DAO-to-DAO Interaction

A mechanism where one DAO can participate in the governance of another, often through delegated voting or tokenized voting power. This allows for aligned decision-making on shared initiatives or protocol upgrades.

• Example: A DeFi protocol DAO holding governance tokens of a lending platform to vote on interest rate parameters.
• Implementation: Often uses safe multi-sig wallets or specialized governance modules to execute votes on behalf of the DAO's treasury.

The direct, programmable exchange of assets between DAO treasuries. This is the foundational financial layer for D2D deals, enabling lending, grants, joint investments, and payment for services.

• Key Enabler: Multi-signature wallets or Gnosis Safe modules that require approvals from both DAOs' governance.
• Security: Transactions are executed only after proposals pass in both organizations, creating a trust-minimized escrow.

D2D interactions are codified through interoperable smart contracts that define the terms, conditions, and automated execution of agreements. This removes manual processes and enables complex, conditional logic.

• Standards: Emerging standards like ERC-20 for tokens and EIP-1271 for signature validation allow contracts to recognize and interact with DAO entities.
• Automation: Contracts can automatically release funds upon completion of verifiable milestones or oracle-reported data.

The creation of a new, specialized DAO (a SubDAO) by two or more parent DAOs to manage a shared initiative. This structure isolates risk, budget, and operational focus.

• Purpose: Used for joint ventures, research collectives, or shared infrastructure projects.
• Governance: The SubDAO often has a governance token distribution or voting weight allocated to each founding DAO.

A technical integration where one DAO-governed protocol's functions are embedded within another's. This creates symbiotic relationships and shared liquidity.

• Common in DeFi: A DEX DAO integrating a lending protocol's interest-bearing tokens as a core liquidity pool asset.
• Revenue Sharing: Often involves fee-sharing agreements or token swaps ratified by both DAOs' governance.

Formalized processes for resolving disputes between DAOs, often using on-chain arbitration platforms or decentralized courts. This is critical for enforcing complex, long-term agreements.

• Mechanisms: May involve bonded disputes, jury systems (e.g., Kleros), or escalation to a parent DAO's governance.
• Purpose: Provides a predictable, non-violent path for resolving disagreements over terms, performance, or fund allocation.

Protocols that allow DAOs on different blockchains to send messages and trigger actions. This is essential for multi-chain governance and treasury management.

• Key Protocols: LayerZero, Axelar, Wormhole, and Chainlink CCIP.
• Function: Enables a vote on Ethereum to execute a payment on Polygon or a proposal on Arbitrum to mint an NFT on Base.
• Security Model: Relies on decentralized oracle networks or validator sets to attest to message validity across chains.

Common interfaces and smart contract standards that allow DAO management platforms to interoperate.

• ERC-4824: A proposed standard for a common DAO interface, defining a universal way to query proposals, members, and votes.
• Impact: Allows frontends like Tally or Boardroom to interact seamlessly with DAOs built on different frameworks (e.g., Aragon, DAOstack, OpenZeppelin Governor).
• Composability: Enables the creation of meta-governance tools that can aggregate data and actions across multiple DAOs.

The Safe{Wallet} (formerly Gnosis Safe) smart contract wallet is a foundational primitive for DAO treasuries and their interactions.

• Role: Acts as the secure, programmable vault for most DAOs.
• Modules: Enable custom logic for D2D interactions, such as allowing a specific external DAO's vote to trigger a transaction.
• Zodiac Suite: A set of standards and tools built on Safe that enable composable governance, allowing DAOs to become reusable modules in each other's processes.

Frameworks that allow one DAO to participate in the governance of another, typically by voting with its treasury-held tokens.

• Mechanism: A DAO uses a voting vault or delegate registry to coordinate its token voting power in an external protocol.
• Example: Index Coop's INDEX token holders voting on Uniswap proposals using tokens held in their treasury.
• Tooling: Supported by platforms like Tally's Delegation Vaults and Agora's Delegation Module.

A hierarchical structure where a parent DAO spawns specialized, autonomous sub-DAOs to manage specific functions, enabling scalable coordination.

• Purpose: Delegates operational tasks (e.g., grants, development, marketing) to smaller, agile groups with their own treasury and governance.
• Interaction: The parent DAO typically controls the subDAO's core parameters (like budget) via inter-DAO proposals.
• Frameworks: Often implemented using clones of the main DAO's contracts or via specialized tooling like Orca Protocol's Pods.

