draft · last edited 2026-05-06 14:52

DAO Packages, Frameworks, and Reference Implementations

A reading list. Don’t reinvent what 50+ DAOs have already battle-tested. Each entry below: what it is, why we care, what to inspect, link.

Organized by layer, top-down.

1. Voting (off-chain) — Snapshot

The de-facto standard for off-chain governance. Roughly every major DeFi DAO (Aave, Balancer, ENS-precursor, Curve-signaling, Sushi, GMX, Optimism Citizens’ House, etc.) runs a Snapshot space.

• Snapshot front-end / hub — https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot
• Snapshot.js (SDK to read/write proposals programmatically) — https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot.js
• Snapshot strategies (the voting-weight functions — this is where we’ll plug in wBOB + LP) — https://github.com/snapshot-labs/snapshot-strategies
• Snapshot docs — https://docs.snapshot.org/

What to inspect first: - snapshot-strategies/src/strategies/erc20-balance-of/ — the simplest strategy. We will probably start here. - snapshot-strategies/src/strategies/uniswap-v3/ and balancer/ — examples of how LP positions are counted. Adapt for Oku. - snapshot-strategies/src/strategies/erc20-votes/ — what we’d swap to if we ever wrap into gwBOB. - The Aave Snapshot space JSON for an example of strategy composition.

2. Treasury custody — Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe)

The multisig that holds the money. Used by ~all DAOs.

• Safe smart contracts — https://github.com/safe-global/safe-smart-account
• Safe transaction service (the indexer / API) — https://github.com/safe-global/safe-transaction-service
• Safe{Wallet} (the web app) — https://app.safe.global/
• Safe SDK (programmatic tx building) — https://github.com/safe-global/safe-core-sdk

What to inspect first: - safe-smart-account/contracts/Safe.sol — the canonical multisig contract. Read the execTransaction flow. - The module interface (enableModule, execTransactionFromModule) — this is what Zodiac plugs into.

Gnosis Chain has Safe support natively (it’s literally Gnosis’s chain). Costs ~$0.001 to deploy and operate.

3. Execution bridge — Zodiac

The “operating system” for Safe-based DAOs. Lets a Safe delegate decisions to other modules: Snapshot results, on-chain Governors, oracles, etc.

• Zodiac monorepo — https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac
• Zodiac Reality Module (SafeSnap) — https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-module-reality
• oSnap (Snapshot’s preferred) — https://github.com/UMAprotocol/protocol/tree/master/packages/core/contracts/optimistic-oracle-v3 + Zodiac wrapper at https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-module-oSnap
• Zodiac Roles Modifier (granular permissions on a Safe — useful later for “ops Safe can spend up to 5k xDAI/week without proposal”) — https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-modifier-roles
• Zodiac docs — https://zodiac.wiki/

What to inspect first: - zodiac-module-oSnap/contracts/OptimisticGovernor.sol — the contract we’ll attach to Treasury Main Safe. - zodiac-modifier-roles — to scope what the Ops Safe can sign without DAO vote.

4. On-chain governance (Phase 2 if we go there) — OpenZeppelin

The reference Solidity implementation of Compound-style governance, modernized.

• OpenZeppelin Contracts — https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/openzeppelin-contracts
• Governor wizard (generates a starter Governor by checkbox UI) — https://wizard.openzeppelin.com/#governor

What to inspect first (paths inside the OZ repo): - contracts/governance/Governor.sol — base. - contracts/governance/extensions/GovernorVotes.sol + GovernorCountingSimple.sol — the standard voting + tally. - contracts/governance/extensions/GovernorTimelockControl.sol — hooks the Governor to a TimelockController. - contracts/governance/TimelockController.sol — the actual treasury owner in this model. - contracts/token/ERC20/extensions/ERC20Votes.sol — the checkpoint-tracking voting token base. - contracts/token/ERC20/extensions/ERC20Wrapper.sol + ERC20VotesWrapper — this is the contract that lets us turn vanilla wBOB into gwBOB without redeploying wBOB. Read this carefully if/when we Phase 2.

OZ Governor is what ENS, Compound, Uniswap (Bravo), Optimism Token House all use, with light customization.

5. Alternative DAO frameworks — for compare/contrast

These are what we’d use instead of rolling our own Snapshot+Safe+Zodiac. We don’t recommend them for SubGenius, but it’s worth knowing what they offer.

5.1 Aragon

Full-stack DAO platform. Heavyweight. Has its own contract suite + UI. - https://github.com/aragon - https://github.com/aragon/aragon-stack - Why not us: more abstraction than we need; vendor lock-in; UI bias toward EVM mainnet.

