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.
DAO tools serve a variety of purposes, including but not limited to:
Governance: Tools for proposal creation, voting, and decision enforcement help DAOs make collective decisions in a transparent and democratic manner.
Smart Contract Development: Tools for helping communities to develop their own smart contracts.
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.
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.
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.
DAO tools can provide several benefits for DAOs:
Efficiency: DAO tools can automate many of the processes involved in running a DAO, saving time and reducing the potential for human error.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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:
Category | Cardano | Ocean |
---|---|---|
Tool | Chain | Status |
---|---|---|
Tool | Chain | Status |
---|
Tool | Chain | Status | Sub-Category |
---|
6
2
1
0
3
5
2
5
2
0
Cardano
Cardano | Online |
Cardano | Online |
Cardano | Online |
Cardano | Online |
Ergo, Cardano | Online |
Cardano | Online |
Ethereum | Online |
Ethereum | Online |
Cardano | Online | Multisig Wallet |
Cardano | Testnet | Multisig Wallet |
Ethereum | Online | Project Management |
Ethereum | Online | Project Management |
Cardano | Online | Project Management |
Ethereum | Online | Project Management |
Ethereum | Online | Project Management |
Ethereum | Online | Project Management |
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:
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.
Tool | Chain | Status |
---|---|---|
Tool | Chain | Status |
---|---|---|
Cardano
Ethereum
Ethereum
Ethereum
Ethereum
Ethereum
Cardano
Cardano
Cardano