69 DAO Design Trends in 2025

Written by Kevin@owocki

Compiled by: Yewlne, Elsa

Translator’s Preface

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are rapidly emerging as a key force in reshaping global governance and resource allocation. More and more innovative thinking and design patterns are shaping the future of DAOs. This article is Kevin Owocki’s latest research result. He describes 69 trends in DAO design in 2025. These trends cover everything from AI Integration, privacy protection, capital allocation to all aspects of decentralized governance. This article can not only provide practical ideas for DAO designers, but also inspire more discussions and practices on decentralized autonomy, innovative governance and public goods funding.

I did some quick research on DAO design trends in 2025 and here are some of my findings.

I hope this content can provide useful reference for DAO designers in 2025 🙂

AI integrated

1. AI xDAO

AI x DAO refers to the integration of artificial intelligence into the operations of DAOs to perform tasks such as treasury management, proposal analysis, and information flow. AI agents can process massive amounts of data and make decisions or provide recommendations based on predefined criteria and historical patterns. AI agents can run continuously and have the potential to make more objective decisions than human governors.

2. AI-assisted governance

AI makes the governance process more transparent and efficient by providing clear, data-driven insights into voting patterns, member engagement, and proposal impact. AI can also democratize governance participation by condensing complex background information into easy-to-understand summaries, making governance updates more accessible to all members.

3. AI circuit breaker

AI circuit breakers are a governance control mechanism that limits the behavior of AI systems and prevents potential problems from occurring. Such systems can automatically pause or limit AI operations based on trigger conditions, thereby ensuring that AI applications in DAOs are more robust.Safety.

4. AI Delegation

AI agents are a class ofTokenArtificial intelligence systems that enable holders to participate in governance decisions. They can analyze proposals, track voting patterns, and make decisions based on preset criteria, thereby promoting the development of more complex and automated governance systems.

5. AI for Design Space Exploration

AI agents have greatly improved the efficiency of exploring design spaces in infinitely complex environments, accelerating the innovation process by automatically generating and evaluating diverse architectural configurations. With huge data sets, context windows, and computing power, AI can quickly optimize design solutions around the clock, identifying the best solutions more efficiently than traditional manual methods. This not only speeds up the design process, but also reduces the costs associated with manual exploration, achieving more innovative and economical results.

Example: InfiniteRegen.AI

6. AI for information flow

AI and large language models (LLMs) can simplify the flow of information in a DAO by summarizing discussions or meetings and highlighting the key themes or points of the content for quick reference by other members. At the same time, they can analyze members' roles and interests and provide customized information to ensure that each user only receives relevant updates. In addition, AI-driven knowledge graphs can map DAO resources, discussions, and contributors, making it possible to connect the right people with the right information at the right time.

7. Application of AI in new member onboarding and member management

AI tools are being used to streamline the onboarding process in DAOs by reading resumes, assessing new members’ qualifications, and even suggesting roles based on skills and historical performance data. This application reduces human bias and speeds up the onboarding process for new members in DAOs.

8. AI on-chain capital allocation

AI agents can more effectively allocate capital retrospectively by incorporating data from past funding rounds, proposals, and performance metrics. They can identify underfunded but impactful projects through advanced analytics and recommend optimal resource allocations. By automating proposal reviews and prioritizing them based on DAO goals, AI ensures that funds are allocated efficiently and transparently.

9. DAO Management AI

DAOs oversee the development of AI to ensure ethical or consistent AI practices. This may involveCommunityDriven AI research and deployment governance could ultimately lead to moreSafety, more responsible AI systems.

10. Swarm Intelligence

AI is being tested as a connector between DAOs, agents, and humans, creating a form of swarm intelligence where different entities are able to share knowledge, communicate and coordinate more efficiently, resulting in more efficient collective decision-making than a single member could.

Financial Mechanism

11. Guarantee Contract

Guarantee contracts create mechanisms for coordinating group action by ensuring that participants will only participate if enough others do. These contracts help solve coordination problems and promote collective action, and are particularly useful for funding public goods or organizing collective efforts.

