Translator's Preface
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are rapidly emerging as a key force in reshaping global governance and resource allocation, and more and more innovative thinking and design patterns are shaping the future of DAOs. This article is Kevin Owocki's latest research result, in which he describes 69 trends in DAO design in 2025, covering everything from AI integration, privacy protection, capital allocation to decentralized governance. This article can not only provide practical ideas for DAO designers, but also inspire more discussions and practices on decentralized autonomy, innovative governance, and public goods funding.
Main text
I did some simple research on DAO design trends in 2025 (https://x.com/owocki/status/1880003004365173059), and here are some of my findings.
I hope these contents 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 operation of DAOs to perform tasks such as treasury management, proposal analysis, and information flow. AI agents can process massive amounts of data and make decisions or provide recommendations based on predefined criteria and historical patterns. AI agents can run continuously and have the potential to make more objective decisions than human governors.
2. AI Proxy Governance Assistance
AI makes the governance process more transparent and efficient by providing clear data-driven insights into voting patterns, member participation, and proposal impact. AI can also compress complex background information into easy-to-understand summaries, making governance updates more accessible to all members, thereby promoting the democratization of governance participation.
3. AI Circuit Breaker
AI Circuit Breaker is a governance control mechanism used to limit the behavior of AI systems and prevent potential problems from occurring. This system can automatically suspend or limit AI operations based on trigger conditions, thereby ensuring that AI is used more safely in DAOs.
4. AI Delegates
AI delegates are a class of artificial intelligence systems that can participate in governance decisions on behalf of token holders. They can analyze proposals, track voting patterns, and make decisions based on preset criteria, thereby promoting the development of more complex and automated governance systems.
5. AI for Design Space Exploration
AI agents greatly improve the efficiency of design space exploration in infinitely complex environments, accelerating the innovation process by automatically generating and evaluating diverse architectural configurations. With huge data sets, context windows, and computing power, AI can quickly optimize design solutions around the clock, and it can identify the best solutions more efficiently than traditional manual methods. This not only speeds up the design process, but also reduces the costs associated with manual exploration, achieving more innovative and economical results.
Example: InfiniteRegen.AI
6. AI for information flow
AI and large language models (LLMs) can simplify the flow of information in a DAO by summarizing the content of discussions or meetings and highlighting the key topics or points of the content for other members to quickly reference. At the same time, they can analyze the roles and interests of members and provide customized information to ensure that each user only receives relevant updates. In addition, AI-driven knowledge graphs can map the resources, discussions, and contributors of a DAO, making it possible to connect the right people with the right information at the right time.
7. Application of AI in Onboarding and Member Management
AI tools are used to simplify the onboarding process in DAOs by reading resumes, assessing the qualifications of new members, and even suggesting roles based on skills and historical performance data. This application reduces human bias and accelerates the integration process of new members in DAOs.
8. AI on-chain capital allocation
AI agents can more effectively perform retrospective capital allocation by integrating data from past financing rounds, proposals, and performance indicators. They can identify underfunded but influential projects through advanced analysis and recommend optimal resource allocation. By automating proposal reviews and prioritizing according to DAO goals, AI ensures that the allocation of funds is both efficient and transparent. 9. DAOs Manage AI DAOs oversee the development of AI to ensure ethical or consistent AI practices. This may involve community-driven governance of AI research and deployment, which may ultimately lead to safer and more responsible AI systems. 10. Swarm Intelligence AI is being tested as a connector between DAOs, agents, and humans, creating a form of swarm intelligence where different entities are able to share knowledge, communicate and coordinate more efficiently, resulting in more efficient collective decision-making than individual members.
Financial Mechanisms
11. Guarantee Contracts
Guarantee contracts create mechanisms for coordinating group action by ensuring that participants will only participate if enough people do. These contracts help solve coordination problems and promote collective action, and are particularly useful for funding public goods or organizing collective efforts.
12. COCM (Connection-Oriented Cluster Matching) Quadratic Funding
This algorithm enhances the traditional quadratic funding model by identifying and reducing collusive behavior among donors. It analyzes clusters of users based on shared attributes or behaviors to detect coordinated groups that attempt to unfairly influence funding outcomes. By adjusting matching funds to account for these patterns of collusion, COCM ensures that resources are allocated more fairly and efficiently to projects that truly have community support.
