69 Trends in DAO Design for 2025

Written by: Kevin@owocki

Translated by: Yewlne, Elsa

Translator's Note

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are rapidly emerging as a key force in reshaping global governance and resource allocation, with an increasing number of innovative ideas and design patterns shaping the future of DAOs. This article presents Kevin Owocki's latest research findings, where he describes 69 trends in DAO design for 2025, covering various aspects from AI integration, privacy protection, capital allocation to decentralized governance. This article not only provides practical insights for DAO designers but also stimulates further discussions and practices around decentralized autonomy, innovative governance, and public goods funding.

I conducted some simple research on the trends in DAO design for 2025 (https://x.com/owocki/status/1880003004365173059), and here are some of my findings.

I hope this content can provide useful references for DAO designers in 2025 :)

AI Integration

1. AI x DAO

AI x DAO refers to the integration of artificial intelligence into the operations of DAOs for tasks such as treasury management, proposal analysis, and information flow. AI agents can process vast amounts of data and make decisions or provide suggestions based on predefined criteria and historical patterns. AI agents can operate continuously and may make more objective decisions than human governors.

2. AI Governance Assistance

AI analyzes voting patterns, member engagement, and proposal impacts by providing data-driven insights, making governance processes more transparent and efficient. AI can also condense complex background information into easy-to-understand summaries, making governance updates more accessible to all members, thus promoting the democratization of governance participation.

3. AI Kill Switch

An AI kill switch is a governance control mechanism designed to limit the behavior of AI systems to prevent potential issues. This system can automatically pause or restrict AI operations based on trigger conditions, ensuring that the application of AI within the DAO is safer.

4. AI Delegated Agents

AI delegated agents are a type of artificial intelligence system that can represent token holders in governance decisions. They can analyze proposals, track voting patterns, and make decisions based on preset criteria, thus promoting the development of more complex and automated governance systems.

5. AI for Design Space Exploration

AI agents significantly enhance the efficiency of design space exploration in infinitely complex environments by automatically generating and evaluating diverse architectural configurations, accelerating the innovation process. With vast datasets, contextual windows, and computational power, AI can rapidly optimize design solutions around the clock, identifying the best solutions more efficiently than traditional human methods. This not only speeds up the design process but also reduces costs associated with manual exploration, resulting in more innovative and economical outcomes.

Example: InfiniteRegen.AI

6. AI for Information Flow

AI and large language models (LLMs) can streamline information flow within DAOs by summarizing discussions or meeting content, highlighting key themes or points for quick reference by other members. They can also analyze members' roles and interests to provide customized information, ensuring that each user receives only relevant updates. Additionally, AI-driven knowledge graphs can map the DAO's resources, discussions, and contributors, enabling the right people to connect with the right information at the right time.

7. AI in New Member Onboarding and Member Management

AI tools are used to simplify the onboarding process within DAOs by reading resumes, assessing new members' qualifications, and even suggesting roles based on skills and historical performance data. This application reduces human bias and accelerates the integration of new members into the DAO.

8. AI On-Chain Capital Allocation

AI agents can perform retrospective capital allocation more effectively by integrating data from past funding rounds, proposals, and performance metrics. They can identify underfunded yet impactful projects through advanced analytics and suggest optimal resource allocation. By automating proposal reviews and prioritizing based on DAO goals, AI ensures that capital distribution is both efficient and transparent.

9. DAO Management of AI

DAOs oversee the development of AI to ensure the ethicality or consistency of AI practices. This may involve community-driven AI research and deployment governance, ultimately leading to safer and more responsible AI systems.

10. Collective Intelligence

AI is being tested as a connector between DAOs, agents, and humans, creating a form of collective intelligence where different entities can share knowledge and communicate and coordinate more efficiently, leading to more effective collective decision-making than individual members.

Financial Mechanisms

11. Assurance Contracts

Assurance contracts create a mechanism for coordinating group action by ensuring that participants only engage when a sufficient number of people are involved. These contracts help address coordination problems and facilitate collective action, especially for funding public goods or organizing collective efforts.

