There are countless discussions and researches on DAOs in the market, but most of them are about the historical development, definition and role of DAOs. At present, there is no relevant content that classifies the degree of autonomy A of DAOs. Therefore, this article will classify the degree of autonomy of some representative DAOs in the market, and give relevant cases and introductions.
implement
proposal
vote
implement
The classification mechanism is:
The benchmark is Class A: all actions are performed off-chain, decisions are made through fair voting, and funds are secured through multiple signatures. The benchmark is 0 points. In the three dimensions of proposal, voting, and execution, if each behavior is carried out on the chain, one point will be added, and each point will be upgraded to a higher level; if the combination of on-chain and off-chain behaviors is used, the score will be halved; If the representative system conducts elite management, one point will be deducted; if a fair voting method is not adopted, it will be directly judged as a negative point, that is, A-.
AAA: Proposals, voting, and execution are all on-chain.
AA: Proposals are made off-chain, voted on-chain, and the voting results are executed by the contract; or main proposals are put forward and voted off-chain, key proposals are put forward and voted on-chain, and the voting results are executed by the contract.
A+: Proposals are put forward and voted under the chain, and the voting results are executed by smart contracts.
A: Proposals are put forward and voted for governance under the chain, such as using Snapshot, and code deployment is performed by multi-signature administrators.
Classification
Classification
1. AAA
Compound (Project Governance DAO):
Governance uses three distinct on-chain components: COMP token, governance module (Governor Bravo), and Timelock. Together these contracts allow the community to proceed via cToken or Comptrollers governance functions.
Proposal on chain (+ 1 )
On-chain voting (+1)
Contract Execution Vote Results, Implementing Changes (+1)
Maker DAO (Project Governance DAO):
Off-chain governance: The decision-making process for community discussion and feedback collection. Anyone can participate in off-chain governance.
On-chain governance:
Governance Polls: Anyone can create on-chain governance polls using the polling smart contract, however there is currently no UI provided to do so. Governance polls build soft consensus and measure community sentiment through time-based voting.
Executive Vote: An executive vote executes a technical change to the Maker protocol. When activated, each execution vote makes a set of proposed changes to the Maker Protocols smart contracts. Unlike other types of voting, executive voting uses a continuous approval voting model.
On-Chain Proposals (+1)
On-chain voting (+1)
Contract execution changes (+1)
Tezos (Project Governance DAO):
Proposal period: The proposer can use the proposal operation to submit the protocol modification proposal on the chain
Exploring the voting period: Users can use the vote operation to cast a vote on the winning proposal on-chain to continue the voting process or not to vote.
Cooling, testing period: Testnet fork running in parallel with mainnet for 48 hours
Promotion voting period: Users can use the voting operation chain to vote for or not to support the proposal, and decide whether to pass the amendment based on previous off-chain discussions and their behavior.
Proposals made on-chain (+1)
On-chain voting (+1)
Contract Execution Voting Result (+ 1 )
2. AA
Lido (Project Governance DAO):
Members mainly participate in the management of protocol parameters, node operators and oracle member lists, and can vote on application upgrades, based on the Aragon chain. Other matters are based on Snapshot off-chain governance.
Make proposals in the forum for discussion and vote through Snapshots
Any LDO holder on Aragon can make proposals and vote on them.
EasyTrack aims to make the day-to-day operations of DAOs easier. EasyTrack consists of 16 smart contracts, a standalone UI application, and a notification bot that provides alerts to the DAO community and development channels of major events related to Easy Track.
Off-chain proposal + on-chain proposal (+ 0.5 )
Off-chain voting + on-chain voting (+ 0.5 )
Contract Execution (+1)
Nexus Mutual (Project Governance DAO):
Through elections, five co-members are elected to form the Advisory Committee, including founding team members and other experts. The goal is to have a qualified mix of people spanning the following three broad skill sets:
Technical expertise: smart contract security and blockchain,
Technical Expertise: Insurance and Mutual Insurance
General expertise: legal, regulatory, corporate governance and business management.
