• GnosisDAO uses futarchy (prediction markets) to guide proposals, and anyone can participate by joining the Gnosis Forum.
• After initialization, GnosisDAO is to have effective control over 150K ETH and 8 Million GNO Tokens, with the GNO Tokens vested over 8 years.
• The first proposals to GnosisDAO include distributing GNO to active participants, introducing a SAFE Token for governance, and developing Gnosis Protocol.
• In the GnosisDAO governance process, the final phase opens proposals to two signaling methods using GNO Tokens.

Now for the vision…

“If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”
Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space (1954)

Gnosis was founded in 2015 with the aim to build prediction markets that enable worldwide access to accurate information. Five years later, our technology powers decentralized prediction market platforms¹, and we’re ready to embark on the next giant leap of the journey: GnosisDAO.

The phrase prediction markets could belong to the realm of science fiction. Yet today, prediction markets can be used to forecast elections, wager on deadlines, and model public confidence during pandemics. Just as markets act as price finding mechanisms, prediction markets can excel at finding accurate information through providing economic value to those who possess it.

When we began at Gnosis, the potential of prediction markets as a public good was clear. Today, it is a necessity. Amidst a sea of disinformation campaigns, decentralized and unstoppable prediction markets will prove a critical counterforce. Prediction markets can, however, go one step further. Rather than only surfacing information, prediction markets can be used to guide decisions on the events they propose.

In 2000, a short manifesto by Robin Hanson appeared on the curious term of “futarchy” and how we might improve human governance. The text suggests combining prediction markets that accurately inform policy decisions with conditional metrics based on public welfare. By using prediction markets to guide governance, an organization can combine their objectives with public expertise and at the same time, enable a broader community to share in their successes. While acknowledging markets could introduce some biases for the ones they replace, they hold the potential to more transparently align public interest with economic value over time. This form of governance known as “futarchy,” or governance by prediction markets, is at the heart of why they are important to us at Gnosis.

The road to futarchy has been long, but steady. An integral part of the futarchy hypothesis rests on prediction markets being permissionless — that is, open for anyone to participate. For this reason, we have spent the last five years working on the necessary technical building blocks to enable permissionless prediction markets. While we have seen the Ethereum ecosystem bloom, it has been clear that core components needed development. To date, our core product suite has addressed the issues of prediction market conditionality, liquidity, and fund management.

In addition to developing our core products, we have substantially supported infrastructure required for prediction markets. This includes utilizing:

• Reality.eth, a crowd-sourced oracle;
• Kleros, a dispute resolution layer;
• xDai, an Ethereum sidechain designed for fast and inexpensive transactions;
• OpenEthereum, the fast, light, and robust client for Ethereum;
• Last but far from least, the DXdao organization, a successful proof-of-concept project to enable decentralized finance projects to exit to community governance.

Now that it’s 2020, we’ve assembled the puzzle pieces of core infrastructure, and bringing a new synergy to our product suite, we’re ready to move on to our most ambitious innovation to date: GnosisDAO.

GnosisDAO and the Future of GNO

What if a community could share in an entire ecosystem’s success? With the rise of decentralized finance on Ethereum, we’ve seen users share in the growth of decentralized protocols. The successes of both Compound and Uniswap in progressive decentralization have been inspiring, and it has become clear that it is equally important to decentralize both technical and governance layers for products in the web 3.0 ecosystem.

Gnosis has taken a different approach to a similar end — with decentralization maximalism at its heart from the beginning. In 2019, we initialized the DXdao, a decentralized organization with over 400 stakeholders that develops, governs, and grows decentralized finance protocols and products. After initializing the DXdao, Gnosis stepped back, and we have seen a flourishing community grow in our wake. Today, the DXdao describes itself as a sovereign collective, and they maintain leading decentralized finance applications on Ethereum, including Omen Prediction Markets and the Mesa trading dapp. The DXdao validated our hypotheses that communities are ready to develop, govern, and grow the software they use, and that a governance token can be successfully leveraged to support a decentralized organization.

Today, we are happy to announce the natural next evolution in our roadmap: not only to progressively decentralize Gnosis through community participation, but to use the very products we’ve built to bring decentralized governance to our token ecosystem.

GnosisDAO is the prediction market-driven collective. The mission of GnosisDAO is to successfully steward the Gnosis ecosystem through futarchy: governance by prediction markets.

While the history of electronic prediction markets for corporate governance dates back decades, GnosisDAO’s application of permissionless prediction markets to organizational governance will set precedents for their use. This means, however, testing the mechanics and establishing cultural norms of decentralized futarchy will take time, which is why the initiative will begin in the form of a minimum viable futarchy network. GnosisDAO will use our prediction market technology to transparently guide decisions on development, support, and governance. Let’s dive into an overview of how the futarchy mechanism works.

Every proposal begins as a post on the Gnosis Forum, and every successful proposal must pass through three phases. For each proposal in the final phase, prediction markets will surface the projected price impact on GNO if the proposal is accepted. In practice, this means two prediction markets corresponding to the proposal will be funded by GnosisDAO:

1. Prediction market on the proposal collateralized in GNO
2. Prediction market on the proposal collateralized in a stablecoin

From these two prediction markets, the projected price impact on GNO if the proposal is accepted can be calculated, by expressing the difference between projected prices of GNO if the proposal is accepted or not as a percentage. While this may sound complex, Gnosis has created a simple to use tool precisely for this use case called Gnosis Impact. The Gnosis Impact app displays the projected price impact of an event on a correlated digital asset, derived from prediction market prices on the Omen platform. For example, we can look at two prediction markets currently on Omen, which differ only in their collateral:

• Will Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 launch before 2021? This prediction market is collateralized in (W)ETH, which is correlated to the development of Ethereum.
• Will Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 launch before 2021? This prediction market is collateralized in USDC.

By entering these markets into the Gnosis Impact app, it can easily display the projected price impact on ETH of the Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 launching before 2021:

The predicted impact on ETH is calculated to be 22.84%. To learn more about the concept behind how Gnosis Impact works, check out the Gnosis Impact: Explainer blog post. This app can be used by anyone as a futarchy plugin on the GnosisDAO Snapshot space to facilitate governance by prediction markets. The first proposal to GnosisDAO using Gnosis Impact is live here: GIP-1: One-time 5% GNO airdrop to active GnosisDAO participants.

Like in the example above, GnosisDAO will use this app for each proposal in the final phase, by creating the corresponding prediction markets and embedding the Gnosis Impact app directly in proposals. These prediction markets will be funded using a new GnosisDAO Gnosis Safe Multisig, which will initially hold 1,000 ETH and 20,000 GNO from the Gnosis treasury.

Using prediction markets, GnosisDAO participants can apply the projected impact on GNO as a futarchy metric to guide their decision-making. The projected price impact of proposals informing decisions serves to strongly correlate the value of GNO with the activities of GnosisDAO. However, not only does using Gnosis Impact align development with GNO, funding prediction markets will also be one means of progressively distributing GNO, potentially rewarding community participants for signaling in prediction markets. GnosisDAO will decide how to progressively decentralize control, as well as how to further implement a robust, well-tested futarchy mechanism over time.

How to Participate

GnosisDAO is a living entity that will evolve over time. Launching as a minimum viable futarchy network, it utilizes existing governance tools optimized for frictionless community participation in addition to our product suite.

To start participating today, it’s as easy as joining the Gnosis Forum and getting involved in proposals’ comments discussion.

The GnosisDAO governance process is primarily conducted using the GnosisDAO category on the Gnosis Forum, and every successful proposal must pass through three phases, including, in the final phase, using the Gnosis Impact app described above and a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll. The governance process is permissionless, with the only requirement that community members hold a minimum of 1 GNO to participate in the GnosisDAO Snapshot poll that decides a proposal’s outcome. To jump start the conversation, GnosisDAO has launched with three pending proposals:

• One-time 5% GNO airdrop to active GnosisDAO participants
• Should Gnosis establish a governance token for Gnosis Safe?
• Should Gnosis Build Gnosis Protocol v2?

To start participating today, it’s as easy as joining the Gnosis Forum and getting involved in the comments discussion. For a more detailed overview on all aspects of how to participate in GnosisDAO, check out the GnosisDAO Governance Process post and the Governance Tutorial post. While we hope these initial proposals prove fruitful, we also encourage Gnosis community members to participate by submitting their own proposals. These could address topics such as: On which Ethereum Layer 2 solutions should GnosisDAO focus development? What role should OWL play in Gnosis products? How should GnosisDAO forum moderation be decided? Last but not least, what are the cultural values of GnosisDAO?

Not limited to Gnosis products, proposals can extend to the broader ecosystem through support, establishing a correlation between GNO and portfolio projects. Ultimately, GnosisDAO will test the limits of what the world’s first decentralized, permissionless, and prediction market-driven collective for resource allocation can do. After initialization, GnosisDAO is to have effective control over on-chain assets, including:

• 150k ETH (~83% of the current ETH treasury)
• 8Million GNO with an 8-year linear vesting period to maintain a predictable supply (~93% of the current GNO treasury)

The remaining treasury funds not allocated to GnosisDAO will be used to finance the operations of Gnosis Ltd. for two years, during which Gnosis Ltd. will continue developing software to support GnosisDAO. This includes 0.5Million GNO with a 5-year linear vesting period allocated to Gnosis Ltd., partially for staff incentivization. Given Gnosis Ltd.’s reputation for engineering expertise, it only makes sense that the team will be well-suited, as a contributor amongst many decentralized contributors, for delivering on GnosisDAO proposals. After this two year period, Gnosis Ltd. will rely on GnosisDAO for further funding.