12. COCM (Connectivity-Oriented Cluster Matching) Quadratic Funding

The algorithm enhances the traditional quadratic funding model by identifying and mitigating collusive behavior among donors. It analyzes clusters of users based on shared attributes or behaviors to detect coordinated groups attempting to unfairly influence funding outcomes. By adjusting matching funds to account for these patterns of collusion, COCM ensures that resources are allocated more fairly and efficiently to those who truly deserve it.CommunitySupported projects.

Example: Gitcoin Grants Stack

13. Reserve Fund

Reserves provide a treasury management system with specific rules, including rules for allocating and spending funds. It can include features such as spending limits, approval requirements, and automatic allocations. The system helps maintain fiscal discipline while ensuring that resources are available when needed.

14. Deepfunding

Deepfunding is an initiative to reward open source contributors by leveraging dependency graphs and a marketplace of AI or human allocators, supplemented by a spot-checking jury, to allocate funds to upstream contributors on projects assessed by funders. It aims to reduce the cognitive burden on funders to make funding decisions more efficiently by scaling high-quality human judgment. The project includes a competition with a total prize of $250,000 to encourage the development of models to assign weights to 40,000 identified Ethereum dependencies.

Example: DeepFunding.Org

15. Direct Contractual Incentives

Guaranteed Contracts+ ensure that contributors will receive additional rewards as a refund if the project does not reach its funding goals, thus incentivizing participation and reducing risk.

Example: Boost, Royco

16. Lead Guarantee Contract

Direct contractual incentives embed reward mechanisms directly into smartcontractIn the blockchain, we create automated and transparent incentive systems. These systems can reward specific behaviors, achievements, or contributions without manual allocation. They help create more efficient and trustless incentive structures.

17. Harberger Tax

Harberger taxes create a continuous auction mechanism where asset holders must set a selling price and pay a tax based on that price. This creates a balance between efficient resource allocation and fair compensation for current holders. The system helps prevent resource hoarding and ensures assets are used productively.

18. Proof of Impact

Impact Proofs provide verifiable credentials for measuring and demonstrating impact in various areas. These systems can track and verify contributions, achievements and results. They help create more transparent and traceable impact assessment systems.

Example: EAS

19. Impact Certificate

Impact certificates are tradableToken, represents proof of positive impact or value created by an individual or organization in areas such as public goods or social initiatives. It can be sold or redeemed in the future, allowing funders to retroactively incentivize impactful contributions.

Example: Hypercerts

20. KPI-based incentives

KPI-based incentives tie rewards to specific, measurable performance indicators. These systems can automatically adjust rewards based on achieved results. They help create a more objective and performance-oriented incentive structure.

Example: Metro

21. Private quadratic funding

私密二次方资助结合了隐私技术和二次方资助机制，以防止串通。该系统允许在保护选民隐私的同时进行民主的资助分配，有助于确保资助决策反映真实的Community偏好，而不是协调的投票区块。

Example: MACI

22. Programmable Fund Flow

Programmable money flows allow payments to flow continuously in real time, rather than as separate transactions. This enables more granular control over the timing and conditions of payments, such as salary flows or payments for services. The system can automatically adjust payment rates based on different conditions or indicators.

Example: Drips, Sablier, Superfluid

23. Programmatic Liquidity

Programmatic liquidity uses algorithms to automatically manage market making and liquidity provision. In DeFi protocols, these systems can adjust parameters such as price curves and pool depths based on market conditions and protocol needs. This approach helps maintain stable markets and efficient price discovery without constant manual intervention.

Example: Baseline Markets, Cult DAO

24. Proof of Value

Proof of Value (PoV) is a consensus mechanism proposed by the Thrive Protocol to measure and verifyBlockchainThe actual impact of contributions in the ecosystem. It uses expert validators (called "Guardians") to evaluate contributions based on criteria such as code quality, financial outcomes, and content accuracy. This ensures that funds are distributed fairly and efficiently, and that contributors are rewarded based on the value they provide.

