MoonDAO is going to the moon.
Understanding MoonDAO
This article is a primer to grok how MoonDAO operates at a systems level. This should be considered a “starting point” for you to dive deeper to better understand how MoonDAO works.
MoonDAO’s Operating System
If you understand these three components you will fully understand how MoonDAO operates end-to-end. Everything else at MoonDAO has occurred as a result of these.
Governance: MoonDAO’s Constitution
The foundational basis for MoonDAO’s governance lies in the Constitution. This document defines the three governing bodies of MoonDAO (Senate, Member House, and Executive Branch), their checks and balances, and how they interact with the proposal process. All outflows from the MoonDAO Treasury occur via a proposal.
Finance: MoonDAO Projects
If a proposal requires a team or individual to do work to execute the proposal, then they must do so in accordance with the Projects system. This document outlines how a proposal team operates so that it is accountable to the rest of the DAO in executing on the proposal, and how they are to be rewarded for the successful implementation of a proposal.
Product: Space Acceleration Network
The Space Acceleration Network is MoonDAO’s core onchain coordination platform for individuals and companies to interact with MoonDAO’s governance and projects. We built this as a method to bring the existing space community onchain and coordinate with one another with a dedicated Profile, Jobs Board, Marketplace, Map, Rewards for demonstrating “What did you get done this week?”, and a Teams system for coordinating with others, and Launchpad for raising money for initiatives.
Proposal Lifecycle
At the heart of MoonDAO is the proposal process. Proposals can be created by Citizens in the submissions portal, and can be submitted at any time. We ask that a proposal is submitted at least 24 hours in advance of the Weekly Townhall at 3:00 pm EST, otherwise it will be voted on in the next governance cycle.
0. Ideation: Most good ideas originate from conversation in our Discord’s “ideation” channel. This is intended to be a sounding board for the community to workshop ideas together. You should review our Template, and read past Proposals to see examples of things MoonDAO has funded in the past. Once your proposal is completed you can submit it into the Proposal Submission page (Pro-tip: you can download the Google Doc template as a Markdown (.md) file and upload it to the page directly). Check out the Proposal FAQs for more information.
1. Senate Voting: First, the proposal is presented by the author or project to the Senate. This is a council of individuals that have been trusted to lead a MoonDAO proposal for that quarter. If your proposal passes and you’re a project lead, you’ll become a Senator. Senators approve incoming proposals at the Weekly Townhall at 3pm EST to ensure that the proposal is Constitutional.
2. Member House Voting: This is a governance body of all the members who have locked MOONEY (vMOONEY). MoonDAO uses Escrowed Quadratic Voting. In other words, the longer you lock your tokens, the more governance you have. However, there are diminishing returns to prevent centralization by taking the square root of your escrow. This vote occurs off chain in the Proposals section of the website.
3. Funding and Role Execution Onchain: The Executive team at MoonDAO consists of three individuals who are elected by the DAO to lead day-to-day operations and fulfill specific governance duties. They nominate the Treasury Signers, who consist of a multisignature wallet that executes proposals by having five-of-seven signers approve. Once a proposal passes, the transactions for that proposal are queued up and it is funded as a Project, or executed as a one-time transaction.
4. Project Work is Done: If the proposal requires work, this is done in the form of a Project. The Project Lead will update the DAO throughout the life of the project, and become a member of the Senate. They are responsible for keeping a record of transactions executed, and keeping the team members accountable for execution. Each project will have its own multisignature wallet.
5. Work is Completed, Final Report Constructed: Once the proposal’s work is completed, a Final Report is put together and submitted to the DAO. The final report includes a treasury transparency report, links to the work completed, and a review of the outcomes compared to what was expected. The report is then submitted in that quarter’s reward cycle, and voting members distribute that quarter’s rewards to the project’s members.
Space Acceleration Network
The Space Acceleration Network is a yearly subscription to get access to the best-in-class coordination tools to help fund, hire, and sell onchain. This is a tool for both companies (teams) and for citizens (individuals) to onboard into the onchain ecosystem and work with MoonDAO’s governance and incentives.
Important Links and Terms
MoonDAO Website: Our core platform that links to everything else.
$MOONEY: Our governance token. You can lock it for voting power in the form of $vMOONEY.
MOONEY Tokenomics: Understand how the MOONEY economy works.
Discord: Our main town square for MoonDAO.
Become a Citizen: A yearly subscription to use the marketplace, jobs board, submit proposals, and get rewarded for weekly contributions.
Quarterly Rewards: We emit a portion of our treasury to projects that were completed on a quarterly basis. Members can vote to support those initiatives.
Weekly Contribution: Did something cool that you want to get rewards for? MoonDAO Citizens can submit contributions and receive rewards for their work.
MoonDAO Team: Teams can put things up for sale on the marketplace, list jobs, and access funding via our launchpad.
Marketplace: MoonDAO Teams can list items to sell on the marketplace.
Launchpad: Crowdraising for MoonDAO teams to support their initiatives.
Jobs Board: Teams can create job postings for Citizens. Citizens can get gigs or find work through applying from the jobs board.
Newsletter: A weekly update on happenings at MoonDAO.
Submission Portal: The place where proposals, contributions, and final reports are submitted.
Events: Find events happening in the MoonDAO community, add it to your calendar.
Analytics: Discover and track key MoonDAO analytics about our token, treasury, and voting statistics.