GnosisDAO + Gnosis Chain
Originally published on March 8, 2022
In 2020, Gnosis signaled its commitment to decentralizing the technical and governance layers of its products by announcing the GnosisDAO. Today, the treasury has effective control of over 150K ETH and 8 Million GNO tokens. The transition of Gnosis from a traditional for-profit organization to a DAO means that anyone can participate in decision-making by joining the Gnosis Forum. To learn more about the GnosisDAO governance process, read this forum post on the topic. Participation is highly encouraged and proposals can be of a technical and social nature.
xDai + Gnosis
In November 2021, the xDai and GnosisDAO communities voted to combine their vibrant ecosystems to create the Gnosis Chain. The GnosisDAO Mirror blog will soon dive into the far-reaching implications and ambitious roadmap for the Gnosis Chain. For now, let’s go over the details of what this means for the GnosisDAO community and the exciting features of the Gnosis Chain.
Gnosis Chain uses the xDai token. It is the associated execution-layer EVM chain for stable transactions and includes a wide-ranging group of projects and users.
Gnosis Chain offers seamless ETH compatibility without the prohibitive price tag of ETH gas fees. Experimentation and accessibility are guiding principles for Gnosis Chain. We will work hard to always keep 100k gas at $0.01, compared to the variable, current price of ~$12.70 per transaction on the Ethereum Mainnet. Projects priced out of building on ETH will be able to build and experiment once again on Gnosis Chain.
Much like Ethereum, Gnosis Chain will continue to run in its current form until the merge with the Gnosis Beacon Chain.
Gnosis Beacon Chain
In addition to providing stable, low-cost, and optimized transactions, the Gnosis Beacon Chain (GBC) infrastructure will be available to support important Ethereum updates, including EIP implementations. Gnosis Chain will merge with the GBC exactly like Ethereum will merge with the Ethereum Beacon Chain.
The GBC offers a new consensus opportunity for Gnosis Chain. Currently, Gnosis Chain uses a delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) consensus mechanism called POSDAO. With the Gnosis Chain / GBC merge, a more diverse and distributed validator set will bring consensus to the chain. Initially, modified client implementations (Prysm/Lighthouse) will support faster blocks and a wider validator community.
The UI for GBC deposits is active and a set of validators (60K+ and counting) is now proposing and attesting blocks! For live updates, check out the dashboard right here.
Gnosis Chain Staking
Gnosis Chain will make it easy for anyone to stake and become a validator. Only 1 GNO is required to run a validator, and we will do our best to make the process as technologically straightforward as possible. All the information you need is right here. Currently, you can run a full node through @DAppNode and @avadocloud with more options in the pipeline.
We know that economy of scale is a major centralization factor and we will actively work against this by using various decentralized identity mechanisms like @CirclesUBI, @proofofhumanity, and @BrightIDProject to make it more attractive for individuals to become validators. This will ensure Gnosis Chain stays in the hands of the many rather than the few.
GnosisDAO
The Gnosis mission has always been centered on experimentation and building decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem. When Gnosis was founded in 2015, it focused on building prediction markets to enable worldwide access to accurate information. While creating the prediction market platform, it became clear that Gnosis needed to build the infrastructure required to support it.
As a DAO, Gnosis uses the products that it creates to transparently guide decisions on the development, support, and governance of its ecosystem.
Gnosis Safe (multisig and programmable account), Cow Protocol (formerly CowSwap and Gnosis Protocol), Conditional Tokens (prediction markets), Gnosis Auction, and Zodiac (standard and tooling for composable DAOs) are all products incubated by Gnosis. Their success is demonstrated by the recent spin-out of Cow Protocol and the current discussion around SafeDAO. By combining needs-driven development with deep technical expertise, Gnosis has built the decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem.
Since the token merger, there are countless opportunities for incentives and integrations to reward users and devs for their dedication to Gnosis Chain. Please visit the Gnosis Discord with questions about incentives or getting started running a validator. Join our monthly community call, every second Monday of the month on the GnosisDAO Twitter Spaces!