DAOs on Zcash
(Paper 100+)
This RFP would be a research project that could document and describe all the options the Zcash community have for on-chain DAO functionality.
I think there is kind of an assumption we would need smart contracts on Zcash to have a DAO. I’m not sure that’s true. We might even be able to produce more reliable/predictable DAOs without the complexities of “code”. A DAO is just the ability for a decentralized group to control funds. There are a few ways I can think of that could achieve a DAO without smart contracts.
- On-chain voting where the vote is weight by how many DAO tokens a user has (post ZSAs). A new consensus rule could describe how that vote could trigger a transaction to occur.
- Using a side/forked chain to create a new side chain that has some additional consensus rules for penalizing/rewarding nodes for correctly controlling DAO funds.
- A new type of address called a ZSA address (e.g. zsa-“asset type number”). This address would be similar to a ethereum contract address but rather then a contract controlling the funds it would be the ZSA holders that control the funds. When the ZSA type is created the asset sets a voting threshold (e.g. 50%). The holders of that asset can vote to transfer the funds held at the zsa-“asset type number” address. The votes could be manual votes triggered by an actual user, or they could be triggered by a node the user is running.