About

MolochDAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) on the Ethereum mainnet. Its primary objective is to contribute capital and fund infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem. As a grant-giving DAO, MolochDAO aims to support projects that benefit the public good. Members participate in the decision-making process through voting, enabling them to have a meaningful impact on the community. MolochDAO also provides funding opportunities for research reports and tools that serve the Ethereum ecosystem.

History

MolochDAO was named after the Canaanite god of child sacrifice to reference the suboptimal outcomes that can occur as a result of poor group coordination. It was created to help solve the incentive and coordination problems inherent in funding open-source protocols, as every stakeholder benefits from the development but no individual wants to provide the funding.

The original members contributed Ether to seed the DAO and received voting shares proportional to the amount they have contributed. New members may apply and are accepted based on a majority vote. In a similar fashion, any member is free to propose a grant which is then voted on and approved with group consensus. Every member contributes to the grant an amount consistent with their percentage of the overall pool. After a proposal is approved, a dissenting member can withdraw their funds in what is known as a ragequit. The grant is still approved, but the remaining members shoulder the financial burden of the member who ragequit. This is done to disincentivize approving any highly contentious grants that could potentially lead to a ragequit.

Contracts for Moloch v2 have been released which look to improve upon the grant-making DAO by creating a decentralized for-profit investment fund capable of holding many tokens.