Through COVID the world experienced a shift to a digital model of operation. Remote work and education became the norm. Business trips made way for video conferences, homes became offices, parents and children met at home during work hours, workers realized a significant part of their time was spent on the road. With their newly gained freedoms, some opted to work late into the nights or have breakfast with their families before starting their days. Individuals started to experience self-management. They gained control of their time.

This is just a taste of a brand new model for organizing human efforts. The classical model of 9-to-5 is no more. In its place is a new model that values personal freedom.

• Global: Participants can be from anywhere in the world

• Remote: Interactions happen through digital communications

• Self-managing: Participants take an active role in deciding what to do

Today, blockchains and smart contract technologies enable individuals to participate in global networks, trade assets without middlemen, and take action towards common goals. We are at the beginning of a global shift and decentralized communities are the pioneers.

These communities remove the need to start businesses to solve problems while allowing greater autonomy for individual participants. Each participant’s value is based on their own skills and abilities. Each interaction is peer to peer. The qualities of this model of operation are:

• Individual leadership: Participants can take on initiative, each can lead in collective efforts

• Asynchronous: Participants work on their own time, without constant interaction with others

• Voluntary participation: No mandatory 9/5. Participants define their own role, commitment, responsibilities. They take on as much as they please.

• Dynamic, evolving, changing: New information requires quick adaptation. New roles need to be filled. Individuals redirect their efforts as they find new opportunities. Change is inherent, fueled by technological advancements.

This model grants individuals more power and freedom to shape their lives. Individuals are free to select where and how they work, so they can work from anywhere in the world. They can take on as much or as little work as they please, to fit their life. They can fit the time to learn about new fields, adapt their work to the needs of the time and keep redefining what they do, what value they can provide to society.

Below you'll find our research on the Cardano ecosystem covering

• Cardano wallet reviews and comparisons

• DAO Tools building on Cardano if you want to make a DAO in Cardano

• DeFi dApps

• Cross-chain solutions like bridges and oracles

• Project Catalyst, the innovation engine of Cardano

Wallets

Cardano wallets are the most essential way to be in the Cardano Ecosystem. A user keeps their assets in them and they use their wallets to connect to different tools on the blockchain like dApps.

We have reviewed the most used Cardano light wallets and here are all of them.

• Cardano Wallets

DAO Tools

DAO tools are software applications built on blockchain technology that facilitate the creation and management of DAOs. DAOs are organizations that are fully decentralized and autonomous, with decisions made through a consensus process on the blockchain. DAO tools can include platforms for creating DAOs (like Summon Platform or Clarity Protocol), and blockchain platforms (like Ethereum or Cardano).

Cardano DAO Tools

Decentralized Finance

Decentralized Finance, or DeFi, is a revolutionary movement in the financial industry that leverages blockchain technology to disintermediate traditional financial intermediaries. DeFi tools are the various applications, platforms, and protocols that facilitate this new form of finance. They are designed to recreate and improve upon the financial systems we have today but in a decentralized, open, and transparent manner.

For more detail: Cardano Decentralized Finance Tools

Cross-Chain Solutions

Cross-chain is the interconnection of two or more entirely different blockchains. It allows the transfer of assets and data between different blockchains.

For more detail: Cardano Cross-Chain Solutions

Project Catalyst

Catalyst is a $50M+ open innovation fund. Anybody with an idea to further the goals of Cardano may apply for funding and pursue their idea. Read about the tools that make it go round and how to get involved here: The Tools of Project Catalyst

Welcome to littlefish Foundation's research hub.

Our research hub covers many areas yet is guided with the perspective of a decentralized organization building on the Cardano blockchain. As such it will be useful primarily to Cardano users, Cardano DAOs, and Cardano builders, but all blockchain users may find something useful here.

In this resource you can find information on:

• In depth reviews of DAO Tools building on Cardano: Cardano DAO Tools

• Feature comparisons of many Cardano wallets: Cardano Wallets

• In depth looks at some Cardano DeFi projects: Cardano DeFi

• Digital work tools that help enable the type of work in DAOs: Remote Work Tools

• Analysis of many blockchain regulations from token launches to tax implications: Blockchains and Law

• The state of cross-chain on Cardano: Cardano Cross-Chain Solutions

• Case studies of top DAOs, the tools they use, and their governance basics: DAO Case Studies

• and more ...

Project Catalyst and littlefish

We are a Project Catalyst powered organization. Project Catalyst is the innovation platform that funds projects building on the Cardano blockchain.

This research hub is prepared as part of three of our funded proposals in Fund 9:

1. Tools of DAO Work: Cardano DAO Tools, wallets, and digital work tools that enable the work of DAOs.

   https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/64178

2. Ocean Technologies: Cross-chain technologies on Cardano, and interesting tech from other blockchains. https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/64180

3. Law and the New Order: Original research by the legal team at Tevetoglu Legal, analyzing the intricacies of various regulatory topics in blockchains. https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/64605

With the advancement of the blockchain technology more and more people start to invest and use crypto currencies. If users do not want to keep their assets in exchange markets, like Binance or FTX etc. they use digital or hardware wallets. Generally in exchanges there is some certain security along with the user’s own responsibilities, using strong password, activating 2FA. With the wallets, users should also make sure to keep their account secure. This security is further implemented with the usage of seed phrases.

A seed phrase, or a recovery phrase, is a 12, 18, or 24 word phrase in a certain order that can be used to access a crypto wallet. If you forget your password of your digital wallet or lose your hardware wallet you can still access your wallet with the help of these seed phrases. You can think of these seed phrases as the master key in the hotels.

If you also lose or forget your seed phrase you will lose access to your wallet and whatever crypto you own in it forever. With the same logic, whoever knows your seed phrases can access your funds. So it is really important to keep these secure.

Different ways you can store these phrases from least secure to most secure are;

• Using a service like Google Keep, etc.

• Writing down to a notepad app locking the app

• Writing down to paper and securing it safely

• Engraving on a metal plate and securing it safely

As you may have noticed offline methods are more secure than the online ones since they are hack-proof. To further increase the security of these you can do any of these things;

• Using Ghost Ink (words will be readable only under UV light)

• Keeping the paper or plate under lock

• Using substitution cipher (or keyword cipher) cryptography method for the phrases

But of course there are risks to offline methods as well, like losing the plate you have engraved or burning of the paper in a fire. Even though there are minimal probabilities for these to occur, it never is zero. Our final suggestion would be, never keep your phrases in one location, rather store them in different places away from each other.

General Info

Seed Phrase Security

Wallet Deep Dives

This category of tools are to help a DAO manage their treasury and process their payments.

Multi-Signature Wallets

One of the popular tools for treasury management is multi-signature wallets. The name wallet can be misleading because multi-signature or multi-sig wallets resemble safes more than wallets. These wallets require more than one key in order to access assets in them like bank safes.

A DAO is a decentralized organization but if their assets are kept in a regular wallet address, that is centralized. Any person in possession of keys to that address is in full control of the entire DAOs treasury. Multisig wallets offer decentralization of this power among certain members of the community and they also offer the ability to lock assets before or after a certain date.

Project Management Tools

Another type of DAO tools falls into this category are Project Management Tools. these tools track tasks done by members and process payments automatically according to tasks done by the community of a DAO.

Here are the Treasury Management and Payments DAO Tools we have researched:

Membership and Reputation Tools allow individuals to show their skills on-chain and DAOs to find the right people. They also offer the ability to allow certain individuals with specific tokens or NFTs to access certain DAO resources.

The ability to control certain token or NFT holders access can be very beneficial for DAOs and prevent scam attacks.

The on-chain skill proof can be used like a CV for people to show their skills in a more trustworthy way.

Here are the Cardano DAO Tools we have deep dives on:

Governance is the backbone of any DAO. Decision-making, voting, and decision enforcement can be made on-chain by Governance DAO Tools. When setting up your DAO, you can choose the governance method you want. Governance DAO tools allow DAOs to set up a fully functional on-chain governance platform without writing code.

These tools allow DAO administrators to set up their governance method according to their needs. They handle all the on-chain and off-chain parameters of your DAO. You can use the platform of the tool to set your DAO up. This process is usually filling out some forms about what your DAO is, the governance token you use, and the governance rules you want. Then your members can start using the web app to participate in your DAO. These tools are very easy to set up but they can be limited in terms of customization.

Governance tools that provide smart contracts to set up governance like Agora Protocol are difficult to set up but they offer much higher customization potential.

DAOs are made possible by smart contracts. A DAO in control of its smart contracts can unlock all potential benefits of blockchain technology. Cardano Smart Contract development is a difficult and time-consuming skill to master due to the usage of Plutus. The Smart Contract Development Tools can make developing your own smart contracts easier, or provide smart contract templates for you to edit to your specific needs.

DAOs are organizations that operate based on rules encoded as computer programs. They promise a new world of organizations that are transparent, voluntary, and controlled by their members. Their financial transactions and rules are maintained on a blockchain for all to observe and verify.

Let's unpack each part to understand DAOs better:

• Decentralization: This refers to the lack of a central authority. In a DAO, decisions are made collectively by the organization's members, not by a single leader or a select group of executives.

• Autonomy: DAOs operate automatically and independently. They are governed by smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement directly written into code. When their conditions are met, smart contracts execute automatically, removing the need for human interaction to make things happen.

• Organization: Despite being decentralized and autonomous, DAOs are still organizations. They have members, they make decisions, and they aim to achieve certain goals.

DAOs are a new way of organizing human activity. They combine the principles of decentralization, autonomy, and organization in a unique way, enabled by blockchain technology. They have the potential to democratize decision-making, increase transparency, and reduce reliance on centralized authorities.

What is Cross-Chain

Cross-chain refers to the interoperability between different blockchain networks, allowing assets and data to be transferred seamlessly from one blockchain to another. This is crucial for enhancing the utility and scalability of blockchain applications. Various technologies like atomic swaps, oracles, sidechains, and blockchain bridges facilitate cross-chain transactions.

See our articles that cover cross-chain concepts in detail:

Cross-chain in Cardano

Bridges

There are several bridges currently available on Cardano fulfilling a range of services. See below full articles covering each:

Some tools are available yet not under further development:

Oracles

Charli3 is the standalone Oracle that is currently available for Cardano builders. See the article for an indepth look.

Yet there are other projects that are currently under development to deploy oracles on Cardano:

Author: Emir Olgun

Date: 18 October 2023

Introduction

We in the littlefish Foundation have conducted one of the most comprehensive researches about Cross-Chain capabilities in Cardano blockchain. This report will present What is Cross-Chain, Cross-Chain Concepts, and Cross-Chain Services that are currently operational and ongoing projects.

What is Cross-Chain

Cross-chain refers to the interoperability between different blockchain networks, allowing assets and data to be transferred seamlessly from one blockchain to another. This is crucial for enhancing the utility and scalability of blockchain applications. Various technologies like atomic swaps, oracles, sidechains, and blockchain bridges facilitate cross-chain transactions. The goal is to create a more interconnected and efficient ecosystem, where one is not limited by the capabilities or assets and services of a single blockchain. For some of these concepts we have written documents as they are complex technologies.

Cross-Chain Services on Cardano

We also have done research on all the Cardano cross-chain tools we found. Some of these projects are ready to be used, some are still in development and one tool called Microchains was functional but is dead.

