Protocol Guild

We talk about funding public goods. We attempt grants and philanthropy, but are rarely certain that the funding is going towards the actual betterment of the people directly involved in what we feel concerned about. How can the core contributors to the maintenance and evolution of a protocol that so many people depend on sustainably retain the time and attention of the talent needed for something so essential and do so with transparency and reliability that respects the generosity of those who contribute time and resources?

Protocol Guild consists of core Ethereum developers. Many are working full time, or close to full time, on the Ethereum protocol. This high level of focus is encouraged. The core mechanism of the custom DAO ensures that funding contributions for Ethereum go to an address that is self governed by the developers doing the actual work on the protocol.

When the guild wanted to add more legitimacy to their process, while storing more data on chain, they turned to DAOhaus. In designing a DAO for Protocol Guild, the priority was to decentralize and facilitate all members' involvement in the DAO’s governance.

To begin the development of a custom DAO with DAOhaus V3, core developers from DAOhaus met with Protocol Guild to learn the details of what the DAO needs.

Protocol Guild DAO requirements:

• Optimize for an average of 100 members

• Member registry is the main use for the DAO

• Avoid too much governance around a treasury

• Avoid a centralized safe, with few signers

• Improve governance disaster resilience and resistance

• Integrate 0xSplits contracts, which handles payment distribution

Three discussions, with DAOhaus, Protocol Guild and 0xSplits, occurred throughout the development of the custom DAO, which clarified contract infrastructure, gas optimization and UI decisions.

After discussions and reviewing requirements, the custom DAO built for Protocol Guild allows the treasury to be automated with 0xSplits contracts, while DAOhaus V3 manages members and limits decisions.

Specifications of the custom DAO:

• 2 types of erc-20 shares per member

• Voting status includes active, inactive, start date and end date.

• Members can delegate their voting power

• Shares of assets can be delegated and are pro-rata, based on minutes worked in that time period

• Shares are distributed to active members every 30 days

In continuing with the intention of governance supporting the members, instead of creating too much overhead, the following flow was designed for members’ ease.

Member flow:

• Members join the dao

• The treasury is split among them

• Their time is tracked by the second

• New members proposals are voted on

• As more members join, the treasury split is adjusted

• All members have execution rights

In the case of Protocol Guild, time is tracked by the second, but these mechanisms could also be applied to things like voting and reputation.

If your organization is looking for minimal governance that is also decentralized and can’t seem to find the DAO tools that fit your specific needs, let us know in the Discord.

Gitcoin’s Fraud Detection & Defense team

Dunbar’s number is a tricky thing. You can try to put a cap on scale. But if your growth is flowing beautifully, why limit it? You can try to put restrictions on what people can and can’t do. But if your community is thriving with intrinsic motivation, why sterilize it? The best we can do is build the tools that support communities, from where they are and to where they are going.

As a sub-group within Gitcoin, the Fraud Detection & Defense team (FDD) is a service DAO to the larger Gitcoin community. While receiving quarterly grants and producing seasonal deliverables, FDD is progressively moving towards self sustainability and autonomy from Gitcoin.

When DAOhaus first met with FDD, the focus was to define how their community interacts with each other and figure out how value flows. To understand these interactions, FDD answered questions, like:

• Who are the members?

• What types of wallets does the DAO use?

• What types of proposals are necessary and most common?

One concern the custom DAO needed to accommodate was the issue of active and inactive members. As a DAO, contributors are free to come and go, but FDD prefers voting power to remain with the most active members. They also wanted a way for members to retain financial stake once they are no longer contributing.

When the FDD DAO was built, DAOhaus core contributors under the guise of Bootleggers used the DAO Toolbox for Rapid Application Development. These tools allowed them to quickly spin-up the proof-of-concept and focus on customization, without needing to build the entire app from scratch.

With FDD’s custom DAO, a new member begins their journey by receiving a membership offer. When they accept the offer, a proposal is put on chain, ready for voting. After it passes the member receives shares represented as voting tokens.

Once someone is a member, additional shares are earned by making contributions to the DAO. When the member is no longer actively contributing they can convert their shares into non-voting tokens. Both active and inactive members have economic stake in the DAO, but only active members have voting power. All members have exit rights, but the decision makers are the ones closest to what is happening every day.

FDD’s DAO has three main safes:

• The Treasury is where members have economic stake, with the ragequit feature allowing exit rights. This is the DAO’s primary safe and members use proposals to decide how tokens flow in and out.

• The Trading safe is a multisig wallet for making moves in the market. Signers are delegated to make trading decisions without proposals requiring DAO approval. This allows these delegates to move faster when opportunities arise. Profits made from trading are returned to the Treasury benefitting all members.

• The Operations safe is funded by the DAO to cover expenses related to managing the organization. This includes payroll for active contributors and payments to vendors.

The DAO also votes on improvement proposals and decides which project they would like to fund. Members can update governance and token settings through the proposal process.

With their custom DAO on Moloch v3, FDD separates funds from the main treasury for operations and trading. This allows speedier responses to changes in the market, less friction on day-to-day processes, and opens up endless possibilities for automation. FDD is able to distribute decision power to those who are most knowledgeable about the issues being voted on. And their on-chain proposal history clearly shows how value flows within the organization bringing them to the next level of transparency and accountability.

If your organization is looking to optimize operations for sustainability and can’t seem to find the DAO tools that fit your specific needs, let us know in the Discord.

Raid Brood

What if you could own your favorite beer? A community, spun out of Raid Guild, has been experimenting with just that, shared ownership of the beers they design and brew, including the recipes and the can labels. Raid Brood is also an NFT community, onboarding members with Proof of Drink NFTs.

When Raid Brood was preparing to attend EthDenver 2023, bringing with them two new beers, they wanted better customization in the DAO onboarding flow, while including the Proof of Drink NFTs.

The first thing that needed to be done was to migrate the current DAO from DAOhaus V2 to DAOhaus V3. This included transferring funds from the treasury and converting member shares. The team at DAOhaus was able to do this, without most members feeling anything different, besides connecting to the DAO from a new web address.

As part of the upgrade, Raid Brood also received a custom smart contract, called a shaman, as an app to onboard new members of the DAO. How it works:

• Three of the beers brewed by Raid Brood come with a Proof of Drink NFT

• The NFT is claimed by the drinker of the beer by scanning a QR code on the label

• Holding a Proof of Drink NFT allows the beer drinker to claim a share in the DAO, 1 proof of Drink NFT = 1 DAO share

Member flow:

• Buy a beer

• Drink the beer

• Scan the QR code on the can’s label

• Claim a Proof of Drink NFT

• Go to the custom shaman onboarding app Claim your DAO share

• Vote on proposals

• Make decisions about community beers and events

NFT communities bond over a common mission or interest. In the case of Raid Brood, the community bonds by drinking beer that they have made together, in physical locations and virtually. By participating in this similar interest, members of the community earn more shares in the DAO.

Raid Brood is a community owned brewing service, producing customized beer for IRL events, and is available for hire. You may have tasted them before.
Blood of Moloch, 14% ABV Russian Imperial Stout, brewed for EthDenver 2022
Red Pil, 5.1% ABV Straw Blond Kveik Ale, brewed for MCON 2022
Green Pill, 4.5% ABV Italian Style Kveik Pilsner, brewed in partnership with Gitcoin for EthDenver 2023
Spork and Sour, 4.5% ABV Fruited Sour, brewed in partnership with Spork DAO for EthDenver 2023

With their new DAOhaus V3 structure, Raid Brood could also provide subscription services in the future.

If your NFT community wants to be a DAO, or if you want to migrate your DAO to something more customized, let us know in the Discord.