What is DAO?
In simple words, a DAO is an independent organization managed by the communities. The underlying laws are established via smart contracts that decide the selected course of action to be adopted in the future. The members might at any time openly evaluate DAO’s digital code, cast votes, and give suggestions. The entire infrastructure of a DAO blockchain platform is solely managed by its members, who collaborate on key project decisions, including technological improvements and treasury allocations.
How To Create & Run A DAO?
Steps to Create a DAO:
1. Define the structure of the DAO Project
- What do you expect your DAO will achieve? What are your goals?
- Decisions your DAO will make?
- Is your company ready to accept a community-focused decentralized ownership structure?
- Is there a current difficulty in your industry that a DAO could solve?
- Will your community, consumers, and customers benefit from a DAO?
2. Decide the type of DAO
- Protocol DAOs: A protocol DAO, as the name implies, focuses on governance via decentralized protocols. To deliver DeFi services, several DAOs use smart contract technologies. The most well-known protocol DAOs are MakerDAO, Uniswap, and Yearn Finances.
- Investment DAOs:In investment DAOs, crypto owners come together to support new projects, startups, etc. or make investments in them.
- Social DAOs: Social DAOs are portals supporting social networking within the crypto community. Blockster is a popular social DAO. Such platforms provide digital democracy.
- Collector DAOs: Artists who make art with nonfungible tokens (NFTs) rely on collector DAOs to demonstrate ownership of their work.
- Media DAOs: Media DAOs enable content product owners (i.e., readers) to contribute directly without involving marketers in exchange for the native currency as a reward for their work.
- Entertainment DAOs: Entertainment DAOs provide decentralized entertainment by letting creators bring their idea to life while maintaining control over their administration.
- Philanthropy DAOs: These DAOs are dedicated to aiding social responsibility projects navigating the Web 3.0 world. The Big Green DAO is the first Philanthropy DAO, and it is a charity organization that strives to raise awareness about growing food.
3. Decide about DAO Token: Supply, allocation, and incentives
- DAO tokens help in:
- Giving incentives, rewards, and other perks
- DAO voting and governance on the working of DAOs
- Opening wider opportunities for growth and development for your community Choosing the token supply volume and allocating them is crucial for the DAO development team.
4. Create Your DAO The following are the most common Ethereum blockchain tools for building a DAO:
- Aragon: Aragon is a DAO toolset that includes governance and dispute resolution.
- Colony: A colony is a plug-and-play DAO platform that can be launched in 90 seconds.
- Syndicate – This software focuses on the launching of an investment DAO.
- OpenLaw- The resource enables developers to swiftly generate legal documents that are compatible with Ethereum.
- DAOstack- It is an open-source, tech-oriented toolset for launching a DAO.
- Orca Protocol- The Orca Protocol is a “people-first” protocol that assists individuals in organizing themselves decentrally.
5. Create Your DAO Treasury Some popular DAO Treasury Tools are:
- Gnosis Safe- Platforms like Gnosis Safe help to secure DAO treasury through multi-signature wallet solutions. Since its inception in 2017, Gnosis Safe has been safeguarding projects within the Ethereum ecosystem. The multi-sig feature requires several people to sign transactions before execution.
- Multis- Built on Gnosis Safe, Multis offers a one-shot solution for all your DAO treasury management requirements.
- Juicebox- Juicebox thrives as a popular fundraising portal for DAO projects.
- Llama- This is a fully-secured multi-sig wallet DApp dedicated to DAOs.
- Parcel- Parcel offers access to cost-friendly treasury tools for managing payments, payrolls, payment requests, etc.
- Utopia- Utopia provides a DAO treasury tools suite for managing accounts, creating reports, and payments.
6. Governance Tools for DAO
- Commonwealth- It is a unified platform offering services for holding discussions, conducting voting, and managing funds.
- Paladin- The portal helps in depositing, managing, and lending governance tokens.
- Snapshot- Snapshot is a perfect portal for submitting and voting on proposals related to DAO governance.
- Sybil- Created on Uniswap, Sybil helps in on-chain governance and delegation.
- Boardroom- It is a robust resource for DAO governance.
- Tally- Tally facilitates voting and delegation of votes for on-chain governance proposals.
7. Create a Community An interactive, engaged, and strong community can help in the constant expansion of the DAO project. The success of a DAO project largely depends on how freely the community is able to participate in the decision-making and management of the DAO project.
How To Destroy a Smart Contract?
Using the selfdestruct functionality enables developers to remove smart contracts from the Blockchain. The smart contract life begins with a creation transaction from an EOA or a contract account. On the other end, the final breath of a contract is its destruction.
selfdestruct(address recipient);
An important note is that a developer must explicitly add this command to the contract. Otherwise, the smart contract will never be deletable. After the contract’s destruction, any transactions sent to that account address do not result in any code execution because there is no longer any code there to execute. Deleting a contract does not remove the transaction history (past) of the contract since the blockchain itself is immutable.
Making a Smart Contract “Mortal”
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.1;
contract Mortal {
address public owner;
// Initialize Contract: set owner
constructor() {
owner = msg.sender;
}
// Contract destructor
function destroy() public {
require(msg.sender == owner, "msg.sender is not the owner");
selfdestruct(payable(owner));
}
}
You can still send transactions to the address and transfer Ether there, but there won’t be any code that could send you the Ether back. Developers prefer to deploy an updated contract to the Ethereum after destructing the old contract.
Smart contracts that could be utilized within an educational DAO
1. Funding and Grants: A smart contract that allows community members to propose educational projects or initiatives and request funding. The community can vote on these proposals, and approved projects receive funds automatically from the DAO’s treasury.
2. Voting and Governance: Smart contracts to facilitate voting on various decisions within the DAO, such as approving funding proposals, electing key positions, or making changes to the DAO’s policies.
3. Reputation and Token Distribution: A smart contract that tracks members’ contributions to the DAO and assigns them reputation or governance tokens accordingly. These tokens can influence voting power and decision-making within the organization.
4. Curriculum Management: Smart contracts to manage educational content and curriculums offered by the DAO. This could include tracking course completion, issuing certificates, or managing accreditation.
5. Token Staking and Incentives: Smart contracts that allow members to stake their tokens for a specific period, which helps in incentivizing long-term engagement and commitment to the DAO’s mission.
6. Resource Sharing: A smart contract that allows members to share educational resources, such as textbooks, research papers, or online courses, within the DAO’s ecosystem.
7. Decentralized Learning Platforms: Smart contracts that power decentralized learning platforms where educational content can be accessed, created, and monetized.
8. Reputation and Content Curation: Smart contracts that enable the community to curate and rank educational content, ensuring that high-quality resources receive more recognition.
9. DAO Treasury Management: Smart contracts that manage the DAO’s funds, ensuring transparency, security, and automated distribution of funds according to predefined rules.
10. Sybil Protection: A mechanism to prevent fake or duplicate accounts from gaming the DAO’s governance and voting system.