Example: Thrive Protocol

25. Quadratic Funding + Bonding Curve

The system combines the democratic allocation of quadratic funding with the price discovery mechanism of a bonding curve. The integration creates a dynamic funding system that responds to market signals while maintaining a democratic element. It helps balance efficient capital allocation with community preferences.

Example: q/acc by giveth

26. Retroactive funding

Retroactive funding rewards value creation after the fact, rather than funding future predictive work. This approach reduces the risk of funding ineffective work and creates stronger incentives for valuable contributions. It helps solve the public goods funding problem by rewarding proven value creation.

Example: Optimism Retro Funding, EasyRetroPGF.xyz

27. Income Routing

Revenue routing systems automatically distribute revenue to different stakeholders or uses based on predetermined rules or formulas. These systems can handle complex allocation patterns, such as allocating revenue between contributors, treasuries, and liquidity providers in real time. Automation reduces administrative overhead and ensures transparent and predictable allocation of funds.

Example: RevNets.app

28. Labor Equity

Labor equity systems assign ownership based on work contributions rather than capital investment. These systems can track and assess different types of contributions, valuing them over time. They help create more equitable ownership structures based on actual value creation.

Example: Collabberry

Governance Model

29. Compound v2

Compound v2 governance introduces complex mechanisms to manage DeFi protocols, including delayed execution, time locks, and delegation. The system allows for both routine parameter adjustments and major protocol changes. It also includesSafetyfunctionality to prevent malicious proposals while maintaining flexibility.

Example: Compound Finance, Uniswap, Gitcoin governance

30. Challenging control

Challengeable control systems allow existing control structures to be challenged under defined conditions. This creates accountability while maintaining stability. The system helps prevent control from being monopolized while enabling necessary changes to be made.

Example: Research by Jeff Strnad

31. Voting for Faith

Conviction voting weights votes based on how long voters have held their positions, encouraging long-term thinking and reducing vote manipulation. Voters accumulate vote weight over time and can apply it to different proposals. This system helps prevent short-term speculation and encourages more thoughtful decision-making.

Example: 1Hive

32. Decentralized Arbitration

Decentralized arbitration provides on-chain systems for resolving disputes between parties. These systems often use jury pools and economic incentives to ensure fair decisions. They help build stronger and self-improving governance systems.

Example: Kleros

33. Governance by discussing before deciding

Deliberation-before-decision governance emphasizes structured discussion and consensus building before formal voting. This approach helps ensure that decisions are well thought out and widely supported, leading to better decisions and stronger community cohesion.

Example: Harmonica, SimScore

34. Dual Governance

双重治理创建了两层治理体系，为不同类型的决策设定不同的机制和要求。这使得处理不同决策类型变得更高效。该系统帮助在治理中平衡效率与Safety.

Example： Lido Finance, Optimism bicameral governance (Token House and Citizens House)

35. EigenGov

EigenGov is the governance system of EigenLayer, which delegates decision-making power to a committee of domain experts while giving EIGEN token holders the ultimate veto power. This structure ensures that people who actively participate in the ecosystem drive daily operations while maintaining a balance between expert insight and community oversight.

Example: EigenGov

36. Holographic Consensus

Holographic consensus creates a scalable decision-making system that can handle a large number of proposals while maintaining quality. The system uses various mechanisms to effectively screen and prioritize proposals, solving the scalability issues of traditional governance systems.

Example：DAO Stack

37. Liquid Democracy

Liquid democracy allows voters to vote directly or delegate their voting rights to others, who can delegate further. This flexible system combines direct and representative democracy, helping to balance participation and expertise in governance.

38. New voting strategy

Advanced voting mechanisms go beyond simple token-weighted voting and include various weighting schemes (such as quadratic voting), quorum requirements, and voting cycles. These strategies are able to take into account factors such as voter reputation, stake duration, or expertise, and aim to improve decision quality while maintaining fair participation.

Example: Snapshot Labs

39. On-chain/off-chain connector

These systems create a bridge between on-chain governance and legal entities, enabling the combination ofBlockchainThe hybrid structure of the DAO and the traditional legal framework. This enables DAOs to interact more effectively with the traditional legal system and helps DAOs operate better in the real world.

