Moloch Evolved: V2 Primer
Perhaps one of the most novel aspects of web3 technology is the creation of new mechanisms to optimize social coordination.
For those unfamiliar with Moloch DAO, the purpose is to self-organize, fund, and develop public infrastructure for ETH 2.0.
Inspired by Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander — Moloch spawns a new attempt to address philosophical pitfalls humans run into while attempting to coordinate (or not!) with one another. Here’s a link to the official Whitepaper if you’d like to learn more.
Building off the premise of a “Minimum-Viable DAO”. Ameen summoned the first Moloch DAO on Feb 14th of 2019 — kicking off the subsequent Year of DAOs.
Since then, Moloch has gone on to fund over 20 critical Ethereum infrastructure grants to the tune of nearly $300,000.
All of this and more can be found in the recent Year in Review article.
Just DAO It
Beyond Moloch DAO itself, the simplistic framework it spawned has been even more noteworthy, with 100 Moloch forks being created to date.
Some of the more notable initiatives like MetaCartel, Raid Guild, Rocket and Orochi have collectively aggregated more than 200 proposals, all of which have led to over 300 unique members testing the cutting edge of DAO coordination.
Throughout this process, we’ve been carefully taking note of where Moloch DAOs could be improved, largely channelling these efforts into what we’re calling “Moloch V2”.
Strategically launched during this year’s ETHDenver, let’s dive into what users can expect with the new and improved framework.
Why v2?
First and foremost, Moloch v2 was designed to enhance coordination on a technical level.
This largely takes the form of grant-giving and funding, in which projects expressed an inherent desire to issue capital in stable currencies without a need to ragequit shares to receive funding.
To highlight why this was necessary, here’s how grants were (and are) issued in v1:
- Proposals must be submitted by an existing member of the DAO, and processed onchain by another member of that DAO.
- Following the proposal being passed, the grantee received “shares” equivalent to a pro-rata claim on ETH in the underlying guild bank. These shares are then “ragequit” and returned as wETH.
- Seeing as proposals take roughly two weeks to process from start to finish, this means that the value of the “shares” was likely to change due to the underlying volatility of ETH.
The endgame of DAOs is to become easily accessible to anyone who shares a passion for that group’s cause, meaning that this process needed to be refined for newcomers to digest.
Moloch V2 Updates
Building off the flow described above, here’s why v2 becomes so powerful.
Multi-Token Support
Moloch v2 DAOs can now hold up to 200 different assets, as opposed to just one. This means DAOs can hold assets other than ETH, including stablecoins like DAI, time tokens like $MAGIC and even project tokens like Kyber Network Crystals (KNC).
Funding Proposals
Instead of receiving shares for proposals, those wishing to receive funding can do so in any of the DAOs assets — such as ETH or DAI — without having to ragequit shares. This means a proposal can request 1000 DAI to completely mitigate volatility that arose throughout the two week processing period.
GuildKick
Getting sick of someone who’s clearly going against the DAOs best interest? GuildKick allows members to force a ragequit upon someone else through a unique type of proposal. The kicked member’s shares get burned, and they receive their pro-rata share over the DAOs underlying assets.
Open Submissions
Anyone, including those who are not members of the DAO, can now submit proposals on their own, as opposed to relying on a DAO member to submit it for them.
Trade Proposals
Hoping to have effective treasury management within a DAO? With trade proposals, DAOs can swap their underlying collateral, for example turning Dai into a transferrable, interest-earning asset like Chai.
Voting Updates
Once a proposal is submitted, it is marked as an ‘Unsponsored Proposal’. Any member of the DAO can choose to ‘Sponsor’ that proposal, effectively moving it from the Unsponsored queue into the Voting Period. From there it follows the same process as in V1.
Here’s a look at how proposals differ in the new version.
With Moloch V1:
With Moloch V2:
This unlocks more accessibility and encourages more proposals to be submitted to the DAO while still retaining the spam filter through the queue and member sponsors.
New Use Cases
With these features in mind, let’s take a look at some of the possibilities that Moloch V2 enables:
Enhanced Grant Giving
While the underlying premise is basically the same, coordination is greatly enhanced through the ability to issue grants in Dai and accept open submissions.
To paint a clear example, a grantee can receive 4k DAi instead of having to worry about the underlying volatility of rage quitting 9ETH worth of shares.
As we illustrated above, grantees can now submit their own proposals, rather than having to hunt down a current member to post the proposal for them.
For Profit
With the launch of new initiatives like MetaCartel Ventures, Multitoken support allows the bank to hold a number of different assets — directly optimizing the ability for the DAO to make investments and receive different tokens in return.
Paired with GuildKick to ensure all members are aligned, for-profit DAOs can move faster with increased flexibility.
War Chests
When it comes to aggregating different sets of tokens, multi-token support provides DAOs with new opportunities to segment who receives what kind of payment/compensation.
In the case of a DAO like Raid Guild, Moloch V2 allows for a basket of guild member personal tokens and/or guild project tokens to summon various mercenaries to the table for any given Raid.
Reputation Enabled
With tools like SourceCred and 1UP making their way into the DAO ecosystem, Moloch V2s can be used in tandem with reputation systems to better align governance. Seeing as reputation could be a direct indicator of share creation or voting weight, we expect to see DAOs emerge which allow for factors other than capital contributions to have on-chain influence.
Getting Started
To summon your very own Moloch V2, head on over to Daohaus, click Summon a DAO and then ‘Switch to V2’. To explore existing V2s, you can see them under the ‘Moloch V2’ discover tab on our home page.
Every Moloch launched on Daohaus comes with its own front-end thanks to Pokemol — giving you an easy way to manage and coordinate your DAO.
Within the Raid Guild, we’ve been working on some cool new features such as members being able to call functions on contracts, more metrics and gamification and voting on things outside of proposals such as claims and attestations.
Over time, we’ll continue to roll out a suite of accessibility features, ultimately geared at making DAO interactions as simple and efficient as possible.
If you’re looking for help on launching or summoning a DAO or general V2 questions please join the Daohaus Telegram channel.
In the meantime, keep up on all things Moloch via their official Twitter or by doing a deep dive on Github here.
