Archer DAO Governance

Learn more about the network’s ownership economy

The Archer network is owned by its users. Network governance, or how individual stakeholders come together to make decisions, is the critical foundation for building long-term, sustainable value that benefits the network and broader ecosystem.

Archer DAO is the tool that allows network owners to own the network and make decisions. The smart contract architecture is designed for flexibility given the technical challenges of managing a highly dynamic system.

The Ownership Economy of Archer DAO

Crypto networks starting with Bitcoin use ownership as a tool for adoption and retention (e.g. mining BTC). We have chosen to follow a similar path for Archer, which relies on specialist users.

Miners, suppliers and liquidity providers all allow the Archer network to function. And each user stands to own the network based on their contributions. Achieving the full scope of Archer depends on a wide and strategic formation of members.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are maturing into useful tools for aligning members of internet communities. As discussed in our introductory post, the Archer network affects Ethereum users even external to Archer’s active users. Tokenized ownership allows any stakeholder, including external ones, to acquire a louder voice in the network.

Recent DAOs also demonstrate iterative product development without compromising on trust. It is more common than ever for DAOs to own and manage smart contracts.

Smart Contract Ownership and Progressive Decentralization

Archer DAO owns all of the smart contracts in the Archer network. Initially, the founding Archer Team will help manage these contracts through a multisig. Over time, the management will be fully handed over to the DAO.

Smart contracts in the Archer network include:

• 🛰 Dispatcher — stores deposits, executes opportunities and collects revenue
• 🏦 Treasury — stores assets owned by the DAO
• 💎 Voting Power Prism — stores staked tokens and voting power snapshots
• 💼 Token Supply Manager — mints and burns tokens, updates token metadata

These smart contracts are upgradable, meaning they can adapt over time in response to the network’s needs. Some upgrades (e.g. changing the token supply) have additional restrictions like timelocks and hardcoded limitations.

ARCH Governance Tokens Determine Voting Power

Voting power in Archer DAO is determined by Archer DAO Governance Tokens (ARCH). Holders must stake ARCH to activate each token’s voting power.

Voting power allows users to:

• Access private chat channels where the future of the network is discussed
• Vote on proposals that impact the network
• Create proposals to improve the network

ARCH Token Features

ARCH is an ERC-20 token designed to be both gas efficient and flexible.

Notably, the ARCH token supply is not hardcoded — the DAO may choose to inflate or burn tokens, according to hardcoded limits.

ARCH also includes support for the latest token advancements for “gasless” meta-transactions and approvals (see EIP-2612, EIP-3009). These features are especially useful in the context of a DAO focused on executing arbitrage and other strategies where gas efficiency impacts the profitability of the network.

A Flexible Governance Architecture: Introducing the Voting Power Prism

ARCH tokens are staked in the Voting Power Prism. The Voting Power Prism is an upgradable contract designed to manage voting power snapshots without compromising on the system’s upgradability and gas efficiency.

The Voting Power Prism accomplishes several technical goals for Archer DAO:

• Forms snapshots of voting balances at specific blocks, to prevent flash attacks where large holders quickly enter the ecosystem to sway a given vote and then exit
• Keeps gas cost of ARCH token transfers low because snapshot functionality is provided by this contract and not by the token contract
• Allows for logic upgrades for the voting power calculations without changing the ARCH token and without losing historical snapshots

Governance on Ethereum is constantly evolving. And with this flexible architecture, Archer DAO can evolve with it. For example, this architecture allows the DAO to add new features like vote delegation and support for staking other tokens (e.g. Uniswap LP tokens) without impacting the existing voting power snapshots and staked balances.

Open-Source Governance Code Available Now

The Archer DAO token and governance code is open-source software released under the MIT license. Review our smart contracts on Github and join Discord to learn more.