How DAOs Work Under the Hood: Smart Contract Governance

What is a DAO?

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization is governed by code and token holders — not CEOs.

Key DAO Elements

• Proposal creation
• Voting (weighted by tokens)
• Execution logic

Example DAO Contract

solidityCopy
contract SimpleDAO {
    struct Proposal {
        address to;
        bytes data;
        uint votes;
        bool executed;
    }

    Proposal[] public proposals;
    mapping(uint => mapping(address => bool)) public voted;

    function propose(address to, bytes calldata data) external {
        proposals.push(Proposal(to, data, 0, false));
    }

    function vote(uint id) external {
        require(!voted[id][msg.sender]);
        proposals[id].votes += 1;
        voted[id][msg.sender] = true;
    }

    function execute(uint id) external {
        Proposal storage p = proposals[id];
        require(!p.executed && p.votes > 5);
        (bool success,) = p.to.call(p.data);
        require(success);
        p.executed = true;
    }
}

UI Mockup

DAO UI

Tooling

• Tally
• Aragon
• Snapshot

Tips

• Delegate voting power
• Use Safe multisig for treasury management