Cross-Chain Bridges

These are the operational cross-chain bridges on Cardano:

Here are cross-chain bridges that are not operational:

Cardano Oracles

Here are the operational Cardano oracles:

Here are projects that announced they are working on Cardano but not yet deployed an oracle:

Sidechains

Writers Remarks

As of October 2023, there are not many services for Cardano cross-chain but with new services expected to come online, it looks promising. There are currently couple of available cross-chain bridges, one oracle, one atomic swap, and one expected sidechain. Even though the only oracle solution on Cardano, Charli3, does not offer much services, it has a strong and promising technical infrastructure and it definately has the potential to become dominant oracle service for Cardano.

Project Catalyst is Cardano blockchain’s driving force. It is a community controlled decentralized fund that provides funding to projects that build on the Cardano blockchain.

As of October 2023, there have been 10 funding rounds, with more than 1460 proposals approved, with a total of $64M. The latest fund had a budget of 50M ADA, or around $12.5M. All this, and it only started back in 2020.

Funded proposals include a wide variety of projects: hardcore blockchain infrastructure, community spaces, decentralized applications, media channels to spread Cardano, DAO tools, and a whole lot more.

Participating in Catalyst

That’s only the official process. There’s a whole lot more underneath it all in the multitudes of communities that have popped up around Project Catalyst.

Why this report?

This report aims to give anybody a broad overview of what Project Catalyst is, provide the main resources to dive into it, and give an overview of the tools you can use to dive deep into the ecosystem.

In this report, you’ll find

• resources to learn about Project Catalyst

• tools to interact with Project Catalyst

• communication channels

• a deeper dive on Lidonation’s Catalyst explorer, the best tool to explore Catalyst

The Tools to Use

Ok, so you’re interested in getting involved, looking to learn about Project Catalyst and the thousands of projects it is supporting. So what do you do? Where do you go?

The Official Website

If you are new, this is the place to start. This flashy website will introduce what Project Catalyst is all about, what the process is, and how to get started.

An overview of what you can do here:

• learn the basics,

• find how to get involved as a proposer, a voter, or a reviewer,

• read blog posts by the Catalyst team,

• search and view through all the proposals starting from Fund 1.

Lidonation Catalyst Explorer: The #1 tool for all things Project Catalyst

Catalyst Explorer is a comprehensive set of tools for navigating the thousands of proposals in Project Catalyst.

It has so many features, it’s difficult to cover but here’s a glance of what you can do:

Who should use this tool?

Potential Proposers

Project Catalyst is very competitive. If you want to get your project funded, you need to do the work. Jump into the Explorer and look for patterns on what gets funded. What type of proposals are looked down upon? Which challenges are more competitive?

Looking to find a team, co-founder, a job

Catalyst is the house of many great minds. If you’re looking for a team to join that aligns with your personal vision, with what you want to achieve, this is a great tool to find those people.

Investigators

Being a decentralized innovation fund means there will be a lot of people looking to take advantage. There are many projects that don’t get completed, or waste away the money, or promise but deliver very little.

It’s critical the system creates antibodies to resist against these types of projects. If you’re looking to become such an antibody then this is the tool for any Coffeezilla types looking to find those bad apples.

Voters

Use the voter tool to find the best projects to vote for. The tool allows you to search based on Quick Pitches with videos, proposals from teams with completed proposals, opensource projects, and a bunch of other interesting filtering capabilities to help you find the hidden gems.

A short list of tools and resources

Use this as a reference, copy&paste it to your Discord server, add and expand it as you wish!

Official

Communication Channels

Honorable Mention Community Tool

These are a set of tools for older funds that helped users write reviews, vote, challenge reviews and more. They are deprecated (no longer usable) in Fund 10 and beyond, since the systems have changed quite a bit.

But for open source devs, these tools are available on github:

DAOs usually use tokens to raise initial investments and share their governance with their community. These tokens are used in DAOs governance and have voting power on proposals. Some DAOs also give proposal power to people with more than a specific amount of tokens.

The tools in this category make it easy to create and distribute tokens for DAOs. The distribution of tokens can be done by airdrops or vending machine methods.

• Airdrop: This method distributes tokens created to a list of addresses provided by the DAO.

• Vending Machine: Members collect tokens from a dApp themselves.

DAOs can also mint their tokens however they choose. For example,

• A DAO can mint all tokens at once

• They can mint tokens gradually

• Tokens can be minted when someone claims them.

What are DeFi Tools?

DeFi tools are essentially a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps) that can perform financial functions such as lending, borrowing, trading, investment, insurance, and more, without the need for a centralized authority.

Types of DeFi Tools

1. Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs): These platforms allow users to trade cryptocurrencies directly with each other, without the need for an intermediary. Examples include Uniswap, SushiSwap, and Balancer.

2. Lending and Borrowing Platforms: These platforms allow users to lend and borrow cryptocurrencies. Interest rates are usually determined by supply and demand dynamics within the platform. Examples include Aave, Compound, and MakerDAO.

3. Stablecoins: These are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value relative to a specific asset or a pool of assets. Stablecoins are often used in DeFi to reduce volatility. Examples include DJED, DAI, USDT, and USDC.

4. Yield Farming and Liquidity Mining: These are more advanced DeFi practices where users provide liquidity to a platform, often in return for governance tokens, with the aim of earning a return on their investment.

5. Derivatives Platforms: These platforms allow users to trade derivatives of cryptocurrencies. Derivatives are financial contracts that derive their value from an underlying asset. Examples include Synthetix and dYdX.

6. Insurance Platforms: These platforms provide coverage for various risks in the DeFi space, such as smart contract bugs or exchange hacks. Examples include Nexus Mutual and Cover Protocol.

7. Asset Management Tools: These tools help users manage their investments in DeFi, providing services like portfolio tracking, risk management, and automated investment strategies. Examples include Yearn.finance and Zapper.

The Cardano DeFi Tools we have deep dives on:

Indigo Protocol is an autonomous synthetics protocol built on Cardano. They give their users the opportunity to be exposed to the price of real-world assets in the blockchain environment.

Djed is Cardano's native overcollateralized stablecoin, developed by IOG and powered by COTI.

Liqwid is a decentralized and non-custodial liquidity protocol, built on Cardano’s Plutus smart contract platform that provides an efficient and secure way for users to participate as lenders or borrowers.

DAO tools are software applications built on blockchain technology that facilitate the creation and management of DAOs. DAOs are organizations that are fully decentralized and autonomous, with decisions made through a consensus process on the blockchain. DAO tools can include platforms for creating DAOs (like Summon Platform or Clarity Protocol).

Cardano ecosystem currently seems to focus on Governance and Smart Contract Development tools. The reason behind this is, the Cardano ecosystem is fairly new and the main problem the ecosystem has encountered is the entry barrier for new people. These tools aim to bring down the entry barrier for new people to come in. The other reason is developing smart contracts for the Cardano blockchain is hard to master, people with technical backgrounds need to invest their time to learn and deploy Cardano smart contracts. Tools like Smart Contract Development tools help DAOs to deploy their own smart contracts easily.

For more information about what a DAO tool is and why they are important, you can read:

These are our DAO Tool categories and how many deep dives we have in each category:

These are all the DAO Tool deep dives we have:

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this research is to get a clear sense of what Illuvium DAO is all about. We also want to know the tools they use to enhance the growth of their organization as well as governance process. To begin with, what is Illuvium?

What is Illuvium?

exists to be a decentralized Ethereum role-play game. The Illuvium blockchain game was designed to enable users play and earn in-game rewards by engagiging with quests and competitions. Furthermore, Illuvium digital world is opne to everyone - Users can search for in-game items and creatures called (Illuvials) in the form of non--fungible tokens (NFTs). These collectibles can be used for battling, collecting, and trading as well.

How Illuvium Does Their Governance.

ILV is an ERC-20 governance utility token that is used to govern the Illuvium DAO and it is also the main currency used to award players for their awesome achievements in the game.

The goal behind the Illuvium project was to make a collectible NFT game that was open, transparent, and governed by the community member. Illuvium uses an off-chain voting system (Snapshot).

The Illuvium DAO governance mechanism is as follows:

A community of $ILV holders will govern and maintain the protocol, using the Illuvinati Council. The $ILV utility token holders have a say in the Illuvium decisition-making process - holders of the $ILV token also have the ability to nominate an individual for a council seat as well as delegate their vote to a nominee. To elect a group of council members, their desired candidates for council members must be proposed before the due date of the election.

Following that, the voting will commence and run for a period of 72 hours to elect the 5 individuals best suited for the role of governing the platform. At the end of the Election Period, the council members will be issued their NFTs.

The "eDAO" alongside "Illuvinati Council" is the Illuvium initial governance model and is subject to change - After the council members have been elected, the eDAO will then collate all proposed members from the Illuvium Discord Channel Illuvinati Council, then proceed to prepare the candidates to be voted on in an off-chain manner within Snapshot.

There are two major components of the new governance system:

1. The Illuvinati Council: This consist of a group of nominees who are voted in by the $ILV token holders.

2. Illuvium Proposals: Any one looking to propose changes to the Illuvium protocol or have a say in the decision-making process must go through ICCPs and IIPs. The ICCPs and IIPs are submitted to the IIP’s Github repository and posted on the Illuvium Proposal space afterwards. Any proposals that doesn't reach a supermajority agreement will not be enacted.

ICCPs is the short for Illuvium Configuration Change Proposals, they are documents that put forth a case for modifying within the DAO. On the other hand, IIPs stands for Illuvium Improvement Proposals. They always ensure that changes to the Illuvium Protocol are transparent and well-governed. An IIP is a design document providing information to the Illuvium community about a proposed change to the system.

Timelock period

The period where the proposal is in review before being implemented, initially set at 24 hours.

DAO Tools Used by Illuvium DAO for Governance.

Snapshot:

Snapshot is one of the worlds leading voting platform for DAOs, it enable DAOs, DeFi protocols, or NFT communities to cast votes in a hassle-free manner without gas fees. For greater benefits, Snapshop allows for the customization of the voting process to meet the needs of the users and organizations.

Illuvium DAO Onbaording Process

There are numerous ways players can earn the ILV utility token. Aside from purchasing them across decentralized exchanges like (Binance,Coinbase, Sushi), the ILV token holders are also allowed to partake in esports tournaments, resource farming (harvesting/picking plants, or mining minerals), Illuvium zero, collectiong Illuvials (they are NFTs that can also be traded on a marketplace), and interacting with in-game activities to earn yield.

This research was carried out on 1Inch DAO. This task is about learning about the DAO tools this DAO uses and its onboarding process.

What is 1inch Network About?

1inch is a worldwide network that consists of different decentralized protocols tailored to provide the most rewarding, fast and safe operations in the DeFi space. 1inch Network uses the powerful characteristics of all popular chains such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche for giving its users ultimate flexibility for swapping any digital asset they hold.

DAO Tools Used by 1inch Network

1inch DAO uses their forum and Snapshot for governance operation. 1inch network governance process welcomes everyone, anyone can creare a proposal (1IP), or vote on any existing proposal. These proposals will be funded by the 1inch Network Treasury while its implemented by a third party.