5.2 DAOhaus / Moloch v3

Minimalist “guild” DAOs. Very low-overhead. Good for grant-disbursing DAOs. - https://github.com/HausDAO - https://github.com/Moloch-Mystics/Baal (Moloch v3 / “Baal”) - Why interesting for us: opt-in “ragequit” — members can withdraw their pro-rata share of treasury and exit. Fits the SubGenius “abandon the Conspiracy” ethos. - Why not (yet): Moloch’s voting token is a non-transferable shares token. We want wBOB to be the vote-weight, and wBOB is freely transferable. Different model.

5.3 Tally

Hosted UI for OZ-Governor-style DAOs. If we Phase 2, this is the cheapest UI. - https://github.com/withtally - https://www.tally.xyz/ - Used by ENS, Uniswap, Optimism, Arbitrum, Gitcoin.

5.4 Boardroom

Aggregator UI across Snapshot + Tally. Good for visibility. - https://boardroom.io/

5.5 Llama / Llama Governance

Role-based on-chain governance. More flexible than Governor for org-chart-style DAOs. - https://github.com/llamaxyz/llama - Worth a read for how role-gated execution looks if we ever want “Ops can do X without full proposal.”

6. Roles and identity — Hats Protocol

For non-token-weighted authority (Council seats, Operator roles, Minister tiers). On-chain, modular, composable with Zodiac.

• https://github.com/Hats-Protocol/hats-protocol
• https://docs.hatsprotocol.xyz/

Why we care: “Pope of Slack” and “Council member” don’t map cleanly to wBOB balance. Hats lets us mint, revoke, and chain hierarchical roles on-chain. A Council seat = a Hat. A signer of a Safe = wear-the-Hat-or-can’t-sign.

This is the cleanest way to do soulbound ordainment NFTs with actual mechanical effect.

7. Time-locked / boosted voting (Curve-style) — for Phase 1.5

If we want the vBOB lock-for-boost mechanic.

• Curve veCRV (the original) — https://github.com/curvefi/curve-dao-contracts
• contracts/VotingEscrow.vy is the canonical implementation. Vyper.
• Solidly / Velodrome ve(3,3) — https://github.com/velodrome-finance/contracts
• Solidity port + improvements.
• Aave’s stkAAVE — https://github.com/aave/aave-stake-v2
• Different model: stake for safety module, get voting boost. Probably not what we want, but worth seeing.

What to inspect first: - curve-dao-contracts/contracts/VotingEscrow.vy — the math of balanceOf(t) = lock * (1 - t/T_max) linear-decay voting weight.

8. Reference DAOs to study end-to-end

When you read a framework, also read a DAO that uses it well, to see the parameters they actually chose.

For each: read their forum (charter discussions), their Snapshot space (executed proposal list), and their Safe (treasury composition).

9. Tooling — proposal authoring, indexing, UI

• Tenderly (simulate Safe txs before vote) — https://tenderly.co/
• Defender by OZ (monitor Safe / Governor activity) — https://defender.openzeppelin.com/
• The Graph (subgraph for indexing DAO state for our own UI) — https://thegraph.com/ + https://github.com/graphprotocol/graph-node
• Scaffold-ETH 2 (boilerplate for any custom DAO UI we build) — https://github.com/scaffold-eth/scaffold-eth-2
• Wagmi + viem (the React-side libs for connecting wallets and reading on-chain state) — https://github.com/wevm/wagmi, https://github.com/wevm/viem

10. Reading order I’d recommend

If you only read 5 things before writing the charter:

1. Snapshot docs — https://docs.snapshot.org/ — understand strategies and proposal lifecycle.
2. oSnap / Zodiac docs — https://docs.uma.xyz/developers/osnap and https://zodiac.wiki/ — understand how off-chain votes become on-chain actions.
3. Balancer governance forum + Snapshot space — see a real DAO using exactly our stack.
4. OpenZeppelin Governor.sol + ERC20VotesWrapper.sol — to know what we’re explicitly not using in Phase 1, so the eventual Phase-2 migration is informed.
5. ENS DAO charter — https://docs.ens.domains/dao/constitution — gold-standard example of a clear charter document.

11. Appendix — wBOB and bridge contracts (for reference inside the DAO design)

The Snapshot strategy points at wBOB. The DAO Safes operate on Gnosis Chain alongside it. The bridge sits adjacent and is not under DAO control in Phase 1.