. For example, UIs for specific verticals could be built. With the simple, modular underlying system, the sky is the limit for building on top.
“You start with something very simple and based on modularity, and you end up having a composable system that can grow with other systems as well,” said Carlos.
How do you envision the permission management system being used?
Carlos has a lot of ideas for how the permission management system could be used, including social media profiles, account abstraction, and more advanced governance systems.
“Governance plugins are the first thing that comes to your mind when building a DAO,” he said. “You can have delegated governance, normal on-chain voting with ERC-20s, NFT voting, and you can even go into more creative stuff, like what we’re doing at Aragon ZK Research.”
You can also make it easier to post on Lens as a DAO, by using a plugin that posts when it receives enough approval.
“You can do a lot of magic in these governance plugins. You can integrate Snapshot and Lens profiles to cross-post proposals on social media,” he said.
Another avenue is making payments easier and more automatic. “You could also integrate payment streaming, like through Superfluid.”
A new avenue to explore is using a DAO as a smart wallet. Account abstraction is the customizability of your crypto wallet to make it safer and more convenient to use, so you or your DAO can better manage your assets.
“You can have your own personal DAO that belongs to you,” he said. For example, you could program logic into a plugin that allows you to make transactions under a certain dollar amount with just your hot wallet, and then if you have a transaction over $10,000, it requires a signature from your cold wallet.
“This makes a lot of sense in terms of security. Nowadays, security is one of the biggest topics we have to think about.”
But the possibilities go beyond just these examples. We compiled a list of 20 dApps you can build on the new Aragon protocol, so you can find more inspiration!
Who can build plugins?
“Anyone can build plugins,” said Carlos. “You don’t need an API, you don’t need to get authorized, you don’t even need to give your email.” Building on Aragon is entirely permissionless.
Carlos said the engineering team was careful to ensure that plugins are easy to develop. “As long as you know a bit of Solidity, you’re good to go,” he said. But if you don’t want to code a plugin from scratch, you can fork the existing plugins. Simply erase what you don’t want, add a few new lines of code, and you have your own plugin!
“The way the system is designed is that you can use them as Legos,” he said. “Even if you don’t know how to build something from the ground up, you can use pieces from different plugins.”
Will the SDK be simple to use?
“We’re building an SDK that allows anyone to tap into this protocol without having to know anything about a smart contract or governance systems,” said Carlos.
In fact, you don’t even need to know Solidity to use the Software Development Kit (SDK)!
“It allows you to create different types of hybrid structures that you can build out like Legos in pure javascript. No more than 10 lines of code, maybe 15,” he said.
We’re currently testing the SDK with our own App.
“Our own frontend purely uses the SDK,” he said. “We want to provide these tools for other developers to build on top of, and if they’re not useful to us, they won’t be useful for other developers either.”
Join us to build the DAOs of the future
The protocol was designed to enable organizations that we can’t yet imagine today.
“Anything can be a DAO,” said Juliette, Developer Advocate at Aragon, in the interview with Carlos. “As long as you’re working to achieve a common mission with a group of people, you’ll need resources. And then, you need to organize those resources. Essentially, that’s the DAO.”
The fact that anything can be a DAO makes us incredibly excited. But, converting the world’s organizations into DAOs is a massive task, and we know we can’t do it alone!
“We’re building one interface, but that doesn’t mean that we cover 100% of the use cases,” said Carlos. “So, we need help. This isn’t only on us—we need more minds working on this very same problem. That’s the cool thing about this core protocol. It allows anyone to build anything on top of it.”
To learn more, you can listen to the full interview here:
Our new tech stack is going live on mainnet during EthDenver, and we can’t wait to share it with you!
Here’s the TLDR of where to find us at EthDenver:
Workshop:"Building the next DAO wave" March 1, 5:00- 6:30 pm MST, Vīb Hotel Ballroom, 3560 Brighton Blvd.
Booth: March 2-5, all day, DAO Town in the EthDenver Events Center
Keynote Speech:"Rebuilding the foundation for DAOs" March 2, 1:00 pm MST, DAOs + Community Stage, National Western $SPORK Castle | 4655 Humboldt St Denver CO 80202. Speaker: Juliette Chevalier, Developer Advocate
Bounties: Virtual, ongoing through the entire event.