1inch DAO Governance Process

There are 5 phases of 1inch DAO governance.

Phase 1. Governance starts in the 1inch DAO forum. Anyone can create, and comment on current proposals. Navigate to the DAO category in the 1inch forum.

Phase 2. 1IP Formalization, to create an official 1inch governance proposal, you must follow this template. All official 1inch proposals (1IP) must follow the same structure.

Phase 3. 1IP Temperature Check, the creator/author of the proposal may finalize their proposals (phase 2) then initiating a community temperature which have a duration of 5 days. To start the Temperature Check, the author should navigate to the 1inch forum and change the tag of the forum to Phase-3 and make sure to add a forum poll gauging the community sentiment.

N.B: Each poll is open for 5 days, once phase-3 commences, it cannot be reversed.

Phase 4. The proposal are not taking to Snapshot to conduct an off-chain voting. If voted in, it will be implemented on-chain. The Snapshot proposal is open for a voting period of 7-days.

1. After a successful voting period has concluded on Snapshot, the results will be published on 1IPs session on the governance documentation website. Any passed proposal will move from Active to Passed category. If it does not Pass, it'll be moved to Not-Passed.

DAO Tools Used By 1inch Network

Snapshot

Snapshot is a decentralized DAO voting platform that allows users to create governance proposals and vote off-chain with spending any gas fees.

Resources:

• Snapshot.org

• How does snapshot the decentralized voting2 system work

• How to step up a Snapshot

• Creating a Snapshot Proposal

Other Tools Used by 1inch DAO:

1. 1inch DEX Aggregator protocol sources liquidity from various exchanges and ensuring the best rates.

2. The 1inch Wallet is a fast and secure iOS wallet for storing, receiving, sending and swapping crypto assets.

1inch DAO Onboarding process

Onboarding only takes a few second. Follow the 1inch Discord link. Read the channel rules, choose what channels you’ll like to explore, and verify your account.

The 1INCH utility token is at the moment available on Ethereum and BNB Chain. The 1INCH utility token is used by the DAO members to govern all of the 1inch Network protocols either present or in the future. It is also used in the governance modules of the 1inch Aggregation Protocol and the 1inch Liquidity Protocol.

INTRODUCTION

This research is centered on Balancer.fi - Since Balancer rose to prominence, the DeFi ecosystem witnessed a revolutionary introduction of the concept of multi-token pools. In the paragraphs below, we’ll learn about the DAO tools used by Balancer and how these tools are used in their governance process. Equally, we’ll discuss about the Balancer DAO utility token and how individuals can get the token.

What Is Balancer?

Balancer is one of the novel and groundbreaking DeFi applications that acts as a token swap platform, a liquidity mining source, and an efficient liquidity protocol for integration into other DeFi protocols. Balancer runs on Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (MATIC), Arbitrum, Fantom (FTM) as well as Optimism.

With Balancer protocol, users can seamlessly set a custom trading fee and also provide liquidity for up to eight assets in a single liquidity pool — Cool!

How Balancer DAO Does Their Governance

The Balancer DAO governance proposal submission has two distinct items: An English Proposal and a Multisig payload for executing any chances described on-chain.

Here are the steps towards Balancer DAO governance

Step 1. The Balancer DAO governance process starts in the forum; users will write an English language description of the purpose of the proposal and the details of the changes to be made. veBAL holders, also called Balancer Governors, vote on proposals relevant to the protocol.

Step 2. Moving forward, Balancer Governors can now participate in discussions on the Balancer forum as you promote your topic — you can also seek delegates to obtain their support. Sought for people who would resonate with your proposal and have them gather their thoughts in a forum post.

Step 3. Develop and validate transaction Pull Request: On Balancer, a Pull Request (PR) is a transaction that is posted to a gnosis-safe multisig which executes the changes specified by the BIP on-chain. It is required as part of the body of a Proposal, before it can be brought to a valid snapshot.

The whole governance process looks a little bit daunting but, if you don’t want to get involved in the technical side of things, like defining your execution, the Maxis are a service provider and they are funded and managed by the DAO on a rolling basis.

They are the ones managing the multisig. You can contact them for any help — they can be found on the Balancer Discord and also HERE.

In the situation where a Snapshot is approved by governance and perhaps rejected for technical reasons, the Maxis can help to fix the payload whilst facilitating a revote to approve.

Step 4. This is the fourth step towards a successful governance proposal — The Snapshot process will commence once an address amasses at least 200,000 veBAL in delegation posts a snapshot to the forum — keep in mind that the snapshot must meet all the required specifications

More so, the voting runs for 96 hours starting on a Thursday (GMT) with a quorum of 2 million veBAL. Even if your snapshot wins a majority of the votes but does not meet all of the above requirements, it will be regarded as invalid — Please, take your time when posting Snapshots.

Step 5. Results and Execution: Any vote that fails in an approve/reject vote will not be executed by Balancer governors; when a vote succeeds or has been chosen, be on the lookout to be sure it is executed properly.

Multisig

To approve the off-chain votes carried on Snapshot, the Balancer Protocol leverages a Multisig to enact these changes on-chain. Multisig signers are a group of respected community members. Just so you know, they do NOT have decision-making power, their sole purpose is to simply enact on-chain the decisions BAL holders make via an off-chain voting system.

DAO Tools Used by Balancer DAO

1. Snapshot: Useful Resources

Snapshot is an open-source DAO tool that fascilitates decision-making processes within decentralized organizations. Snapshot is an off-chain gasless multi-governance client with easy-to-verify and hard-to-contest results. Balancer uses Snapshot to vote for their proposal.

• How to use Snapshot

• Using Snapshot for DAO Governance and Voting

• Snapsnot Complete Guide

Balancer DAO Onboarding Process

Onboarding is very easy, to get started, simply click here to join their discord, and verify that you’re human — you’re in!

Following that, the (BAL) token is a paramount asset for the Balancer protocol, Balancer DAO is governed by the Balancer (BAL) token holders. Community members can earn the BAL token through liquidity mining by depositing cryptos into Balancer’s liquidity pools. It can also be purchased via DEX exhanges such as Binance.

This research is centered on MakerDAO. We want to know more about the DAO operation and what DAO tools they use in running a smooth community.

MakerDAO is known to be a peer-to-peer decentralized protocol lying on Ethereum blockchain. It facilitates borrowing, lending, and savings. The protocol enables its users to borrow funds denominated in DAI. To do this, a user needs Ethereum and a MetaMask wallet. Furthermore, MakerDAO enables the generation of Dai, the world's first unbiased currency, and leading decentralized stablecoin in the planet.

A community of MKR token holders govern the Maker Protocol. With the MKR token, holders can vote on changes to the Maker Protocol. Just so you know, anyone can submit proposals for an MKR vote, not only MKR holders.

DAO Tools Used By MakerDAO

MakerDAO uses their own tool for governance operation, it includes the MakerDAO’s Forum and the MakerDAO’s Governance Portal.

MakerDAO Governance Process

1. Forum

Forum Is the Heart of the Maker Community. MakerDAO’s Forum is the place for community members to discuss important topics that can lead to significant changes to the Maker Protocol. These may include critical discussions around governance and risk, community development, and Maker Improvement Proposals (MIPs) which enable community members to propose updates, and additions to the Protocol and DAO.

2. Governance Portal

After a successful discussion on the forum, the MakerDAO community uses the governance portal to voice their opinion. Voting is conducted on MakerDAO’s own Governance Portal; The portal allows anyone to view governance proposals, and it also enables MKR token holders to vote on proposals easily.

The Maker Governance process includes proposal polling and Executive Voting.

1. Proposal Polling

This is the first step taken to ensure proposer governance. The Proposal polling is conducted to establish a rough consensus of community sentiment before any Executive Votes are cast. This helps to ensure that governance decisions are considered throughtfully and reached by consensus prior to the voting process itself.

1. Executive Voting

Next, is Executive Voting. Executive Voting is conducted by the community members to approve (or not) changes to the state of the Maker protocol. For example, there could be a vote to ratify Risk Parameters for a newly accepted collateral type.

What Does MakerDAO Use To Conduct This Votes?

MakerDAO uses smart contracts to manage each type of vote. A Proposal Contract is a smart contract with one or more valid governance actions programmed into it. They’re programmed to be executed only once. After execution, it cannot be reused anymore.

Any Ethereum Address can deploy valid Proposal Contracts. MKR token holders can then cast approval votes for the proposal that they want to elect as the Active Proposal. The Ethereum address that has the highest number of approval votes is elected as the Active Proposal.

Other Tools Used By MakerDAO

1. ChainLink

2. Spark Protocol

What is ChainLink?

Chainlink is a decentralized network of nodes that provide data and information from off-blockchain sources to on-blockchain smart contracts via oracles.

Resources

• What is ChainLink and how does it work

• ChainLink explained with animation

• Understand ChainLink in 5 minutes

• Why is ChainLink important in the world of crypto

• Twitter

• YouTube

What is SparkProtocol?

MakerDAO, the issuer of DAI, the leading decentralized stablecoin, has launched Spark Protocol, a new lending platform that aims to bolster DAI's capabilities. Spark Lend is the protocol's debut offering and allows users to borrow or supply Ether, stETH, DAI, and savings DAI at competitive rates.

Resources

• Spark Protocol Launch

• Spark Protocol to compete with AAVE

• Spark Protocol Launch

• Deep dive into Sparkprotocol

• Video explaining Sparkprotocol

• Twitter

• Discord

• GitHub

MakerDAO Onboarding process

Onboarding is pretty much easy. Follow the MakerDAO Discord link Read the channel rules, react to an emoji and verify your account.

The only way to get the MakerDAO utility token (MKR) is by purchasing the token on MakerDAO's own platform or through an exchange like Binance.

This research is centered on Compound DAO. One of the vying decentralized finance protocol mankind has ever witnessed. In this research, we'd learn about the DAO tools used by Compound DAO and how the tools are used in their governance process. We'll also discuss about the Compound DAO utility token and how users can get the token.

What is Compound?

Compound is a decentralized finance, Ethereum-based project that allow borrowers to take out loans and lenders to provide loans via locking of assets into the protocol. The protocol was built to harness fast, efficient, and decentralized financial system for peer-to-peer lending.

How Compound DAO Does Their Governance

Compound DAO has an utility token known as "COMP." The COMP token is used to govern the platform and it also serve as a medium of reward for users using its lending and borrowing services. A COMP holder can participate in decision making process for the DAO, and prolosals. COMP holders can also assign their voting rights to another user to vote on their behalf.

Compound DAO Governance Process

The Compound protocol is governed and upgraded by COMP token holders using three distinct components:

1. The COMP Token

Holding the governance token is pivotal if you want to participate in governance. As a COMP token holder, you can delegate voting right to yourself or any addresses of your choice. Before any DAO member can create governance proposals, he must have at least 25,000 COMP token delegated to his address. Additionally, any address can create an Autonomous proposal by locking 100 COMP token, it would become a governance proposal after being delegated 25,000 COMP.

1. Governance Module/Governance Bravo

This is the second step towards creating a Compound governance proposal. The governance module allows addresses that have amasssed 25,000 COMP to propose changes to Compound protocol. The proposal needs at least 400,000 vote cast before it is queued in the Timelock and can be implemented after 2 days. Tally is one of tools used for the on-chain voting and delegation process.

