What is the Aragon DAO?
The Aragon DAO is an aragonOS smart contract deployment on Ethereum mainnet that accepts inputs, grants permissions, and executes on-chain transactions. The DAO is the smart contract deployment.
How do you participate in Aragon DAO governance?
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 must agree to the Participation Agreement and automatically join the Aragon Ecosystem Association.
Watch this demo video on how to wrap ANT.
How do you delegate wANT?
Use this delegated voting app to delegate to other Ethereum wallet addresses.
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 or undelegate during the delay period, but once a vote begins a snapshot will be taken of your delegation status.
Watch this demo video on how to delegate and undelegate wANT.
Who can become a delegate?
Any Ethereum address, including multi-signature wallet (multisig), can become a delegate.
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 can state your interest in receiving ANT delegation so ANT holders know to delegate to your address.
Potential roles of delegates:
- Endorse strategy
- Review DAO-wide objectives
- Allocate funding by voting
Delegates can negotiate directly with token holders for payment or put forward funding proposals to the Aragon DAO to be paid for their work.
To see who has expressed interest in receiving wANT delegation and to express interest yourself, visit the Delegation section of the forum.
What types of proposals can you submit to the Aragon DAO?
Budgeting proposal: A proposal to signal or withdraw funds from the Budget Vault.
Governance proposal: A proposal to signal or change permissions and parameters.
Proposal and voting process
These steps cover both Budgeting Proposals and Governance Proposals.
Prior to voting, all proposals will be checked by guardians to ensure that:
- The outcome of the proposal legal under Swiss law
- Financial proposals have filled out the Financial Compliance Form
- Proposals with an on-chain transactions have the transaction clearly and accurately described in the proposal text
If any of these are violated, the proposal will be vetoed and the ANT returned to the proposer.
Step 0: Prepare the proposal
There are no on-chain restrictions on what to include in the proposal text. Here’s a recommended proposal template.
We recommend creating a new forum post with the “Aragon DAO” tag and containing the above proposal text at least a week before submitting it to the DAO. This will provide an opportunity for other members of the Aragon governance community to offer their feedback and suggestions, allowing you to refine the proposal as needed.
Step 1: Create proposal, lock ANT
Any Ethereum Address with the required ANT amount (5,000) can create a Proposal in the Aragon DAO.
Governance participants, including Guardians, ANT holders, and delegates need an immutable source of truth while evaluating your proposal. Please upload 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 will result in the proposal being vetoed by the Guardians.
Example of proposal text on IPFS: https://bafkreid55dbonh23s7chtosi72gjr6o5dmmbqsat7r47mbjcucelnxhnse.ipfs.nftstorage.link/
When you create a proposal, you must agree to the Terms of Service. 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.
Step 2: Automatic delay period begins
The Proposal is automatically put into a 7-day Delay Period for the duration specified in the Proposal parameters and the required ANT amount is locked. The proposal will appear in the Delay Period App.
The tokens you lock in this step are ANT, not wANT.
Step 3: Delay period ends, tokens unlock
When the Delay Period expires the ANT is automatically unlocked.
The locked ANT cannot be slashed, it is simply locked and returned.
Step 4: Any Ethereum address can move the proposal to vote
The proposal is not automatically moved to a vote. Rather, an Ethereum address must move the vote from the Delay Period to the Voting Period.
Anyone can perform this step in the Delay Period App.
Step 5: Voting begins
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%
Step 6: If passed, any Ethereum address can execute
A vote passes when the voting period expires and the minimum participation and level of support in the parameters are met.
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.
What are Guardians?
Guardians are Ethereum addresses holding an Aragon Guardian Token (AGT).
Guardians are a security mechanism. The scope of the role of Guardians will not be set and cannot be enforced on chain. Since the scope of their veto power is not enforceable by code, it requires additional definition and agreements. Their scope should be limited to veto malicious proposals within narrowly defined constraints. Holding them accountable to certain behaviors and actions requires a contractual agreement, which will be enacted separately and will evolve with the needs of the DAO.
Guardians will be appointed and removed by trusted parties in the Aragon Shield Multisig. The trusted parties will define the scope of the role of Guardians and set the parameters of the Guardian DAO, according to the needs of the DAO as it evolves. They can mint or burn AGTs in the AGT App. AGTs are non-transferrable.
Any Ethereum Address with AGT is a Guardian and has permission to vote to veto, pause, or resume a Proposal in the Guardian DAO.
When the minimum participation and level of support of a veto is reached, the Proposal immediately expires and does not move to the Voting Period. When the quorum and level of support of a pause is reached, the Delay Period is paused. When the quorum and level of support of a resume is reached, the Delay Period is resumed at the time it was paused.
Guardians are not currently active and are planned to be appointed before the end of the Q1 2023.
How does high-level strategy work in the Aragon DAO?
Anyone can propose a strategy for the Aragon DAO. Delegates may want to endorse a strategy that they use to guide their voting choices.
One strategy that has been endorsed by token holders is to become a governance hyperstructure. You can find it here on Github.