Permissionless innovation is at the heart of our values, and we believe the progressive decentralization toward an autonomous GnosisDAO will support the cultivation of an equitable, adaptable, and ambitious community over time.

The conversation with our community doesn’t end here. Join our Gnosis Discord Server and the Gnosis Forum to take part. 🦉

Additional Resources

• README: GnosisDAO Governance Process
• GnosisDAO Governance Tutorial
• Gnosis Forum
• Omen Prediction Markets
• Gnosis Impact: Explainer
• GnosisDAO Snapshot space
• GnosisDAO website

[1]: Omen Prediction Markets and Polymarket

Legal Disclaimer: This blog post is for informative purposes only. The plans outlined herein may need to be (re)structured in accordance with applicable laws or regulatory developments as well as technical and governance considerations. We accordingly reserve the right to change our plans. This blog post should not be taken as the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation to engage in any transactions. You are solely responsible for your own investment decisions and transactions.

With the advent of a standard for defining cryptocurrencies in Ethereum comes the possibility of building a decentralized currency exchange into the blockchain. This exchange could be used as both an incorruptible liquidity provider for token markets and a source of token pricing information. My colleagues at Gnosis and I teamed up to build this exchange.

Making an Automated Market Maker

Given the nature of an Ethereum contract, we had to come up with an automated market maker. These market makers are often useful in settings like prediction markets, where their pricing of options reflects the market’s belief in a statement prior to its resolution. For example, suppose that Alice and Bob are both running for election in Chandlerton. An automated market maker could make a prediction market for the outcome of the election, pricing the shares for A and B accordingly so that they reflect the market’s evaluation of the election, and so that when the election in C resolves, the market maker, if not profitable, at worst sustains a limited loss from payouts for A and B.

However, unlike a prediction market, which can provide a virtually unlimited amount of option shares that have a standardized price (e.g. from $0.01-$1.00 corresponding to belief in outcome odds), an exchange only has a finite supply of tokens to trade, all of which may be priced arbitrarily against each other. Just consider the exchange rate of BTC and USD, which has ballooned from 1 USD/BTC to 1000 USD/BTC in its history. These conditions mean that the market maker for a decentralized exchange has to behave differently from a market maker for prediction markets.

An Example

Let’s say our exchange market maker’s name is Dexter.

Dexter has 100 Pennycoin (PNY) and 100 Icecreamcoin (ICM). We will call these assets Dexter’s liquidity pool. Dexter needs this to provide liquidity to the PNY-ICM exchange he’s handling.

Alice wants to buy some ICM from Dexter with her PNY. Dexter quotes a price for ICM in terms of PNY. Since he wants to keep some PNY and ICM no matter what, the more ICM Alice is buying, the more PNY Dexter will want to charge per ICM so Alice doesn’t empty Dexter’s liquidity pool of ICM. Because of this, the price of ICM should go towards infinity as the ICM in the liquidity pool goes to zero.

Here is a potential price function of ICM, where q is the quantity of a particular asset held in Dexter’s liquidity pool:

This function displays the desired divergence property, but it isn’t immediately obvious how to actually price ICM with this function. Furthermore, a problem remains: how can Dexter be assured that he can continue trading PNY and ICM indefinitely with this method?

Invariants, and Where To Find Them

What Dexter wants is an invariant: some abstract quantity which permits him to trade and doesn’t change as Dexter performs the trades. This quantity should depend on the parameters which can change: namely Dexter’s liquidity pool. Also, it may be good if this invariant quantity displays special behaviors for when the quantity of ICM or PNY goes to zero.

Here’s a simple one that could work:

Let’s give that a shot! Suppose Dexter still has 100 ICM and 100 PNY. That means our invariant is

Alice says “Yo Dexter, I got 50 PNY. How much ICM will you give me for that?”

Dexter thinks to himself, if p is the amount of PNY Alice is giving me for ICM, then I can figure out i, the amount of ICM I should give her while keeping the invariant the same with this equation:

Some algebra later…

And Dexter tells Alice “I’ll give you 33 ICM for 50 PNY.”

What Does Alice Want?

Alice has some ICM and PNY. One might suppose she assigns a value to these things. Maybe she likes having ICM twice as much as she likes having PNY. We can model this situation: let’s give each PNY Alice is holding one Alicepoint and each ICM she is holding two Alicepoints. Go ask Alice: her modus operandi is to maximize these Alicepoints.

Let’s say Dexter has 100 ICM and 100 PNY in his liquidity pool again. Alice wants to maximize those Alicepoints, and she’s got a whole bunch of PNY. Alice wants to know p, the amount of PNY she should trade with Dexter for ICM so that her net Alicepoint score is most increased. We see that the change in Alicepoints A due to the trade can be expressed as

Let’s plug in the values from the liquidity pool and plot this thing:

We can see here that the gain in Alicepoints achieves a max around 40 PNY somewhere. Applying a little calculus and solving

helps us find exactly how much PNY she should trade:

and how much ICM she should expect from Dexter:

So Alice trades 41 PNY for 29 ICM with Dexter and absconds with her acquisition. Where does this leave Dexter?

Well, he now has 141 PNY and 71 ICM. Thanks to some favorable rounding, the invariant has actually increased by 11 for Dexter, but if there wasn’t any rounding, Dexter would be at 141.421 PNY and 70.710 ICM… that is, he seems to have twice as many PNY as he does ICM now. This is no coincidence, and a little algebra will show that

In fact, for the preceding argument, even the factor 2 can be generalized to any number greater than zero. That is to say, when Alice seeks to maximize her value trading with Dexter, Dexter learns how Alice values the assets being traded.

Another Perspective

As mentioned earlier, Dexter must have a liquidity pool which satisfies

Another way to say this is that if Dexter has q_P PNY tokens in his liquidity pool, he must have q_I ICM tokens, where the following relationship is satisfied:

If we take q_P to be a parameter, then the above doubles as a cost function for ICM in terms of PNY, that is, i, the amount of ICM Dexter parts with when given p PNY such that

satisfies

As we take p → 0, we get a familiar looking marginal price function

In Alice’s case, after her trade with Dexter, this marginal price function reports that the price of ICM is 2 PNY, expressing exactly Alice’s 2x preference for ICM. If Alice bought any more ICM, she would have raised the marginal price, causing her to pay more than 2 PNY per unit ICM, and thus causing a net loss in Alicepoints. This is another reason why Dexter ended up with a liquidity pool reflecting Alice’s preferences.

Generalizations

The invariant perspective yields a couple of natural generalizations for this market maker. One such generalization extends the market maker to work for n tokens simultaneously. Simply change the invariant to the following:

This is a straightforward multivariate version of the two token situation. One may parameterize this class of market maker further by introducing powers:

However, these generalizations introduce considerable complexity to the model and thus present difficulties for implementation in an on-chain contract.

Technical Details in Giving Robots Money

We at Gnosis are building a decentralized exchange as an Ethereum contract. It accepts any ERC20 token pair and will provide the aforementioned exchange service between these tokens. Anybody can make an exchange which automatically trades between an arbitrary pair of tokens if they provide it with a liquidity pool of these tokens.

We chose not to generalize the model to multiple-token exchanges:

1. While theoretically the calculations will work, there is a finite amount of memory that may be practically manipulated. Bignum arithmetic is both complex and potentially resource hungry.
2. The simpler this is, the easier it will be to conduct a comprehensive security audit of the code, and the more likely it will be secure.
3. Bots will be incentivized to conduct arbitrage between market pairs, causing prices to converge to the multiple token scenario anyway.
4. Allowing arbitrary tokens to enter existing exchanges will incentivize hackers to create tokens solely for the purpose of draining the exchange’s liquidity pool.

This decentralized exchange can also serve as a price oracle native to the Ethereum blockchain. In fact, recall that the price of one token in terms of another may be expressed as a ratio of the quantities in the liquidity pool!

Using this data raw, however, can leave contracts prone to manipulation. Somebody with enough resources can make a large trade on the exchange, thus changing the liquidity pools to reflect some price, doing something with those contracts (but now with the manipulated price), and trading back on the exchange.

To solve this problem, we use a low-resource kernel smoother to smooth out the price data. The smoother simply moves the price to the new value over the course of a day. In the time in between, the price manipulator would risk losing considerable assets from exchange participants moving the price point back towards the true market value.

Fin

Keep your eyes peeled for the launch of our decentralized exchange, and thank you for reading!

2022 was a definitive year for blockchain. The cultural values of the industry as a whole were put under scrutiny with the implosion of major crypto funds and exchanges due to criminal behavior. Yet, the value of self custody became painfully obvious to many who trusted centralized entities that turned out to be, well, extremely untrustworthy.

The U.S. Treasury Department, in a dramatic display of overreach, sanctioned the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, 45 Ethereum addresses associated with its operations, and arrested the lead protocol developer. As a whole, 2022 was a year in which the importance of privacy and censorship resistance were re-enforced.

This is all set against the backdrop of economic headwinds, confusion as the world continues to deal with COVID-19, and a protracted war in Europe. This is not our first nor our last experience in the doldrums of the hype cycles that seem to track time in crypto. In fact, it’s when the great cleanse ensues that we’re given the gift of stillness. A time to apply first principle thinking, to revisit assumptions, improve upon the narrative and ultimately, build.