1. Timelock

This is the last stage of the Compound governance process. Each protocol contract is controlled by the Timelock contract. Timelock contract is responsible for queuing and executing all proposals that have reached the governance vote. OpenZeppelin plays a paramount role. Smart contracts are written by humans, and humans makes mistake in both coding and relationship. Smart contracts can be compromised via loophole in codes. OpenZeppelin provides security and audits the Compound protocol for safe voting process.

DAO tools used by Compound DAO

1. Parcel

2. OpenZeppelin

3. Boardroom

4. Tally

1. Parcel: Useful Resources 

When it comes to the treasury side of things, Parcel is DAO tool you should be on the lookout for. Parcel is a treasury management and compensation tool designed to help manage the outflows of funds within a DAO. Parcel has worked with over 200+ DAOs (as of December 2021) including Compound Grants. Parcel helps DAOs to alleviate the manual disbursement process within their community.

• What is Parcel? How it works and what problem it solves

• Parcel Blog

• Parcel Docs

• Introducing Parcel v2.1 reporting features

• Payroll solution for DAOs - Parcel Money

2. OpenZeppelin: Useful Resources

OpenZeppelin exists to be an open-source framework for building secure smart contracts. Software developers and organizations (especially decentralized ones) uses OpenZeppelin because it provides a complete suite of security products and audit services.

• Beginners guide to OpenZeppelin

• Get started with OpenZeppelin (Video)

• OpenZeppelin for smart contacts development

• Why choose OpenZeppelin?

• What is Openzeppelin and its features

3. Boardroom: Useful Resources

Boardroom is another promising governance portal for DAOs. With Boardroom's framework, DAOs can perform standardized operations like voting, delegationg, and participate fully in governance processes with their community.

• Boardroom reviews and pricing

• Boardroom workshop (Video)

• What is Boardroom and its usecases

• How to use Boardroom: Complete Guide

4. Tally: Useful Resources 

Tally is a cutting-edge voting and governance analysis tool that allows DAOs to vote on active on-chain proposals, delegate votes to third party, and also view previous proposals. Tally allows users to see who an individual voted for, the percentage of voting rights; whether a user voted for or against, or abstained for a proposal - this enhances transparency in the voting process.

• What is Tally and how to use it

• How to create DAO proposal on Tally

• Tally: Tools for starting and managi DAOs

• Website

• Twitter

Compound DAO onboarding

Simply follow this link to join their Discord; read and agree to the compound server rules, click complete. You've been onboarded!

Any user looking to get the COMP token can purchase it on DEX exchange platforms. More so, Compound platform also reward users with extra token when they interact with the Compound market by (borrowing, withdrawing or repaying the asset).

Beyond Cardano lies a vast ocean of blockchains. Our research covers a tiny slice of it. As an open DAO, we are mostly interested in DAOs and DAO tools, but we have also researched some other technologies on other chains that may be useful for Cardano builders.

Here you will find:

1. Deep dives into top DAOs like Uniswap and AAVE and the tools they use to operate their DAO in DAO Case Studies

2. Reviews and analysis of various DAO tools that we found were in frequent use in our Tools of the Ocean Report

The purpose of this research is to learn more about the DAOs operation, which tools they use to bootstrap the growth of their organization, and how their governance process works…

Decentraland is a digital game that was built to mimic reality in 3-D and it is a user-owned, Ethereum-based virtual reality world platform. The users of this platform oversee this digital world via a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

How Decentraland Does Their Governance

MANA is the governance utility token for Decentraland DAO. MANA enables users to buy items such as wearables, invest in properties, develop and trade virtual land in decentralized manner.

How Does Decentraland use Aragon?

Decentraland uses the battle-tested security of Aragon client to secure and store their DAO treasuries. Decentraland holds off-chain votes for new proposals; when a vote is completed, commitee members uses Aragon to execute those votes.

How Does Decentraland Use Boardroom?

Decentraland uses the Boardroom tool to store updates including treasury, votes, proposals and more.

What more?

Decentraland also leverages multisig wallet as part of their DAO tool. The multisig wallet is controlled by the DAO committee (a group of 3 individuals) who have been selected by the community to hold the keys of the multisig wallet. This multisig will enact any passed votes with a binding action, like funding a grant, adding or removing a Poll or implementing governance.

Decentraland governance proposal has 3 steps: each step must reach the required threshold before it can be promoted to the next level.

1. A Pre-proposal poll

This is the first step to get to the final binding governance proposal. Decentraland Polls are known to be non-binding, multiple choice questionnaires used to measure community general opinion. If the Pre-preposal poll amasses enough participation VP (500k VP is the acceptance threshold), then the proposal gets promoted to the next level (Draft proposal.)

1. A Draft Proposal

A Draft proposal presents the community potential policy; it contains a structured discussion format, impact and implementation pathway of the proposal. Once a Draft proposal amasses enough participation (1M VP is the acceptance threshold), it gets promoted to the governance proposal.

1. A Governance Proposal

This is the last step towards governance. It must include details, methods, data and information on how it will be implemented. If it gets 6M VP and the yes option.

DAO Tools Used By Decentraland DAO

1.Aragon

2.Boardroom

1. Aragon: Useful Resources 

Aragon exists to be a decentralized platform that allows individuals to creat and seamlessly manage organizations on the Ethereum blockchain. Aragon is also an on-chain governance platform for DAOs. With Aragon, DAOs can conduct governance on-chain without writing a singleline of code. DAOs can also customize the votes on Aragon to suit thier needs.

• Overview of Aragon

• What is Aragon and how does it work

• How to build a DAO with Aragon

• Building collaborative DAO communities via Aragon (Video)

• What is Aragon DAO and ANT token?

• Aragon DAO - Ease of use, fees, token, and more

• Discord

• Website

• Youtube

• Twitter

2. Boardroom: Useful Resources 

Boardroom is a DAO governance portal that is powered by Boardroom's API, Boardroom is a governance framework agnostic interface that allows DAOs to standardize actions like voting and delegation - with Boardroom, DAO members can participate in distributed governance.

• What is Boardroom and how does it work

• Overview of Boardroom (Video)

• Twitter

• Introduction to Boardroom API

• Discord

• Website

Decentraland DAO Onboarding

Decentraland DAO Onboarding process is very easy; Click here to join their discord, react to any emoji and that's all. You can start engaging with the community.

One of the easiest ways to earn MANA is by investing in plots (LAND) which you can sell later. On Decentraland, you can take advantage of the in-game activities to help you earn MANA. In fact, users can create 3D assets and sell them, lastly, you can get MANA by purchasing on DEX exchanges.

DAO Tools

We have found DAO tools that are used by DAOs on various blockchains during our DAO research. We wrote our own deep dive documents on some of them and gathered resources on others. These tools are categorized into the categories below and as can be seen, most tools fall into multiple categories since lots of tools aim to be all in one tool to create and operate a DAO.

More resources can also be found in the DAO Research Document and the individual DAO Research docs.

Governance

• Paideia

  • Web Page

  • Paideia

• Wonderverse

  • Deep Dive

  • Wonderverse

• Charmverse

  • Deep Dive

  • Charmverse

• Llama

  • Web Page

  • Llama Overview - Video

  • Llama Introduction - Video

  • Exploring Llama

  • Using Llama to Build a Contributor DAO - Video

• Snapshot

  • Web Page

  • Snapshot Blog

  • Snapshot Documentation

  • What is Snapshot - Video

  • Snapshot Overview - Video

  • How to Vote on Snapshot- Video

  • What is Snapshot Deep Dive

• Aragon

  • Web Page

  • What is Aragon

  • What is Aragon DAO

  • Aragon Education Platform

  • Aragon DAO Review

  • How to Start a DAO on Aragon

  • Building Collaborative DAO Communities via Aragon - Video

• Boardroom

  • Web Page

  • Boardroom Review

  • How to Use Boardroom

  • Boardroom Overview - Video

  • Boardroom API - Video

Smart Contract Development Tools

• OpenZeppelin

  • Web Page

  • OpenZeppelin Guide

  • OpenZeppelin for Smart Contract Development

  • What is OpenZeppelin

Treasury Management

• SourceCred

  • Web Page

  • Why SourceCred Failed

• Kleoverse

  • Web Page

  • Kleoverse

• Charmverse

• Wonderverse

• Parcel

  • Web Page

  • Payroll Solutions for DAOs with Parcel - Video

  • Parcel Blog

  • Parcel Docs

• Tally

  • Web Page

  • What is Tally Creating a DAO Proposal on Tally - Video

  • Tally: Tools for Starting and Managing DAOs - Video

Membership and Reputation

• Charmverse

• Coordinape

  • Web Page

  • Coordinape - App for Action Rewarding

• Kleoverse

• SourceCred

• Wonderverse

DAO Tools Comparison

Cardano ecosystem currently has a focus on Governance and Smart Contract Development tools. The reason behind this is, the Cardano ecosystem is fairly new and the main problem the ecosystem has encountered is the entry barrier for new people. These tools aim to bring down the entry barrier for new people to come in. The other reason is developing smart contracts for the Cardano blockchain is hard to master due to the usage of functional programming, people with technical backgrounds need to invest their time to learn and deploy Cardano smart contracts. Tools like Smart Contract Development tools help DAOs to deploy their own smart contracts easily.

DAO tools on other blockchains especially Ethereum tools mostly focus on Treasury Management and Membership and Reputation tools. These tools are show us that DAOs on other chains experience the issues of community management, treasury managemnent and reward sharing. The Governance tools on other chains also have a difference to the Cardano tools of the same category and it is the way they approach voting. Gas fees on some blockchains like Ethereum can be significantly higher than Cardano. DAOs on cardano can have the luxury of ignoring these fees but Ethereum DAOs need to be very careful on what they vote on. As it is expleined in more detail in the DAO Research section, DAOs on Ethereum have implemented voting mechanisms that try to eliminate poor and unpopular proposals to have on-chain votes to control the cost of voting.

Another important thing to mention is, there are not many DAO tools on Cardano. We have conducted one of the most comprehensive researches on Cardano DAO tools and currently there are in total 12 tools that fit into the category of DAO Tools. On Ethereum, there are lots of DAO tools, we have found many but it is impossible to give the exact number of tools.

DAO Research

This research is about entering popular DAOs and learning about the tools they use, and their DAO operations.

DAO Case Studies

Interesting Projects

While we conducted our research on other chains, we encountered some projects that don't have any equivalent on Cardano blockchain. We have decided to include interesting projects into our report.

COTI

COTI is a blockchain solution that aims payments faster, cheaper, more secure, and more personalized. What differentiates COTI from other blockchains is its use of Proof of Trust consensus mechanism. COTI also has a cross-chain bridge which connects COTI to Ethereum.

• Web Page

• Coti

Ensuro

Ensuro is a blockchain protocol that provides capital coverage for insurance risks. It is a licensed (re)insurer on blockchain.

• Web Page

• Ensuro

• Ensuro Docs

Kleros

Kleros is a decentralized dispute resolution protocol for use on smart contract platforms, which has been implemented on Ethereum. It acts as a decentralized third party capable of providing decisions on the correct result when applying a set of rules to questions ranging from simple to highly complex.

