Introduction

Paideia is a web 3 software suite of DAO management tools which allows anyone to create a DAO, distribute tokens, discuss proposals, and participate in the democratic process required to manage a shared treasury. Currently Paideia is being built on the Ergo and Cardano blockchains, due to their eUTXO structure which we feel has several advantages over EVM-based smart contracts.

Paideia will empower new projects and co-operatives to start up quickly and allow them to raise funds and leverage them with fewer roadblocks than other similar toolsets, in a fair and secure way. In addition, the tools will help various other groups share funding; software development teams, game guilds, startups, and investment groups will be able to allocate funds with full transparency to all members, and control the distribution of decision making power.

Why Blockchain

Blockchain is a relatively new technology that is giving rise to new forms of social organization previously not possible. Utilizing cryptocurrency technologies offers an algorithm-based mechanism for governance. By moving transaction logic for governance decisions to an immutable blockchain, some level of corruption can be mitigated. Decisions can be secured by smart contracts, rather than by placing trust in individuals.

Specific benefits of Blockchain applied to DAO governance are:

  1. Physical decentralization of data, eliminating the risks of single point failure and many forms of cyber attacks.

  2. The distributed ledger naturally allows for easy to disclose and transparent information.

  3. The peer to peer and append-only transactions linked to previous transactions provides a reduction of bureaucracy, discretionary power, and corruption.

  4. It provides cost savings over archaic forms of governance thanks to the elimination of intermediary costs or risk of data entry errors.

The Cardano & Ergo Advantage

We believe a DAO should exist on a blockchain with a strong foundation and fundamentals. A DAO should be inexpensive to operate, simple to use, secure and decentralized. It should resist government intervention and be accessible to anyone in the world, regardless of prohibitive local laws or social status. Without these features, a DAO can be manipulated by those who don’t agree with the DAO’s intentions. Certain individuals can be blocked from participating, based on their perceived caste, some other trivial social status, or an arbitrary law that may be in place to protect the interests of the ultra-wealthy. If a DAO exists on a blockchain that does not have 100% up-time, the treasury could be inaccessible. If the blockchain doesn’t have strong fundamentals, and resistance to manipulation, or has an insecure protocol, then actors with bad intent can manipulate the activities of the DAO or extract funds through malicious means, even when those means are touted as legal, moral, or right by certain individuals.

Both Cardano and Ergo offer the following advantages:

  • They are built on the eUTXO model, which has far superior security assurances when compared to the accounting model of EVM chains. Smart contract behavior can be tested with more certainty, and transaction behavior is known before the user submits. There are far fewer surprises on an eUTXO blockchain.

  • The protocols have 100% up-time.

  • Both are inexpensive to operate; there are no gas fees like on EVM-based blockchains.

Ergo provides the following:

  • The PoW protocol Ergo utilizes is well tested to be secure and to decentralize control.

  • It was fair launched, with no pre-mine, meaning there are no concentrations of power

  • It provides technology such as NIPoPoWs, which allow users to run light clients. A DAO member can interact with smart contracts using their own node on their own device, even a cellphone. Light clients on other blockchains do not allow full node access, and in some cases have blocked users based on geo location. [1]

  • There are built in security features which are more robust than Bitcoin’s, called Sigma protocols. [2]

Cardano provides the following:

  • Plutus is built on Haskell and can offer true auditability with legitimate academic proofs of smart contract behavior.

  • Cardano has a significantly decentralized PoS protocol, and users are financially incentivized to support and promote the network. The financial incentives also discourage centralization of power, which is important for a blockchain.

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