Today we will look at how to create a DAO in a very easy step-by-step manner using the Aragon platform. I really found it amazing how simple it was to get my DAO up and running in a matter of a few minutes. We are going to create the DAO on the Polygon blockchain since it is cost-efficient to create and operate on the Polygon blockchain.

I am assuming that you would have a basic understanding of what a DAO is. But for the uninitiated, DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. As Ethereum Foundation highlights, “DAOs are an effective and safe way to work with like-minded folks around the globe”. They are inherently democratic in nature, are completely transparent and public in their operations, and utilize all the benefits of decentralization.

We will have another post on the benefits of DAOs and their various flavors as well as use-cases but for now, let’s jump right in into creating one.

Pre-requisites

• A Polygon compatible wallet. I have used Metamask but other supported wallets are Frame, Fortmatic, and Portis
• Some MATIC tokens to fuel the transactions. [For me the transaction took around 0.015 MATIC, pretty cheap]
• Decide on what you would call your DAO and the DAO Token, who would be the initial token holders (have their addresses ready), what kind of a DAO you would like to form, what would be the voting configurations. [Don’t worry if this sounds too much, we will cover these as we go along the steps]

Steps to create a DAO

Step 1: Go to the Aragon Client dapp

Step 2: Change the Network from the top right section from Ethereum to Polygon

Step 3: Select “Create an organization“

Step 4: Template Selection

Aragon offers various templates to get started with your DAO. Choose the one that fits your needs. You have a company structure where the voting rights are based on the number of tokens held by a participant. There is a membership template where one member holds one vote as well as reputation-based voting where the tokens are non-transferable. There are guides detailing each of the templates so you can go through the details if you wish to. For the purpose of this tutorial, we have selected the Company template.

Step 5: Setup the name for the DAO. The naming has to be unique in the Aragon namespace and Aragon uses ENS domains for the names

Step 7: Voting Configurations

In this step, we need to define the voting configurations that would be used for the DAO proposals. There are 3 main configurations here - Support %, Minimum Approval %, and the Vote Duration.

Support % is the relative percentage of tokens that are required to vote “Yes” for a proposal to be approved. For example, if “Support” is set to 50%, then more than 50% of the tokens used to vote on a proposal must vote “Yes” for it to pass.

Minimum Approval is the percentage of the total token supply that is required to vote “Yes” on a proposal before it can be approved. For example, if the “Minimum Approval” is set to 20%, then more than 20% of the outstanding token supply must vote “Yes” on a proposal for it to pass.

For a particular vote, only if the minimum approval percentage and the support percentage values cross will it be passed.

The Voting duration is the time that is allotted for the participants to vote on the proposal. If the support and approval thresholds are not met within this time period then the vote does not pass.

Step 8: Token Configurations

In this step, we would need to define the Token configurations. You have to decide on the name of the Token that would be used for the DAO as well as the symbol for the token.

Once that is done, the next step is to define the token holders and their corresponding holdings. You can add multiple token holders and set their addresses and their starting balances. This can be done later as well after the DAO Setup is complete.
For the tutorial, I just added one token holder (me!) and assigned 10 million tokens (because why not!!)

Step 9: Review the information

This is the final step where you can review the information that you have entered for the DAO. All the voting and token related configurations along with others would be listed so make sure to do a thorough check before you hit launch the organization.

Step 10: Final Launch

After you have reviewed the information, just hit the “Launch your organization“ button. This will trigger the on-chain transaction and would require permission from your wallet. The gas fees for the operations would also be listed.

Once the transaction completes, you have your DAO ready to go 🚀 You can also validate the token contracts and details independently from Polygonscan.

Now you can just access the organization dashboard, transfer tokens, add additional participants, create proposals and operate a decentralized organization with just a few clicks.

Hope you liked this post and it helped you to understand how to create a DAO.