• Web Page

• Kleros Docs

• Kleros Github

Uniswap: What The DAO Does?

This research is centered on Uniswap, we’re looking to get insights into the DAO tools Uniswap uses to perform their operations and to harness the growth of their DAO.

Uniswap is a platform that allow individuals to trade their crypto assets without any involvement of centralized entities. Uniswap, owing its existence to Ethereum blockchain and it's governered by UNI token holders.

How Uniswap Does Their Governance

The UNI token can be used by community members to propose and vote on proposals and implement changes to the Uniswap protocol. Uniswap uses their own platform for governance; votes are delegated and cast through the Uniswap's governance portal. They also use off-chain tool like Snapshot as a voting interface.

Snapshot is used by the UNI holders to vote on proposals off-chain after reaching the governance proposal stage. Votes on Snapshot are weighted by the number of UNI delegated to the address used to vote.

Discussions takes place on the Uniswap governance forum, in order for a vote to pass, it must achieve quorum of 4%. If the majority of votes amasses 4%, the proposal is queued in the timelock. The community members have 7 days to cast their votes if the proposal is put forward.

how do they use it? Community members must have an account before they can participate in governance - there are 3 preliminary drafts for the Uniswap governance process:

1. Temperature Check:

The temperature check is to determine if there is sufficient will to make changes to the status quorum.

2. Consensus Check

The purpose of the Consensus check is to establish formal discussion around a potential proposal.

3. Governance Proposal

This is the final step of the governanace process. The proposal should be based on the winning outcome from the "Consensus Check" and can consist of one or multiple actions. Once the propose function has been called, a two day voting delay begins, after that, a seven day voting will begin.

Link: Uniswap Governance Portal

DAO Tools Used by Uniswap DAO

1. Llama

2. Snapshot

1. Llama: Useful resources 

Llama provides treasury management as-a-service for DAOs. Llama can be hired for help when it comes to spending, borrowing, reporting and asset allocation within DAOs.

• What is Llama and how it works

• Llama overview (Video)

• Introduction to Llama

• Exploring Llama

• Website

• Twitter

• Using Llama to build a contributor DAO

2. Snapshot: Useful resources 

Snapshot is an open-source that organizations, especially decentralized ones, can use to facilitate the quality of voting within the DAO and proposal processes. With Snapshot, users can create proposals and vote off-chain. Snapshot allows users to choose multiple voting systems and tools to customize governance for the community; instead of using Discord reactions or Google forms.

• What is Snapshot and how to use it

• Voting and Governance for Web3 - Snapshot (Video)

• Deep dive into Snapshot

Other non-dao tools used by organizations and members

3. Rabbithole: Useful Resources 

Rabbithole hole is a platform that allows individuals to discover and use new decentralized apps (Dapps), protocols, or crypto platforms while earning cryptocurrencies in return.

• How does Rabbithole work

• Deep dive into Rabbithole

• Introducing Rabbithole

4. Messari Governor: Useful Resources 

Messari Governor is a database and aggregator of many DAOs; it consist of many proposals, web3 projects and tools.

• Messari Governor DAO profile page (Video tutorial)

• Messari Governor Doc

• Introduction to Messari Governor

• Introducing Messari Governor (Video tutorial)

• Overview of Messari Governor

Uniswap DAO Onboarding Process

Firstly, you need a discord account. You'd be asked why you want to join their discord, select your interests - Defi, NFT, or DAOs, and that's it - you've been onboarded!

Additionally, users can get Uniswap governance token (UNI) by providing liquidity via a pair of assets like ETH or DIA. Users can also purchase the UNI token on different DEX platforms.

This research was conducted on AAVE DAO. Why? We want to learn more about the DAO tools they use.

AAVE is one of the fastest-growing protocols that facilitates decentralized and non-custodial lending, allowing you to earn interest and borrow crypto assets. AAVE was designed to help remove the need for centralized entities such as banks by allowing users of the protocol to loan, and lend crypto assets with other users.

AAVE DAO Governance Process

AAVE is the main token on the AAVE protocol. AAVE allows users to participate in the project's governance model. For example, users can vote on a governance proposal that aims to improve a certain feature or increase yields within the protocol or the DAO.

Here are the steps for a successful governance proposal are:

Discussion Forum

1. Creating an Aave Request for Comments (ARC) is the first step in the governance improvement process. AAVE allows anyone to participate in the governance forum to participate in discussions that will improve the protocol.

2. Secondly, AAVE will use Snapshot to gauge community sentiment and preferences.

3. The third step in the governance improvement process is to prepare the Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) based on the rough consensus gathered via snapshot and prepare the necessary payloads. Note that creation and submission of the AAVE Improvement Proposal (AIP) is exclusive to community members who has enormous proposition power.

4. Lastly, you can submit the AIP to the protocol for a governance vote. The AIP is uploaded online using IPFS, the voting is cast off-chain using the AAVE Snapshot Poll.

If successful, the AIP's payload will be automatically executed and implemented.

DAO Tools Used By AAVE DAO

1. Snapshot

2. Tenderly

Where the tools are used!

1. Snapshot Aave uses an off-chain tool know as “Snapshot” to host community discussion and measure initial sentiment around initiatives or proposals that will eventually be put through their on-chain governance mechanism.

What is Snapshot?

Snapshot, a decentralized governance platform that allows DAOs to easily create and vote on proposals without spending on gas fees! DAOs can use various voting types so they can tailor the voting process to their needs.

Resources

• Snapshot Platform Overview

• What is Snapshot? Voting and Governance for Web3

• How to vote on Snapshot proposals

• Introduction to Snapshot

• Website

• Discord

• Twitter

What is Tenderly?

1. Tenderly

Tenderly is a Web3 development platform that accelerates smart contract development and provides a fully integrated developer experience. Tenderly also combines in-depth debugging tools with observability and blockchain infrastructure.

Resources

• Discord

• Twitter

• YouTube

• Github

• Introduction to Tenderly and how it works.

• Everything you need to know about Tenderly

• How to improve Dapp user experience with Tenderly

• How to use Tenderly for debugging

AAVE DAO Onboarding Process

Any interested in contributing to the AAVE DAO can click here to join AAVE discord. Verify that you’re human by answering the Captcha question, you’re in.

The only way to get the AAVE governance utility token to buy the token on an exchange.

This research is conducted on Bankless DAO. Our aim is to discover the popular DAO tools they use for their DAO operation, including governance, treasury management and more.

BanklessDAO's mission is to help the world go Bankless. They’re creating a user-friendly onramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media, and culture. Some of they’re values are: helping people adopt decentralized finance, promoting collective decision making and decentralized governance.

Bankless DAO Governance Process

Before user proposals can get to the final stage, it must pass through this stages:

1. Bankless DAO Forum

Bankless DAO governance begins in the Bankless DAO forum. The BANK token-holders must first publish their proposals on the forum to get feedback from the community members. This process is used to eliminate proposals that doesn’t meet the DAO values and standard.

2. Snapshot

BanklessDAO uses an off-chain voting platform known as Snapshot. Snapshot is used by the DAO for decisions related to the governance process, treasury allocation, and organizational structure. Any BANK token holder can vote in a Snapshot poll. The more BANK tokens they hold, the more voting power they have.

BanklessDAO uses the off-chain voting system; Snapshot is the tool used to vote on proposals.

DAO Tools Used By Bankless DAO

1. Snapshot:

Snapshot is a decentralized governance platform that enables DAOs to easily create and vote on proposals without spending on gas fees! DAOs can use various voting types so they can tailor the voting process to their needs.

Resources:

• How to vote on snapshot proposals

• What is Snapshot?

• Website

• YouTube

• Discord

• What problem does Snapshot solve

• How to Create a No-Code DAO Using SnapShot

• Snapshot: Gasless voting for decentralized communities

2. Boardroom

Boardroom is a governance platform that is designed to help DAO contributors make faster, smarter, and more informed decisions. The Boardroom API is an industry-leading source of governance data, such as delegation stats, vote history, proposal information as well as treasury.

Meanwhile, Boardroom is the source of governance data for BanklessDAO. Every information regarding proposals, number of users that voted, treasury updated can be found on Boardroom.

Resources:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Github

• What is boardroom and what problems it solves

• How to use boardroom: A step-by-step guide

• Introduction to Boardroom’s API

• Learn and Discover DAOs with Boardroom

• Boardroom: Bringing context to Web3 Governance

3. Kleoverse:

Kleoverse is a DAO tooling app and credentialing platform that helps to maximize the efficiency of developers, community contributors and DAOs. Kleoverse helps in finding jobs, bounties, and organization-finding service just like LinkedIn. This is one of the platform to find job as a web3 developer.

Resources:

• Twitter

• Discord

• Github

• Kleoverse key metrics

• How does Kleoverse work and what’s the purpose

• Kleoverse FAQ

• Kleoverse’s Mission

Bankless DAO Onboarding Process

Onboarding on Bankless DAO is an easy step to follow, simply use the discord invite and verify that you’re human by answering the Captcha question, you’re in.

The only way you can participate in decision making or have a say in their governance process is by holding the native utility token (BANK). You can buy on various exchanges like Binance.

Author: Emir Olgun Date: 02 July 2023

This is a research about finding the DAO tools used by the most popular DAOs on variety of Blockchains and why they use these tools. In this document, we researched Lido DAO. Lido is a liquid staking solution. Lido allows users to stake their assets - without locking or maintaining infrastructure - whilst participating in on-chain activities, e.g. lending, LPing.

Lido DAO Resources

• Website

• Twitter

• Discord

• Research Forum

Governance Process

Lido DAO governance process can be seen here in detail:

• Lido DAO Governance

Lido Governance has three steps that are Discussion step, off-chain vote, and on-chain vote. This process is used to eliminate possible unnecessary proposals or improve proposals, and prevent financial burden and voter fatigue of on-chain votes for unnecessary and poorly designed proposals.

Research Forum

Lido DAO proposals start in the Resarch Forum. These proposals are discussed on the forum and get community feedback.

• Proposals go through a phase of

  • improvements

  • objections

Improvements

By community feedback and discussions the proposals are improved.

Objections

The proposals are further improved with the objections from the community.

• Timeframe: 7 days

Snapshot

After a proposal passed the discussion step on the forum, it is voted on the Snapshot platform. The step of off-chain voting brings down the financial burden of on-chain voting by eliminating unpopular proposals. Lido DAO has a governance token called LDO(Lido DAO Token). This token is used to vote on both off-chain and on-chain votes.

The off-chain voting parameters of Lido DAO are:

• Voting power is linearly proportional to the token balance of the voter.

• Minimum quorum is more than 5% of the total token supply must participate.

• Timeframe: 7 days

  • At least 24 hours before Aragon vote.

Aragon

This is the final step of governance. Aragon is used to conduct on-chain voting. This vote has gas fees, so Lido DAO combines several proposals into packages to reduce operational burden and voting fatigue. These are called Omnibus Votes. People who have LDO token can participate the votes.

The on-chain voting parameters of Lido DAO are:

• Timeframe: 72 Hours and has two phases:

  • Main Phase lasts 48 hours where voters can vote both For and Against

  • Objection Phase lasts 24 hours and voters can vote against or change vote from for to against.

