Athens is the cradle of Western civilization. So, it’s only fitting that the technical seeds of new democratic structures, rooted in blockchain, would begin to grow at AthensDAO.
Our Berlin-based engineers, Dan Kelleher and Alexis Raptarchis, recently journeyed south to take part in the Grape Protocol sponsored hacker house. Familiar with the many aspects of managing DAOs in both the physical world and in Web3, they were happy to connect with projects working to solve some of the same challenges.
During the week, the pair met with Realms, a DAO governance platform on Solana. Together, they integrated our flagship product, Civic Pass, in order to introduce a veritable Swiss Army knife of tools to DAO admins and an enthusiastic hacker house. Civic Pass allows real-world constraints and permissioning to be added to a DAO’s membership, based on digital identity.
Because DAOs have flat organizational structures and shared bank accounts, decision-making can become more transparent and trusted — in part because of the smart contracts executing the decision-making. In practice though, delegating authority to a DAO can add unexpected challenges, from issues surrounding everything from human disagreements to cyber attacks on the system itself. Civic Pass helps alleviate some of these challenges.
Sybil resistance
Sybil attacks, which use large numbers of pseudonymous identities to gain unfair influence and voting rights, may be prevented with liveness and uniqueness verification by Civic Pass. Sybil resistance is essential for enabling systems like quadratic voting and one-person-one-vote systems. It is essentially the core benefit of uniqueness on DAOs.
Trusted decision-making processes
After a DAO makes a choice to be Sybil resistant, the DAO may enable one-person-one-vote and quadratic voting systems.
One-person-one vote
Checking for uniqueness can also prevent members from accumulating more than their allotted share of one vote. This may help prevent whales or individuals with a large number of wallets from voting more than once.
Quadratic voting systems
An upgrade on the standard on-person-one-vote system that most collectives employ, quadratic voting allows for voters to express the degree of their preferences, which helps eliminate majority rule.
Location and age gating
DAOs may need to keep out minors or members from certain locations, based on local laws or other criteria. Civic Pass helps by verifying this information, while keeping other user information private.
KYC requirements
DAOs may need to adhere to local laws related to compliance. If they are subject to compliance, Civic Pass can help provide inputs to satisfy requirements.
In sum, we’re thrilled about this integration. Civic Pass helps DAO leaders set expectations around how voting will be conducted and protect the DAO at the same time. We are looking forward to hearing about how these features are put into practice.
Are you running a DAO? Make sure to check out the Civic Pass integration on Realms. Learn more about Civic for DAO governance and integrate Civic into your project. And, you can get started by watching our demo video, produced in Athens.