Example: BORGs

40. OP Governance

OP 治理允许行动在未被挑战的情况下自动执行。此方法减少了常规决策的治理开销，同时通过挑战机制保持Safety性。它特别适用于低风险且频繁的决策。

41. Reputation Voting

Reputation voting allocates voting power based on accumulated reputation rather than token holdings. Reputation can be earned through contributions, participation, and other positive behaviors. This approach helps align voting power with commitment to the project.

42. Role-Based Governance

Role-based governance assigns different permissions and voting rights to different roles in the DAO, similar to different levels of authority in traditional organizations. This system allows for more granular control over who can make which decisions, making governance more efficient and professional. Users can earn or be assigned roles based on their contributions, expertise, or other criteria.

Example： Hats Protocol

43. Subjective rule enforcement

Subjective rule enforcement allows for human judgment in applying rules, rather than relying solely on mechanical enforcement. This provides more flexibility and contextual awareness to the governance system, helping to handle complex situations that cannot be solved by simple algorithms.

Example: Q Blockchain

44. AntiWitchAttack voting

anti-WitchThe voting mechanisms being attacked ensure the integrity of voting by preventing individuals from gaining additional voting power through multiple identities. These systems may use human proof, identity verification, or other verification methods to ensure that voting results reflect the true will of the community and are not manipulated by humans.

Example: Gitcoin Passport, Worldcoin

45. Go to Governance

De-governance eliminates traditional voting mechanisms in favor of automated rules and predetermined protocols. This approach reduces governance overhead and potential manipulation risks by removing human decision-making from routine operations. The system is more like a vending machine than a democracy, with clear rules and predictable results.

Information Finance

46. Decentralized fact-checking

A platform where users can stake tokens to challenge or verify the accuracy of information. If a claim is proven false, the challenger will receive a reward, thus incentivizing the community to maintain the integrity of the information.

47. Decentralized News Insurance

A platform where users can collectively contribute funds to insure the accuracy of news stories. Investigative journalists or fact checkers can apply for funds from the fund pool to verify or refute a news story. If the news is proven to be false, the funds will be returned to the funder; if it is verified to be true, the investigator will receive a reward.

48. Prediction Market Governance

Prediction market governance makes governance decisions through prediction markets, allowing token holders to bet on the outcomes of different proposals. This market-driven decision-making mechanism may be more accurate than traditional voting and help align governance decisions with expected outcomes.

Example: Butter.money

49. Knowledge NFT with dynamic value

Create a tokenized form of verified knowledge (NFT), which increases in value as more independent verifiers confirm its accuracy and usefulness. Institutions or individuals can purchase these NFTs to obtain proof of high-quality data or expertise.

50. Proof of Impact Prediction Market

A prediction market tracks and rewards the correctness of predictions and the subsequent impact of events. For example, predictions about technology adoption can incorporate metrics such as user growth or economic impact, generating a richer data set to support long-term decision making.

51. Reputation-based lending system

In this financial system, a person or entity’s ability to obtain loans and credit is determined by their dynamically updated reputation score, which is based on community feedback and verified information.

52. Tokenization of research grants

A system where researchers propose projects and the community funds them by purchasing tokens. The success and impact of the research will affect the value of the token, aligning economic incentives with the production of valuable knowledge.

infrastructure

53. Allo Agreement

The Allo protocol provides a resource allocation infrastructure for Web3 projects. The protocol includes project metadata storage, funding round management, proposal evaluation, and resource allocation functions, aiming to standardize and optimize the funding process for Web3 projects.

Example: Allo

54. Aragon OSx

Aragon OSx provides an updated operating system for creating and managing DAOs with more flexible functionality. The system includes advanced permission management, plugin architecture, and governance tools, with the goal of making DAO creation and management easier while retaining the complexity and functionality of the system.