• Minimum quorum: More than 5% of total tokens must vote and more than 50% of participated tokens must vote For

DAO Tools used by Lido

Snapshot

Snapshot is a voting platform that allows vote easily without gas fees. The reason behind gas fee free vote is these votes are off-chain votes. A DAO can customize the the voting process according to their needs on this tool.

Official Resources

• Snapshot Platform

• Snapshot Documentation

• Snapshot Blog

• Github

• Twitter

• Discord

• Youtube

Other Resources

• How to Vote on Snapshot - Youtube Video

• Snapshot Step by Step Guide - Youtube Video

• What is Snapshot? - Youtube Video

Aragon

Aragon is an on-chain DAO governance platform. Aragon allows DAOs to conduct governance on-chain without writing a single line of code. The votes on Aragon can be customized to the specific needs of the DAO.

Official Resources

• Aragon Platform

• Discord

• Twitter

• Youtube

• Aragon Education Portal

• How to Launch DAO on Aragon

• How to Manage DAO Treasury on Aragon

Other Resources

• How to Start DAO Aragon - Article

• Aragon Guide - Documentation

• What is Aragon DAO: how it works and its use cases - Article

• Aragon Step by Step Guide- Youtube Video

Onboarding Process

Joining Lido Discord is a simple process, joining the server and accepting some conditions are the requirement. However, only way to get LDO(Lido DAO Token) is to buy it on variety ofexchanges. LDO is needed to have a say in Lido DAO governance process.

Introduction

Background

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have emerged as a revolutionary model for community-led governance and decision-making in the blockchain space. As DAOs proliferate across various blockchain networks, understanding the tools and workflows that enable their functionality becomes increasingly important. This is particularly true for governance, decentralized finance (DeFi), and treasury management—key pillars that define the effectiveness and sustainability of a DAO.

Objective

The primary aim of this research report is to provide an in-depth analysis of the tools and workflows employed by active DAOs on other blockchain networks, specifically Ethereum and Bitcoin. By focusing on governance mechanisms, DeFi applications, and treasury management strategies, we aim to glean insights that could be beneficial for DAOs operating on the Cardano network, including our own.

Scope

This report covers an analysis of 10 DAOs selected based on their activity, user base, and token traffic. Each DAO will be examined for the tools they use in governance, DeFi, and treasury management, along with a brief overview of their workflows in these areas.

Here are the DAOs we have focused on:

• Uniswap DAO

• Decentraland DAO

• Compound DAO

• Bankless DAO

• MakerDAO

• Aave DAO

• Lido DAO

• Illuvium DAO Research

• 1INCH DAO

• Balancer DAO Research

Significance

The findings from this research will not only serve as a knowledge base but also guide the strategic planning and tool selection for DAOs on the Cardano network. DAOs on some blockchains like Ethereum have a longer history than Cardano DAOs and they have encountered problems Cardano DAOs have yet to experience. Understanding the best practices and effective tools in these areas will enable us to optimize our own operations and contribute to the broader Cardano DAO ecosystem.

DAO Selection Criteria

To ensure the relevance and applicability of our research findings, we employed a rigorous selection process to identify DAOs for study. The DAOs were chosen based on the following criteria:

Activity Level

• We looked for DAOs that have shown consistent activity in terms of proposals, voting, and community engagement. High activity levels often indicate a well-functioning governance system and a committed user base.

User Base

• DAOs with a large and diverse user base were prioritized. A broad user base often suggests a more robust ecosystem and provides a wider range of perspectives on governance and treasury management.

Token Traffic

• We considered the volume and frequency of token transactions within the DAO. High token traffic is usually a sign of active financial engagement, making the DAO relevant for studying decentralized finance tools and treasury management.

Tools Used By DAOs.

We have categorized the tools we found into three categories which are Governance, Decentralized Finance, and Treasury Management.

Governance Tools

1. Llama:

Llama is a fullstack platform for onchain governance and access control. Securely take action using onchain policies and custom execution strategies.

Users:

• Uniswap

1. Snapshot:

A gasless, off-chain governance tool for creating and voting on proposals.

Users:

• Uniswap

• Bankless

• Aave

• Lido

• Illuvium

• 1Inch

• Balancer

1. Aragon:

Provides a framework for creating and managing DAOs, including governance and voting mechanisms.

Users:

• Decentraland

• Lido

1. Boardroom:

A governance management platform that allows for proposal creation, voting, and delegation.

Users:

• Decentraland

• Compound

Decentralized Finance Tools

1. Spark Protocol:

Spark is a decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol where users can participate as suppliers or borrowers.

Users:

• MakerDAO

Treasury Management Tools

1. Parcel:

A treasury management tool designed for DAOs, offering features like budgeting and financial reporting.

Users:

• Compound

1. Tally:

A governance and voting platform that also provides treasury management features.

Users:

• Compound

Infrastructure Tools

1. Tenderly:

A monitoring, debugging, and analytics platform for Ethereum smart contracts.

Users:

• Aave

1. Chainlink:

A decentralized oracle network, often used to provide real-world data to smart contracts.

Users:

• MakerDAO

1. OpenZeppelin:

A library for secure smart contract development, often used in DeFi projects.

Users:

• Compound

Additional Tools

1. Kleoverse:

Kleoverse is a DAO tooling app and credentialing platform that maximizes the efficiency of developers, community contributors, and DAOs.

Users:

• Bankless

Findings

Our research into 10 DAOs across various blockchain networks has revealed a diverse set of tools and workflows employed. We found that DAOs often use a combination of specialized tools to meet their unique needs and objectives.

Governance

In the realm of governance, we observed a focus on postponing on-chain votes as much as possible. This is expected since on some blockchains like Ethereum, gas fees can be very high. DAOs often use a three step votes. These steps are discussion, off-chain vote, and the on-chain votes. The disssuions are done on Discord servers or discussion forums. Off-chain votes are conducted to eliminate unpopular proposals having a cost on DAO.

DAOs often use tools for their governance. As can be seen above, Snapshot is the most popular tool used by the DAOs since it offers off-chain voting capability.

Infrastructure

For Infrastructure, smart contract development and oracle solutions are found. Developing smart contracts and oracles are extremely difficult and vulnerable tasks. It is expected to see DAOs use other sources to implement their own infrastructures. Most governance tools also provide the necessary sets of smart contracts to the DAOs.

Treasury Management

When it comes to treasury management, analytics and automation features are highly valued. DAOs are leveraging these tools to gain better insights into their financial health and to automate routine treasury tasks. In addition to the tools we found, lots of DAOs use their on multisig wallets for their treasury managements.

Usage of tools by each DAO

DAO Tools

DAO tools are software applications built on blockchain technology that facilitate the creation and management of DAOs. DAOs are organizations that are fully decentralized and autonomous, with decisions made through a consensus process on the blockchain. DAO tools can include platforms for governing a DAOs (like Summon Platform or Clarity Protocol) or managing a DAOs treasury (like Round Table).

DAO tools enable the creation of transparent, democratic, and efficient organizations. They allow for the automation of decision-making and administrative processes, the creation of transparent and tamper-proof records of all transactions and decisions, and the decentralization of authority and ownership.

Uses of DAO Tools

DAO tools serve a variety of purposes, including but not limited to:

1. Governance: Tools for proposal creation, voting, and decision enforcement help DAOs make collective decisions in a transparent and democratic manner.

2. Smart Contract Development: Tools for helping communities to develop their own smart contracts.

3. Treasury Management and Payments: DAOs often hold substantial assets in their treasuries. Tools for treasury management help DAOs track, manage, and allocate these assets effectively and securely.

4. Membership and Reputation: DAOs are typically composed of a large, distributed group of stakeholders. These tools help DAOs to find the right people and manage their community more efficiently.

5. Token Creation and Management: DAOs, just like publicly traded companies, share their ownership shares. They that by Tokens. Tokens can be used to raise capital and in turn share the governance power of DAOs. These tools help the design, generation, and distribution of these tokens.

Benefits of DAO Tools for DAOs

DAO tools can provide several benefits for DAOs:

1. Efficiency: DAO tools can automate many of the processes involved in running a DAO, saving time and reducing the potential for human error.

2. Transparency: By facilitating clear communication and decision-making processes, DAO tools can help ensure that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of what's happening within the DAO.

3. Accessibility: DAO tools can make it easier for non-technical stakeholders to participate in the DAO, broadening the pool of potential contributors and increasing the diversity of perspectives within the DAO.

4. Security: By providing a framework for managing smart contracts and digital assets, DAO tools can help ensure the security of the DAO's operations and assets.

Our main aim is to cover all DAO Tools on Cardano blockchain we can find but to have more understanding of DAO tools we also conduct research on DAO tools on other chains or as we call it the Ocean.

DAOs usually use tokens to raise initial investments and share their governance with their community. These tokens are used in DAOs governance and have voting power on proposals. Some DAOs also give proposal power to people with more than a specific amount of tokens.

The tools in this category make it easy to create and distribute tokens for DAOs. The distribution of tokens can be done by airdrops or vending machine methods.

• Airdrop: This method distributes tokens created to a list of addresses provided by the DAO.

• Vending Machine: Members collect tokens from a dApp themselves.

DAOs can also mint their tokens however they choose. For example,

• A DAO can mint all tokens at once

• They can mint tokens gradually

• Tokens can be minted when someone claims them.

DAOs are made possible by smart contracts. A DAO in control of its smart contracts can unlock all potential benefits of blockchain technology. There is no place for mistakes in Smart Contract development. Smart contracts are immutable, which means when deployed, you can not change a smart contract. This is one of the reasons why smart contracts are safe but it can also have serious consequences. An error in the code of a smart contract can cause loss of funds permanently. Since the smart contract can not be changed, the funds you lost can never be saved.

Smart Contract Development tools aim to help developers deploy better smart contracts. Developers can choose a smart contract they need from the library provided by these tools and edit them according to their specific use cases.

Membership and Reputation Tools allow individuals to show their skills on-chain and DAOs to find the right people. They also offer the ability to allow certain individuals with specific tokens or NFTs to access certain DAO resources.

The ability to control certain token or NFT holders access can be very beneficial for DAOs and prevent scam attacks.

The on-chain skill proof can be used like a CV for people to show their skills in a more trustworthy way.

Here are the DAO Tools we have researched:

Governance is the backbone of any DAO. Decision-making, voting, and decision enforcement can be made on-chain by Governance DAO Tools. When setting up your DAO, you can choose the governance method you want. Governance DAO tools allow DAOs to set up a fully functional on-chain governance platform without writing code.

These tools allow DAO administrators to set up their governance method according to their needs. They handle all the on-chain and off-chain parameters of your DAO. You can use the platform of the tool to set your DAO up. This process is usually filling out some forms about what your DAO is, the governance token you use, and the governance rules you want. Then your members can start using the web app to participate in your DAO. These tools are very easy to set up but they can be limited in terms of customization.

Governance tools that provide smart contracts to set up governance like Agora Protocol are difficult to set up but they offer much higher customization potential.

• Agora Protocol requires technical people to set up the governance of a DAO since it is a smart contract library for DAO governance, not a governance app.

• Paideia is online on Ergo blockchain but in development in Cardano blockchain.

