The goal of this Forum post is to give ANT Holders all of the information and documentation needed to understand the Aragon DAO, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to engage and participate in governance, in one consolidated and easily accessible place.
Aragon DAO Rules and Aragon Ecosystem Association
The Aragon DAO is an aragonOS smart contract deployment on Ethereum mainnet that accepts inputs, grants permissions, and executes on-chain transactions. Please see the Aragon DAO Rules explaining the technical deployment in plain language.
The Aragon DAO’s participants are members of the Swiss-based Aragon Ecosystem Association (AEA). All DAO participants automatically join and benefit from its limited liability protection, when participating in governance by wrapping ANT or by voting.
How To Participate in Aragon DAO Governance
Wrapped ANT (wANT)
Any Ethereum address that holds wANT (wrapped Aragon Network Token) can participate in governance.
You can purchase ANT on several different decentralized or centralized exchanges.
To wrap your ANT, use this token wrapper app. You’ll receive an equal amount of wANT to the ANT you put in. wANT is not transferable and can be wrapped or unwrapped at any time. When you wrap ANT, you agree to the Participation Agreement.
Here is a demo video on how to wrap ANT: Loom | Free Screen & Video Recording Software | Loom
Delegation
Use this delegated voting app to delegate to another Ethereum wallet address.
wANT Holders can delegate or undelegate at any time. wANT Holders do not need to delegate their tokens; they can simply vote without delegating.
Please note that a snapshot is taken at the beginning of the vote period (which records the voting power of each token holder and delegate for that particular vote). You can delegate, undelegate, wrap more ANT, or unwrap wANT during the delay period, but once a vote begins it will use the snapshot of your voting power and delegation .
Who can become a delegate?
Any Ethereum address, including smart contracts (e.g. multi-signature wallets, DAOs, etc.), can be delegated to.
Delegates can see which addresses have delegated their vote to them, but they do not have the option to accept or refuse delegation, they can simply choose whether or not to participate by voting.
Becoming a delegate is permissionless—you may state your interest in receiving delegation, but ultimately it is up to wANT holders to delegate to you.
Potential roles of delegates:
- Endorse strategy
- Review DAO-wide objectives
- Vote on proposals
To see who has expressed interest in receiving wANT delegation and to express interest yourself, visit the Delegation section of the forum.
Proposals
There are two types of proposals:
- Budgeting proposal: A proposal to signal or withdraw funds from the Budget Vault.
- Governance proposal: A proposal to signal or change permissions or parameters.
There are no on-chain restrictions on what to include in the proposal text but Terms of Use that apply to any proposal. There are also no formal requirements to post and discuss proposals in the Forum, although it is standard practice and recommended. This provides an opportunity for other members of the Aragon governance community to offer their feedback and suggestions, before the proposal goes up to vote.
Any Ethereum Address with the required ANT amount (5,000) can create a Proposal in the Aragon DAO. Note: the tokens locked when creating a proposal are ANT, not wANT. The required ANT will be locked for the duration of the delay period and returned to the proposal creator when the delay period expires.
Governance participants, including Guardians, wANT holders, and delegates need an immutable source of truth while evaluating your proposal. We recommend uploading a JSON or markdown file to IPFS (using a free tool such as https://nft.storage/). Please include a URL in the Reference field of the proposal. Failure to do so can result in the proposal being vetoed by the technical Guardians.
Example of proposal text on IPFS: https://bafkreid55dbonh23s7chtosi72gjr6o5dmmbqsat7r47mbjcucelnxhnse.ipfs.nftstorage.link/
When you create a proposal, you must agree to the Terms of Use. If the proposal involves a withdrawal of funds, completion of the Financial Compliance Form is mandatory; failure to do so will result in the proposal being vetoed by the Guardians.
Delay Period
The Proposal is automatically put into a 7-day Delay Period and the required ANT amount is locked for that period of time. The proposal will appear in the Delay Period App.
