The DAO

2021 was the birth of a concept we are probably all familiar with at this point in the crypto-sphere; The DAO. Decentralised Autonomous Organisation.

If you’re unaware of this concept, it’s essentially where an organisation gives up centralised control of a project, concept or product and allows the investors, community or third parties to have voting rights based on their “stake” or interest in a project to make executive decisions on how the protocol moves forward.

Let’s look at an example to understand it better and the benefits of operating a DAO. Let’s say you’re faced with a tough decision of reducing reward rates on a staking mechanism for a token, or the token becomes hyper-inflationary and the value of the token will just continue to fall over time. Instead of the project, team or one centralised party making an executive decision to go either route, you can present both options to your DAO (in most cases, your community). The DAO will then be presented with a vote, option A or option B.

The DAO will then process the vote, with everyone who is eligible coming to a consensus vote. Say the vote is 60/40 option A, that’s the route you would take. It was voted on by the community and that was the majority decision, it cannot be argued that a project is being ruined by the team running it, because they are putting the power into those who have a vested interest in it, i.e. investors or customers.

We aim to implement a DAO functionality into Inter-Stellar to coincide with a lot of the updates we have to come. We hold our community in high regard and want them to have a say in the future of Inter-Stellar and how we build in the future. We will propose votes to our community on various subjects so that we move forward in a Decentralised manner.

From a development perspective, building the DAO is a long-term goal for us, however, we will operate from day one with a “DAO” perspective. In terms of physically having a coded DAO into our protocol, it’s fairly low on our priority list however, being fair, open and transparent with our community will always be our number one priority. Because of this, we will utilise community voting mechanisms from day one whether it be as simple as having a Discord DAO section, where votes will be made for future application releases or by having our community sign transactions through their wallets to count a vote.

Community governance is crucial for building trust with our investors and although the team will be pushing the project forward, we really want our community to feel involved and as if they have a say in terms of how the protocol progresses.