And that’s exactly what we did in 2022. The events of this year strengthened our conviction about the importance of building credibly neutral infrastructure as we focused on building the Gnosis Chain. It is the most important step towards ensuring that everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, has access to what we build. Without such an infrastructure in place, how can we resiliently coordinate with each other to face the myriad of challenges before us? This is why we worked hard this year on growing the community of validators securing the Gnosis Chain by making the process user-friendly and financially accessible. As a community-run public blockchain, secured by hundreds of thousands of validators, Gnosis Chain is committed to being the most resilient and unstoppable network available. We were guided by this mission in 2022 and we will continue this pursuit well into the future as we introduce new mechanisms to further decentralize the Gnosis Chain.

The GnosisDAO also continued down its path of progressive decentralization this year with the spin off of teams forming their own DAOs (Safe and Cow). New working groups emerged with the Gnosis Builders coming online to steward the Gnosis Chain ecosystem and Factor, a web3 venture fund strategically managing investments for the treasury.

This year was nothing short of monumental for Gnosis. It was packed with landmark developments and accomplishments.

Gnosis Merge

Certainly the most significant event this year was the Gnosis Merge. The Merge replaced the legacy Proof-of-Authority consensus (PoA) with the open and unpermissioned Beacon Chain Consensus. The Merge transitioned Gnosis to a fully decentralized and permissionless Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network secured by approximately 111,111 validators making it the third most decentralized network behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. Notably, Epoch 0 of the Gnosis Beacon Chain launched on December 08, 2021 at 19:55 UTC ~ exactly one year before Gnosis Chain reached Total Terminal Difficulty and merged! To learn more about the Gnosis Merge, please visit our new website here.

Gnosis.io

Earlier in the year we worked with creative studio XXIX to re-imagine the visual identity of Gnosis. The overall aesthetic is a solarpunk vision of the near future that emphasizes a culture of abundance. It’s what our lives might look like if we manage to solve the coordination failures around major contemporary challenges such as climate change. Recently, we applied the brand guidelines to our new website gnosis.io.

GnosisDAO GIPs

This year the GnosisDAO saw 52 Gnosis Improvement Proposals (GIPs). That’s nearly twice the amount of GIPs from 2021! Many proposals this year were related to the development of the Gnosis Chain ecosystem.

• Cow Spin Off — 6 January 2022

Gnosis Protocol rebranded to Cow Protocol (CowSwap) and spun off into the CowDAO with the COW governance token! Cow Protocol is a fully permissionless trading protocol that leverages Batch Auctions for matching orders. The Protocol is uniquely designed to maximize liquidity via Coincidence of Wants (CoWs) as well as allowing a flexible use of additional liquidity sources whenever needed.

• Gnosis Guild and the Zodiac Protocol — 2 February 2022

The DAO continued to fund Gnosis Guild and the maintenance of the Zodiac open standard for DAOs. A composable design philosophy for DAOs, Zodiac is a collection of tools built according to an open standard. Zodiac enables DAOs to act more like constellations, connecting platforms, protocols, and chains, no longer confined to monolithic designs.

• GNO Token Burn and GIP-35–3 February 2022

The community voted to improve economics and clarity of GNO rules by burning 68% (6.8MM GNO) of the total supply (10MM GNO). The GIP formally vetoed the GnosisDAO treasury from voting, giving more voting power to GNO holders.

• Safe Spin Off — 9 February 2022

In a similar fashion as CowDAO in 2021, the Gnosis Safe team spun off, rebranded to Safe, and formed the SafeDAO. An industry standard, Safe is a multi-signature smart contract wallet that allows users to define a list of owner/signer accounts and a threshold number of signers required to confirm a transaction. Once the threshold of owner accounts have confirmed a transaction, the Safe transaction can be executed.

• Ecosystem Fund — 13 April 2022

The GnosisDAO voted to fund the Gnosis Builders; a concerted ecosystem development effort to support developers and projects building on the Gnosis Chain with investments, grants, technical support, business development and marketing.

• Erigon — 13 April 2022

The GnosisDAO voted to partner with Erigon to run on Gnosis Chain for at least three years. Erigon is an Ethereum client built to enable performance optimizations and brings client diversity to Gnosis Chain, a critical component of maintaining the decentralization of the network.

• Nethermind — 24 May 2022

The DAO also voted to partner with Nethermind to run on Gnosis Chain for over three years. Nethermind provides client support for node operators on Gnosis Chain. The partnership also ensures client diversity and, therefore, the resilience of Gnosis Chain.

• Praise Reward System — 25 May 2022

Community members put together a proposal to implement the Praise Reward System, designed by Giveth, for the Gnosis Chain validator channel on Discord. Praise gives validators the ability to earn GNO for helping others with troubleshooting issues with running a node.

• MakerDAO — 3 June 2022

Karpatkey authored a proposal regarding a strategic partnership between the GnosisDAO and MakerDAO to benefit the Gnosis Chain ecosystem. GnosisDAO and MakerDAO both share a vision of using DAI to build a decentralized digital global economy that is fair, transparent and efficient. To learn more about the proposal read here and here.

• Succinct Bridge — 30 June 2022

Succinct Labs and the 0xParc community proposed to build a zkSNARK-enabled bridge for the Gnosis Chain native bridges. Gnosis’ native bridges allow for sending tokens and data, and are currently run by a group of trusted bridge validators. This proposal moves the Gnosis Chain towards trustless bridges, a significant innovation. Gnosis’ native bridges are first-class citizens in the chain’s architecture due to the native xDai bridge’s integral role in minting and burning the native xDai token used for gas.

• Bootnode — 29 July 2022

The Bootnode team onboarded as a core contributor of the DAO to support the growth of the Gnosis Chain ecosystem for a 6 month engagement. The team has worked closely with all involved parties to maintain and improve the bridge solutions that empower the Gnosis Chain. Bootnode has also worked to improve the Circles infrastructure, a project associated with the GnosisDAO community. Lastly, BootNode setup and ran the Gnosis Chain full-stack (validator nodes and bridges) focusing on the Gnosis Beacon Chain in preparation for The Gnosis Merge.

• Gateway — 18 October 2022

Gateway.fm authored a proposal to build and support resilient infrastructure for the Gnosis Chain. Gateway.fm provides geographically-distributed enterprise infrastructure built for speed, scale and stability. Their work will extend into 2023.

• Agnostic Relay — 30 November 2022

Agnostic Relay — an open-source MEV Boost relay available to anyone, anywhere in the world, without prejudice or privilege. It is a credibly neutral tool for the Ethereum ecosystem through which any and all transactions may be validated unfiltered on the network.

2023

In the trilemma of scalability, decentralization and security, Gnosis is committed to decentralization. Post-merge and in addition to emphasizing geographic distribution of validators, Gnosis will track a number of key metrics to measure the decentralization of the network. Unique deposit addresses, nodes in the network, and client diversity are all critical aspects of ensuring that Gnosis is the most decentralized public blockchain available.

Other technical proposals to ensure that the Gnosis Chain becomes even more resilient in 2023 are base layer solutions such as a shutterized beacon chain allowing users to send encrypted transactions. Such a design would ensure equal access as all transactional data would be generic and anonymous. Additionally, validators could be subject to automatic slashing in the event that they censor blocks if we actively measure the amount of censorship happening on the network. Transaction order flow could also be routed from wallets and apps to anti-MEV mechanisms that utilize Cow Protocol.

This year was a landmark thanks to the GnosisDAO community. From the teams that coordinated a successful merge, the thousands of node runners securing the Gnosis Chain, and to those tirelessly building, we are forever grateful to our dedicated community members. We can’t wait for what 2023 holds and see you on-chain! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To learn more, join the Gnosis Chain Discord, browse the GnosisDAO Forums and join the GnosisDAO Discord. Visit our website gnosis.io or contact us at community@gnosis.io

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Gnosis Protocol, the result of two years of research and development into better ways to trade on Ethereum.

Gnosis Protocol is a fully permissionless DEX (decentralized trading protocol) that enables a new mechanism called ring trades to maximize liquidity. Ring trades especially improve liquidity for illiquid or “long tail” tokens such as prediction market outcome tokens, by facilitating trades not normally possible on traditional trading protocols.

You can try it out and trade today on Mesa, the first dapp built on Gnosis Protocol, or directly on smart contract level using this tutorial.

Permissionless Innovation

Gnosis Protocol is built in the spirit of permissionless innovation. Its fully decentralized architecture means you don’t need Gnosis to build on our protocol. Rather, its serverless design guarantees the protocol will always be available. Anyone can list tokens or build integrations on the smart contract level, and not only does the protocol have no owner, its order settlement process does not rely on any operator. A centralized operator is replaced by open, incentivized competition, in which anyone can submit order settlement solutions¹.

The first dapp built on the Gnosis Protocol pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as decentralized finance today: Mesa is launched and maintained by the dxDAO, a community-owned and operated organization that develops, governs, and promotes DeFi protocols. Available through IPFS and ENS, the Mesa dapp is a general trading interface that supports simple market making strategies for stablecoins on Gnosis Protocol. By using the simple liquidity provision on Mesa, regular users can act as market makers with minimal effort, improve liquidity, and earn a competitive yield.

Ultimately, anyone can build decentralized applications on Gnosis Protocol that make use of its unique properties. We chose to design Gnosis Protocol as a fully permissionless DEX precisely because we see the protocol as core infrastructure to create a better, “horizontal” way to trade on Ethereum.

Introducing Ring Trades

As core infrastructure, Gnosis Protocol enables ring trades. Ring trades are order settlements that share liquidity across all orders, rather than a single token pair.

