2026-04-10 –, Sihl (Y24-G-55)
DAOs struggle with legitimate community governance. Token-weighted voting creates plutocratic outcomes; delegating to multisigs reintroduces trust assumptions. We've deployed a different approach: genuine one-person-one-vote governance over stablecoin treasury funds, running in production with two African communities.
This talk focuses on the treasury mechanism design, not identity infrastructure. We'll cover:
The problem we're solving: Community currencies face a sustainability challenge: Popular businesses accumulate more local tokens than they can spend, bearing disproportionate risk. The most valuable participants become the most likely to exit.
Stablecoin-backed swap options: Businesses apply for the right to swap local currency for USDC from a community-controlled treasury. No banks, no credit committees: the community votes.
Governance mechanics in practice: Open proposal submission, parallel competing proposals (first to pass wins), adaptive quorum biasing (lower turnout → higher approval threshold), and automatic on-chain enactment.
Anti-bank-run protections: Per-beneficiary limits (10% of treasury), exercise fees (2%), and how these create incentives to spend locally rather than extract.
Field data: Participation patterns, turnout dynamics, and what we've learned from real treasury governance decisions in Tanzania and Nigeria.
Why this matters for DAOs: Treasury management is where governance gets real. Gitcoin, Optimism, Arbitrum, and others are experimenting with grants, RetroPGF, and council structures. This talk offers concrete patterns from a live system where communities, not token holders, decide who gets access to shared resources.
Key takeaway: Democratic legitimacy in treasury governance is achievable without plutocracy or centralized gatekeepers. Here's how it works in practice.
Active in Blockchain since 2013, Alain started developing smart contracts in 2016 and contributed to the p2p energy market "Quartierstrom". In 2018 he wrote the Encointer whitepaper and founded an NGO for an egalitarian web3. In 2021, Alain co-founded the privacy-enhancing tech company Integritee.
Entrepreneur and lecturer at the intersection of decentralized technology and society, Malik has built organizations ranging from bootstrapped ventures to foundation-backed initiatives and high-growth token-funded models. He is Partner at Dezentrum, holds a leadership role at Encointer, teaches at FFHS and FHGR, and serves on the board of DAO Suisse.