DAO Masters

Overview

What is it?

Tally is a voting and governance analysis tool that allows members of a protocol DAO (e.g. Compound, Uniswap, or Gitcoin, etc.) to vote on active on-chain proposals, delegate votes to a third party, or view previous proposals.

It also shows the outcomes of previous proposals, allowing the public to see who voted; what percentage of voting rights they own; and whether they voted for, against, or abstained from a proposal, bringing transparency to the voting process.

Users can see governance activity across all the DAOs they’re participating in on their dashboard.

What problem does it solve?

Many DAOs live in Discord and use it for voting. The main issues with this are:

Each member gets one vote, which means that if a DAO has its own token, this voting system gives the same weighting to every member, regardless of how many tokens they own. This makes it easy for bad actors to sway decision-making by creating multiple accounts while holding a single token.
Discord is not designed with archiving in mind. Understanding the motions that were proposed, their outcomes and who voted for what is difficult.
On-chain proposals require a code review, for which Discord is not suitable.

Tally was designed to counter these issues and make it easier for DAO members (particularly those who participate in multiple DAOs) to stay on top of all their proposals and make better decisions as a result.

How does it work?

Tally is split into three main areas: Governance, Voter, and Proposals.

‍Governance: Allows users to explore DeFi protocols, crypto exchanges, and tokens to see information including:

How many addresses hold a given governance token.
How many proposals have been created.
What % of token holders are active voters.
Who has the most voting power.
How that voting power has changed over time.

Voter: Allows users to see how the holders of individual addresses have voted and their % of token holdings across all the protocols that Tally monitors.

Proposal: Allows users to view active or past proposals and see information including:

The title of the proposal.
A description of the motion and any executable code that would be implemented if approved.
Whether a vote is live or has ended.
The address from which it was proposed.
Who voted for it, against it, or abstained.
Whether past votes passed or failed.
The Ethereum block when the voting period ends or has ended.

This page also allows token holders to vote on active proposals by connecting their crypto wallet. Users can choose to vote for, against, or abstain from proposals.

How do I use it?

DAO Masters Insights

Why it's cool:

While many voting and governance tools require you to own tokens in the protocol itself to see data, Tally’s data is open for everyone to see.

On-chain proposals are reviewed before voting periods open, so any bugs should be caught before a proposal is voted on.

Since code is included in each proposal, there’s no ambiguity in what people are voting for. This means that on-chain proposals and their outcomes are defined upfront.

Tally doesn’t require multi-signature authorization, so successful proposals are self-executed and happen automatically.

Challenges:

Tally only works with protocols that use Compound or OpenZeppelin, so the voting mechanism may not be available to all DAOs.

Most logins are via wallet addresses which encourages anonymity. Tally is working to move more people to link social profiles to tie votes to identity.

Words of advice:

Sending reminders before each proposal opens and closes could increase the percentage of community members that vote.

Non-technical members may not understand code-focused proposals, so we suggest keeping the jargon to a minimum and enabling them to ask questions about aspects they don’t understand. Although all proposals are on-chain, and therefore involve code, non-technical members should still be encouraged to participate.

Expected future updates:

Currently, proposals don’t include a native chat or comment feature where people can ask questions. However, Tally confirmed this feature is on their roadmap.

Tally

Analyze and vote on crypto protocols and review data on governance systems