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Basic DAO

View this sample's code on GitHub

This sample project demonstrates a basic decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that can be deployed to the Internet Computer. The basic DAO sample code is available in Motoko and Rust. You can see a quick introduction on YouTube.

Overview​

A basic_dao can be initialized with a set of accounts: mappings from principal IDs to a number of tokens. Account owners can query their account balance by calling account_balance and transfer tokens to other accounts by calling transfer. Anyone can call list_accounts to view all accounts.

Account owners can submit proposals by calling submit_proposal. A proposal specifies a canister, method, and arguments for this method. Account owners can cast votes (either Yes or No) on a proposal by calling vote. The amount of votes cast is equal to the amount of tokens the account owner has. If enough Yes votes are cast, basic_dao will execute the proposal by calling the proposal’s given method with the given args against the given canister. If enough No votes are cast, the proposal is not executed, and is instead marked as Rejected.

Certain system parameters, like the number of Yes votes needed to pass a proposal, can be queried by calling get_system_params. These system parameters can be modified via the proposal process, i.e. a proposal can be made to call update_system_params with updated values. The below demo does exactly that.

View the canister service definition for more details.

Prerequisites​

This example requires an installation of:

  • The Rust toolchain (e.g. cargo).
  • didc.
  • Install the IC SDK.
  • Clone the example dapp project: git clone https://github.com/dfinity/examples

Begin by opening a terminal window.

Step 1: Build the basic_dao canister:​

make clean; make

Step 2: Navigate into the folder containing the project's files and start a local instance of the Internet Computer with the command:​

cd basic_dao
dfx start --background

Step 3: Create test identities with the commands:​

dfx identity new --disable-encryption Alice; dfx identity use Alice; export ALICE=$(dfx identity get-principal); 
dfx identity new --disable-encryption Bob; dfx identity use Bob; export BOB=$(dfx identity get-principal);

Step 4: Deploy basic_dao with the initial test accounts:​

dfx deploy --argument "(record {
 accounts = vec { record { owner = principal \"$ALICE\"; tokens = record { amount_e8s = 100_000_000:nat64 }; }; 
                  record { owner = principal \"$BOB\"; tokens = record { amount_e8s = 100_000_000:nat64 };}; };
 proposals = vec {};
 system_params = record {
     transfer_fee = record { amount_e8s = 10_000:nat64 };
     proposal_vote_threshold = record { amount_e8s = 10_000_000:nat64 };
     proposal_submission_deposit = record { amount_e8s = 10_000:nat64 };
 };
})"

Step 5: List accounts and confirm you see the two test accounts:​

dfx canister call basic_dao list_accounts '()'

Output:

(
  vec {
    record {
      owner = principal "5l3ql-7jlet-6yy5p-fk2ud-e7qul-6vqqx-cnqvu-zq75f-r76jx-tf6gb-2ae";
      tokens = record { amount_e8s = 100_000_000 : nat };
    };
    record {
      owner = principal "gbr7o-qdqaz-fm5ds-xrg4l-k7bwl-6m3vk-tvjas-ner6w-wt2hq-hiav7-3ae";
      tokens = record { amount_e8s = 100_000_000 : nat };
    };
  },
)

Step 6: Call account_balance as Bob:​

dfx canister call basic_dao account_balance '()'

You should see the output:

(record { amount_e8s = 100_000_000 : nat64 })

Step 7: Transfer tokens to Alice:​

dfx canister call basic_dao transfer "(record { to = principal \"$ALICE\"; amount = record { amount_e8s = 90_000_000:nat;};})";

Output:

(variant { Ok })

Step 8: List accounts and see that the transfer was made:​

dfx canister call basic_dao list_accounts '()'

Output:

 (
   vec {
     record {
       owner = principal "$ALICE";
       tokens = record { amount_e8s = 190_000_000 : nat64 };
     };
     record {
       owner = principal "$BOB";
       tokens = record { amount_e8s = 9_990_000 : nat64 };
     };
   },
 )

Note that the transfer fee was deducted from Bob's account.

Step 9: Let's make a proposal to change the transfer fee. You can call get_system_params to learn the current transfer fee:​

dfx canister call basic_dao get_system_params '()';

Output:

(
  record {
    transfer_fee = record { amount_e8s = 10_000 : nat64 };
    proposal_vote_threshold = record { amount_e8s = 10_000_000 : nat64 };
    proposal_submission_deposit = record { amount_e8s = 10_000 : nat64 };
  },
)

To change transfer_fee, you need to submit a proposal by calling submit_proposal, which takes a ProposalPayload as an arg:

type ProposalPayload = record {
  canister_id: principal;
  method: text;
  message: blob;
};

You can change transfer_fee by calling basic_dao's update_system_params method. This method takes a UpdateSystemParamsPayload as an arg, which we need to encode into a blob to use in ProposalPayload. Use didc to encode a UpdateSystemParamsPayload:

didc encode '(record { transfer_fee = opt record { amount_e8s = 20_000:nat64; }; })' -f blob

Output:

blob "DIDL\03l\01\f2\c7\94\ae\03\01n\02l\01\b9\ef\93\80\08x\01\00\01 N\00\00\00\00\00\00"

Step 10: We can then submit the proposal:​

dfx canister call basic_dao submit_proposal '(record { canister_id = principal "rrkah-fqaaa-aaaaa-aaaaq-cai";
method = "update_system_params":text;
message = blob "DIDL\03l\01\f2\c7\94\ae\03\01n\02l\01\b9\ef\93\80\08x\01\00\01 N\00\00\00\00\00\00"; })'

Note the output proposal ID:

(variant { Ok = 0 : nat64 })

Step 11: Confirm the proposal was created:​

dfx canister call basic_dao get_proposal '(0:nat64)'

You should see state = variant { Open }; in the output.

Step 12: Vote on the proposal:​

dfx canister call basic_dao vote '(record { proposal_id = 0:nat64; vote = variant { Yes };})'

You should see the following output:

(variant { Ok = variant { Open } })

Because we voted as Bob, and Bob does not have enough voting power to pass proposals, the proposal remains Open. To get the proposal accepted, we can vote with Alice:

dfx identity use Alice; dfx canister call basic_dao vote '(record { proposal_id = 0:nat64; vote = variant { Yes };})';

You should see the following output:

(variant { Ok = variant { Accepted } })

Query the proposal again:

dfx canister call basic_dao get_proposal '(0:nat64)'

And see that the state is Succeeded:

state = variant { Succeeded };

Query the system params again and see that transfer_fee has been updated:

dfx canister call basic_dao get_system_params '()'

Output:

(
  record {
    transfer_fee = record { amount_e8s = 20_000 : nat64 };
    proposal_vote_threshold = record { amount_e8s = 10_000_000 : nat64 };
    proposal_submission_deposit = record { amount_e8s = 10_000 : nat64 };
  },
)

Resources​

Security considerations and best practices​

If you base your application on this example, we recommend you familiarize yourself with and adhere to the security best practices for developing on the Internet Computer. This example may not implement all the best practices.

For example, the following aspects are particularly relevant for this app: