DAO Tokenomics: Incentivizing participation and collaboration

Karolina

17 May 2023
DAO Tokenomics: Incentivizing participation and collaboration

In the ever-changing world of blockchain technology, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have risen as influential models for decentralized cooperation and decision-making. By harnessing the transparent and secure nature of blockchain, AI, and cryptocurrencies, DAOs establish self-regulating communities centered around common objectives and values. Tokenomics, which encompasses the creation and application of token-based economic systems within these organizations, lies at the core of DAOs. This article delves into the importance of tokenomics in DAOs and its crucial role in promoting involvement and encouraging cooperation among community members.

Are you interested in DAO security? Be sure to check out our article on The DAO Hack

DAO tokenomics involves using digital tokens to stimulate and reward ecosystem participants for their contributions. These tokens act as both a medium for exchange and a symbol of value, allowing individuals to partake in the governance, decision-making, and development processes within the DAO. By syncing community members' interests with the organization's success, tokenomics in DAOs serve as a potent tool for instigating active engagement and collaboration.

Understanding Tokenomics in DAOs

DAO tokenomics is a critical aspect in the functioning and management of decentralized autonomous organizations. In this segment, we study the core principles of DAO tokenomics, commencing with an examination of DAO tokens. Symbolizing ownership or membership within a DAO, the digital assets called DAO tokens are spread among participants and hold considerable worth in their ecosystem. They act as a governance mechanism for DAOs by giving holders specific rights, tasks, and decision-making authority.

1. Token Distribution

Several crucial factors should be taken into account when discussing DAO tokenomics. Primarily, token distribution is essential. To disseminate tokens among participants, DAOs utilize various techniques such as token sales, airdrops, or reward-based contribution programs. Establishing a fair and inclusive environment hinges on the equitable allocation of tokens, making certain that everyone has equal chances to engage and contribute.

2. Token utility

Token utility is another vital element, pertaining to the use of DAO tokens within their ecosystem. Such tokens can possess multiple functions – they might work as a medium of exchange or provide access to services and features, or they could represent voting rights. By improving the value and usability of tokens, these utility aspects promote their integration into the community.

3. Governance and Voting

Tokenomics also heavily influences governance and voting mechanisms in DAOs. Token-driven governance models permit holders to partake in decision-making procedures, suggest and vote for proposals, and affect the course of the DAO. Different voting systems and decision-making methods can come into play – from straightforward majority votes to delegated voting setups – based on a specific DAO's layout and goals.

4. Incentive Mechanisms

Moreover, incentive structures are central components of DAO tokenomics that encourage active involvement and cooperation within the community. Those who devote their time, resources, or knowledge to a DAO are often rewarded accordingly. Incentivizing active engagement results in a dynamic ecosystem where members are inclined to collaborate and strive toward shared objectives.

Benefits of Effective Tokenomics in DAOs

A variety of advantages arise from efficient tokenomics in DAOs, contributing to the flourishing and expansion of these decentralized entities. Enhanced community involvement and engagement is a notable benefit. DAOs can cultivate a feeling of membership and responsibility among individuals by developing tokenomics that reward substantial contributions and active participation. This encourages members to actively offer their talents, expertise, and assets, knowing they will be acknowledged and compensated. Such intensified involvement results in a thriving and energetic ecosystem where community members join forces, exchange thoughts, and strive towards shared objectives. Moreover, DAO tokenomics allows for effective resource distribution. Moreover, through utilizing tokens as a means for funding and managing resources, DAOs can allocate resources in a transparent, decentralized manner. This guarantees the best use of funds and input, enabling the DAO to carry out projects adeptly, create new features, and foster innovation.

Successful DAO Tokenomics Models

1. MakerDAO

One of the most prominent DAOs in existence, MakerDAO, employs a unique dual-token model that has contributed to its success. The system includes the Maker (MKR) token and the DAI stablecoin.

MKR tokens serve governance purposes, enabling holders to cast votes on proposals, such as adjustments to the system's parameters. Additionally, the tokenomics of MKR aims to promote responsible governance. As the system operates efficiently, MKR holders reap benefits due to a decrease in MKR's total supply through a process known as "burning." Conversely, during times when the system

DAI, on the other hand, is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. It's generated by locking up collateral in the form of other crypto assets. This dual-token model has proven successful, ensuring stability in the system and encouraging active participation from its members.

2. Aragon

Aragon is a platform that allows users to create and manage their DAOs. It uses the Aragon Network Token (ANT), a utility token that provides holders with voting rights within the Aragon network.

Aragon's tokenomics model is centered around the concept of decentralization and democracy. ANT token holders can vote on various aspects, such as changes to the network's settings and dispute resolution. This creates a self-sustainable ecosystem where the community directly influences the platform's direction and future development.

3. Compound

Compound is a decentralized lending platform governed by its users through the COMP token. In this DAO, users earn COMP tokens as they interact with the platform, borrowing, or lending assets.

The Compound's tokenomics model has been designed to distribute governance power proportionally to those who use the platform the most. COMP tokens give holders the right to propose and vote on changes to the Compound protocol. This model has been successful because it ensures that those who are most invested in and knowledgeable about the platform have the most significant say in its operation and future direction.

4. Yearn.Finance

Yearn.Finance represents a paradigm shift in the way DAO tokenomics models are structured. This platform aims to simplify the ever-growing DeFi space for investors by automating yield farming strategies. At the core of its governance is the YFI token.

Yearn.Finance's success lies in its unique approach to token distribution, incentives for holding tokens, active community participation, and a founder committed to the platform's success. Its tokenomics model ensures that the platform remains decentralized, democratic, and in the best interest of its most active users. This case study highlights how an innovative approach to DAO tokenomics can lead to a successful, thriving ecosystem in the DeFi space.

Conclusion

To sum up, DAO tokenomics is critical in motivating engagement and cooperation within decentralized autonomous organizations. Through the usage of tokens for value exchange, governance, and incentive structures, DAOs can foster dynamic communities in which members actively participate and pursue shared objectives. The core components of successful DAO tokenomics include token distribution, token utility, governance and voting systems, and incentives. Nevertheless, ongoing challenges such as decentralization, sustainability, and legal concerns must be tackled as this field continues to progress.

Do you need the help of specialists to create a tokenomy? Contact us!

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Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Kajetan Olas

22 Nov 2024
Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Authors of the contents are not affiliated to the reviewed project in any way and none of the information presented should be taken as financial advice.

In this article we analyze tokenomics of Aethir - a project providing on-demand cloud compute resources for the AI, Gaming, and virtualized compute sectors.
Aethir aims to aggregate enterprise-grade GPUs from multiple providers into a DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network). Its competitive edge comes from utlizing the GPUs for very specific use-cases, such as low-latency rendering for online games.
Due to decentralized nature of its infrastructure Aethir can meet the demands of online-gaming in any region. This is especially important for some gamer-abundant regions in Asia with underdeveloped cloud infrastructure that causes high latency ("lags").
We will analyze Aethir's tokenomics, give our opinion on what was done well, and provide specific recommendations on how to improve it.

Evaluation Summary

Aethir Tokenomics Structure

The total supply of ATH tokens is capped at 42 billion ATH. This fixed cap provides a predictable supply environment, and the complete emissions schedule is listed here. As of November 2024 there are approximately 5.2 Billion ATH in circulation. In a year from now (November 2025), the circulating supply will almost triple, and will amount to approximately 15 Billion ATH. By November 2028, today's circulating supply will be diluted by around 86%.

From an investor standpoint the rational decision would be to stake their tokens and hope for rewards that will balance the inflation. Currently the estimated APR for 3-year staking is 195% and for 4-year staking APR is 261%. The rewards are paid out weekly. Furthermore, stakers can expect to get additional rewards from partnered AI projects.

Staking Incentives

Rewards are calculated based on the staking duration and staked amount. These factors are equally important and they linearly influence weekly rewards. This means that someone who stakes 100 ATH for 2 weeks will have the same weekly rewards as someone who stakes 200 ATH for 1 week. This mechanism greatly emphasizes long-term holding. That's because holding a token makes sense only if you go for long-term staking. E.g. a whale staking $200k with 1 week lockup. will have the same weekly rewards as person staking $1k with 4 year lockup. Furthermore the ATH staking rewards are fixed and divided among stakers. Therefore Increase of user base is likely to come with decrease in rewards.
We believe the main weak-point of Aethirs staking is the lack of equivalency between rewards paid out to the users and value generated for the protocol as a result of staking.

Token Distribution

The token distribution of $ATH is well designed and comes with long vesting time-frames. 18-month cliff and 36-moths subsequent linear vesting is applied to team's allocation. This is higher than industry standard and is a sign of long-term commitment.

  • Checkers and Compute Providers: 50%
  • Ecosystem: 15%
  • Team: 12.5%
  • Investors: 11.5%
  • Airdrop: 6%
  • Advisors: 5%

Aethir's airdrop is divided into 3 phases to ensure that only loyal users get rewarded. This mechanism is very-well thought and we rate it highly. It fosters high community engagement within the first months of the project and sets the ground for potentially giving more-control to the DAO.

Governance and Community-Led Development

Aethir’s governance model promotes community-led decision-making in a very practical way. Instead of rushing with creation of a DAO for PR and marketing purposes Aethir is trying to make it the right way. They support projects building on their infrastructure and regularly share updates with their community in the most professional manner.

We believe Aethir would benefit from implementing reputation boosted voting. An example of such system is described here. The core assumption is to abandon the simplistic: 1 token = 1 vote and go towards: Votes = tokens * reputation_based_multiplication_factor.

In the attached example, reputation_based_multiplication_factor rises exponentially with the number of standard deviations above norm, with regard to user's rating. For compute compute providers at Aethir, user's rating could be replaced by provider's uptime.

Perspectives for the future

While it's important to analyze aspects such as supply-side tokenomics, or governance, we must keep in mind that 95% of project's success depends on demand-side. In this regard the outlook for Aethir may be very bright. The project declares $36M annual reccuring revenue. Revenue like this is very rare in the web3 space. Many projects are not able to generate any revenue after succesfull ICO event, due to lack fo product-market-fit.

If you're looking to create a robust tokenomics model and go through institutional-grade testing please reach out to contact@nextrope.com. Our team is ready to help you with the token engineering process and ensure your project’s resilience in the long term.

Quadratic Voting in Web3

Kajetan Olas

04 Dec 2024
Quadratic Voting in Web3

Decentralized systems are reshaping how we interact, conduct transactions, and govern online communities. As Web3 continues to advance, the necessity for effective and fair voting mechanisms becomes apparent. Traditional voting systems, such as the one-token-one-vote model, often fall short in capturing the intensity of individual preferences, which can result in centralization. Quadratic Voting (QV) addresses this challenge by enabling individuals to express not only their choices but also the strength of their preferences.

In QV, voters are allocated a budget of credits that they can spend to cast votes on various issues. The cost of casting multiple votes on a single issue increases quadratically, meaning that each additional vote costs more than the last. This system allows for a more precise expression of preferences, as individuals can invest more heavily in issues they care deeply about while conserving credits on matters of lesser importance.

Understanding Quadratic Voting

Quadratic Voting (QV) is a voting system designed to capture not only the choices of individuals but also the strength of their preferences. In most DAO voting mechanisms, each person typically has one vote per token, which limits the ability to express how strongly they feel about a particular matter. Furthermore, QV limits the power of whales and founding team who typically have large token allocations. These problems are adressed by making the cost of each additional vote increase quadratically.

In QV, each voter is given a budget of credits or tokens that they can spend to cast votes on various issues. The key principle is that the cost to cast n votes on a single issue is proportional to the square of n. This quadratic cost function ensures that while voters can express stronger preferences, doing so requires a disproportionately higher expenditure of their voting credits. This mechanism discourages voters from concentrating all their influence on a single issue unless they feel very strongly about it. In the context of DAOs, it means that large holders will have a hard-time pushing through with a proposal if they'll try to do it on their own.

Practical Example

Consider a voter who has been allocated 25 voting credits to spend on several proposals. The voter has varying degrees of interest in three proposals: Proposal A, Proposal B, and Proposal C.

  • Proposal A: High interest.
  • Proposal B: Moderate interest.
  • Proposal C: Low interest.

The voter might allocate their credits as follows:

Proposal A:

  • Votes cast: 3
  • Cost: 9 delegated tokens

Proposal B:

  • Votes cast: 2
  • Cost: 4 delegated tokens

Proposal C:

  • Votes cast: 1
  • Cost: 1 delegated token

Total delegated tokens: 14
Remaining tokens: 11

With the remaining tokens, the voter can choose to allocate additional votes to the proposals based on their preferences or save for future proposals. If they feel particularly strong about Proposal A, they might decide to cast one more vote:

Additional vote on Proposal A:

  • New total votes: 4
  • New cost: 16 delegated tokens
  • Additional cost: 16−9 = 7 delegated tokens

Updated total delegated tokens: 14+7 = 21

Updated remaining tokens: 25−21 = 425 - 21 = 4

This additional vote on Proposal A costs 7 credits, significantly more than the previous vote, illustrating how the quadratic cost discourages excessive influence on a single issue without strong conviction.

Benefits of Implementing Quadratic Voting

Key Characteristics of the Quadratic Cost Function

  • Marginal Cost Increases Linearly: The marginal cost of each additional vote increases linearly. The cost difference between casting n and n−1 votes is 2n−1.
  • Total Cost Increases Quadratically: The total cost to cast multiple votes rises steeply, discouraging voters from concentrating too many votes on a single issue without significant reason.
  • Promotes Egalitarian Voting: Small voters are encouraged to participate, because relatively they have a much higher impact.

Advantages Over Traditional Voting Systems

Quadratic Voting offers several benefits compared to traditional one-person-one-vote systems:

  • Captures Preference Intensity: By allowing voters to express how strongly they feel about an issue, QV leads to outcomes that better reflect the collective welfare.
  • Reduces Majority Domination: The quadratic cost makes it costly for majority groups to overpower minority interests on every issue.
  • Encourages Honest Voting: Voters are incentivized to allocate votes in proportion to their true preferences, reducing manipulation.

By understanding the foundation of Quadratic Voting, stakeholders in Web3 communities can appreciate how this system supports more representative governance.

Conclusion

Quadratic voting is a novel voting system that may be used within DAOs to foster decentralization. The key idea is to make the cost of voting on a certain issue increase quadratically. The leading player that makes use of this mechanism is Optimism. If you're pondering about the design of your DAO, we highly recommend taking a look at their research on quadratic funding.

If you're looking to create a robust governance model and go through institutional-grade testing please reach out to contact@nextrope.com. Our team is ready to help you with the token engineering process and ensure that your DAO will stand out as a beacon of innovation and resilience in the long term.