Unlock DAO Thinks it Can Make Cross-chain Governance Simpler

Decisions made by the DAO will be automatically implemented from mainnet to different sidechains

article-image

Doraemon9572/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Unlock DAO, the governing body behind membership protocol Unlock, will launch a cross-chain governance solution on ETH Goerli and Polygon Mumbai testnets.

As protocols grow and support a greater amount of blockchains, implementing governance decisions often becomes more complex.

The protocol has been deployed on nine different networks, including Optimism, Arbitrum and Polygon. However, governance decisions made by Unlock DAO were made on Ethereum mainnet, Unlock founder Julien Genestoux told Blockworks.

“There was no way to formally govern from mainnet in a way that would automatically execute governance decisions on all of the side chains,” Genestoux said. “There is no chain of command between mainnet and the side chains.”

This new governance solution is designed to automate decisions made by the DAO, Genestoux said. Currently, a trustee must exist to implement decisions made on mainnet onto each individual side chain. This new governance solution will remove the trustee so that the process becomes completely automated.

In practice, this means that once Unlock DAO makes a decision on Ethereum mainnet, a set of instructions will be sent across to other chains using a bridge (powered by Connext Bridge). An ‘UnlockOwner’ contract will act as a relayer in replacement of the trustee. 

To prevent any risks, every decision made by the DAO that goes across the bridge will be deployed two days later. This ensures that there will be enough time to stop malicious calls. 

A multisig run by the Unlock team will also continue to monitor actions through the UnlockOwner contract, a decision, Genestoux said, that is still a necessary safety solution at this stage. 

If the Unlock community only needs to make changes on one chain, they will be able to do so on the mainnet. The transaction decision will then be automatically executed on the relevant chain.

The cross-chain governance solution will be entirely open source. Genestoux said that though there are still a series of audits and tests to perform, he hopes to deploy this technology on mainnet before the end of June.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Monad Report Graphic.png

Research

Monad represents an ambitious attempt to address the scalability challenges faced by existing EVM chains. By leveraging innovative consensus and execution mechanisms, including pipelined consensus-execution and optimistic parallel execution, Monad aims to achieve performance metrics of 10,000 TPS and 1-second finality while maintaining full EVM compatibility. This approach positions Monad as a potential evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem, offering enhanced scalability without sacrificing the familiar developer or user experience.

article-image

Bitwise took the initial steps for an XRP ETF Wednesday

article-image

Plus, enrollment for the Donald Trump-backed crypto project is underway

article-image

On Solana so far, there are two main competitors: Jito and Solayer

article-image

Plus, Sui-eet liquidity surge and USDC’s new home on Base

article-image

The Web3 community is stacking bricks when it should be building bridges