Simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

TL;DR

Fractal is reimagining the base makeup of a DAO from first principles, pivoting to using Gnosis Safe at its core. In doing so, we’ll embrace Ethereum’s open-source composability and integrate with a time-tested and established pillar of the ecosystem.

What We’ve Been Up To

Back in March, Decent's @trainface outlined our Minimum Viable DAO (MVD) philosophy for building the tools to deploy and engage with Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Fractal.

Since then, we have spent the year building, iterating, and learning even more about what makes a DAO a DAO; and identifying the essential components for creating the most secure and flexible DAO infrastructure.

In July, we began integrating Gnosis Safe into our lineup of DAO options—meaning a DAO that is governed by a set of multi-signers in much the same way our existing Fractal DAO allowed via a one-to-one ERC-20 token voting module. The idea was that users could create a custom solution for DAO treasury and governance or use Gnosis to perform these functions while integrating our current and future features into both options.

We realized that we were, in many ways, reinventing the wheel and going against our own ethos from the outset that (to quote John Gall) "a complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.”

What Is Gnosis Safe?

Gnosis Safe is a smart contract multi-signature wallet used to manage digital assets for a group of individuals. Basically, it does everything a personal Ethereum wallet does but requires a set number of approvals from a list of designated individual wallets in order to execute any transactions.

It’s a structure that lives on-chain, is autonomous, and describes a set of permissions (i.e., a DAO). What follows from having an on-chain, autonomous set of permissions via a Gnosis Safe is entirely up to the participants, but the core principles of a DAO are already there.

It's Gnosis Safes (DAOs) All the Way Down

Fractal is the next evolution of Gnosis Safe as a tool for decentralized governance. After building our first MVD iteration, we have decided to rethink our initial approach.

Now, a Gnosis Safe will always be at the core of Fractal’s DAO nodes. A Gnosis Safe contract can already store a DAO treasury (it's a wallet); it implements a form of decentralized voting (multisig); and it allows an arbitrary number of modules to be attached to add any optional future features Gnosis, Fractal, or anyone else would like to build.

Utilizing Gnosis Safe gives us the trusted security of an existing cornerstone of the Ethereum ecosystem. Rather than build our own DAO, we can build on top of what many others (ourselves included) already consider a DAO and utilize the agreed-upon standards.

One of the options available from the outset of Fractal's release will be 1:1 token voting—much the same as our MVD token voting, which helpfully already exists via the Usul Gnosis Safe module, created by SekerDAO. If you take a peek at their code, you will see that it includes options for any number of voting paradigms, including NFT-based or quadratic voting, which is an exciting look at the potential for our own future iterations, all easily enabled by using these existing, proven building blocks.

Another signature feature of Fractal allows parent DAOs to execute transactions on the child DAO:

/// @notice Allows an authorized user to exec a Gnosis Safe tx via the module
/// @param execTxData Data payload of module transaction.
function execTx(bytes memory execTxData) public onlyAuthorized {
    (
        address _target,
        uint256 _value,
        bytes memory _data,
        Enum.Operation _operation
    ) = abi.decode(execTxData, (address, uint256, bytes, Enum.Operation));
    require(
        exec(_target, _value, _data, _operation),
        "Module transaction failed"
    );
}

This architectural pivot does not mean that we are completely scrapping the hard work the Fractal team has already achieved. Fractal’s initial feature set and vision are unchanged, but we will now fully utilize and contribute to the composability of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Under the hood, Fractal may look quite different, but our users will still get these features:

• A solid DAO node framework with a treasury, now implemented as a Gnosis Safe.

• The option to govern DAO proposals via either a set of multi-signers or a 1:1 token voting system.

• The ability to create and govern child DAOs that are autonomous, Gnosis Safe-based DAO nodes.

• The ability of parent DAOs to elect to veto child proposals or possibly freeze them, as an opt-in feature on child creation.

• A beautiful front-end UI for an enhanced user experience.

What Is Fractal?

We've been asking ourselves that question a lot these last few months. If the Fractal MVD model and smart contracts are no longer a part of Fractal, what exactly is Fractal to begin with?

Fractal is building the on-chain tools and front-end interface to Do More With DAOs. Fractal is unifying the existing, proven infrastructure of the Web3 world to bring a first-class experience to on-chain governance. Fractal may currently be a small set of smart contracts that pull these Ethereum governance Legos together, but we hope to evolve—from a simple system into an integral part of decentralized governance.

Come check us out and see what we're building for yourself!

Written by Mike Herbig and the Fractal Team