Smart contract-based agreements where execution is contingent on the combined approval of multiple DAOs, weighted by their token stakes.

• Concept: Extends multi-signature logic to the DAO level, creating multi-DAO signatures.
• Use Case: A joint investment, a shared grant pool, or a cross-DAO alliance where no single entity has unilateral control.
• Implementation: Can be built using multi-sig modules within Safe{Wallet} or custom contracts that accept votes from registered DAO governance addresses.

Ensuring the legitimacy of proposals from external DAOs is critical. This involves verifying the proposal's on-chain status, the voting power behind it, and the authenticity of the proposer. Key risks include spoofing attacks where a malicious actor impersonates a legitimate DAO's governance contract. Best practices include using inter-chain state proofs or oracle attestations to confirm proposal finality before execution.

When DAOs pool funds or make payments contingent on mutual agreement, secure multi-signature escrow or timelock contracts are essential. These mechanisms prevent unilateral withdrawal and enforce atomicity—where all actions in an agreement succeed or fail together. Common patterns include using Gnosis Safe multi-sigs with configurable signer sets from each DAO or custom hashed timelock contracts (HTLCs) for conditional cross-chain transfers.

Reducing the trust surface between DAOs is achieved by designing interactions around specific, audited modules rather than granting open-ended permissions. Examples include:

• Vesting contracts for token grants.
• Bonding curves for joint liquidity pools.
• Prediction market oracles to resolve subjective outcomes. This limits the impact of a compromise in one DAO's governance on its partners.

DAO-to-DAO voting, such as in meta-governance where one DAO votes in another's system, is vulnerable to delegation attacks. A malicious DAO could accumulate voting power through token borrowing or sybil identities to sway outcomes. Mitigations include using proof-of-personhood systems, requiring lock-up periods for borrowed governance tokens, or implementing conviction voting models that reward long-term alignment over snapshot voting.

When DAOs integrate at the smart contract level, a protocol upgrade by one can break the interaction or create security holes for the other. This creates coordination failure risk. Strategies to manage this include:

• Immutable adapter contracts that define a fixed interface.
• Grace period mandates for notifying partner DAOs of upgrades.
• Contingency plans for graceful degradation or forking the shared interaction module if consensus fails.

Formal agreements between DAOs, often called DAO-to-DAO (D2D) agreements or pacta, attempt to clarify liability and dispute resolution. These can be encoded in Ricardian contracts or supplemented by off-chain legal frameworks. Key considerations include determining which jurisdiction's laws apply, defining breach conditions, and establishing a neutral arbitration layer (e.g., Kleros, Aragon Court) for resolving conflicts without traditional courts.

A broader category of protocols that allow smart contracts and DAOs on one blockchain to send messages and trigger actions on another. Unlike IBC, these often use third-party validator sets or optimistic verification.

• Examples: LayerZero, Wormhole, Axelar.
• DAO Application: A DAO on Ethereum can use a cross-chain message to instruct a treasury sub-DAO on Avalanche to execute a specific investment.

A seminal DAO framework and its extension that pioneered programmable, subservient treasury contracts. A Minion is a smart contract that can hold assets and execute arbitrary calls on behalf of a parent Moloch DAO.

• DAO-to-DAO Use Case: A Minion can be programmed to automatically fulfill the terms of a partnership with another DAO, enabling autonomous, conditional payouts without manual proposal voting for each step.

A hierarchical organizational pattern where a primary DAO spawns or governs smaller, specialized DAOs (sub-DAOs or pods). This creates a network of interacting autonomous entities.

• Purpose: Delegates specific functions (e.g., marketing, grants) to agile sub-teams.
• Interaction: The parent DAO typically controls the sub-DAO's treasury or veto power, requiring structured proposal and voting channels between them.

The technical and social standards that allow a token holder in one DAO to participate in the governance of another, or for DAOs to delegate voting power.

• Examples: Governance-as-a-Service platforms like Syndicate, where a DAO can be a member of an investment club DAO.
• Mechanism: Often uses ERC-20 wrapper tokens or delegation vaults to represent voting power across organizational boundaries.