Let’s start with an example. Imagine a sunny street marketplace where every week vendors and farmers come together to trade their goods. There is only one unusual aspect: no one at this marketplace uses money. Arriving on the scene, local farmer Alice would like to exchange her homegrown Apples ($A) for Bananas ($B). Fortunately, Bob also sets up looking to exchange Bananas ($B) for Apples ($A), and they are able to mutually agree on a price.

However, imagine a slightly more complex scenario. Now in this hypothetical marketplace, Alice would still like to exchange Apples ($A) for Bananas ($B). However, Carlos and Carol both would like to exchange Carrots ($C) for Apples ($A), and Dan would like to exchange Bananas ($B) for Carrots ($C). What will they do?

No direct exchange would be possible. In this example, Dan might have to make an additional trade, exchanging their Bananas ($B) for Apples ($A) to then complete the desired trade for Carrots ($C).

While this marketplace might seem abnormally inefficient, translated into today’s experience of traditional CEXs (centralized trading protocols) or DEXs, most wouldn’t be able to directly fill these orders either. How many of us have been like Dan when we wanted to accomplish a direct trade, but instead had to convert a token into a more dominant asset first? Litecoin Potatoes ($P) anyone?

Scenarios in which token pairs have no liquidity on a given trading protocol or in some cases are not listed at all occur everyday. Although it may seem like only a minor inconvenience, this scenario has negative implications for the viability of open finance as more and more assets are tokenized, and those assets have no liquid market mechanisms.

How, then, can a DEX like Gnosis Protocol address this? Let’s get an owl’s eye view on how the protocol works:

• Anyone can list a token on the protocol;
• Traders can place limit orders on the protocol at anytime;
• Every five minutes, a batch auction runs;
• At the start of an auction, all currently open orders on the protocol are considered;
• For each auction, an open competition to submit order settlement solutions takes place;
• The protocol selects the ring trade order settlement solution that maximizes trader welfare² and provides uniform clearing prices;
• All matched orders are settled on-chain and filled;
• The next batch auction begins.

Because the protocol selects for optimized order settlements, in contrast to traditional trading protocols, an order book for Gnosis Protocol may be visualized as such:

Wherein liquidity can be spread between multiple orders in each batch. Translating from the earlier marketplace example, this means that all orders for Apples ($A as $USDC), Bananas ($B as $DAI), and Carrots ($C as $wETH) can be filled with uniform clearing prices and without requiring additional work from the traders.

Going one step further, on Gnosis Protocol, not only would all of these orders be filled, they could be filled in the most optimal order settlement possible. This can be especially useful in fragmented token spaces such as USD stablecoins and their derivatives. Token pairs with no liquidity on a traditional trading protocol can have magnitudes greater liquidity for each intermediary step within a ring trade. For this reason, ring trades are critical infrastructure that enable trading for illiquid and new “long tail” tokens, the number of which will only increase as open finance gains popularity and more and more assets are tokenized.

Gnosis Protocol and Gnosis’ Mission

As our core product, Gnosis Protocol is central to our continued mission, and the protocol is built to be accessible to anyone. On each executed trade, the protocol takes only a 0.1% fee on trading volume. Fees are included in a trader’s limit price and paid in their sell token. All fees are then converted into OWL, which is a token generated by locking the Gnosis token, GNO. 50% of the fee is paid as an incentive to the provider of the selected order settlement solution (“solver”), while the remaining 50% of the fee is burnt. Fees are used both to incentivize an open competition in which anyone can submit an order settlement solution for every batch auction and be rewarded, and to bring value to all GNO token holders.

Our work remains centered on the public adoption of prediction markets. Core to the success and utility of prediction markets, is liquidity. Without lower spread order books, permissionless prediction markets will continue to fail to capture expert knowledge on future events, despite it becoming clearer by the day that open access to accurate information is key to global, collective resilience.

Our existing conditional token framework allows anyone to create crypto assets that represent information about future events with conditional outcomes. In essence, the conditional token framework enables the creation of prediction market assets, which could be traded on any trading protocol, not solely on a prediction market platform. However, the number of unique conditional tokens, each representing a unique outcome in the world, could grow exponentially in size. In order to ensure marketplaces exist for the “long tail” of prediction market assets³, it is necessary to have market mechanisms built precisely for handling large numbers of unique, and often illiquid, tokens. To this end, we built the Gnosis Protocol to become the standard for trading prediction market conditional tokens and providing access to their global liquidity pool.

Ultimately, an underlying hypothesis of Gnosis’ work is that more efficient market mechanisms for prediction markets and other public goods create pathways for inclusion and access to resources. Pathways that could fundamentally rewire how we define economic value as a tool for collective coordination. We sincerely hope that building new tools in no small part contributes to uprooting our reliance on dominant models of financial exchange — for a redistributed future to come.

If you want to learn more about Gnosis Protocol, join the #protocol channel in our Discord server https://chat.gnosis.io.

Try out trading on the Mesa dapp, built on the Gnosis Protocol, or place trades directly on smart contract level using this tutorial.

See Gnosis Protocol’s live Mainnet stats on Dune Analytics.
Many thanks to Chris Ernst, Martin Köppelmann, and the entire Gnosis Protocol team.

[1] To learn more about how the open competition for order settlement solutions work, visit our Gnosis Protocol Dev Portal.

[2] To learn more about how trader welfare is defined and current solvers, watch Gnosis Engineer Felix Leupold’s talk Fair Price Finding In a Decentralized Exchange Economy.

[3] Prediction markets may constitute a regulated activity in some jurisdictions depending on market design, market focus, monetization and other factors and may necessitate corresponding regulatory authorizations.

Announcing Gnosis Protocol was originally published in GnosisDAO on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While putting greater resources toward this effort, Gnosis will deprecate the OpenEthereum legacy codebase and work on a migration path for all existing users.

For the last year and a half, Gnosis has led the development of OpenEthereum, the second largest Ethereum implementation by node count, taking over the maintenance of this critical codebase.

During this time, OpenEthereum played an important role in being a key piece of infrastructure for some of the largest users in Ethereum like Etherscan and Gnosis Safe. Its tracing capabilities set it apart from other clients, ensuring reliable and fast synchronisation for data providers. However, its development has reached a point where it is no longer possible to implement the protocol improvements that are aligned with our vision.

As OpenEthereum’s stewards, our ability to prevent a consensus failure is limited by a 200.000-line codebase that is now over 5 years old and originally written by a team whose main focus has shifted away from Ethereum. A major codebase refactoring would be lengthy without solving the underlying issue of a monolithic architecture which hinders it from moving to our modular client vision.

With these factors in mind, we have decided to stop maintaining and supporting the codebase inherited from Parity Technologies, which we now call OpenEthereum 3.x, after the London upgrade scheduled for mid July 2021.

We recommend OpenEthereum 3.x users to migrate to the Erigon Ethereum client.

Benefits of the new Erigon client

Erigon (previously called Turbo-Geth) is a next generation Ethereum client that introduces several new concepts:

• A modular client design, enabling parallelized development of the client
• New (“flat”) model of storing Ethereum state, allowing a lower disk footprint
• Preprocessing of data outside of the storage engine, making database write operations faster by a magnitude
• Staged synchronization technique, allowing very fast synchronization

This brings the following benefits to the node operators:

• Much lower disk footprint
  - 1.2TB for archive node, 430GB for pruned node.
• Faster sync speed
  - >10 blk/s at tip, compared to <1blk/s for OpenEthereum.
  - An archive node can be bootstrapped in under 3 days.
  - Performance improvements allow Erigon to run even on HDD.
• Crash resilience
  - Forceful shutdown or power failure cannot damage Erigon’s database.
• New vision of modularity
  - P2P and web3 RPC services can be run as separate components on a remote machine.
• Full support for OpenEthereum/Parity `trace_` API, including `trace_filter`

The transition to Erigon

Since joining forces in 2020, Gnosis and Erigon have been working together to make the transition as smooth as possible for users. After the London Upgrade, the Gnosis client team will join Erigon’s development efforts.

We have collaborated to ensure Erigon supports all the features OpenEthereum 3.x currently provides on Ethereum mainnet, including tracing.

“We took over OpenEthereum to support Ethereum 1.x development. Alexey has a great vision for Ethereum 1.x client development and assembled a great team to execute on this vision: Building a modular client allowing to scale development and increase the speed of innovation on many dimensions like sync speed and disk usage. We want to help Ethereum to push the limits of what is possible on Ethereum today and see Erigon as the foundation.

Stefan George, CTO Gnosis

Development Legos: A Note from Alexey Akhunov, founder of Erigon

We are looking forward to supporting the OpenEthereum users through the transition from the monolithic inherited codebase to an increasingly innovative and inclusive development based on common architecture.

We are already putting a lot of emphasis on filling existing functionality gaps between Erigon and OpenEthereum — these include tracing APIs and proof of authority algorithm AuRa currently powering the networks such as Kovan, Sokol, and xDAI.

These improvements will do more than fill the gaps — such functionality will fit into the overarching architecture for building Ethereum implementations. Some parts of this architecture are already quite clear, while others are still being figured out. We look forward to working together with Gnosis on bringing this new architecture to reality.

Alexey Akhunov, founder of Erigon

If you’re interested in developing the Erigon client with Gnosis, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on on the OpenEthereum Discord, or Gnosis Discord at chat.gnosis.io.

To migrate to Erigon, check Erigon’s Github.

Gnosis client development team Joins Erigon (formerly Turbo-Geth) to Release Next-Gen Ethereum… was originally published in OpenEthereum on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One year ago, Gnosis Protocol v1 launched, introducing a new DEX mechanism to Ethereum.

