“I can highly recommend @DennisonBertram and the team for TGE help, they’re great partners to work with!” - Toma, Obol Governance Lead

Obol is the team behind the largest Decentralized Operator Ecosystem. They're doing groundbreaking work in proof-of-stake infrastructure, making it easier and safer for people to participate in Ethereum staking.

To govern the Decentralized Operator Ecosystem, Obol partnered with Tally to launch The Obol Collective. The Obol Collective brings together token holders and technical stakeholders to guide the protocol's development and treasury management through its innovative two-house governance structure:

• The Token House manages financial decisions.

• The Citizen's House acts as a safeguard and has the ability to veto Token House proposals.

By splitting decision-making between these two houses, the Obol Collective creates a natural balance between financial and technical priorities in their governance approach. This thoughtful structure sets a new benchmark for how decentralized communities can effectively manage critical staking infrastructure while maintaining proper checks and balances.

The challenge: launching a token that powers real governance

When Obol approached Tally, they were tackling an ambitious challenge: making Ethereum staking more accessible and trustworthy through their Decentralized Operator Ecosystem. But they faced a critical hurdle – how to govern this protocol in a way that truly reflected their commitment to decentralization and community ownership.

Obol needed more than just a basic governance system. They required a solution that could:

• Balance power between different types of stakeholders

• Optimize delegate registration

• Make it easy for community members to participate in decision-making

• Keep their brand identity consistent across all governance interfaces

• Support their commitment to public goods funding

• Ensure their governance would actually work (unlike many DAOs where low participation leads to deadlock)

The solution: Tally delivers best-in-class token launch with robust governance infrastructure

Through our experience with hundreds of DAOs, we knew that successful governance needs three key ingredients: robust infrastructure, seamless user experience, and active community participation. Here's an overview of how we delivered on each front:

Claim-and-delegate experience: transforming token distribution into active governance

Our streamlined claim-and-delegate process bridges the gap between token distribution and governance activation, ensuring tokens don't just get claimed - they get used.

We knew that delegation during the initial token claim process was crucial for long-term governance success. Too often, we've seen DAOs struggle with participation when delegation isn't part of the initial setup. That's why we created a seamless experience where users could claim their tokens and immediately delegate their voting power. This approach dramatically increased governance participation from day one, avoiding the common pitfall of inactive tokens sitting in wallets. By combining a user-friendly claim process with immediate delegation options, we helped Obol achieve what many DAOs struggle with: active community participation.

Technical foundations: powering Obol's two-house governance

By implementing OpenZeppelin's Governor framework, we provided Obol with battle-tested smart contracts that are the industry standard for secure, decentralized governance. The framework's modularity supports Obol's evolving governance needs while ensuring both security and interoperability with the broader ecosystem.

We deployed the following smart contracts:

• ERC-20 governance token contract: enabling voting rights and delegation for Token House participants

• Token House Governor contract: managing proposal creation, voting, and execution for financial decisions

• Citizen's House Governor contract: overseeing protocol-level changes with veto power over the Token House

• Timelock contracts for each house: creating a mandatory delay between proposal approval and execution

Additionally, we implemented an integration with with Gitcoin's retroactive public goods funding framework, further supporting Obol's commitment to the ecosystem.

Delegate recruitment: cultivating a community of aligned decision makers

Tally's strategic approach to delegate recruitment combined targeted outreach with broad community engagement, meaning Obol was able to attract high-quality delegates who were truly invested in the protocol's success. Through our private registration portal, we helped identify and connect with key delegates who bring valuable expertise and alignment with Obol's vision. By beginning with a curated private registration process before transitioning to public recruitment, we helped establish a core group of committed delegates who set the standard for governance participation from the get-go and attract additional qualified community members.

The governance platform: a custom-built home for the Obol Collective

The Obol Collective launch featured a custom-branded governance platform that maintained Obol's distinct identity while leveraging Tally's robust infrastructure. We built a comprehensive governance hub that enables everything from proposal drafting and voting to treasury management and analytics.

Marketing strategy: amplifying Obol's governance launch

Tally leveraged its position as a leader in the onchain governance space to help launch and promote Obol's governance system through multiple channels. We featured Obol on our established media platforms, including an exclusive episode on the DAO Talk podcast, a spotlight in The Tally Newsletter reaching over 1,500 governance enthusiasts, and strategic coverage through our influential X presence.

Beyond traditional marketing channels, we provided strategic guidance on governance documentation, helping craft their governance based on best practices learned from hundreds of successful launches. This comprehensive communication strategy guaranteed that Obol's governance launch reached the right audiences while establishing them as innovators in decentralized protocol governance.

Looking ahead

This is just the beginning. The infrastructure we've put in place opens up so many possibilities for the future. Whether it's expanding staking capabilities or adding new governance features, the Obol Collective is now equipped with a foundation that can grow with their needs.

We've laid the groundwork for:

• Expanding into more sophisticated governance models

• Implementing security council elections

• Adding new delegation mechanisms

• Supporting more complex proposal types

• Compensating participants via Governance Staking

The bigger picture

Our work with Obol demonstrates how onchain communities can make effective decisions while maintaining their core values. We've proven that with the right tools and infrastructure, decentralized governance isn't just a theoretical concept, but a practical and powerful reality. As the crypto ecosystem matures, we're proud to have developed a governance system that other projects can look to when decentralizing their decision-making. This success story highlights that thoughtful design, collaborative approaches, and technical excellence can create governance systems that thrive.