The Constitutions of Web3

Abstract

The governance of online communities has been a critical issue since the first USENET groups, and a number of serious constitutions -- declarations of goals, values, and rights -- have emerged since the mid-1990s. More recently, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have begun to publish their own constitutions, manifestos, and other governance documents. There are two unique aspects to these documents: they (1) often govern significantly more resources than previously-observed online communities, and (2) are used in conjunction with smart contracts that can secure certain community rights and processes through code. In this article, we analyze 25 DAO constitutions, observe a number of common patterns, and provide a template and a set of recommendations to support the crafting and dissemination of future DAO constitutions. We conclude with a report on how our template and recommendations were then used within the actual constitutional drafting process of a major blockchain.