Example: Gitcoin Grants Stack
13. Reserves
Reserves provide a treasury management system with specific rules, including rules for allocating and spending funds. It can include features such as spending limits, approval requirements, and automatic allocations. The system helps maintain fiscal discipline while ensuring that resources are available when needed.
14. Deepfunding
Deepfunding is an initiative to reward open source contributors by leveraging dependency graphs and a marketplace of AI or human allocators, supplemented by a spot-checking jury, to allocate funds to upstream contributors on projects assessed by funders. It aims to reduce the cognitive burden on funders to make funding decisions more efficiently by scaling high-quality human judgment. The project includes a competition with a total prize of $250,000 to encourage the development of models to assign weights to 40,000 identified Ethereum dependencies.
Example: DeepFunding.Org
15. Direct Contractual Incentives
Guaranteed Contracts + Ensure that contributors will receive additional rewards as a refund if the project does not meet funding goals, thereby incentivizing participation and reducing risk.
Examples: Boost, Royco
16. Lead Guarantee Contracts
Direct Contractual 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. Harberger Tax
Harberger Tax creates a continuous auction mechanism where asset holders must set a sale price and pay a tax based on that price. This creates a balance between efficient resource allocation and fair compensation for current holders. The system helps prevent resource hoarding and ensures assets are used productively.
18. Proof of Impact
Proof of Impact provides verifiable certificates that measure and prove impact in various areas. These systems can track and verify contributions, achievements and results. They help create more transparent and traceable impact assessment systems.
Example: EAS
19. Impact Certificates
An impact certificate is a tradable token that represents proof of the positive impact or value created by an individual or organization in areas such as public goods or social initiatives. It can be sold or redeemed in the future, allowing funders to retroactively incentivize for impactful contributions.
Example: Hypercerts
20. KPI-Based Incentives
KPI-based incentives tie rewards to specific, measurable performance indicators. These systems can automatically adjust rewards based on achieved results. They help create more objective and performance-oriented incentive structures.
Example: Metro
21. Private Quadratic Funding
Private Quadratic Funding combines privacy techniques and quadratic funding mechanisms to prevent collusion. The system allows for democratic funding allocation while protecting voter privacy, helping to ensure that funding decisions reflect true community preferences rather than coordinated voting blocks.
Example: MACI
22. Programmable Fund Flow
Programmable Fund Flow allows payments to flow continuously in real time, rather than as separate transactions. This enables more granular control over the timing and conditions of payments, such as salary flows or payments for services. The system can automatically adjust payment rates based on different conditions or indicators.
Examples: 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 depths based on market conditions and protocol needs. This approach helps maintain stable markets and efficient price discovery without constant human intervention.
Examples: Baseline Markets, Cult DAO
24. Proof of Value
Proof of Value (PoV) is a consensus mechanism proposed by Thrive Protocol to measure and verify the actual impact of contributions in the blockchain ecosystem. It uses expert validators (called "Guardians") to evaluate contributions based on criteria such as code quality, financial outcomes, and content accuracy. This ensures fair and efficient distribution of funds, and rewards contributors based on the value they provide.
Example: Thrive Protocol
25. Quadratic Funding + Bonding Curve
This system combines the democratic allocation of quadratic funding with the price discovery mechanism of a bonding curve. The integration creates a dynamic funding system that responds to market signals while maintaining a democratic element. It helps balance efficient capital allocation with community preferences.
Example: q/acc by giveth
26. Retroactive Funding
Retroactive funding rewards value creation after the fact, rather than funding future, predictive work. This approach reduces the risk of funding ineffective work and creates stronger incentives for valuable contributions. It helps solve the public goods funding problem by rewarding proven value creation.
Example: Optimism Retro Funding, EasyRetroPGF.xyz
27. Revenue Routing
Revenue routing systems automatically allocate revenue to different stakeholders or uses based on predetermined rules or formulas. These systems can handle complex allocation patterns, such as allocating revenue between contributors, treasuries, and liquidity providers in real time. Automation reduces administrative overhead and ensures transparent and predictable allocation of funds.
Example: RevNets.app
28. Labor Equity
Labor equity systems assign ownership based on work contribution rather than capital investment. These systems can track and assess different types of contributions, valuing them over time. They help create more equitable ownership structures based on actual value creation.