Today, we are happy to announce the planned launch for Gnosis Protocol V2 (GPv2). Gnosis Protocol V2 leverages batch auctions to provide MEV protection, plus integration with liquidity sources across DEXs, to offer traders the best prices.

Ahead of the launch, we have some huge news to share, which includes the proof-of-concept CowSwap DEX live today, with gas fees currently 90% subsidized, through which new features of GPv2 will be progressively rolled out.

For GPv2, we’re also teaming up with Balancer to launch a partnership integration, Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol, expected to be live in mid-June with a stable version of GPv2 built on top of the Balancer V2 vault. While the Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol is interoperable with any DEX, it will be especially gas efficient when trading against Balancer pools. This together forms the crypto cinematic universe crossover event, Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol (BGP).

We’ve incorporated the learnings from Gnosis Protocol v1 into the upcoming launch of V2, with an additional emphasis on user experience and the ability to tap into any liquidity source on-chain, while continuing to protect traders from MEV (Maximal Extractable Value), which is a phenomenon currently capturing value up to 0,1% of all DEX orders on Ethereum since January 2020.¹

GPv2 just might… fix this.

Owls in the Dark Forest

In 2020, the Ethereum community was jolted by a blockchain horror story. In that story, we learned of the dark forest in which any valuable, detectable action could lead to defeat. While Ethereum was the world, the dark forest was the mempool: the darkened space in which pending transactions wander.

While the issue was first highlighted in 2019, it’s only been recently that Maximal Extractable Value, previously referred to as Miner Extractable Value, has gained widespread attention. Initially coined by Phil Daian, MEV is described as “value that is extractable by miners directly from smart contracts as cryptocurrency profits”². This has led to a total of $402.6 Million extracted from Ethereum users since January 1st 2020³, which accounts for 13,7% of all the transaction fees generated on Ethereum in that time.⁴

Until recently, the most common form of MEV users suffered from was frontrunning. Frontrunning occurs when one party acts on information about confirmed, but not yet executed transactions and uses this information to advantageously execute their transactions beforehand. This can be very rewarding, because the frontrunner can execute transactions before a significant change in an asset’s price and profit substantially from the difference. While its ultimate effect on Ethereum has been higher gas prices, MEV in the form of frontrunning harms DEXs the most, because traders may experience both transactions failing and transactions for prices worse than their initial order was quoted. Frontrunning was largely the domain of arbitrage bots of Ethereum. However, this is no longer the case with miners now directly frontrunning blocks’ transaction orders. We expect to see this result in even more MEV extracted from users in the near future.⁵

However, frontrunning is not the only form of MEV currently extracted on Ethereum. Backrunning or “sandwiching” a transaction are other forms of MEV that have gained popularity in recent months. This is in large part due to the new MEV-geth client software developed by the Flashbot team, a team assembled to shine light on concerns raised by the MEV dark forest.⁶ Unlike previously, wherein only a handful of entities with access to mining pool resources could extract MEV, now with the MEV-geth client release, anyone can more easily monitor transactions for MEV and submit these arbitrage opportunities to a network of “collaborating” miners that will share the “reward” with them. This has led to an estimated increase of 136% in MEV extracted since January 2021.⁷

Owls, however, can also see in the dark forest.

Gnosis Protocol V2 addresses the MEV problem by leveraging its batch auction mechanism, combined with off-chain order placement and access to any on-chain liquidity on Ethereum.

Improving on Gnosis Protocol v1, GPv2 optimizes for coincidence of wants (CoWs), which can be explained as “an economic phenomenon where two parties each hold an item the other wants, so they exchange these items directly.” This means, on GPv2, when two traders each hold an asset the other wants, an order can be settled directly between them without an external market maker or liquidity provider. This leads to better prices for traders, because it results in a lower spread. Only excess order amounts that cannot be settled directly with other GPv2 traders are sent to the underlying AMMs (Automated Market Makers). Ultimately, the batch auction mechanism settles orders on the protocol in consecutive, recurring batches, which are limited in size only by the gas block limit. Each batch enforces uniform clearing prices, meaning all orders executed within a given batch receive assets priced equally against other orders. From a user’s perspective, tapping into the global on-chain liquidity pool means that on GPv2 traders receive a price quote that guarantees they will receive the same price or better than other existing DEXs.⁸

These unique design qualities of GPv2 offer traders MEV protection in both cases:

• If GPv2 finds CoWs, there’s no need to settle trades using other on-chain liquidity sources as the liquidity itself is within the batch. The MEV attack surface is therefore completely eliminated as the transaction cannot be replicated using other mechanisms such as transaction ordering. Due to GPv2’s uniform clearing prices, the outcome of trades within a batch does not rely on relative ordering.
• If GPv2 does not find CoWs, it taps into the on-chain liquidity pool that offers the best price for the auction settlement, and due to the tight slippage enforced by Gnosis Protocol V2’s solvers, the transactions become much harder to replicate by MEV actors as the trades become unprofitable for them and only authenticated solvers can submit batch settlement solutions.

Users submit trade orders with a degree of flexibility as solvers need to find the most optimal way to settle them. In GPv2, instead of using a central operator or a constant function market maker to determine trade settlements, the protocol uses a “party” called solver, who is the party in charge of providing the settlement solution to the batch auctions. Solvers compete against each other to submit the most optimal batch settlement solution and each time a solver submits a successful batch settlement solution, the protocol rewards them with tokens, meaning that the protocol rewards solvers for solving the batch auction optimization problem. Anyone can become a solver, although, in order to become one, there are certain requirements:

• To become a solver, an Ethereum address needs to deposit a bond in the form of tokens. Asset type and amounts are pending to be defined by the GnosisDAO or GnosisProtocolDAO.
• Once the tokens have been staked (locked up), GnosisDAO/GnosisProtocolDAO has to vote to approve or reject the Ethereum address that will identify the solver. If the vote is successful, the solver's Ethereum address will be included in the allowlist (verification) solvers contract.
• Additionally, a solver must have the technical knowledge to create the appropriate batch settlement solutions or take the risk of being slashed by the GnosisDAO/GnosisProtocolDAO for wrongdoing.

Solvers are encouraged to compete against each other to deliver the best order settlement for traders in exchange for the reward of each batch. Since the most optimal trade settlement may be accomplished through different combinations, we believe solving order settlement through decentralized and permissionless competition means GPv2 can provide the fairest prices across decentralized finance.

Using the batch auction mechanism combined with off-chain order placement and access to any on-chain liquidity on Ethereum, Gnosis Protocol V2 is a new way for traders to defend against MEV, and leave the dark forest unharmed.

However, the eyesight of owls alone cannot save every user…

The Crypto Cinematic Universe Crossover Event of the Summer: Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol

Gnosis and Balancer have teamed up to deliver a peerless DEX experience. Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol (BGP) combines the best of both protocols, with Balancer V2’s flexible liquidity pools enabled by a single-vault architecture and asset managers in combination with Gnosis Protocol V2’s price finding mechanism and MEV protection. Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol (BGP) will encompass several release stages:

Stage 1

• CowSwap alpha (GPv2): Today, trade on Gnosis Protocol V2 in alpha now on the proof-of-concept CowSwap DEX, with gas fees currently 90% subsidized. On CowSwap, new features of GPv2 will be progressively rolled out. Users should note, while peer-reviewed, CowSwap is currently undergoing a more formal audit, and users participate at their own risk.

Stage 2

• Balancer V2: Balancer V2 was recently released for developers, and traders will have the ability to migrate liquidity over the coming weeks. In this stage, liquidity will be incentivized to move from Balancer V1 to Balancer V2 with a $BAL incentive program.
• CowSwap beta (GPv2): CowSwap migrates to the final GPv2 contracts integrated with Balancer V2.

Stage 3

• Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol: Targeted for mid-June, Balancer V2 will be fully integrated with Gnosis Protocol V2 to form Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol, and a joint incentive program will kick off.

With collaboration, we can out-cooperate the competition — traditional finance — through providing unparalleled decentralization, transparency, and value in our tools.

Watch out soon for a long read on how Gnosis Protocol V2 tackles MEV with step-by-step block analysis and a more detailed announcement of the BGP launch targeted for mid-June.

Questions? Join the Gnosis Discord Server. For updates on the development of Gnosis Protocol V2, CowSwap, and Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol, follow @GnosisPM on Twitter and make sure to check the Gnosis Protocol category in our forum.

[1] https://explore.flashbots.net/ & https://duneanalytics.com/queries/4494/8769
[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05234
[3] https://explore.flashbots.net/
[4] https://explore.flashbots.net/ & https://duneanalytics.com/queries/39135
[5] https://www.coindesk.com/ethermine-adds-front-running-software-to-help-miners-offset-eip-1559-revenue-losses
[6] https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05234
[7] https://explore.flashbots.net/
[8] The proof-of-concept CowSwap dapp is currently only integrated with Uniswap V2, but new liquidity sources such as Balancer v2 and SushiSwap are gradually being integrated. When we release the final version of GPv2, the Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol (BGP), then all substantial on-chain liquidity DEX sources will be integrated.

Introducing Gnosis Protocol V2 and Balancer-Gnosis-Protocol was originally published in GnosisDAO on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Gnosis Auction is a platform for conducting fair, transparent, and decentralized batch auctions to enable token price discovery for any Ethereum project.

You can bid on auctions at gnosis-auction.eth.link. Follow Gnosis Auction on Twitter or the platform to learn about upcoming auctions.

