---
type: decision
entity_type: decision_market
name: "MetaDAO: Develop Futarchy as a Service (FaaS)"
domain: internet-finance
status: passed
tracked_by: rio
created: 2026-03-11
last_updated: 2026-03-11
parent_entity: "[[metadao]]"
platform: "futardio"
proposer: "0xNallok"
proposal_url: "https://v1.metadao.fi/metadao/trade/D9pGGmG2rCJ5BXzbDoct7EcQL6F6A57azqYHdpWJL9Cc"
proposal_date: 2024-03-13
resolution_date: 2024-03-19
category: strategy
summary: "Fund $96K to build futarchy-as-a-service platform enabling other Solana DAOs to adopt futarchic governance"
tags: ["futarchy", "faas", "product-development", "solana-daos"]
source_archive: "inbox/archive/2024-03-13-futardio-proposal-develop-futarchy-as-a-service-faas.md"
related:
- "{'Futardio': 'Approve Budget for Pre-Governance Hackathon Development'}"
- "{'LobsterFutarchy': 'Futardio ICO Launch'}"
- "metadao-approve-q3-roadmap"
- "metadao-develop-multi-option-proposals"
- "{'MetaDAO': 'Fund Futarchy Applications Research — Dr. Robin Hanson, George Mason University'}"
- "Futardio: Approve Budget for Pre-Governance Hackathon Development"
- "LobsterFutarchy: Futardio ICO Launch"
- "metadao-approve-q3-roadmap"
- "metadao-develop-multi-option-proposals"
- "MetaDAO: Fund Futarchy Applications Research — Dr. Robin Hanson, George Mason University"
reweave_edges:
- "{'Futardio': 'Approve Budget for Pre-Governance Hackathon Development|related|2026-04-18'}"
- "{'LobsterFutarchy': 'Futardio ICO Launch|related|2026-04-18'}"
- "metadao-approve-q3-roadmap|related|2026-04-18'}"
- "metadao-develop-multi-option-proposals|related|2026-04-18'}"
- "{'MetaDAO': 'Fund Futarchy Applications Research — Dr. Robin Hanson, George Mason University|related|2026-04-18'}"
- "Futardio: Approve Budget for Pre-Governance Hackathon Development|related|2026-04-19"
- "LobsterFutarchy: Futardio ICO Launch|related|2026-04-19"
- "MetaDAO: Approve Q3 Roadmap?|related|2026-04-19"
- "MetaDAO: Develop Multi-Option Proposals?|related|2026-04-19"
- "MetaDAO: Fund Futarchy Applications Research — Dr. Robin Hanson, George Mason University|related|2026-04-19"
---

# MetaDAO: Develop Futarchy as a Service (FaaS)

## Summary
Nallok proposed building a Realms-like UI enabling any Solana DAO to create and participate in futarchic governance. Budget: $96K for 2 months ($40K USDC from treasury + 342 META to convert). Team: 1 smart contract engineer, 1 auditor, 2 UI/UX, 1 data/services developer, 1 project manager. This was MetaDAO's first product expansion beyond self-governance — the pivot from "futarchy for MetaDAO" to "futarchy for everyone."

## Market Data
- **Outcome:** Passed (2024-03-19)
- **Autocrat version:** 0.1
- **Key participants:** 0xNallok (entrepreneur/PM), Proph3t (multisig), Nico (multisig)

## Significance
This proposal marks MetaDAO's strategic pivot from a governance experiment to a platform business. The financial projections (5-100 DAO customers, $50-$500/proposal in taker fees, $50-$1,000/month licensing) reveal early business model thinking. The explicit goal of "vertical integration" and "owning the whole stack" shows Proph3t and Nallok's approach to defensibility.

Particularly notable: the monetization model (taker fees + licensing + consulting) anticipated the Futarchic AMM revenue model that would later become MetaDAO's primary income source. The FaaS concept directly led to Drift, Dean's List, and Future adopting futarchy.

## Relationship to KB
- [[metadao]] — strategic pivot to platform
- [[MetaDAO is the futarchy launchpad on Solana where projects raise capital through unruggable ICOs governed by conditional markets creating the first platform for ownership coins at scale]] — FaaS was the first step toward this
- [[futarchy-governed DAOs converge on traditional corporate governance scaffolding for treasury operations because market mechanisms alone cannot provide operational security and legal compliance]] — multisig custody of funds alongside futarchy approval
- [[futarchy adoption faces friction from token price psychology proposal complexity and liquidity requirements]] — FaaS aimed to reduce adoption friction

---

Relevant Entities:
- [[metadao]] — parent organization
- [[nallok]] — project entrepreneur
- [[proph3t]] — multisig member
- [[deans-list]] — early FaaS adopter
- [[drift]] — early FaaS adopter