• Swae supports off-chain voting currently but currently has no on-chain support.

Treasury Management and Payment Tools are to help a DAO manage its treasury and process its payments.

Multi-Signature Wallets

One of the popular tools for treasury management is multi-signature wallets. The name wallet can be misleading because multi-signature or multi-sig wallets resemble safes more than wallets. These wallets require more than one key in order to access assets in them like bank safes.

A DAO is a decentralized organization but if their assets are kept in a regular wallet address, that is centralized. Any person in possession of keys to that address is in full control of the entire DAOs treasury. Multisig wallets offer decentralization of this power among certain members of the community and they also offer the ability to lock assets before or after a certain date.

Project Management Tools

Another type of DAO tools falls into this category are Project Management Tools. these tools track tasks done by members and process payments automatically according to tasks done by the community of a DAO.

Here are the Treasury Management and Payments DAO Tools we have researched:

DAOs need to generate variety of content ranging from whitepapers and onboarding documents to social media posts and short videos. These contents often increase DAOs visibility and announce who they are and what they do to the outside world. Our content generation tools aim to improve quality and decrease the content generation time significantly.

Video Generation and Voice-Over Tools

In today's world, lots of people have extremely short attention span and they mostly prefer visual content rather than written content. Video generation and Voice-Over tools can be used to prepare short social media posts for platforms like Instagram and TikTok or videos explaining what the DAO does or videos explaining the onboarding process of the DAO.

Fliki: Fliki is a text-to-vide generation tool. It has a built-in AI image generator and a library of free images and videos to choose from. Fliki also supports a variety of languages.

Murf.ai: Murf AI is a text-to-speech tool that uses AI. It has a selection of voices and mimics human emotions like anger and happiness.

Murf.ai: Steve AI is a video generation tool that can generate animation or live videos from text and audio.

No-Code Website Creation Tools

Website creation is a challenging task that requires a group of people with different skills. DAOs often need their own website to improve their visibility and creating a website from scratch is a very expensive and time consuming process. No-Code Website Creation Tools make it possible for people with no technical background to create beautiful and functional websites in a short time.

Bubble: Bubble is a no-code website creation tool. It supports a variety of features from payment processing to map integrations. It has a learning curve but it is much easier and cheaper than conventional website creation process.

Writing Tools

Generating written content is the most essential part of content generation. No matter what content is generated, writing tools usually are the beginning of any content. For example, writing tools can be used to generate the script for a video content. Writing tools can be used to help the writer generate better content in a shorter time and unblock writer's block.

Copy.ai - AI content generator: Copy.AI is a writing tool that can be used to generate posts ranging from ads to blogs.

Jasper AI: Jasper AI is a writing tool where you can write variety of different content and choose the tone of your writing.

Penelope AI: Penelope AI is a markdown editor that uses machine learning technology to help the writer generate better content.

WriteSonic: WriteSonic is a writing tool that aims to create high quality content in a short time.

These tools are designed to help developers track, contribute and organize their work.

• Install Git for Windows

Publication tools are of paramount importance for DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) as they improve the visibility of the them and the work they do. In an ecosystem where transparency, trust, and open communication are foundational, publication tools facilitate the dissemination of information, from governance decisions and financial reports to project updates and community initiatives. These tools not only provide a platform for DAOs to articulate their vision, values, and progress but also empower community members by keeping them informed and involved.

Knowledge Sharing Tools

Knowledge Sharing tools are very useful for DAOs because they provide a structured, collaborative, organized, and intuitive platforms to publish content. These tools empower DAOs to be easily accessible, transparent and organized.

• Gitbook: Gitbook provides an intuitive interface for collaborative documentation, making it easier for DAOs to create structured and accesible content for both internal operations and public outreach.

• Docusaurus: Docusaurus is easy to use platform and highly customizable since it is built using React. DAOs can easily create their own components and customize their website however they want.

• Obsidian: Obsidian, with its bi-directional linking, allows DAOs to craft a deeply interconnected knowledge base, highlighting the relationships between various concepts and projects.

  • Obsidian-Github Integration in Windows

  • How To Use Obsidian at the Littlefish Foundation

  • How To - Writing for the Vault

  • Cloning and Forking “The Vault” Repository

Newsletters

Newsletters are very important services for DAOs like any organization. They provide consistent publicaiton of information about the DAO and they also help building community and increase engagement and participation. Newsletters can also be used for archiving and record-keeping of DAOs activities.

• Buttondown Email Newsletters: Buttondown is a simple email newsletter service that supports Markdown to create newsletters.

Social Media Management Tools

A strong existence in social media platforms is crucial for DAOs. Social media posts can significanlty increase visibility and help DAOs to attract new members. The downside of social media is the competition. In order to get significant outcomes, DAOs need to create new posts consistently. Social Media Management Tools, with their features like post scheduling and analytics, can help DAOs to generate consistent social media posts with little effort.

Social Media Tools

These tools are designed to organize, plan and manage social media accounts. They also provide valuable statistics about the interactions the social media accounts have.

Here is the list:

• AgoraPulse- a social media management tool.

• Buffer

• Eclincher

• Hootsuite - Social Media Management Tool

• Sendible - Social Media Management Made Easy

• SocialPilot

• Sproutsocial Review

Welcome littlefish, we're glad you're interested in becoming an active part of our community. This document is your guide to all things littlefish Foundation, helping you get up to speed, and find the information you need to become a core member of our growing community.

If you find something that is not here, but you think should be, let us know in Discord so we can update this doc.

How we do things at littlefish Foundation?

How We Do Things at littlefish Foundation

How do I find my people?

Oh wow you've made it all the way here. You really are interested aren't you? Great to hear, let's give you the grand tour. littlefish Foundation is made up of 5 groups:

The Forge - The builders of littlefish Foundation. Developers, designers, token engineers, the hard working grunts who make the coolest stuff on the planet.

Love House - The home of happy humans who love sharing stories, making everyone feel nice and fuzzy. Community builders, communicators, facilitators, content producers, promoters are all at home here.

Tech Help Collective - The world is confusing to the non-technical person. All this technology around us and nobody to help us understand it. No longer. The THC is here to help.

Organization Labs - It ain't easy being on the bleeding edge of organizations. How do we organize in this wild west is the business of OrgLabs. If you fashion yourself an organization designer, this is the place to be.

Dream Engine - Dreams are the beginning and end of all we build here. littlefish Foundation began with dreams and it shall only continue insofar as the littlefish who make it remain avid dreamers. This is the home of philosophers, visionaries, and oracles.

You can find these groups on Discord. Jump into those chats and meet your folk.

I hear you saying: "This is awesome, how can I take Action?"

Woah, woah, woah, slow down there. This is a big rabbit hole you fell into. You need sometime to orient and adjust. Take your time.

Start with: Contributor Guideline

These are the tools that don't fit in our categories but can be very useful for DAOs.

• AI-Lawyer

• GENERATIVE PRE-TRAINED TRANSFORMER (ChatGPT)

• Iris.AI

• Littlefish Tools of Work

• Zapier

The Challenges of Communication in DAOs

DAOs, by their very nature, are decentralized, digital-first, and often operate without a hierarchical structure. This unique setup presents its own set of communication challenges:

1. Global Dispersion: DAO members are often spread across different time zones, making real-time communication challenging.

2. Lack of Central Authority: Without a clear hierarchy, decision-making processes can be prolonged, and reaching consensus can be more complex.

3. Reliance on Digital Platforms: DAOs operate primarily online, which means they are heavily reliant on digital communication tools. This can lead to issues like platform outages, miscommunication due to lack of face-to-face interaction, and information overload.

4. Asynchronous Communication: Given the global nature of DAOs, much of the communication happens asynchronously, which can lead to delays and potential misinterpretations.

5. Transparency and Security: DAOs operate on principles of transparency and security. Ensuring that all communications are both open and secure can be a delicate balance to strike.

Let's tackle each one by one, and see how we can address them.

Challenge 1: Managing Global Dispersion

Problem: DAO members are spread across different time zones, making real-time communication challenging.

• Scheduling Tools: Use lettucemeet to find times to meet How to Use lettucemeet

• Automated Time Converters: Make sure everyone in your Discord community knows what time events are in their own time zone: Syncing Time Zone on Discord

Challenge 2: Operating without Central Authority

Problem: Without a clear hierarchy, decision-making processes can be prolonged, and reaching consensus can be more complex.

• Voting Platforms: Tools like Aragon or Snapshot can facilitate decentralized decision-making through voting mechanisms. See our research on Governance to learn about these tools

• Discussion Forums: Platforms like Discourse or Loomio where structured discussions can take place, ensuring every voice is heard. Alternatively, Discord Forums can be an easy add on to your community.

• Role Management: Tools like Sobolsolve the problem of knowing What is going on within the DAO, and who is responsible for what. Find exactly who you need to talk to to move on with a project in an easy and intuitive way.

Challenge 3: Establishing Effective Asynchronous Communication

Problem: Much of the communication happens asynchronously, leading to potential delays and misinterpretations.

• Threaded Discussion Tools: Using Discord effectively will get you and your community a long way to become better async communicators. See our extensive Discord guideline for DAOs: Improving Discord: A Guide for DAOs and DAO members

• Documentation Platforms: We prefer Notion and Obsidian for all our intraDAO documentation but the choice of tool doesn't matter much, you can use tools like Confluence or Google Docs where meeting notes, decisions, and updates can be documented for members to access at their convenience. What matters more are the processes, and the rules for getting stuff done. You can see some of our guidelines on this:

  • How To Use Obsidian at the Littlefish Foundation

  • Contributor Guideline

  • How we operate at littlefish Foundation

• Video Messaging: Tools like Loom allow for asynchronous video messages, adding a personal touch to communications.

• Use forms to collect data from your members: With tools like Tally, you can reach your community members with questions to answer about your DAO in an async way.

Challenge 4: Hosting Effective Digital Meetings

Problem: DAO communications primarily occur in digital meeting environments. These need to be well run.

• Choose your tool well: There are many other tools than Zoom. Check some out below:

  • Zoom Best Practices

  • Crowdcast

  • Ready to use Metaverses for Community Gatherings

• Notes, notes, notes: Make sure to always take notes. When a year ago you needed a designated scribe to make sure verything was recorded, now we have the power of AI:

  • Fireflies.ai

  • Otter.ai

  • Noty.ai

Actions are NFTs that hold within them the record of work.

littlefish perform real-world activities.

• A group of friends cleaning litter on the beach.

• A digital community collaborating towards social/environmental impact.

• A DAO creating blockchain solutions for a use case.

• A business announcing/developing/producing a new product.

• A charity organizing a new campaign to build houses for those in need.

These activities are documented in whatever way the littlefish choose - video, image, recordings, tweets, Instagram, … Collected multimedia is then published as NFTs called Actions.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are reshaping the way we think about organizational structures. Unlike traditional organizations bound by geographical locations and hierarchical setups, DAOs operate in a digital, global, and remote-first landscape. This decentralized nature, while revolutionary, brings forth a unique set of challenges, especially when it comes to collaboration. The absence of physical offices, the diversity of time zones, and the reliance on digital tools make collaboration in DAOs vastly different from what we see in conventional organizations.