You can launch auction sales (IDOs, token buybacks, or for other price finding needs) directly using the Gnosis Auction Starter Safe App, with funds and a token governance tool suite immediately at your team’s fingertips in your Gnosis Safe Multisig.

By supporting fair price finding in token sale auctions, the platform provides a reliable mechanism for teams to let their community and market forces determine a token’s value. At the same time, the platform is designed to be completely composable to integrate with any other DeFi protocols. Visit the platform today, and follow the Gnosis Auction Twitter to stay up to date with upcoming auctions.

Born out of the demand within the community to have a decentralized and permissionless platform to conduct fair price discovery, Gnosis Auction is inspired by Gnosis Protocol v1 (Mesa), which satisfied a product-market fit for Initial DEX Offerings such as mStable, DIA, PrimeDAO, API3, and many more. The adoption of Gnosis Protocol v1 (GPv1) for the IDO use case signaled that there’s a strong market demand for a price discovery platform extending beyond GPv1’s initial scope. Gnosis Auction facilitates batching a much larger set of orders, which caters specifically to the Initial DEX Offering use case, as well as other large auctions such as token buybacks or protocols’ collateral auctions.

Gnosis Auction: A platform for fair price discovery

Ultimately, Gnosis Auction introduces a new price discovery primitive to decentralized finance. Gnosis Auction differs from former Dutch auction iterations, in that bidders can place limit orders at any time during the auction without having to wait for the auction to reach their desired price.

At its core, Gnosis Auction uses batch auctions, which enables matching limit orders of buyers and sellers with the same clearing price for all participants. The batch auction mechanism is a novel approach for a decentralized token auction as it allows bids with a limit price at the clearing price, or even higher, to receive a much fairer price for the tokens they are interested in acquiring. The price equilibrium achieved by batch auctions also prevents wasting resources to settle orders that are below the clearing price.

In the end, everyone can claim their part of the auction: the auctioneer can withdraw the raised funds, the matched bidders can withdraw their new tokens, and the unmatched bidders can still withdraw their bidding tokens back from the platform.

How does the Gnosis Auction batch auction mechanism work?

For Auctioneers

Any person or team that wants to interact with Gnosis Auction smart contract for the purpose of conducting a token auction can either use the simple Gnosis Safe App called Gnosis Auction Starter or run a script.

The Gnosis Auction Starter Safe App is available directly from the Gnosis Safe Multisig interface on the APPS page. Using the app for Gnosis Auction has the tremendous benefit of your raised funds becoming immediately available after the auction closes in your Gnosis Safe Multisig, the most trusted platform to manage digital assets on Ethereum, with token governance tools like SafeSnap at your fingertips.

To launch an auction, the auctioneer will only be required to configure six auction parameters (if needed, the platform offers more parameters to configure) displayed above, which are:

• Auctioning-token: refers to the token you want to sell in the auction, with the token address as a string.
• Bidding-token: refers to the token the bidders will use to bid on the auctioned token (e.g. USDC, ETH, or DAI), with the token address as a string.
• Sell-amount: refers to the amount of tokens that you will sell, with the amount as an integer.
• Min-buy-amount: refers to the minimum amount of buy tokens you are willing to accept. The minimum sell price of the auction is calculated by dividing the sell-amount/min-buy-amount.
• Duration: refers to for how long is the auction going to last.
• Network: refers to the network where the auction will take place (e.g. Mainnet or xDai).

That’s it! With all those parameters set in place, the auction can go live. Bidders who are interested in acquiring the tokens auctioned can start to place buy orders with their own limit price as soon as the auction begins.

For Bidders

• Once the auction begins, bidders can place limit orders directly from the Gnosis Auction platform’s interface (displayed above).
• Once the pre-defined auction duration time comes to an end, the token’s clearing price is calculated.
• The smart contract sorts bids from highest to lowest price. Bids include a limit order for the token price and the amount of tokens to buy.
• The smart contract works backward from the highest bid, cumulatively adding each bid’s amount of tokens to sell, until the bid’s sum multiplied by the price of the highest bid equals the sell amount of tokens (pre-defined by the auctioneer).
• The price of the bid (added to all previous bids’ amount of tokens) that reaches the amount of tokens to sell is selected as the final clearing price for all participants.
• Bidders who specified a maximum price in their limit order that is equal to or greater than the final clearing price receive tokens at the clearing price. Bidders that specified a maximum price in their limit order that is less than the final clearing price do not receive the tokens being auctioned, but they can still withdraw their bidding tokens from the DEX.

Let’s take a deeper look at the example provided in the diagram below.

The diagram shows an example of how an auction calculates the final price:

• At first, the auctioneer establishes the minimum price for which they are willing to sell tokens and an amount of tokens to be auctioned. In this example the auctioneer is selling 14 tokens at a minimum price of 2 tokens (established by the first square on the X axis).
• Once the auction begins, bidders can start placing bids, in which they specify how much of the bid token they would like to buy with and at what price.
• When the auction duration time has come to an end, the smart contract sorts the bids from highest to lowest, stopping at the price in which the cumulative volume of the bids have reached the amount the auctioneer was willing to sell, in this case 14.
• Since we have 14 tokens to auction, the diagram shows that the highest bid price was 2 tokens at price 9, followed by 3 tokens at price 8, 5 tokens at price 7, and 4 tokens at price 6.
• With the last bid (4 tokens at price 6), the auctioneer has no more tokens to sell, and the auction establishes that the auctioned token final clearing price is at 6 for all participants.
• Participants whose bid is equal to or greater than the final clearing price will receive the auctioned tokens. Participants with bids less than the final clearing price can reclaim the token balance with which they had bid.
• Participants whose bid is at or above the closing price will receive the auctioned tokens.

What are the benefits of using Gnosis Auction?

The Gnosis Auction smart contract allows for both technical and nontechnical users to use its auction mechanism for their needs. The platform makes participating in token auctions easy for anyone, in any context in which token price discovery is needed. Some of the core advantages of Gnosis Auction are:

• Auctions can settle more than 10,000 bid orders with the same settlement price.
• Auctions can offer fair pricing via a uniform final clearing price.
• Auctions are resistant to front-running and other forms of manipulation.
• Auction participants have full control over their bid price through limit orders.
• Auctions can be deployed without the need to ask for permission.
• Auction setup is modular enough to fit many different use cases along with their different needs.
• Gnosis Auction is built on the proven success of previous blockchain-based auction developments.

How is Gnosis Auction different from other auction-style platforms?

Gnosis Auction’s product offering is distinct because its batch auction mechanism offers a unique approach to user protection. Such a mechanism, combined with a powerful and simple interface empowers auctioneers and bidders to avoid the most common problems on other platforms often used for price discovery:

Gnosis Auction Roadmap: Launching auction sales from the Gnosis Safe

Currently, Gnosis Auction only supports ERC-20 tokens and can only facilitate auction sales, not ongoing liquidity pools. However, soon, the platform will be connected to other DEX tools for widening the product offering beyond auction sales. With the Gnosis Safe integration (a multi-signature platform currently managing $26,8 Billion of dollars in value), Gnosis Auction will allow teams that use the Gnosis Safe App to have access to a new world of apps and modules that can enhance the auction. The modules from the current Gnosis Safe App ecosystem will allow teams to add specific features to their auction such as:

• Governance Modules (SafeSnap): There are a suite of tools for decentralized governance coming to the Gnosis Safe. The first available module is SafeSnap. Combining Gnosis Safe Multisig with the popular decentralized governance platform Snapshot, SafeSnap enables decentralized execution of crypto governance proposals, through on-chain execution of off-chain votes. Other upcoming modules will bring mechanisms from popular governance frameworks like MolochDAO to the Gnosis Safe. For more information, check out Introducing SafeSnap: The first in a decentralized governance tool suite for the Gnosis Safe.
• Liquidity Module: This module will allow auctioneers to ensure that the token has a dedicated place to trade afterward. By connecting the end of the auction directly to an AMM pool, auctioneers can assure bidders that the token will have enough liquidity to trade at the auction clearing price or more.

If you are interested in developing a new module that combines Gnosis Safe and Gnosis Auction, check out our GECO grants and join our Discord.

Audit & Security

Gnosis Auction has been developed with security foremost in mind. The platform has successfully passed an external audit with a security expert that can be found here. We also have a running $50K bug bounty program.

Visit the Gnosis Auction platform today at gnosis-auction.eth.link.

To learn more, check out the Gnosis Auction documentation.

We also invite you into our Gnosis Discord Server and Gnosis Forum where you can ask any questions about the platform, and make suggestions about what Gnosis Auction future’s should look like.

We look forward to seeing where the community will take this tool for fair, accessible, and efficient price discovery!

Anyone can utilise Gnosis Auction to conduct a token auction subject to the laws applicable to them. Gnosis Ltd, GnosisDAO or any affiliated entity (“Gnosis”) has no involvement with the auctioneer(s) or the auctions, which are independently organised by the auctioneer(s). Gnosis is only involved in developing the smart contracts that make the dapp run.

Announcing Gnosis Auction Launch was originally published in GnosisDAO on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While decentralized finance on Ethereum has occupied the forefront of conversations, its rise has also precipitated a tremendous increase in decentralized governance. Over the past year, three strong trends in decentralized governance emerged in the Ethereum ecosystem:

1. Progressive Decentralization: centralized teams ceding control of their creations to their community / user-base / token holders.
2. Safe Asset Management: Gnosis Safe has become the preferred way for many projects to manage their Ethereum-based assets. At the time of writing, more than $19.5 Billion worth of digital assets are secured in Gnosis Safes.
3. Off-chain Voting: as gas prices have surged, many projects have elected to use off-chain voting (via tools like Snapshot) rather than their on-chain counterparts (like Aragon, DAOStack, Colony, Compound Governance, and so on), usually at the expense of a measure of decentralization.