Workshop: Building the next DAO wave
Come build a DAO on our new stack! Our protocol and SDK make it easy to build any type of organization you can imagine, so you can use it to build the next wave of DAOs!
We’ll walk you through building a DAO on testnet using the new Aragon OSx protocol. Come by to connect with other developers, grab some pizza, and hang out with the team in a casual setting.
We will also have lots of Goerli ETH available, so get ready to deploy DAOs on testnet!
Booth: Make DAO History
Where will DAOs be in five years? Ten? What will you build next? Let’s talk about it! Come tell us how you’re making DAO history at our booth in DAO Town. We’ll have ongoing product demos, so you can see the Aragon App and OSx in action. Hang out with the team, learn about the new tech stack, and grab some swag and a POAP!
Free coffee and snacks will be available starting at 9am every morning, so make sure to come by to start your day!
Keynote: Rebuilding the foundation for DAOs, Juliette Chevalier, Developer Advocate
Juliette will detail the history of DAOs, where she thinks we’re headed next, and what DAOs can do to grow and thrive. She will provide an evidence-based glimpse of where we’re headed, map key patterns of what the next wave of history-making DAOs will need to thrive, and share insights on the future of DAO tooling.
Our new stack is modular and lightweight, so it’s easy to build whatever you can imagine on top of it. And we can’t wait to see what you create!
To get you started, we have five bounties live during the Buidl Week at EthDenver:
Delegate voting Aragon plugin
Objective: Build a delegated governance model for Aragon DAOs.
Delegated voting gives token holders a way to put their tokens to work in governance without needing to keep up with every proposal. Delegated voting is a great solution for large DAOs with widespread token holding, so we would love to see a delegated voting governance plugin developed for the new stack.
To implement this in Aragon, you’ll likely have to build a token wrapper contract as well as an Aragon governance plugin.
Reward: $3,000
AI proposal summarizer for Aragon DAOs
Objective: Create an app that fetches proposals published by Aragon DAOs and outputs a clear summary using AI technology.
In order to make decision-making easier for DAO members, we want to bring in AI models to summarize proposals and forum discussions. Use a tool like the OpenAI API to summarize proposals and turn long texts into concise bullet points of the most important, contentious points in the proposal. The goal is not to provide a biased opinion on what the proposal outcome should be, but rather an objective, summarized account of the text itself.
Reward: $5,000
Snapshot voting within Aragon
Objective:Build a wrapper for the reality.eth oracle so Aragon DAOs can vote off-chain using Snapshot in the background.
Reality.eth is an oracle service that Snapshot uses to make sure the off-chain voting was not manipulated, as well as to share the results with other smart contracts. Once the results become final, they are submitted on-chain.
We would like to give Aragon DAOs the option to vote off-chain with Snapshot. This integration would mean querying the reality.eth oracle and executing the decision within the new Aragon protocol.
Reward: $3,000
Aragon DAO notifications
Objective: Build a tool that notifies DAO members when new events are triggered.
With so much happening in the space, people often miss all the activities going on in the organizations they participate in.
We want to build a way to notify members when key actions occur, like a published proposal, a vote resolution, assets withdrawn or deposited, or anything else that DAO members need to keep up to date with. You might use webhooks to fetch blockchain events coming from the new Aragon smart contracts and notify subscribed members via email or SMS when key actions are occuring within their organization.
Reward: $5,000
Mirror DAOs
Objective: Build a Mirror.xyz <> Aragon integration enabling users to create a DAO based on addresses that buy a Mirror post NFT or who subscribe to a publication.
Mirror has proven to be a great hub for DAO members to share their ideas, bring projects to life, and fundraise. With the new protocol, we’d like to take that mission further. Through an integration between Mirror and Aragon, we’d like to build DAOs based on the addresses that fund Mirror projects. This should enable teams to spin up faster and engage in decision-making, ensuring the funds are well allocated.
Reward: $2,500
Meet the team attending EthDenver
Here’s the list of the Aragon team members attending the event. Get in touch with Shawn, our Community Manager, at shawn@aragon.org or @shawnzywonzie on telegram to schedule a meetup with any of the team members!