Challenge 1: Scheduling Meetings with Global Participation

In a DAO, it's not uncommon to have a member in San Francisco collaborating with another in Singapore. This global dispersion is both a strength and a challenge.

The Problem

Coordinating across multiple time zones means that there's rarely a "perfect" time for everyone to meet. This can lead to members feeling left out or having to compromise their personal schedules.

What is needed?

A multi-pronged approach is needed. Utilizing scheduling tools that display global time zones can help find overlapping hours. Additionally, rotating meeting times and recording sessions for later viewing can ensure inclusivity.

See our articles on how to solve these problems:

How to Use lettucemeet: The tool to make your global scheduling as effortless as possible. We tested out so many tools to fix this problem. This is the one.

Syncing Time Zone on Discord: Discord is the hub for communications for DAOs. Make sure everyone knows what time your meets are by setting it all up properly.

And for your one-on-one meeting scheduling, use the free version of calendly.

Challenge 2: Effective Online Collaboration

The entirety of DAO operations happens online. While this offers flexibility, it also presents challenges in ensuring productive collaboration.

The Problem

Digital meetings, without the nuances of face-to-face interactions, can become directionless. There's also the risk of digital fatigue and the challenge of ensuring that online brainstorming sessions are as effective as in-person ones.

What is needed?

The key to effective online collaboration is facilitation. The Facilitator's Collective is the place to go for learning this art of communication.

This video on How To Be A Great Facilitator is another great resource to start learning facilitation.

Regarding the tools, Miro is our choice to turn your meetings into collaborative experiences. See below our various articles to get started with Miro.

• Basics of Miro

• Miro Tips and Tricks

• Manage Miro Boards

Challenge 3: Running Effective Meetings

For DAOs, there are so many options when selecting where to meet, how to organize the meet, and what tools to use within those meetings.

The Problem

Deciding on the best platform for meetings, organizing them efficiently, and ensuring they're managed well. There are many options out there that can be considered, and as the organizers you are responsible for selecting the tool, making sure everyone can join the meeting, organize the chat, administer the meeting, make sure its safe against spammers, and attackers and more.

The Solution

One size doesn't fit all in this case. You need to run a 100 person event where there is one main presenter, Zoom is probabaly your best bet. You need to run a collaborative workshop with a small group, again Zoom may be the choice. But when you want a more natural space, where people can move around, play games, and have fun, then maybe explore other options.

Your choice of meeting tool, as well as the tools you use within need be selected according to your needs. We have considered a variety of tools for different use cases. See our research below:

Zoom Best Practices - This article covers Zoom but a large part of it applies to running digital meetings on any tool.

Ready to use Metaverses for Community Gatherings - Wanna have more fun in your community events? Check out these metaverses.

Challenge 4: Enabling Asynchronous Collaboration

DAOs are global and remote, so they run a lot of online meetings. Yet most of the work happens outside of the meetings, whenever the DAO members are alone. While traditional organizations have the office space for all the work to happen, DAO members need to be able to communicate and collaborate asynchronously, allowing members to contribute at their own pace.

The Problem

DAOs operate in a continuous cycle, with members spread across various time zones. While online meetings provide a platform for real-time discussions, the bulk of the work happens outside these sessions. Unlike traditional organizations that have physical offices where collaborations occur in real-time, DAO members often work independently, at different times. This poses a challenge: How do members effectively communicate, share updates, and collaborate on tasks when they aren't online simultaneously?

What is needed?

Asynchronous collaboration tools become the backbone of DAO operations. Platforms like Notion allow members to document their work, provide updates, and set tasks that other members can pick up and continue, irrespective of when they log in. This ensures a continuous flow of work, with members contributing at their own pace. It's essential to establish best practices for asynchronous communication: clear documentation, setting expectations on response times, and regular status updates. This way, every member, regardless of their time zone or schedule, can stay informed and contribute effectively.

As any DAO, to pursue asynchronous collaboration well, you need a great documentation, and a great project management system. Here are our research on these topics, but we suggest going with Notion for all your needs here:

• Notion: The knowledge base and project management system for any DAO

• Swae: A project management tool more designed for the needs of DAOs

• Sobol: A tool that will help you communicate who is in what DAO subgroup and who has what responsibility in a visually intuitive way. Built for DAOs.

Remote Work Tools

Remote work tools are software applications that facilitate communication, collaboration, and productivity in a remote work environment. These tools can include communication platforms (like Zoom or Discord), project management tools (like Git), and collaboration tools (like Miro), content generation tools (like Japser AI and Bubble).

These tools are essential for remote teams to stay connected and coordinated, and generate high-quality work. They allow for real-time communication, seamless collaboration on tasks and projects, easy sharing and access to files and documents, and the use of new AI technologies to boost productivity. They also often include features like video conferencing, screen sharing, and task tracking, which can replicate many of the benefits of working in a physical office.

• Miscellaneous

• Content Generation Tools

• Collaboration Tools

• Dev Tools

• Publication Tools

• Social Media Tools

These are all the documents we generated so far:

We strongly recommend writing your documents in markdown format. This is a very generic document guide, you do not have to follow this guide if you know what to do. If you are not sure about how to write your document you can use this guide. Using ai tools like chatGPT can be useful but every information generated by ai has to be verified and we expect writers to learn and understand the topic they write about. During reviews, documents will be checked for ai generated content.

• Example of a good document: . You do not have to write a document that utilizes this many tools of markdown but we do not protest if you do.

• Another example of a good document: . This document does not entirely fit this template and it does not have to but it is also a good document because it is clear and easy to read. Also unfamiliar concepts are explained clearly.

Template

What we want in a document is usage of markdown syntax and clear headers to make the document eye-catching and easy to read. We want usage of organized headings and sub-headings in the document. A simple example is Introduction, Body and Conclusion.

In the Introduction part, you should explain what the tool is and what it is used for briefly.

In the Body part, you should dive deep into the questions of the previous part and also write a detailed explanation on how a DAO can benefit if they use this tool.

In the Conclusion part, please summarize the main points and restate the key points.

There is also an Additional Information part, on that part we want you to put the relevant links about the tool and the links of new tool if you encountered any other potential DAO tools that you think might be useful.

You do not have to use the headlines explained above but the content of the document should be similar.

Cheat Sheet

Note: The images you upload should be a folder named by the tool you are writing added into the images folder.

Examples of multiple line code in different languages, as you can see different syntax highlighting according to the language.

There are four levels of quality for the DAO Tools and Ocean Tech documents and a document has to be at least level 3 in order to be published on the vault. We plan to pay a bonus for Level 4 documents.

1. Unacceptable Document

2. Document Needs Improvement

3. Good Document

4. Exceptional Document

Feedback Process

Any Document that is considered Level 1 will not receive feedback and the writer will be notified that the document has to be at least Level 2 to be accepted into the feedback process. The reason is that the guideline is clear enough to avoid Level 1 mistakes.

Any document that is Level 3 will not receive feedback unless the writer demands it and try to reach Level 4. The writer can ask for feedback after the document is graded via Discord.

Quality Criteria

There are several different quality criteria for the documents. These criteria are divided into Structure and Context.

Structure

Structure of the document is very important and they have a significant effect on the quality level of the document. A document should:

• use the organized heading system. The reader should be able to intuitively find the information they want in a document without difficulties.

• Have the proper tags.

• Links have to hidden. For example, we do not want to see . We want to see .

• The syntax of markdown should be used generously. Ordered lists, unordered lists, highlighted text,etc.

Context

• The document must explain the researched tool in detail. After reading the document, the reader should have enough information about how the tool works, in what situations the tool is beneficial, what are the pros and cons of the tool.

• For some tools, there might be the need for a "How to Use" part. This part is important for wallet documents or Best Practices documents but for other documents, the writer has the authority to decide including this part.

• Some tools might have unfamiliar concepts. Those concepts has to be explained briefly in sub-headings in the document. If that concept is defined in another document, you can also link to that document.(Linking to other documents is a bonus, we do not require you to read all the previous documents)

• The reader should get the idea of what the document is going to be about when they read just the instruction.

Negative Points

The list of quality thresholds that will limit the documents quality level to a certain level. Any of the below will determine the documents quality level no matter the other aspects of the document.

• Wrong Link Format: ==Level 1==

• Wrong Image Format: ==Level 1==

• Writing the entire document with AI tools ==Level 1==

• Using AI generated text without verifying them ==Level 2==

• Messy Headings Usage: ==Level 2==(The writer is suggested not to use our specific template. It is there to give an idea.)

• Missing Tags: ==Level 1==

• Missing External Links: ==Level 1==

• Unclear Concepts/Lack of Explanation: ==Level 2==

• Lack of Detail: ==Level 1== (Writer will be informed)

• Lack of Using Markdown Syntax: ==Level 2==

• Difficult to Understand(Complicated tools will not need this): ==Level 2==

• Insufficient Research: ==Level 2==

• Incomplete Document: ==Level 1==

• Improper publication(All the docs has to published on dework, publishing on Obsidian or Discord will not be accepted): ==Level 1==

Bonus Points

Bonus points will determine if the document can be eligible to be ==level 4==. If there is any negative points about the document, the document will be limited to that point until it is fixed even if the document has the bonus points. It is not yet clear if one of the below will make the document ==Level 4== or couple of them will. We will have a more concrete answer to this question in the future.

• Exceptional usage of markdown syntax.

• Usage of some HTML syntax to make the document look even better.

• References to other vault documents about detailed explanations of different concepts.

• The research about the tool is exceptionally detailed.

• A lot of potential new DAO tool suggestions.

The level 1 documents will just receive a simple message that stating the document is unacceptable. Only if there is Lack of Detail, the simple message will state that. The four day feedback process will start even if the document is not eligible to receive feedback, so the writer should try to avoid level 1 to save time.

Note: These criteria will be improved and get more detailed as more and more reports get reviewed. Until further notification, some of the criteria might change or ignored when irrelevant.

Oh wow, you've found us dear contributor. Welcome to a small pond of littlefish working together to impact the world. Things here may confuse you. That's OK, as long as you keep curious.

And you are a curious one aren't you? Finding this page among a sea of others. That's good. You will need your curiosity. littlefish Foundation is full of opportunity for those who look for it. This page will give you some guidance but you've got to grab it.

What can I do to get started?

Explore, explore, explore

If you don't know much about littlefish, the first and best thing you can do is explore.

1. The information channel on Discord has all the relevant links.

2. The Vault is the place of our , and .

3. Browse through the action channel on Discord if you wanna get dazed and confused.

4. Ask us anything on Discord. We love questions.

5. Hop on one of our calls. All of them are available on our .

Find your reason for being in littlefish Foundation with Ikigai

Ok, now that you feel like you've got a grasp of maybe 10% of what's going on, that's a good time to get involved :D

But then, you ask yourself, what can I do to help around?

Well, we have a special way of answering that question: Ikigai.

This is a Japanese philosophy meaning A Reason for Being. We use a specialized version of the philosophy that comes nowhere near capturing the entire beauty of it. But hey visualizing an entire philosophical concept is not easy ha? Ehem, back to the topic.

We want you, random person on the internet who is about to become our friend, to find your reason for being here. We want you to do

• what you love

• what you're good at

• what the world needs/what we need

• waht you can be paid for

Need Help on the Tools?