At Gnosis, we see a way to combine current trends to bring accessible, secure, and decentralized governance to projects on Ethereum.

We see the Gnosis Safe becoming the operating system for DAOs.

That’s why we’ve built SafeSnap, which enables decentralized execution of crypto governance proposals. Combining the Gnosis Safe with decentralized governance platform Snapshot, SafeSnap is a module that allows on-chain execution of off-chain votes.

SafeSnap is the first in a decentralized governance tool suite we are building for the Gnosis Safe, which will bring critical infrastructure to the ecosystem.

With that in mind, we’re happy to announce a stellar initial cohort of projects planning to use SafeSnap to enable the next phase of their progressive decentralization: Yearn, SushiSwap, Synthetix, Balancer, mStable, PoolTogether, dHedge, BrightID, Stakewise, EPNS, and of course GnosisDAO.

If you have any questions about using SafeSnap, join us on the Gnosis Discord server, and learn how to integrate the SafeSnap module with your project. Follow @GnosisSafe on Twitter for updates on the next releases in our decentralized governance tool suite for the Gnosis Safe.

How SafeSnap Works

Many projects in the Ethereum space, such as Yearn, YAM, mStable, Sushi, Balancer, Aave, DIA, dHEDGE, and Synthetix, to name a few, already use a Gnosis Safe as the core of their DAO structure. In this governance structure, the DAO’s Gnosis Safe should act in accordance with the outcome of off-chain votes, often via platforms like Snapshot. Projects usually land on this solution after wrestling with the dilemma introduced by the current gas prices.

On-chain voting for full decentralization, incurring significant (often prohibitive) gas costs for governance participants

vs.

Off-chain voting to save on gas costs, at the expense of some decentralization (Gnosis Safe acting as a proxy for the project DAO)

Neither option is ideal, but in the interest of being capital efficient and inclusive to smaller token holders, the latter seems preferable — at least in the short term.

The SafeSnap module for the Gnosis Safe solves this dilemma. SafeSnap allows trustless, on-chain execution based on the outcome of off-chain votes, via a Gnosis Safe module connected to Reality.eth (an escalation-game-based oracle). This means teams can continue to secure their assets in a Gnosis Safe, avoid needlessly wasting gas with on-chain voting, and ease into decentralization by adding the module to their Gnosis Safe. Notably, they can choose to keep their Gnosis Safe signers as a safeguard, giving the community the option to remove them at a later date if desired.

In light of how trusted the Gnosis Safe has become within the Ethereum ecosystem, we see one of its primary use cases in the delivery of decentralized governance. With the Gnosis Safe at its core, one potential pathway to progressive decentralization, we predict is:

1. Multi-sig as a proxy: Gnosis Safe + Snapshot, in which the multi-sig promises to act in accordance with the off-chain votes. This is the current status quo.
2. Multi-sig as a safeguard: Gnosis Safe + Snapshot + SafeSnap, in which on-chain execution of off-chain votes is handled by the SafeSnap module, but there are still multisig owners that can veto malicious actions or act quickly in the case of an emergency.
3. Look ma, no hands!: Gnosis Safe + Snapshot + SafeSnap, in which the multi-sig owners have been removed, and the only way to execute transactions is via the SafeSnap module.

Just to be more clear, the SafeSnap module is an oracle-based solution that looks something like this:

• A Gnosis Safe module, where anyone can create a new proposal: an array of multisend transaction payloads.
• Each proposal is a Reality.eth question asking if (1) the linked Snapshot proposal passed, (2) did the proposal include the payload, and (3) does the payload do what the proposal describes.
• If the proposal passes on Snapshot, then Reality.eth should resolve to the same outcome, and after a 24 hour cooldown period, the proposal’s transactions are executable by anyone.
• Reality uses an ERC-20 token (a given DAO’s governance token) for the bond. The minimum bond can be set by way of a proposal to the DAO.
• The UI is a Snapshot plugin, in which users can enter an array of tx-payloads to be executed sequentially by the Gnosis Safe if the proposal passes. Once the proposal has passed, the Reality.eth question has resolved, and the 24 hour cooldown period is over, there is the option on the Snapshot interface to trigger each of the multisend transactions in the proposal.

SafeSnap has been through internal testing, along with a successful audit, and we want to continue to follow security best practice by opening a public bounty program for up to $50,000. Together with projects using SafeSnap, we’ve launched and contributed funds to the HoneypotDAO, using SafeSnap of course, that will issue rewards for the SafeSnap bug bounty.

If you have any questions about using SafeSnap, join us on the Gnosis Discord server, and learn how to integrate the SafeSnap module with your project. Follow @GnosisSafe on Twitter for updates on the next releases in our decentralized governance tool suite for the Gnosis Safe.

This post was written by Kei Kreutler and Auryn Macmillan.

Introducing SafeSnap: The first in a decentralized governance tool suite for the Gnosis Safe was originally published in GnosisDAO on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Gnosis Auction is a platform enabling fair price discovery for token auctions. The aim of the platform is to make it easy for teams to discover a fair price for their token, leveraging it for their own Initial DEX Offering or using the auction mechanisms for any particular use cases such as liquidations, token buy-backs, etc.

Gnosis Auction uses batch auctions, which are a popular mechanism for ensuring fair price for both the decentralized and traditional finance worlds. Batch auctions enable matching of limit orders of buyers and sellers with the same clearing price for all participants. From crypto use cases like Initial DEX Offerings (like those on the Mesa interface for Gnosis Protocol v1) to traditional finance auctions (like Google’s IPO and the NYSE Open Auction), batch auctions play an important role in the democratization of the auctioned assets. This function is especially important for decentralized teams which need to ensure fair token distributions while operating trustlessly and efficiently. Batch auctions are set to become a fundamental “DeFi Lego” brick for any team or community interested in offering their users the most transparent and fairest auction-mechanism for their token.

Fair Price Discovery with Gnosis Auction

By providing an easy interface for price discovery with batch auctions, Gnosis Auction enables:

a) Auctioneers to determine a minimum price they are willing to sell their tokens for, and

b) Bidders to set the maximum price they are willing to pay

These characteristics allow the platform to create a fair pricing dynamic in which both participants get either what they were willing to receive or more. Additionally the batched time nature of the auctions greatly reduces frontrunning and gas bidding wars, decreasing the amount of extracted value from auctioneers and bidders.

Since our early auction offerings like DutchX, Gnosis has spent the past few years exploring how to bring the benefits of auction mechanisms to our products and protocols. Our research and product testing throughout this time led us to the batch auction mechanism now being introduced, which has several key benefits over other auctions types:

With Gnosis Auction’s open-source smart contract, projects can quickly and securely create their own decentralized fair auctions. Unlike some solutions dependent on a centralized curation process, Gnosis Auction is permissionless so that any Ethereum team can deploy & execute batch auctions for price finding. Gnosis Auction allows any Ethereum project or community to conduct auctions that:

• Are front running resistant
• Have a user-friendly bidding experience
• Enable all users full control over their participation price
• Support for both allow-listing and none allow-listing auctions

Although, use case for Gnosis Auction vary according to each team’s unique needs, the main developments will be ranging from:

• Initial DEX Offerings
• Collateral or liquidation auctions
• Token buybacks
• Novel experiments with fair auctions

Overtime, Gnosis Auction will be integrated with a certain set of decentralized tools that will help teams expand the ways in which they leverage the platform. We look forward to seeing where the community will take this tool for fair, accessible and efficient price discovery!

**Anyone can utilise Gnosis Auction to conduct a token auction subject to the laws applicable to them. Gnosis Ltd, GnosisDAO or any affiliated entity (“Gnosis”) has no involvement with the auctioneer(s) or the auctions, which are independently organised by the auctioneer(s). Gnosis is only involved in developing the smart contracts that make the dapp run.**

GnosisDAO is a living entity that will evolve over time. This post provides a tutorial on how to participate in GnosisDAO platforms. To learn more about the vision of GnosisDAO, read the blog post Announcing GnosisDAO.

This tutorial will guide you through all the ways in which you can discuss, create, and vote on proposals to GnosisDAO. While the steps are presented here in order of the governance process with three phases, you are welcome to participate directly in a proposal at any phase. For a short overview of the phases, check out the README: GnosisDAO Governance Process.

For any questions on GnosisDAO, please feel free to reach out to a GnosisDAO Admin forum moderator or the Gnosis Discord Server.

Tutorial Overview

1. Joining Gnosis Forum
2. Phase 1 Proposals
3. Phase 2 Proposals
4. Phase 3 Proposals
5. Phase 3: GnosisDAO Snapshot poll
6. Phase 3: How to delegate your Gnosis Safe Multisig to an EOA wallet
7. Summary and Additional Resources

1. Joining Gnosis Forum

The GnosisDAO governance process is primarily conducted using the GnosisDAO category on the Gnosis Forum. The Gnosis Forum uses self-hosted, open source software. Anyone can join by visiting https://forum.gnosis.io/ and clicking `Sign Up` in the upper right corner. Now you can participate in any proposal discussion as well as start your own.

If you want to learn more about how to use the forum software, check out the Discourse New User Guide.

2. Phase 1 Proposals

This phase facilitates an initial, informal discussion on Gnosis Forum regarding potential proposals to GnosisDAO. This phase allows proposals to gather community insight for refinement before opening a formal poll.