Example: Aragon Project

55. Cross-chain asset management, voting and token transfer

Through Chainlink’s CCIP, DAO can manageBlockchainTreasury assets on the blockchain, including securely transferring funds between chains or deploying multi-chain yield strategies to optimize treasury growth.

Example: CCIP

56. MolochDAO v3

MolochDAO v2 introduces “loot”, which is a non-voting interest, allowing for a more flexible membership structure; it also adds support for the treasury to hold multiple ERC-20 tokens, going beyond the single-token limit of v1. In addition, v2 introduces “forced ragequit” to remove inactive or malicious members.Xiaobai NavigationlochDAO v2.5 further improves v2 by integrating “minions”, enabling the DAO to communicate with external intelligence through a single proposal.contractInteraction.

Example: MolochDAO

57. Zodiac Modules

Zodiac modules provide a modular smart contract system that allows DAOs to add or modify governance features without changing the core structure. These modules can be combined like building blocks to create customized governance systems. The modular nature enables DAOs to evolve their governance structure over time without having to completely refactor.

Example: Safe

Organizational Model

58. Activity DAOs

Activity DAOs are organized around specific activities or goals rather than general governance. These DAOs have a focused mission and specialized governance mechanisms, creating more efficient organizations for specific goals.

Example: PizzaDAO, Blunt DAO, Sauna DAO

59. Combined Governance

Combinatorial governance allows different governance mechanisms to be combined and interact in a defined way. This approach creates a flexible system that can adapt to different needs and scenarios, helping DAOs build more complex and nuanced governance systems.

60. Modular Governance

Modular governance creates a layered structure through sub-DAOs and side-DAOs, enabling them to operate semi-independently. This approach enables more specialized and efficient governance at different levels while maintaining coordination as a whole.

61. Pods

In DAOs, Pods (introduced by Orca) are small, autonomous teams with specific responsibilities designed to improve coordination and decision-making within an organization. Pods enable decentralized governance by delegating authority to manageable, composable subgroups.

Example: Orca

62. Self-managed registry

The self-managed registry is a dynamic list maintained by core contributors. It enables transparency and adaptability by allowing members to collectively update the registry as roles and contributions change.

Example: Protocol Guild and other Guilds

63. Cluster

In DAOs, clusters (introduced by rnDAO) are flexible, task-oriented teams that spontaneously form to complete a specific project or task. They operate in a flexible and autonomous manner, enabling contributors to collaborate dynamically without a formal hierarchical structure.

Example：rnDAO

Tokenomics

64. Dynamic unlock

Dynamic unlocking creates a flexible token vesting schedule that can be adjusted based on various metrics or conditions. Unlike simple time-based vesting, tokens can be unlocked based on project milestones, market conditions, or participant behavior. This approach helps align incentives and adapt to changing circumstances.

65. Governance Staking

In order to participate in governance, tokens must be locked, which helps strengthen the alignment mechanism. This system helps create a more sustainable token economic model.

Example: Unichain, Arbitrum Governance, Tally Staking

66. Re-pledge

Re-staking connects pledged assets to governance rights, strengthening the connection between economic rights and voting rights. The mechanism can include multiple ways to manage staking and voting rights, helping to more closely align economic and governance incentives.

67. Social Token Distribution

This approach distributes tokens based on social media activity and engagement, creating a more organic and contribution-based distribution model. It can take into account factors such as content creation, community participation, and trust networks, helping to align token distribution with actual community contribution and influence.

Example： Farcaster，Lens Protocol

68. Token Launch Platform

Token launch platforms provide infrastructure for the issuance of new tokens, including complex pricing mechanisms such as bonding curves. These platforms typically provide features such as fair launches, progressive distribution, and price discovery, helping to prevent common problems such as price manipulation and excessive concentration of tokens.

Example: Pump.fun

69. Ve/Gauge Governance

Ve/Gauge governance combines voting lock tokens with metered weighted emissions to create a complex token distribution system. In order to participate in governance, tokens must be locked, which further strengthens the alignment of incentives and helps build a more sustainable token economic model.

Example: Aerodrome, Mode, Puffer, Pendle

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