The final edition of the Open Dollar series explores the DAO’s implementation of “Ungovernance”, its benefits, the scope of the DAO, and how to participate in Open Dollar’s governance via tally.xyz.
(Un)governance
Open Dollar goes against the grain of typical DAO governance structures embracing a philosophy of “Ungovernance”. While this labeling may seem counterintuitive for a DAO, it essentially means strategically limiting the scope of human influence to achieve, rather than prevent, true decentralization.
The downsides of centralization and their manifestations in the Web2 world are often cited by Web3 proponents as they make their cases for building decentralized products and governance structures. DAOs are widely viewed as the solution to centralized issues; however, DAOs are a relatively new, living concept which are not entirely immune to manipulation. A DAO with broad power over a protocol can be vulnerable to a variety of attacks including: treasury theft, hijacking attempts, aggressive governance accumulation, voting power manipulations, or just general infrastructural weakness.
To proactively address these challenges, ensure the longevity of the protocol, and imbue a desirable degree of predictability to the platform, Open Dollar is taking the approach of “minimal” governance. Ungovernance restricts the DAO from making disruptive changes to the protocol, i.e. minting tokens or altering fee distributions in a bid to prevent unwelcome surprises and reduce the risks of orchestrated attacks. Additionally, the protocol is non-upgradable, preventing it from being modified with malicious code while supporting developers with a stable technical foundation.
DAO functions
Ungovernance might seem limiting, so what can the DAO do? Despite efforts to reduce scope of the DAO’s control, its members are empowered to govern an array of functionalities, including but not limited to:
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Grant programs
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Additional audits
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Treasury management
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Adding new collateral types
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Prioritizing feature development
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Strategic investments and partnerships
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Liquidity mining and incentive programs
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Other proposals that don’t circumvent the DAO limitations
Open Dollar DAO participants (from individuals to their elected delegates) wield great influence over the future of the protocol regardless of Ungovernance’s safeguards. The DAO is charged with managing over 40% of the protocol’s supply of ODG tokens. The treasury receives 50% of the protocol’s fees while the remaining 50% is bought back from the market and burned.
Participation
The only requirement to participate in Open Dollar’s governance is to hold ODG tokens. Voting power is directly correlated with the amount of ODG a user holds (1 ODG = 1 vote). Users may passively participate by delegating voting power to a delegate of their choice to act on their behalf or participate as an individual by delegating to their address.
Creating proposals, voting, and delegating voting power is streamlined using Tally’s governance platform. Open Dollar is shortly launching a forum for proposal and governance discussions. For help or more information on using Tally, you can visit docs or ask questions in the Open Dollar or Tally Discord.
Disclaimer: be careful to only use official links and be wary of any impersonator accounts, scams, or phishing links that may be found on social media. Open Dollar has already reported at least one fake account on X and there will likely be more. Only interact with official, verified Open Dollar links.
Official links:
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The Open Dollar governance page:https://gov.opendollar.com/dao
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The Open Dollar delegates page:https://gov.opendollar.com/dao/delegates
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ODG Camelot Listing:https://info.camelot.exchange/pair/v3/0xf935263c9950eb2881ff58bd6a76c3d2564a78d5
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The Open Dollar homepage: https://www.opendollar.com/
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The Open Dollar docs: https://docs.opendollar.com/
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The Open Dollar linktree for all other official links:https://linktr.ee/opendollar