With the questions in this assessment, you can assess whether your community meets the minimum requirements to be considered a DAO (we call this minimum variant the 'Vanilla DAO').
Input fields
(3)
Questions
(11)
• A DAO must have a name and preferably additional identifiable data. • A DAO must be able to be found.
• A DAO must have a constitution with rules for collaboration, governance & ownership. • A DAO must have a constitution with rules that are publicly stated and acknowledged by the DAO members. • A DAO must have a constitution with rules that should be coded into software as much as possible. • A DAO must have a constitution with rules that updateable by decision of the community. • A DAO must have a constitution with rules that are guarded by the “Notary” function. • Decision making on proposals and value transfers within a DAO must only be possible by using coded logic.
• A DAO must have a treasury function to manage its community funds and assets. • Having community-specific tokens is not mandatory
• It must be transparent, at least to the other participants, who the account holders are (at least their public key should be known) • A DAO may consist of only one organizational unit but can exist of multiple units or autons. • The organizational chart should preferably be transparent.
• A DAO must log all transactions made by the DAO or by community members. • Each recorded transaction result must contain the digital signatures of the transaction parties and a timestamp. • It must be clear that a log item is the result of coded temper-proof logic. • For reasons of privacy protection, hybrid technology can be used where some data is stored on-chain and some data off-chain.
There should be no information asymmetry among members so that each member can protect their interests and make informed decisions.
There should always be multiple agents: • With governance rights. • Being involved in decision making on a proposal.
There should always be multiple agents with ownership rights.
• Web3 software and infrastructure is decentralized, censorship resistant, secure and transparent (code & data). • Not all the software used by a DAO has to be web3.
When certain predefined criteria are met, code should execute automatically without the possibility to interfere one-sided (= censorship resistant).
Approved proposals should be automatically executed as described in the proposal if viable for automated execution. For example, an automatic transfer of funds to a deposit from which the contractor can be paid, when this is approved by the community.