To do so, navigate to the GnosisDAO category on the forum, and click the + New Topic button on the upper right. Please format the title of the post as a question.

Be sure GnosisDAO appears in the category field. In the tags dropdown, type or select phase-1. Once you’ve written a detailed question, you can post your proposal and start gathering community insight.

Duration: Open-ended
Passing Requirement: For proposals to successfully pass from Phase 1 to Phase 2, there is no formal requirement. However, if a Phase 1 proposal discussion fails to garner momentum from the community, it is unlikely to become a successful proposal.

3. Phase 2 Proposals

This phase requires proposals to be posted in the GnosisDAO category using the Gnosis Improvement Proposal (GIP) template. To do so, navigate to the GnosisDAO category on the forum, and click the + New Topic button. You can create a Gnosis Improvement Proposal (GIP) easily from a post template. Just add the GIPs subcategory, which should following GnosisDAO as shown below.

After you’ve added the GIPs subcategory, your draft post will automatically be populated by a GIP template for you to fill in.

The GIPs template requires all proposals speak to applicable fields, such as a Simple Summary, Abstract, Motivation, Specification, and Implementation. (As the template notes, the two fields Gnosis Impact and GnosisDAO Snapshot at the end of the template should not be filled in before the proposal is in Phase 3.)

In addition to the required fields, Phase 2 proposals must also include a 5-day forum poll on the proposal outcome, which must include the option Make no changes. To configure this poll, edit in the poll outcomes by entering each item with * and a space on a new line, as shown below.

Important: You must set the poll’s end date for 5 days after the day on which you are posting the GIP. To do so, enter the date in YYYY-MM-DD format, replace the text that is highlighted above. You can view a preview of the poll on the right side of the draft before posting.

Once you’re satisfied with your proposal, be sure to add the phase-2 tag as seen above to the right of the GnosisDAO, GIPs category field, and note that a GIP number will be assigned by a GnosisDAO Admin forum moderator. Click the + Create Topic button at the bottom of the post. You’ve officially submitted a Phase 2 proposal to GnosisDAO. After 5 days, the poll will now automatically close, and it can be evaluated if the proposal passes to Phase 3.

Duration: 5 days
Passing Requirement: For proposals to successfully pass from Phase 2 to Phase 3, there must be one outcome with a relative majority of votes on the forum poll. If the relative majority of votes on the forum poll indicates the result Make no changes, the proposal will not pass to Phase 3.

4. Phase 3 Proposals

This phase opens proposals to a voting method for GNO Tokens. You can move a proposal to Phase 3 by editing the GIP post from the previous phase to reflect the forum poll result that received a relative majority of votes. This serves to refine the proposal for the final phase. To do so, navigate to the bottom of the GIP, and click the ✎ button on the right to edit the post.

Now, you can update the post to reflect the forum poll result that received a relative majority of votes, as well as any additional refinement to the proposal suggested through discussion on the forum. It’s important to keep in mind that edits to forum posts are publicly visible, so all Gnosis community members will have access to a GIP’s version history. In the tags dropdown, be sure to remove the phase-2 tag and add the phase-3 tag.

In addition to updating the post, one voting method with a duration of 7 days must be created: a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll. A link to the corresponding GnosisDAO Snapshot poll must be edited into the GIP post after it has been created.

5. Phase 3: GnosisDAO Snapshot poll

Snapshot is a platform for off-chain, gasless signaling on proposals, and it is widely used by popular decentralized finance projects to open protocol governance decisions to their community. The platform weights votes by the amount of a given token a participating wallet address holds.

On Snapshot, there is a GnosisDAO (GNO) Snapshot space, which is where Phase 3 proposals to GnosisDAO will have a corresponding poll.

Create a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll for a GIP

To create a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll, navigate to the GnosisDAO space on Snapshot: https://snapshot.org/#/gnosis.eth, and connect your wallet (or your delegated wallet).

After you’ve connected your wallet, click the button to create a New Proposal. Important: For the final step in creating a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll, make sure you’re in touch with a GnosisDAO Admin forum moderator to obtain the Gnosis Impact conditionID. In the future, this step will be more user friendly, so that participants can easily do this on their own.

To create a valid GnosisDAO Snapshot poll for a GnosisDAO proposal:

1. Copy the GIP title from the Gnosis Forum post into the Question field
2. Copy the GIP text from the Gnosis Forum post into the What is your proposal? field
3. Add a link to the GIP forum post at the top of the proposal text
4. Enter the refined list of poll outcomes in the Choices field and include Make no changes as one outcome
5. Enter the current date and time in Select start date
6. Enter the end date in 7 days and 12:00 in Select end date
7. Optional: Adjust the block number¹

Optional: Configuring SafeSnap

1. You can optionally choose to add transaction(s) to your proposal that become executable upon successful verification of an accepted proposal. You can do so using the SafeSnap plugin.

You can add the SafeSnap plugin by clicking the ✨ icon in the Actions box:

This will open a popup with the choice to add the SafeSnap plugin. You can learn more about how to use the SafeSnap plugin in this tutorial. Using the SafeSnap plugin is fully optional.

Once you’re satisfied with the proposal, click Publish. A proposal cannot be edited after publishing.

Important: To make your proposal in Phase 3 nearly complete, return to the corresponding GIP post and add the link to this poll to the GnosisDAO Snapshot field at the bottom of the template.

Vote on GnosisDAO Snapshot poll for a GIP

To vote in a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll, you must hold a minimum of 1 GNO at the proposal’s specified block number¹. Your Snapshot vote will be weighted proportionally according to the amount of GNO held in your participating wallet address at that block time.

Navigate to the Gnosis space on Snapshot: https://snapshot.org/#/gnosis.eth, and connect your wallet holding GNO (or your delegated wallet).

After you’ve connected your wallet, either navigate to the GnosisDAO Snapshot poll linked in the GIP post, or navigate to https://snapshot.org/#/gnosis.eth/active and find the corresponding poll in the list of active proposals. Under Cast your vote, choose your favored outcome, and click Vote.

6. Phase 3: How to delegate your Gnosis Safe Multisig to an EOA wallet

Note: This step is not necessary to participate in the GnosisDAO governance process. Rather, for participants who would like to use a smart contract wallet like the Gnosis Safe Multisig to participate, this step walks through how to delegate their account to an EOA wallet. If this doesn’t sound relevant to you, feel free to skip this step, or learn more about the difference between EOA wallets and smart contract accounts in the Gnosis blog post Breaking Down Ethereum Wallet Options.

The Snapshot platform was built to interact with EOA wallets, like Metamask. Today, however, smart contract accounts like the Gnosis Safe Multisig are becoming more and more popular. To use your Gnosis Safe Multisig to participate in GnosisDAO, follow these quick steps.

Navigate to https://snapshot.org/#/delegate/, and connect your Gnosis Safe Multisig using the Safe App for WalletConnect. Then, enter an address of an EOA wallet or ENS name you control or to which you would like to delegate, and click the Confirm button.

After, you will be able to see the EOA wallet address(es) you’ve delegated to from your Gnosis Safe Multisig whenever you return to this page. Delegated addresses allow you to use an EOA wallet that represents the GNO holdings in your Gnosis Safe Multisig (or other smart contract account). In order to participate in GnosisDAO Snapshot polls through delegation, make sure you’ve connected the wallet to which you’ve delegated.

Important: For a delegated address to be effective when voting on a Snapshot poll, the address has to have been delegated to at the block number set on the Snapshot poll.

That’s it, you’ve officially submitted a valid Phase 3 proposal to GnosisDAO.

7. Summary and Additional Resources

In summary, Phase 3 proposals must include a GIP post, Omen Prediction Markets and corresponding Gnosis Impact app, and a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll.

Duration: 7 days
Passing Requirement: For proposals to be accepted in this final phase, there must be one outcome with a relative majority of GNO used for voting on the GnosisDAO Snapshot poll accompanied by a yes-voting quorum of a minimum of 4%² of the circulating supply of GNO. If the relative majority of GNO used in voting on the Snapshot poll indicates the result Make no changes, the proposal will not be accepted and considered closed.

For any assistance in creating a GnosisDAO Snapshot poll, please feel free to reach out to a GnosisDAO Admin forum moderator or the Gnosis Discord Server.

To learn more about the vision of GnosisDAO, read the blog post Announcing GnosisDAO.

Additional Resources

• README: GnosisDAO Governance Process
• Gnosis Forum
• GnosisDAO Snapshot space
• GnosisDAO website

Legal Disclaimer: This blog post is for informative purposes only. We make no representation as to the blog post’s accuracy or completeness. It may contain errors. We take no liability for any losses, including any loss of tokens or any indirect or consequential losses arising out of or in connection with the information provided or any other action or transaction related thereto. The outlined plans may need to be (re)structured in accordance with applicable laws or regulatory developments as well as technical and governance considerations. We accordingly reserve the right to change our plans. This blog post should not be taken as the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation to engage in any transactions. You are solely responsible for your own transactions and investment decisions.

[1]: The “block number” is the Ethereum block number at which a snapshot will be recorded detailing what wallet addresses hold specific amounts of GNO. This is how the Snapshot platform prevents duplicitous signaling.

[2]: For proposals to be accepted in the final phase, there had to be one outcome with a relative majority of GNO used for voting on the GnosisDAO Snapshot poll accompanied by a quorum of a minimum of 4% of the circulating supply of GNO.

GnosisDAO Governance Tutorial was originally published in GnosisDAO on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.