Pods: The DAOnfall of Token Voting

When not fantasizing about the next 1000x moonshot, many crypto-natives dream about how DAOs will transform the way people collaborate. DAOs are imagined as flat and fluid organizations, the opposite of the rigid, pyramid-like structures dominating the corporate world today—an organization where every stakeholder gets to speak their mind and be hea... See more

The unfortunate reality of DAO scaling is that it is very difficult to maintain a high degree of participation. As fewer people are willing to participate in the DAO’s coordination and governance, the higher the risk of centralized power. DAOs could integrate coordination tools, but the tool that works well for a DAO of 50 people might be very coun... See more

Pods are Orca Protocol’s answer to the scaling problems that DAOs face. Pods are small working groups, usually centered around one expertise. In place of—or in addition to—one massive, centralized DAO treasury, each pod has its own multi-sig wallet that is controlled by the pod members. So pods can be thought of as mini-DAOs within a larger DAO.

By delegating some execution power to key decision makers, the cost of participation drops significantly. Issues that token holders are not interested in, should not require the attention of token holders and can be hidden from their day-to-day. This allows the DAO to make decisions more efficiently without compromising on transparency or openness.... See more

The point of decentralizing an organization is to remove control from a single entity or group. Decentralization—among other things—creates censorship resistance, a redundancy against corruption, and makes the organization more resilient against technical failures. However, as we will discuss later, some DAOs might appear to operate smoothly, but a... See more