On-chain proposals: Members make proposals through the governance mechanism.
Whitelisting: Proposals are then sent to the Advisory Council, which whitelists proposals by categorizing them and setting a total NXM token reward to be shared among those who voted.
Committee Vote: The Advisory Committee then votes on the proposal to provide input on the proposal to all members. For regular proposals, if the quorum is not reached, the voting result of the Advisory Committee is also set as the default result.
Membership Vote: The proposal then goes to a binding formal membership vote.
Proposal implementation: In some cases, such as simple parameter updates or fund withdrawals, proposals are then automatically implemented by code. For other complex transactions, there will be an additional step to develop new code, with further recommendations to upgrade or not to new versions.
On-Chain Proposals (+1)
On-chain voting (+1)
Contract Execution (+1)
Committee representative review (-1)
Constitution DAO (Investment DAO):
The corresponding share is obtained through the Juicebox DAO donation. When the auction of the copy of the constitution fails, the contract will automatically start the refund. After the auction failed, Constitution DAO voted to abandon the multi-signature wallet, and transformed from crowdfunding that simply purchased a copy of the constitution to Meme, so Constitution DAO no longer exists.
On-Chain Proposals (+1)
On-chain voting (+1)
Multi-signature wallet execution
3. A+
Uniswap (Project Governance DAO):
Off-chain governance:
Temperature Check: Proposals are made on the governance site and voters use Snapshots to indicate whether they are interested in advancing it to the next stage
Consensus Check: Use the first-stage temperature to check the feedback of the post and create a new Snapshot poll
On-chain governance:
Execute the proposal: After the proposal is submitted successfully, the proposal() function will deploy the proposal
off-chain proposal
off-chain voting
Contract Execution Voting Result (+ 1 )
YFI (Project Governance DAO):
Forum Discussion Proposals and voting
Proposals voted through the forum will be Snapshot voted
Snapshot voting results are executed by smart contracts
off-chain proposal
off-chain voting
Contract Execution (+1)
Aave (Project Governance DAO):
Built on the Aragon framework, using modular feature management.
Making a Proposal: The Aave Request for Comments (ARC) is the first step in the governance improvement process. Anyone can participate in the governance forum, create an ARC, and vote on improvements.
Community Voting: Measure community opinion on new proposals through Snapshot voting.
Proposal execution: The proposal is submitted as a request through GitHub and executed by the contract.
off-chain proposal
off-chain voting
Contract Execution (+1)
4. A
BitDAO (Investment DAO):
Use Snapshot to draft a soft proposal and conduct a formal community vote. The proposal that passes the vote needs to be adopted by the development team. The final code is audited and submitted, and then deployed by the multi-signature administrator.
off-chain proposal
off-chain voting
Multi-signature administrator execution
YGG DAO (guild-type DAO):
Based on smart contracts built on the Ethereum blockchain. Smart contracts will be used to automate the functions of the guild, including reward distribution, and eventually advanced functions such as NFT leasing.
The DAOs assets (tokens, NFTs, virtual plots) are managed by the YGG Treasury, currently overseen by the three co-founders of Yield Guild. Assets are only transferred from the vault when two of the three co-founders sign off on the deal. Transactions will be proposed by DAO participants and a course of action will be voted on.
off-chain proposal
off-chain voting
Execution via multisig wallet
OpenDAO (Project Governance DAO):
OpenDAO manages DAO treasury (20%), Staking smart contract (20%) + LP incentive (10% + SUSHI) through multi-signature wallet. Multi-signature holders are elected by voting. For proposals that cannot be chained on a daily basis, it is decided through voting on the Metaforo forum; for the operation of the contract, it is necessary to use Snapshot to propose and vote, and finally executed by the account controlled by OpenDAO; for proposals to change the governance model, it needs to be voted on by the Metaforo forum now , and then the Snapshot will propose and vote.
off-chain proposal
off-chain voting
Execution via multisig wallet
5. A-
Bankless (guild-type DAO):
Most of the decisions in Bankless DAO are made by soft consensus. Corresponding to it is the consensus (hard consensus) that needs to be passed by voting at the entire DAO level. It can be simply understood that the decision-making related to the financial budget adopts a hard consensus process, and other decisions are reached through soft consensus.