12. COCM (Connection-Oriented Cluster Matching) Quadratic Funding

This algorithm enhances traditional quadratic funding models by identifying and reducing collusion among donors. It analyzes user clusters based on shared attributes or behaviors to detect groups attempting to unfairly influence funding outcomes. By adjusting matching funds to account for these collusion patterns, COCM ensures that resources are distributed more equitably and effectively to projects that genuinely receive community support.

Example: Gitcoin Grants Stack

13. Reserve Fund

A reserve fund provides a treasury management system with specific rules for fund allocation and expenditure. It can include spending limits, approval requirements, and automatic distributions. This system helps maintain fiscal discipline while ensuring that resources are available when needed.

14. Deepfunding

Deepfunding is an initiative that rewards open-source contributors by utilizing dependency graphs and a market composed of AI or human allocators, supplemented by random review panels, to allocate funds to upstream contributors on projects valued by funders. It aims to reduce the cognitive burden on funders for more effective funding decisions by expanding high-quality human judgment. The project includes a competition with a total prize of $250,000 to encourage the development of models to allocate weights to 40,000 identified Ethereum dependencies.

Example: DeepFunding.Org

15. Direct Contract Incentives

Assurance contracts + ensuring that if a project does not meet its funding goals, contributors will receive additional rewards as refunds, thereby incentivizing participation and reducing risk.

Example: Boost, Royco

16. Dominant Assurance Contracts

Direct contract incentives embed reward mechanisms directly into smart contracts, creating automated and transparent incentive systems. These systems can reward specific behaviors, achievements, or contributions without manual allocation. They help create more efficient and trustless incentive structures.

17. Haberg Tax

The Haberg tax creates a continuous auction mechanism where asset holders must set a sale price and pay taxes based on that price. This creates a balance between effective resource allocation and fair compensation for current holders. The system helps prevent resource hoarding and ensures that assets are put to productive use.

18. Proof of Impact

Proof of impact provides verifiable certificates for measuring and demonstrating impact across various fields. These systems can track and verify contributions, achievements, and outcomes. They help create a more transparent and traceable impact assessment system.

Example: EAS

19. Impact Certificates

Impact certificates are tradable tokens representing proof of the positive impact or value created by individuals or organizations in areas such as public goods or social initiatives. They can be sold or redeemed in the future, allowing funders to retroactively incentivize impactful contributions.

Example: Hypercerts

20. KPI-Based Incentives

KPI-based incentives link rewards to specific, measurable performance indicators. These systems can automatically adjust rewards based on achieved results. They help create a more objective and performance-oriented incentive structure.

Example: Metro

21. Private Quadratic Funding

Private quadratic funding combines privacy technology with quadratic funding mechanisms to prevent collusion. This system allows for democratic funding distribution while protecting voter privacy, helping to ensure that funding decisions reflect genuine community preferences rather than coordinated voting blocks.

Example: MACI

22. Programmable Cash Flow

Programmable cash flow allows for continuous real-time payment flows rather than discrete transactions. This enables more granular control over payment timing and conditions, such as salary flows or service payments. The system can automatically adjust payment rates based on different conditions or metrics.

Example: Drips, Sablier, Superfluid

23. Programmatic Liquidity

Programmatic liquidity uses algorithms to automatically manage market making and liquidity provision. In DeFi protocols, these systems can adjust parameters such as price curves and pool depth based on market conditions and protocol needs. This approach helps maintain stable markets and efficient price discovery without constant human intervention.

Example: Baseline Markets, Cult DAO

24. Proof of Value

Proof of Value (PoV) is a consensus mechanism proposed by the Thrive protocol to measure and verify the actual impact of contributions within blockchain ecosystems. It uses expert validators (referred to as "guardians") to assess contributions based on criteria such as code quality, financial outcomes, and content accuracy. This ensures fair and effective allocation of funds and rewards based on the value provided by contributors.

