Jan 2025: Aragon 2024 Roundup

We rounded up our eventful 2024, we launched Kim Exchange's governance, PWN DAO launched their custom build on Aragon, and we're starting the new year fresh with a new website.

TLDR

• Recent Highlights:

  • We rounded up our favorite moments from 2024: Custom build DAO launches, product updates, partnerships, Ethereum events and a thesis. Read all about it here.

  • We just launched Kim Exchange’s governance. Similar to Mode’s governance, Kim implemented a vote escrow (ve) and gauges governance model. This approach ensures aligned incentives, reduces coordination overhead, and accelerates network growth.

  • PWN DAO also launched their own custom build on Aragon featuring optimistic dual governance with veto, veStaker for increased voting power, and hardcoded voting rewards to incentivize participation.

  • New year, new website. Dive into the new aragon.org.

• What’s Next: The Aragon team will keep innovating onchain governance, so stay tuned for an even more exciting 2025.

Recent Highlights

2024 was a turning point for Aragon.

Our modular tech stack is shaping the next generation of onchain governance:

⭐ new governance models from industry leaders like Polygon and Mode

🕶️ fully onchain trustless solutions for vault curators and depositors

🦘 leaps in frictionless voting with cross-chain and zk solutions

Dive into this year’s highlights:

1. DAO Launches

   1. Polygon: Our bespoke UI template and open governance design system consolidate every stage of Polygon governance into a single, intuitive interface. Human-centered design ensures that all community members, regardless of technical expertise, can engage with the governance process.

      

   2. Mode: We’re proud to have worked with the first L2 to implement a modernized vote escrow (ve) and gauge-based governance model. This breakthrough in applying ve and gauges to a rollup ecosystem introduces a dynamic governance model that fosters incentive alignment, reduces coordination overhead, and drives network growth.

      

   3. Puffer: We’ve developed a custom tokenomics-driven governance solution to launch alongside the PUFFER token, including a modernized veLocker, an adaptable DAO, and a bespoke Governance Hub for the community.

      

   4. Kim Exchange: We implemented a vote escrow (ve) and gauges governance model, similar to our build with Mode.

      

   5. PWN DAO and Open Mesh Network also independently shipped their own custom builds on top of our stack. We love to see what DAOs are building with Aragon OSx!

   6. Leading MorphoLabs curators, including Steakhouse, LlamaRisk, Re7Capital, MEV Capital, and SmokehouseDefi, secured their vaults with an Aragon guardian.

2. Product

   1. We launched a gasless voting solution, enabling DAOs to offer secure and gasless voting, leveraging crosschain execution with Layer Zero.

   2. We also launched DappConnect, powered by WalletConnect, we enabled DAOs to connect to external dApps to add onchain actions to proposals such as swapping, staking, and lending.

3. Partnerships

   1. We partnered with RiscZero to bring trustless cross-chain voting to Optimism using zkstorage proofs. Our proposed solution is well underway, we'll be sharing more in the new year.

   2. We recently partnered with MetaLeX Labs this year to bring together both legal and technical expertise for DAOs.

4. Education

   1. In response to a16z’s token launch playbook, we created a comprehensive guide to help you navigate launching a token with governance compatibility.

5. Events

   1. We also spent a lot of time meeting builders all over the world from ETH Denver, ETH Dubai, ETH Zurich, ETH Ireland, DAO Tokyo, ETH CC, and lastly Devcon.

      

6. Project Milestones

   1. The Aragon Project continued its transition, and we announced the sunsetting of legacy products.

   2. The Aragon Association's ANT Redemption initiative came to a close. 87% of the oustanding token supply was redeemed with 2,670 redemptions.

   3. The new Aragon Foundation was announced, featuring a new board of industry experts to guide the project's strategy in 2025 and beyond.

      

7. Team Milestones

   1. We kicked off the year by launching a #TeamStaking initiative with Dappnode, Obol Collective, Lido, and SSV.

      

      b. We published the Aragon X scorecard to track our progress towards making our tech stack resilient;

      c. We relaunched our website with more alpha on our onchain governance solutions: aragon.org;

      d. Our team gathered at 4 offsites in Spain, Germany, Greece, and Bangkok.

      

8. Conclusion

   1. To cap off the year, we published our thesis.

   

The future of governance is modular, and we're just getting started, so follow us on X.

—Aragon X