Hard consensus is reached through Snapshot voting. However, Bankless DAO did not actually make any clear definition of the concept of soft consensus. There is considerable discretion as to what level of consensus is required for what level of decision-making, and where. There are many places where soft consensus can be reached, it can be a chat channel, it can be a forum post, it can be a group meeting, it can be some discussion on Twitter.
Off-chain discussion with no votes (-1)
Multi-signature wallet execution
Pleasr DAO (Investment DAO):
Allocate ownership of DAOs in the form of Tokens, manage their funds through multi-signature wallets, conduct asset sales (including split proceeds), and asset management. Governance via group chat.
Off-chain chat governance no votes (-1)
Multi-signature wallet execution
AAA：
Compound (Project Governance DAO), MakerDAO (Project Governance DAO), Tezos (Project Governance DAO)
AA：
Lido (Project Governance DAO), Nexus Mutual (Project Governance DAO), Constitution DAO (Investment DAO)
A+：
Uniswap (Project Governance DAO), YFI (Project Governance DAO), Aave (Project Governance DAO)
A：
BitDAO (Investment DAO), YGG DAO (Guild DAO), OpenDAO (Project Governance DAO)
A-：
Bankless (guild-type DAO), Pleasr DAO (investment-type DAO)
From the emergence of The Dao with great ambitions to its decline, most DAOs now appear in front of the world with the organizational structure of online collaboration native to the encryption community. Whether the current diversity of DAOs can meet peoples imagination of decentralized technical features such as automated operations and anti-censorship capabilities when this concept was first proposed, and perfectly interpret the Code is law rule.
Based on the types of proposals, voting and execution of DAO organizations and the form of community representation after research, OP Research divided the well-known and representative DAOs in the market into five categories. Among them, level A is the benchmark, off-chain proposals, off-chain voting and execution of proposals through multi-signature wallets, because it is simple to build, efficient to execute, relatively transparent, and can guarantee the security of funds, and the project team also has relatively large authority Controlling the direction of projects is conducive to the development of early projects. Therefore, although this method is not autonomous enough, most DAOs still use this method for management at this stage.
From the perspective of DAO types, DAOs with a high degree of autonomy are project governance DAOs. This type of DAO demonstrates how to complete the operation of the protocol governance module through internal capital. The reason may be that most of this type of DAO are transformed into DAO governance form after the project has existed for a period of time. The project product structure logic is clear and has been in operation for a long time. The team has certain experience, the project route is relatively certain, and the community is stable.
In contrast, DAOs with a low degree of autonomy are mostly investment-type DAOs and guild-type DAOs. Investment-type DAO requires a high degree of freedom due to its investment attributes, and investment behavior also has a certain degree of randomness, and investment pursues timeliness. The lengthy on-chain proposal voting and execution mechanism is just contrary to its natural attributes, and the transparency of the blockchain will also disclose its investment targets, leading to being seized by its competitors. Therefore, investment-type DAOs mainly operate in a more efficient and human-governed manner. For the guild-type DAO, the reason is similar. The guild-type DAO has many classifications, adopts a multi-level management mechanism, has a lot of management affairs, and needs to call the treasury frequently. Safety.
To sum up, due to the different types of DAOs, their operating mechanisms and management models are also different, and the requirements for the efficiency of DAO governance are also different. The current DAO infrastructure is still in its infancy, and there are many restrictions on the operation of DAO, resulting in limited use scenarios and relatively few suitable projects. The development of DAO autonomy also needs to rely on the technological progress of DAO-related infrastructure. For DAO whose governance content is still expanding its boundaries, it can only operate in a less autonomous way in the short term. Nevertheless, we are still in the era of rapid development of DAOs, and we are witnessing how DAOs can interpret a powerful and new form of social organization in the era of encrypted networks.