Example: Thrive Protocol

25. Quadratic Funding + Bonding Curves

This system combines the democratic distribution of quadratic funding with the price discovery mechanism of bonding curves. This integration creates a dynamic funding system that can respond to market signals while maintaining democratic elements. It helps balance effective capital allocation with community preferences.

Example: q/acc by giveth

26. Retrospective Funding

Retrospective funding rewards value creation after the fact rather than funding predictive work for the future. This approach reduces the risk of funding ineffective work and creates stronger incentives for valuable contributions. It helps address public goods funding issues by rewarding proven value creation.

Example: Optimism Retro Funding, EasyRetroPGF.xyz

27. Revenue Routing

Revenue routing systems automatically allocate income to different stakeholders or purposes based on predetermined rules or formulas. These systems can handle complex distribution patterns, such as real-time allocation of income among contributors, treasuries, and liquidity providers. Automation reduces administrative overhead and ensures transparent, predictable fund distribution.

Example: RevNets.app

28. Labor Equity

Labor equity systems allocate ownership based on work contributions rather than capital investments. These systems can track and evaluate different types of contributions, assessing their value over time. They help establish a fairer ownership structure based on actual value creation.

Example: Collabberry

Governance Models

29. Compound v2

Compound v2 governance introduces complex mechanisms to manage DeFi protocols, including delayed execution, time locks, and delegation. The system allows for regular parameter adjustments and significant protocol changes. It also includes security features to prevent malicious proposals while maintaining flexibility.

Example: Compound Finance, Uniswap, Gitcoin Governance

30. Challengeable Control

Challengeable control systems allow existing control structures to be challenged under defined conditions. This creates accountability while maintaining stability. The system helps prevent control from being monopolized while enabling necessary changes.

Example: Research by Jeff Strnad

31. Belief Voting

Belief voting weights votes based on how long voters maintain their positions, encouraging long-term thinking and reducing vote manipulation. Voters accumulate voting weight over time, which they can apply to different proposals. This system helps prevent short-term speculation and encourages more thoughtful decision-making.

Example: 1Hive

32. Decentralized Arbitration

Decentralized arbitration provides an on-chain system for resolving disputes among parties. These systems typically use jury pools and economic incentives to ensure fair rulings. They help build stronger and self-improving governance systems.

Example: Kleros

33. Deliberative Governance

Deliberative governance emphasizes structured discussions and consensus-building before formal voting. This approach helps ensure that decisions are well-considered and widely supported, leading to better decision-making and strengthening community cohesion.

Example: Harmonica, SimScore

34. Dual Governance

Dual governance creates a two-tier governance system with different mechanisms and requirements for different types of decisions. This makes it more efficient to handle various decision types. The system helps balance efficiency and security in governance.

Example: Lido Finance, Optimism Bicameral Governance (Token House and Citizens House)

35. EigenGov

EigenGov is the governance system of EigenLayer, which delegates decision-making power to a committee of domain experts while granting EIGEN token holders ultimate veto power. This structure ensures that actively participating individuals drive daily operations while maintaining a balance between expert insights and community oversight.

Example: EigenGov

36. Holographic Consensus

Holographic consensus creates a scalable decision-making system capable of maintaining quality while processing a large number of proposals. The system uses various mechanisms to effectively filter and prioritize proposals, addressing scalability issues in traditional governance systems.

Example: DAO Stack

37. Liquid Democracy

Liquid democracy allows voters to vote directly or delegate their voting rights to others, who can further delegate. This flexible system combines direct democracy and representative democracy, helping to balance participation and expertise in governance.

38. New Voting Strategies

Advanced voting mechanisms go beyond simple token-weighted voting to include various weighting schemes (such as quadratic voting), quorum requirements, and voting cycles. These strategies consider factors like voter reputation, stake duration, or expertise, aiming to improve decision quality while maintaining fair participation.

Example: Snapshot Labs

39. On-Chain / Off-Chain Connectors

These systems create bridges between on-chain governance and legal entities, enabling a hybrid structure that combines blockchain and traditional legal frameworks. This allows DAOs to interact more effectively with traditional legal systems, helping them operate better in the real world.