Topics:
- [[maps/internet finance and decision markets]]

## Full Proposal Text

*Source: futard.io, tabled 2024-03-13*

![ecosystem](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1PShQkCa.png)

Type: Business project

Entrepreneur(s): 0xNallok

*A note from 0xNallok: Special thanks are owed to the many parties who've supported the project thus far, to those who've taken massive risk on utilizing the systems and believing in a better crypto. It has been one of the most exciting things, not in attention, but seeing the "aha!" moments and expanding the understanding of what is possible with crypto.*

See also: [A Vision for Futarchy as a Service](https://hackmd.io/@0xNallok/rJ5O9LwaT)

## Overview

The appetite for market-driven governance is palpable. We have a tremendous opportunity to take this labor of love and shape it into a prime-time product. Such a product would be a great boon to the Solana ecosystem and to the MetaDAO's bottom line.

If passed, this proposal would fund two workstreams:

- **Minimum viable product**: I would coordinate the creation of a minimum viable product: a Realms-like UI that allows people to create and participate in futarchic DAOs. This requires some modifications to the smart contract and UI to allow for more than one DAO.
- **UI improvements**: I've already been working with engineers to add helpful functionality to the UI. This proposal would fund these features, including:
  - historical charts
  - improving UX around surfacing information (e.g., showing how much money you have deposited in each proposal)
  - showing historical trades
  - showing market volume

The goal would be to onboard some early adopter DAOs to test alongside MetaDAO. A few teams have already expressed interest.

## Problem

Most people in crypto agree that the state of governance is abysmal. Teams can loot the treasury without repercussions[^1]. Decentralization theatre abounds[^2]. Even some projects that build DAO tooling don't feel comfortable keeping their money in a DAO[^3].

The root cause of this issue is token-voting. One-token-one-vote systems have clear incentive traps[^4] that lead to uninformed and unengaged voters. Delegated voting systems ('liquid democracy') don't fare much better: most holders don't even do enough research to delegate.

## Design
![Screenshot 2024-03-07 at 1.40.37 PM](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hyg89FDTa.jpg)

A possible solution that MetaDAO has been testing out is futarchy. In a futarchy, it's markets that make the decisions. Given that markets are empirically better than experts at predicting things, we expect futarchies to perform better than traditional DAOs.

Our objective is to build a product that allows DAOs in the Solana ecosystem to harness the power of the market for their decision-making. This product would look and feel like [Realms](https://realms.today/), only with futarchy instead of voting.

Our short-term goal is to create a minimum viable iteration of this. This iteration would support the following flows:
- I, as a DAO creator, can come to a website and create a futarchic DAO
- I, as a futarchic trader, can trade in multiple DAOs proposals' futarchic markets

To monetize this in the long-term, we could:
- Collect licensing fees
- Collect taker/maker fees in the conditional markets
- Provide ancillary consulting services to help DAOs manage their futarchies

The minimum viable product wouldn't support these. We would instead work with a few select DAOs and sign agreements with them to migrate to a program with fee collection within 6 months of it being released if they wish to continue to use MetaDAO's offering.

### Objectives and Key Results

**Release a minimum viable product by May 21st, 2024**
- Extend the smart contract to support multiple DAOs
- Generalize the UI to support multiple DAOs
- Create docs for interacting with the product
- Partner with 3 DAOs to have them use the product at launch-time

**Improve the overall UI/UX**
- Create an indexer and APIs for order and trade history
- Improve the user experience for creating proposals
- Improve the user experience for trading proposals

### Timeline

**Phase 1**
Initial discussions around implementation, services and visual components
UI design for components
Development of components in React
Program development
Data services / APIs construction

**Phase 2**
Program deployed on devnet
Data services / APIs linked with devnet
UI deployed on dev branch for use with devnet

**Phase 3**
Audit and revisions of program
Testing UI, feedback and revisions mainnet with limited beta testers and on devent

**Phase 4**
Proposal for migration of program
UI live on mainnet
Create documentation and videos

**Final**
Migrate program

## Budget

This project is expected to have deliverables within 30 days with full deployment within two months.

Below is the inclusion of estimated **MAXIMUM** _costs and hours_ for the following roles[^5]. **If costs do incur beyond this estimate the cost is to be borne by the Entrepreneur.**

A fair estimate of `$96,000`[^6] for the two months including the following:
- 1 smart contract engineer (\$15,000) (160 hours)
- 1 auditor (\$10,000) (40 hours)
- 2 UI / UX (\$32,000) (400 hours)
- 1 data/services developer (\$13,000) (140 hours)
- 1 project manager / research / outreach (\$26,000) (320 hours)

The Entrepreneur (0xNallok) would fill in various roles, but primarily the project manager.

