Futarchy won't save DAOs
April 14th, 2025

Deterministic Outcome Requirement

Polymarket works well because markets resolve to binary or deterministic events.

Example: Will Biden win the election? Yes/No — and after the event happens, it’s clear who won.

In DAO token futarchy, you're trying to "resolve" to something fuzzy: Did this decision increase the token price?

Problem: Token prices are messy, lagged, manipulated, and don't give you a clean deterministic endpoint.

Plus, timing matters a lot: when do you measure the price post-decision? Immediately? After 24h? Over a 7-day TWAP?

Decision Market vs Spot Market Discrepancy

DAO decision markets simulate token price impact, but with poor liquidity and no real settlement, it becomes a self-referential game. People aren’t really incentivized to "predict correctly" — they’re incentivized to play the game for internal rewards, not external truth.

The moment you exit the decision market and compare it to the spot market, you're exposed to:

  • Thin liquidity

  • Manipulation ("fuckery")

  • Whales arbitraging your decision outcome

  • No arb constraints like TWAP / cooldowns / linear vesting, which were protecting you in the decision market

MetaDAO Implementation Weakness

MetaDAO's approach lacks a clean way to measure the actual outcome.
Without this, the whole thing risks being just a gamified voting mechanism, not a true prediction market or futarchy.

Futarchy needs reliable endgames. Without reliable endgames, you get gamification, not governance.

There must be a solution, or maybe polynya was right

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