Example: BORGs

40. OP Governance

OP governance allows actions to be executed automatically without being challenged. This method reduces governance overhead for routine decisions while maintaining security through challenge mechanisms. It is particularly suitable for low-risk and frequent decisions.

41. Reputation Voting

Reputation voting allocates voting rights based on accumulated reputation rather than token holdings. Reputation can be earned through contributions, participation, and other positive behaviors. This approach helps align voting power with commitment to the project.

42. Role-Based Governance

Role-based governance assigns different permissions and voting rights based on different roles within the DAO, similar to varying levels of authority in traditional organizations. This system allows for more granular control over who can make which decisions, making governance more efficient and professional. Users can gain or be assigned roles based on their contributions, expertise, or other criteria.

Example: Hats Protocol

43. Subjective Rule Enforcement

Subjective rule enforcement allows for human judgment in applying rules rather than relying solely on mechanical execution. This provides more flexibility and contextual awareness in governance systems, helping to address complex situations that cannot be resolved by simple algorithms.

Example: Q Blockchain

44. Anti-Witch Hunt Voting

Anti-witch hunt voting mechanisms ensure the fairness of voting by preventing individuals from gaining extra voting power through multiple identities. These systems may use proof of humanity, identity verification, or other validation methods to ensure that voting results reflect the true will of the community rather than manipulation.

Example: Gitcoin Passport, Worldcoin

45. Degovernance

Degovernance eliminates traditional voting mechanisms in favor of automated rules and predetermined protocols. This approach reduces governance overhead and potential manipulation risks by removing human decision-making from routine operations. The system functions more like a vending machine than a democratic institution, with clear rules and predictable outcomes.

Information Finance

46. Decentralized Fact-Checking

A platform where users can stake tokens to challenge or verify the accuracy of information. If a claim is proven false, the challenger is rewarded, incentivizing the community to maintain the integrity of information.

47. Decentralized News Insurance

A platform where users can collectively fund insurance for the accuracy of news stories. Investigative journalists or fact-checkers can apply for funds from a pool to verify or refute a news item. If the news is proven false, the funds are returned to the contributors; if verified as true, the investigator receives a reward.

48. Prediction Market Governance

Prediction market governance makes governance decisions through prediction markets, allowing token holders to bet on the outcomes of different proposals. This market-driven decision-making mechanism may be more accurate than traditional voting, helping to align governance decisions with expected outcomes.

Example: Butter.money

49. Dynamic Value Knowledge NFTs

Creating a tokenized form (NFT) of verified knowledge, where the value of the NFT increases as more independent validators confirm its accuracy and utility. Institutions or individuals can purchase these NFTs to obtain proof of high-quality data or expertise.

50. Impact Proof Prediction Market

A prediction market that tracks and rewards the accuracy of predictions and the subsequent impact of events. For example, predictions about technology adoption can incorporate metrics like user growth or economic impact, generating richer datasets to support long-term decision-making.

51. Reputation-Based Lending System

In this financial system, the ability of individuals or entities to obtain loans and credit is determined by their dynamically updated reputation scores. These scores are based on community feedback and verified information.

52. Research Funding Tokenization

A system where researchers propose projects, and the community funds these projects by purchasing tokens. The success and impact of the research will affect the value of the tokens, aligning economic incentives with valuable knowledge production.

Infrastructure

53. Allo Protocol

The Allo Protocol provides infrastructure for resource allocation for Web3 projects. The protocol includes project metadata storage, funding round management, proposal evaluation, and resource allocation functions, aiming to standardize and optimize the funding process for Web3 projects.

Example: Allo

54. Aragon OSx

Aragon OSx offers an updated operating system for creating and managing more flexible DAOs. The system includes advanced permission management, plugin architecture, and governance tools, aiming to make the creation and management of DAOs more convenient while retaining the complexity and functionality of the system.

