We’re excited to introduce a groundbreaking update for Mainnet DAOs – introducing gasless onchain voting. This achievement represents a significant advancement in onchain governance, allowing DAOs to provide a secure, crosschain, and free voting experience for their members.
With the latest update to our Multichain Governance plugin, participants in Mainnet DAOs can now cast their votes for free. This update incorporates LayerZero V2 to aggregate votes on the voting chain, which are then relayed and compiled on the home chain. It also utilizes ZKsync’s native account abstraction and txSync’s Tsuko paymaster functionality to subsidize voting gas costs for DAO members. The plugin is agnostic to bridges, chains, and paymasters, allowing DAOs to integrate the solutions of their choice.
In DAO governance, participation is not just a metric but the cornerstone of security and legitimacy. However, high gas fees have often hindered voter engagement, leading many DAOs to adopt offchain solutions that compromise the security, censorship-resistance, and trust-minimization of onchain execution.
Our solution brings accessible voting back onchain, empowering DAOs to maintain the security of onchain governance while enabling members to cast their votes for free. This not only enhances the experience for DAO members but also encourages more active participation to ensure all stakeholders have a voice.
Since the initial launch of the Multichain Governance plugin in November 2023, we have been relentless in addressing these crucial challenges in onchain governance. Here’s what this new iteration offers:
- Vote from any EVM chain: DAOs can designate any secondary chain for voting, with LayerZero seamlessly aggregating votes back to the primary chain. Minimal bridging is required, as users simply bridge their tokens to the desired chain, and the system handles the rest.
- Gasless voting via paymaster integration: Using ZKsync’s native account abstraction, we have implemented a paymaster workflow with txSync‘s Tsuko paymaster, subsidized by Aragon to cover all gas costs for votes cast on ZKsync, enabling truly gasless voting for DAO participants.
- Seamless user experience: A customizable front-end streamlines the process, allowing users to bridge tokens and vote in one place, ensuring a smooth and integrated experience.
- Unified crosschain execution: With built-in LayerZero OFT (Omnichain Fungible Token) integration, DAOs can scale governance and execute proposals across multiple chains while maintaining a single, cohesive permission system controlled by token holders across all chains.
- Modular and composable design: Our plugin is constructed from modular, loosely coupled components, making it adaptable to the unique needs of any DAO. The system can evolve with the DAO’s requirements, whether changing bridging protocols, chains, or adding new governance features.
Here are the key steps to pass a proposal:
- Bridge Tokens: Members can bridge tokens from the execution chain to the voting chain before creating a proposal. Members can also remain on the execution chain with the option to bridge back.
- Create Proposal: Members meeting the minimum token requirement set by the DAO can create proposals.
- Voting Phase: Eligible members can vote directly on the voting or execution chain, with votes aggregated until dispatched.
- Dispatch Votes: Aggregated votes are sent from the voting chain to the execution chain.
- Receive Votes: The execution chain validates and updates the proposal’s vote balance with the received votes.
- Execute Proposal: The proposal is executed across all chains included in the proposal.
Aragon DAOs need to install the Multichain Governance v2 Plugin (Toucan Voting) and pair it with a dedicated UX. Our team can assist with deployment and installation. Below is a diagram of the technical architecture of the plugin; for more information, please visit the GitHub repository.
Our dedication to resolving these challenges and advancing onchain governance is unwavering. Moving forward, we are exploring the use of storage proofs with RISC Zero to further streamline the voting process by eliminating the need for bridging and enabling custom multichain census compilation. Our collaboration is leading to these next-level innovations, and we anticipate sharing more details soon.
Multichain builds are intricate. We develop governance technology so you can focus on developing your protocol. Our solutions are geared for rapid deployment with extensive customization options to suit your specific needs. Designed to scale with your DAO, our governance solutions provide the flexibility to adapt as the decentralized landscape evolves.
Contact us to explore our end-to-end custom DAO deployment solutions here.