Guardian Veto
The Aragon DAO has Guardians who can veto proposals during the delay period, before the proposal goes to vote. The Guardians are Ethereum addresses that hold an Aragon Guardian Token (GUARD) and have permission to vote to veto, pause, or resume a Proposal in the Guardian DAO.
They are a trusted security mechanism, appointed by the Aragon Shield Foundation (ASF). The Aragon Shield Foundation is a trusted institution that is immutably bound by the purpose of the Aragon Project. The Aragon Shield Foundation is supervised by the Swiss foundation supervisory authority and must justify its activities every year. The scope of their veto power is not enforceable by the DAO’s contracts, but rather are defined as services that they provide to the Aragon Shield Foundation and as body of the Aragon Ecosystem Association according to the rules defined by the Aragon Shield Foundation, in order to protect the Aragon Project and participants in the Aragon DAO.
Guardians are appointed and removed by the Aragon Shield Multisig. The multisig can then mint (or burn) a non-transferrable Aragon Guardian Token (AGT) to the appointed Guardian. The Aragon Shield Multisig also sets the parameters of the Guardian DAO. Guardians have the permissions to pause or veto Aragon DAO proposals, based on clear pre-defined criteria given to them by ASF. There are currently two addresses that hold an AGT, corresponding to two multisigs: a) Tech Guardians Multisig, b) Legal Guardian Multisig. Prior to voting, all proposals will be reviewed by the two current Guardian multisigs.
The role of the Tech Guardians is to:
- Review and assess Aragon DAOs Ethereum proposals for potential malicious activity. This can be: unspecified token allowances/transfers, interacting with unknown or fraudulent contracts, unreadable EVM bytecode, transactions that would brick the DAO or its funds or change the permissions/parameters in a way that could put the DAO in danger.
- Veto any proposal that doesn’t have a sufficient description for them to understand the onchain execution.
- Ensure the output of the transactions matches exactly their description in the proposal.
The role of the Legal Guardians is to:
- Oversee proposals submitted to the Aragon DAO and veto any proposal, if the proposal directly or indirectly:
- Finances or supports money-laundering, terrorism or terrorist organizations, or human trafficking, or bribery according to Swiss law;
- involves an individual, an organization, and entity, an authority, a state, or beneficial owners that (i) appear on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List of the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury (“OFAC”) or (ii) on the Swiss sanctions regime; or
- any change of the features of ANT token or the features of the Aragon DAO smart contracts that results in a requalification of (i) the ANT token as securities, or (ii) the activity of the Aragon DAO as a regulated activity under Swiss financial market laws.
- Ensure financial proposals have filled out the Financial Compliance Form
If any of these are violated, the proposal will be vetoed by the Guardian DAO and the locked ANT will be returned to the proposer.
Voting
When the Delay Period expires the ANT is automatically unlocked. The locked ANT cannot be slashed, it is simply locked and returned. When the delay period expires, any Ethereum address can move the vote from the Delay Period to the Voting Period. Anyone can perform this step in the Delay Period App.
A snapshot is taken at the beginning of the vote period, capturing the voting power of ANT Holders and Delegates.
Votes are binary (Yes/No).
Any Ethereum Address with wANT or delegated to by another Ethereum Address with wANT can vote during the 7-day voting period. Voting is done in the Voting App.
wANT holders can override the vote of their delegates any time during the voting period.
When you vote as a Delegate, you must agree to the Participation Agreement and automatically join the Aragon Ecosystem Association.
Parameters for Budgeting and Governance proposals:
Vote period: 7 days
Delay period: 7 days
Minimum approval: 1.5%
Minimum level of support: 50 +1%
A vote passes when the voting period expires and the minimum participation and level of support in the parameters are met.
Execution
Once the vote has passed and the proposal has an associated on-chain action, any Ethereum address can execute it, as it will not automatically execute.
The address that executes the vote pays the associated gas fees.
To execute the proposal, use the Voting App. You can filter proposals based on enacted, passed, pending, and rejected.