Example: Aragon Project

55. Cross-Chain Asset Management, Voting, and Token Transfers

Through Chainlink's CCIP, DAOs can manage treasury assets distributed across multiple blockchains, including securely transferring funds between chains or deploying multi-chain yield strategies to optimize treasury growth.

Example: CCIP

56. MolochDAO v3

MolochDAO v2 introduced "loot," which are non-voting rights that allow for a more flexible member structure; it also added support for treasuries to hold multiple ERC-20 tokens, surpassing the single-token limitation of v1. Additionally, v2 introduced "forced ragequit," which can remove inactive or malicious members. MolochDAO v2.5 further improved v2 by integrating "minions," allowing the DAO to interact with external smart contracts through a single proposal.

Example: MolochDAO

57. Zodiac Modules

Zodiac modules provide a modular smart contract system that allows DAOs to add or modify governance functions without changing the core structure. These modules can be combined like building blocks to create customized governance systems. The modular feature allows DAOs to evolve their governance structures over time without complete reconstruction.

Example: Safe

Organizational Models

58. Activity DAOs

Activity DAOs are organized around specific activities or goals rather than general governance. These DAOs have focused missions and specialized governance mechanisms, enabling them to create more efficient organizations for specific objectives.

Example: PizzaDAO, Blunt DAO, Sauna DAO

59. Combinatorial Governance

Combinatorial governance allows different governance mechanisms to be combined and interact in defined ways. This approach creates flexible systems that can adapt to various needs and contexts, helping DAOs build more complex and nuanced governance systems.

60. Modular Governance

Modular governance creates a layered structure through sub-DAOs and side-DAOs, enabling them to operate semi-independently. This method achieves more specialized and efficient governance at different levels while maintaining overall coordination.

61. Pods

In a DAO, Pods (introduced by Orca) are small autonomous teams with specific responsibilities aimed at improving internal coordination and decision-making. By decentralizing authority to manageable, composable subgroups, Pods achieve decentralized governance.

Example: Orca

62. Self-Managed Registry

A self-managed registry is a dynamic list maintained collectively by core contributors. It achieves transparency and adaptability by allowing members to collectively update the registry based on changes in roles and contributions.

Example: Protocol Guild and other Guilds

63. Clusters

In a DAO, clusters (introduced by rnDAO) are flexible, task-oriented teams that spontaneously form to complete specific projects or tasks. They operate in a flexible and autonomous manner, enabling contributors to collaborate dynamically without a formal hierarchical structure.

Example: rnDAO

Token Economics

64. Dynamic Unlocking

Dynamic unlocking creates flexible token vesting schedules that can be adjusted based on various metrics or conditions. Unlike simple time-based vesting, tokens can unlock based on project milestones, market conditions, or participant behavior. This approach helps align incentive mechanisms and adapt to changing environments.

65. Governance Staking

To participate in governance, tokens must be locked, which helps strengthen alignment mechanisms. This system contributes to creating more sustainable token economic models.

Example: Unichain, Arbitrum Governance, Tally Staking

66. Re-Staking

Re-staking connects staked assets with governance rights, strengthening the link between economic rights and voting power. This mechanism can include various ways to manage staking and voting rights, helping to more closely align economic and governance incentives.

67. Social Token Distribution

This method distributes tokens based on social media activity and engagement, creating a more organic and contribution-based distribution model. It can consider factors such as content creation, community participation, and trust networks, helping to align token distribution with actual community contributions and influence.

Example: Farcaster, Lens Protocol

68. Token Launch Platforms

Token launch platforms provide infrastructure for the issuance of new tokens, including complex pricing mechanisms such as bonding curves. These platforms typically offer features like fair launches, progressive distribution, and price discovery, helping to prevent common issues like price manipulation and token over-concentration.

Example: Pump.fun

69. Ve/Gauge Governance

Ve/Gauge governance combines voting-locked tokens with weighted emissions, creating a complex token distribution system. To participate in governance, tokens must be locked, and this mechanism further strengthens the alignment of incentives, contributing to the establishment of more sustainable token economic models.

Example: Aerodrome, Mode, Puffer, Pendle

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