Example: Collabberry
Governance Model
29. Compound v2
Compound v2 governance introduces complex mechanisms to manage DeFi protocols, including delayed execution, timelocks, and delegation. The system allows for both regular parameter adjustments and major protocol changes. It also includes security features to prevent malicious proposals while maintaining flexibility.
Examples: 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. Conviction Voting
Conviction voting weights votes based on how long voters have held their positions, encouraging long-term thinking and reducing vote manipulation. Voters accumulate vote weight over time and can apply it to different proposals. This system helps prevent short-term speculation and encourages more thoughtful decision making.
Example: 1Hive
32. Decentralized Arbitration
Decentralized arbitration provides on-chain systems for resolving disputes between parties. These systems typically use jury pools and economic incentives to ensure fair decisions. They help build stronger and self-improving governance systems.
Example: Kleros
33. Deliberate-Before-Decide Governance
Deliberate-Before-Decide governance emphasizes structured discussion and consensus building before a formal vote. This approach helps ensure that decisions are well thought out and widely supported, leading to better decisions and stronger community cohesion.
Examples: 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 different decision types. The system helps balance efficiency and safety in governance.
Examples: Lido Finance, Optimism Bicameral Governance (Token House and Citizens House)
35. EigenGov
EigenGov is EigenLayer's governance system, which puts decision-making power in the hands of a committee of domain experts while giving EIGEN token holders the ultimate veto power. This structure ensures that people who actively participate in the ecosystem drive daily operations, while maintaining a balance between expert insight and community oversight.
Example: EigenGov
36. Holographic Consensus
Holographic Consensus creates a scalable decision-making system that can handle a large number of proposals while maintaining quality. The system uses various mechanisms to efficiently screen and prioritize proposals, solving the scalability problems of traditional governance systems.
Example: DAO Stack
37. Liquid Democracy
Liquid democracy allows voters to vote directly or delegate voting rights to others, who can delegate further. This flexible system combines direct and representative democracy to help balance participation and expertise in governance.
38. New Voting Strategies
Advanced voting mechanisms go beyond simple token-weighted voting and include various weighting schemes (such as quadratic voting), quorum requirements, and voting periods. Capable of taking into account factors such as a voter’s reputation, stake duration, or expertise, these strategies aim to improve decision quality while maintaining fair participation.
Example: Snapshot Labs
39. On-chain/off-chain connectors
These systems create a bridge between on-chain governance and legal entities, enabling hybrid structures that combine blockchain and traditional legal frameworks. This allows DAOs to interact more effectively with traditional legal systems, helping DAOs operate better in the real world.
Example: BORGs
40. OP Governance
OP governance allows actions to be automatically executed without being challenged. This approach reduces the governance overhead of routine decisions while maintaining security through a challenge mechanism. It is particularly suitable for low-stakes and frequent decisions.
41. Reputation Voting
Reputation voting assigns voting power 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 to different roles in a DAO, similar to different 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 earn 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 when applying rules, rather than relying solely on mechanical execution. This provides more flexibility and contextual awareness to the governance system, helping it handle complex situations that cannot be solved by simple algorithms.
Example: Q Blockchain
44. Sybil-resistant voting
Sybil-resistant voting mechanisms ensure the integrity of voting by preventing individuals from gaining additional voting power through multiple identities. These systems may use human proof, identity verification, or other verification methods to ensure that voting results reflect the true will of the community and are not manipulated.
Examples: Gitcoin Passport, Worldcoin
45. De-governance
De-governance 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 is more like a vending machine than a democracy, with clear rules and predictable results.
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 will be rewarded, thereby incentivizing the community to maintain the integrity of the information.
47. Decentralized News Insurance
A platform where users can collectively contribute to insure the accuracy of news stories. Investigative journalists or fact checkers can apply for funds from the pool to verify or refute a news story. If the news is proven to be false, the funds will be returned to the investor; if it is verified to be true, the investigator will be rewarded.
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 and help align governance decisions with expected outcomes.
Example
: Butter.money
49. Dynamically Valued Knowledge NFTs
Create tokenized forms of verified knowledge (NFTs) that increase in value as more independent validators confirm their accuracy and usefulness. Institutions or individuals can purchase these NFTs for proof of high-quality data or expertise.
