Overview
The purpose of this document is to provide detailed instructions for building a decentralized, autonomous organization (DAO) using the principles and approach described in the paper On-Chain Governance of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (Craig Calcaterra, 2018).
A prototype of this system has been implemented in Solidity and JavaScript. This specification will be derived from that prototype, and generalized in such a way that it can be implemented using an alternative technology stack, such as Casper.
More background information is available on the DGF Wiki.
Decentralized Autonomous Organization
Organization
- a group of persons organized for some end or work; association (dictionary.com)
In our model, a DAO is comprised of a group of experts who want to be able to present a united front. They will collaborate to define the rules by which the organization is to be governed, and by which customers may engage the expertise of the DAO.
Autonomous
- self-governing; independent; subject to its own laws only.
- having autonomy; not subject to control from outside; independent
- (of a machine, device, etc.) able to operate with little or no human control or intervention (dictionary.com)
The rules of the DAO are to be implemented as code, and executed automatically, without the need for human intervention.
Decentralized
- (of currency) not controlled or distributed by a government, bank, or other third party, as bitcoin and some other digital currencies (dictionary.com)
The code which implements the rules of the DAO is to be run by multipe parties who each verify one another's results.