This will be funded through:
- Transfer of \$40,000 USDC from the existing funds in the multi-sig treasury.
- Transfer of 342 META[^7] which will be used when payment is due to convert to USDC.
- The funds will be transferred to a 2/3 mult-sig including 0xNallok, Proph3t and Nico.
- Payments to the parties will be done weekly.

> The reason for overallocation of META is due to the price fluctuation of the asset and necessity for payment in USDC. This takes the cost minus the \$40k USDC (\$56k) divided by the current price of 1 META (\$818.284) multiplied by a factor of 5.

> Any remaining META once the project is completed will be transferred back to the MetaDAO treasury.

MetaDAO Executor (`FpMnruqVCxh3o2oBFZ9uSQmshiyfMqzeJ3YfNQfP9tHy`)

MetaDAO Treasury (`ADCCEAbH8eixGj5t73vb4sKecSKo7ndgDSuWGvER4Loy`)

FaaS Multi-sig (`AHwsoL97vXFdvckVZdXw9rrvnUDcPANCLVQzJan9srWy`)
>  0xNallok (`4LpE9Lxqb4jYYh8jA8oDhsGDKPNBNkcoXobbAJTa3pWw`)

>  Proph3t (`65U66fcYuNfqN12vzateJhZ4bgDuxFWN9gMwraeQKByg`)

>  Nico (`6kDGqrP4Wwqe5KBa9zTrgUFykVsv4YhZPDEX22kUsDMP`)

This proposal includes the transfer instruction from the MetaDAO treasury, the additional funds will be transferred from the MetaDAO Executor.

## Business

Ultimately, the goal of the MetaDAO is to make money. There are a few ways to monetize FaaS all dependent on what appeals most to DAOs:
- **Taker fees on markets**: we could take 5 - 25 basis points via a taker fee on markets.
- **Monthly licensing fees**: because the code is BSL, we could charge a monthly fee for the code and the site
- **Support and services**: we could also provide consultation services around futarchic governance, like a Gauntlet model.

In general, we should aim for **vertical integration**. The goal is not to build this product as a primitive and then allow anyone to build front-ends for it: it's to own the whole stack.

### Financial Projections

Today, 293 DAOs use Realms. Realms is a free platform, so plenty of these DAOs are inactive and wouldn't be paying customers. So we estimate that we could acquire 5 - 100 DAOs as customers.

As for estimating ARPU (average revenue per user), we can start by looking at the volume in the MetaDAO's markets:

![Screenshot from 2024-02-26 19-52-03](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1HbnwcnT.png)

Note that this only includes the volume in the finalized market, as all trades in the other market are reverted and thus wouldn't collect fees.

So assuming that proposal 6 - 8 are an appropriate sample, we could earn ~\$50 - \$500 per proposal. If DAOs see between 1 - 2 proposals per month, that's \$100 - \$1,000 in taker fee ARPU.

As for monthly licensing fees, Squads charges \$99 / month for SquadsX and \$399 / month for Squads Pro. I suspect that DAOs would be willing to pay a premium for governance. So we can estimate between \$50 - \$1,000 in monthly licensing fees.

Putting these together:

![Screenshot from 2024-02-26 19-54-59](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJvsnvc3p.png)

The support & services business is different enough that it deserves its own model. This is because consulting / advisory businesses have non-zero marginal costs (you can't earn $25,000,000 in revenue from one consultant) and have lower defensibility. Both cause them to receive lower valuation multiples.

Here's what we project:

![Screenshot from 2024-02-26 19-29-19](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B10c8vq3p.png)

Of course, you can use your own numbers if you'd like to come up with your own estimates.

## Footnotes
[^1]: DeFi Project Parrot Holds Contentious Vote on Future of $70M Treasury. Danny Nelson. Jul 21, 2023. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/21/defi-project-parrot-puts-fate-of-over-70m-treasury-prt-token-to-vote/.

[^2]: Crypto's Theater Is Becoming More Surreal. Camila Russo. Aug 14, 2023. https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/08/14/cryptos-theater-is-becoming-more-surreal/.

[^3]: Aragon Fires Back at Activist Investors in Early Stages of DAO Governance Fight. Danny Nelson. May 5, 2023. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/05/aragon-fires-back-at-activist-investors-in-early-stages-of-governance-fight/.

[^4]: The Logic of Collective Action. Wikipedia. Mar 7, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action.

[^5]: As this is an approximation and development and integration depends on a number of factors, inclusion of roles and estimates seems appropriate but may be in flux given changes which arise, however costs would not extend beyond the estimate.

[^6]: This breaks down to an average estimate of ~$90/hour and 1060 (wo)man hours total.

[^7]: $$(56,000/818.284) * 5 \approx 342$$