50. Proof of Impact Prediction Market
A prediction market that tracks and rewards the correctness of predicted outcomes and the subsequent impact of an event. For example, forecasts about technology adoption can incorporate metrics like user growth or economic impact, generating richer data sets that support long-term decision making. 51. Reputation-Based Lending Systems In this type of financial system, the ability of an individual or entity to obtain loans and credit is determined by their dynamically updated reputation score. These scores are based on community feedback and verified information. 52. Tokenized Research Funding A system where researchers propose projects and the community funds them by purchasing tokens. The success and impact of the research will affect the value of the token, aligning economic incentives with the production of valuable knowledge.
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 provides an updated operating system for creating and managing DAOs with more flexible functions. The system includes advanced permission management, plugin architecture, and governance tools, with the goal of making the creation and management of DAOs easier while retaining the complexity and functionality of the system.
Example: Aragon Project
55. Cross-chain asset management, voting, and token transfer
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. 56. MolochDAO v3 MolochDAO v2 introduced “loot,” non-voting rights that allowed for a more flexible membership structure, and added support for the treasury to hold multiple ERC-20 tokens, going beyond the single-token limit of v1. Additionally, v2 introduced “forced ragequit,” which removes inactive or malicious members. MolochDAO v2.5 further improves on v2 by integrating “minions,” which enable the DAO to interact with external smart contracts through a single proposal. 57. Zodiac Modules Zodiac modules provide a modular smart contract system that allows DAOs to add or modify governance functionality without changing the core structure. These modules can be combined like building blocks to create customized governance systems. The modular nature enables DAOs to evolve their governance structure over time without having to completely refactor. 58. Activity DAOs Activity DAOs are organized around specific activities or goals, rather than general governance. These DAOs have a focused mission and specialized governance mechanisms, creating more effective organizations for specific goals.
Examples: PizzaDAO, Blunt DAO, Sauna DAO
59. Composable Governance
Composable governance allows different governance mechanisms to be combined and interact in a defined way. This approach creates flexible systems that can adapt to different needs and scenarios, helping DAOs build more complex and nuanced governance systems.
60. Modular Governance
Modular governance creates a layered structure with sub-DAOs and side-DAOs, enabling them to operate semi-independently. This approach enables more specialized and efficient governance at different levels while maintaining coordination as a whole. 61. Pods In DAOs, Pods (introduced by Orca) are small, autonomous teams with specific responsibilities designed to improve coordination and decision-making within an organization. Pods enable decentralized governance by delegating authority to manageable, composable subgroups. Example: Orca 62. Self-Managed Registry A self-managed registry is a dynamic list of core contributors maintained collectively. It enables transparency and adaptability by allowing members to collectively update the registry as roles and contributions change.
Examples: Protocol Guild and other Guilds
63. Clusters
In DAOs, Clusters (introduced by rnDAO) are flexible, task-oriented teams that spontaneously form to complete a specific project or task. They operate in a flexible and autonomous manner, enabling contributors to collaborate dynamically without the need for a formal hierarchy.
Example: rnDAO
Token Economics
64. Dynamic Unlock
Dynamic unlocking creates a flexible token vesting schedule that can be adjusted based on various metrics or conditions. Unlike simple time-based vesting, tokens can be unlocked based on project milestones, market conditions, or participant behavior. This approach helps align incentives and adapt to changing environments.
65. Governance Staking
In order to participate in governance, tokens must be locked, which helps strengthen alignment mechanisms. This system helps create more sustainable token economic models.
Examples: Unichain, Arbitrum Governance, Tally Staking
66. Restaking
Restaking connects staked assets to governance rights, strengthening the connection between economic stake and voting rights. The mechanism can include multiple ways to manage staking and voting rights, helping to more closely align economic and governance incentives.
67. Social Token Distribution
This approach distributes tokens based on social media activity and engagement, creating a more organic and contribution-based distribution model. It can take into account factors such as content creation, community engagement, and trust networks, helping to align token allocations with actual community contributions and impact.
Examples: 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 provide features such as fair launches, progressive distribution, and price discovery, helping to prevent common problems such as price manipulation and excessive concentration of tokens.
Example: Pump.fun
69. Ve/Gauge Governance
Ve/Gauge governance combines voting lock-up tokens with metered weighted emissions to create a complex token distribution system. In order to participate in governance, tokens must be locked, which further strengthens the alignment of incentives and helps to build a more sustainable token economic model.
Examples: Aerodrome, Mode, Puffer, Pendle