Cross-DAO Bounty

When multiple DAOs from different chains need to agree on a shared standard (e.g., a cross-chain NFT metadata schema or a delegation framework), they can jointly fund a bounty for its research, specification, and reference implementation. Key aspects:

• Governance Alignment: Bounty completion criteria must be ratified by each DAO.
• Payout Structure: Funds are often escrowed in a multi-sig controlled by representatives from each sponsoring DAO.

A tooling DAO (e.g., The Graph) and several application-layer DAOs can co-sponsor a bounty to build a unified indexer or dashboard that aggregates data from multiple L1s and L2s. This solves the "orchestration problem" where no single DAO has the mandate or full context to build the tool alone. The bounty rewards are distributed from a shared treasury upon delivery of a working product that meets all sponsors' requirements.

If a critical vulnerability affects a library or dependency used across many chains (e.g., a widely deployed multi-sig library), the affected DAOs can rapidly pool funds to create a time-sensitive mitigation bounty. This bounty would reward developers for creating and deploying patches for each affected chain simultaneously, ensuring a coordinated security response that a single DAO could not efficiently manage alone.

DAOs with aligned long-term interests (e.g., DAOs focused on decentralized identity or ZK-proof privacy) can establish a recurring cross-DAO bounty to fund a dedicated research working group. Contributors are compensated from the pooled treasury for producing reports, prototypes, and specifications that advance the shared technological frontier, with governance oversight from all sponsoring entities.

A Cross-DAO Bounty is a smart contract-based task posted by a sponsor DAO with a predefined reward. Contributors from any DAO or the public can submit work, which is then verified and paid upon completion. This creates a permissionless labor market where specialized skills (e.g., smart contract auditing, UI/UX design, content creation) can be sourced across the ecosystem without formal employment.

• Bounty Scope: A clear, objective description of the required work (e.g., "Audit function X in contract Y").
• Reward Pool: The cryptocurrency or tokens escrowed in the bounty contract.
• Verification Mechanism: Rules for validating completion, often involving multi-sig approval from the sponsor DAO's committee or an oracle.
• Submission Window: The period during which work can be submitted.
• Dispute Resolution: A process (often via a governance vote or dedicated court like Kleros) to handle contested submissions.

• Open-Source Development: Funding specific features or bug fixes for a protocol (e.g., a DeFi DAO funding a front-end integration).
• Security Audits: Crowdsourcing code reviews from expert developers in security-focused DAOs.
• Content & Marketing: Commissioning articles, videos, or graphics from creator DAOs.
• Research & Analysis: Soliciting in-depth reports on tokenomics, governance, or competitive landscapes.
• Bug Bounties: Incentivizing the discovery and responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities.

• Access to Specialized Talent: Tap into global, niche skill pools beyond a single DAO's membership.
• Reduced Overhead: Pay for specific outcomes rather than maintaining full-time roles.
• Improved Treasury Management: Convert dormant treasury assets into productive work.
• Ecosystem Alignment: Incentivize contributors from other projects to build integrations or tooling, creating positive network effects.
• Merit-Based Participation: Lowers barriers to entry for new contributors to prove their value.

• Specification Clarity: Vague bounties lead to disputes and wasted effort.
• Verification Overhead: Assessing quality submissions requires DAO member time or trusted oracles.
• Coordination Costs: Managing many small bounties can become complex.
• Payment Finality: Disputes can lock funds. Using escrow with arbitration (e.g., UMA's Optimistic Oracle) mitigates this.
• Contributor Reputation: Systems lack standardized soulbound reputation, making it hard to assess past performance across platforms.

The security of the bounty's escrow contract is paramount. It must be governed by a multi-signature wallet or a DAO's treasury module to prevent unilateral fund seizure. Common models include:

• Time-locked escrow where funds are released after a predefined period and verification.
• Arbitration clauses that involve a neutral third-party oracle or a Kleros-style decentralized court for dispute resolution.
• Progressive payouts that release funds in milestones to mitigate delivery risk.

Preventing Sybil attacks—where a single entity creates multiple fake identities to claim bounties—is a core coordination challenge. Solutions include:

• Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) or verifiable credentials to attest to a contributor's unique identity and past work.
• Reputation systems like SourceCred or Coordinape that track contributions across DAOs, creating a portable reputation score.
• Staking requirements where contributors must lock collateral to submit work, which is slashed for fraudulent submissions.

Bounties that span multiple blockchains (e.g., a task requiring work on Ethereum and Solana) introduce bridge risk and oracle risk. Key vulnerabilities:

• Bridge exploits can lead to the loss of escrowed funds being transferred between chains.
• Verification complexity: Proving completion of work on one chain to a smart contract on another requires secure cross-chain messaging (e.g., LayerZero, Wormhole, IBC).
• Gas cost volatility across different networks can make bounty execution unpredictably expensive.

Disputes can arise when the issuing DAO and the contributor's home DAO have conflicting governance rules. Considerations include:

• Choice of law: Which DAO's governance framework resolves disputes? Clear smart contract logic must encode this.
• Vote delegation: Can members of one DAO delegate voting power on a bounty outcome to the other DAO's members?
• Forking risk: A contributor's DAO could fork, creating ambiguity about which entity is responsible for the work delivered.

Automating the verification of subjective or complex bounties is a major hurdle. Common mechanisms include:

• ZK-proofs for verifiable computation, proving a task was completed without revealing proprietary code.
• Oracle networks like Chainlink Functions to fetch and verify off-chain data (e.g., API results, website deployment).
• Multi-party human review where a randomly selected panel of experts from participating DAOs votes on submission quality, with incentives for honest reporting.

Managing communication and workflow across independent DAOs creates significant overhead. Essential tooling includes:

• Inter-DAO communication platforms like Discord guilds or Wonderverse to coordinate.
• Standardized bounty schemas (e.g., using OpenGraph or Ceramic data models) for interoperable posting and discovery.
• Shared project management tools with DAO-native access control, such as Dework or Coordinape, that integrate with on-chain treasuries and reputation.