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Bitcoin Treasury DAO Smart Contract

Detailed Description

Purpose

The Bitcoin Treasury DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization smart contract built on the Stacks blockchain that enables communities to collectively manage a shared STX treasury through democratic governance. It provides a trustless, transparent framework where members can propose expenditures, vote on proposals, and execute approved transactions without requiring centralized control.

Core Functionality

Democratic Governance Model
The contract implements a weighted voting system where each member is assigned voting power proportional to their stake or role in the organization. Proposals must achieve a configurable quorum (default 51%) and majority support to pass, ensuring decisions reflect genuine community consensus. The time-bound voting mechanism (default 10 days) provides adequate deliberation periods while preventing indefinite proposal limbo.

Proposal Lifecycle Management
Members can create detailed spending proposals specifying the recipient address, transfer amount, and a descriptive rationale (up to 256 characters). Each proposal undergoes a structured lifecycle: creation → active voting → expiration → execution (if passed). The system automatically tracks vote tallies, prevents duplicate voting, and enforces temporal constraints to maintain integrity throughout the process.

Treasury Operations
The contract manages a collective treasury where any participant can deposit STX tokens, but only approved proposals can authorize withdrawals. Real-time balance visibility ensures transparency, while smart contract escrow guarantees funds remain secure until properly authorized transfers occur. The treasury acts as the organization's financial backbone, enabling coordinated resource allocation.

Technical Architecture

State Management
The contract maintains comprehensive state through Clarity's native data structures:

  • Data Variables: Track global metrics (proposal counter, quorum threshold, voting duration, member count)
  • Maps: Store member registrations, voting power allocations, proposal records, vote tracking, and member-proposal associations
  • Immutable Constants: Define error codes and establish the contract owner

Security Framework
Multiple security layers protect against common attack vectors:

  • Authorization Gates: Functions verify caller identity and membership status before execution
  • Replay Prevention: Vote and execution tracking prevents duplicate actions
  • Balance Validation: Transfer operations verify sufficient treasury funds before proceeding
  • Temporal Controls: Block height checks enforce voting period boundaries
  • Input Sanitization: All parameters undergo validation to prevent malformed data

Access Control Hierarchy
The contract implements a three-tier permission model:

  1. Owner: Can add/remove members, adjust governance parameters, and execute emergency withdrawals
  2. Members: Can deposit funds, create proposals, vote, and execute passed proposals
  3. Public: Can deposit funds and query read-only contract state

Key Mechanisms

Weighted Voting Algorithm
Unlike simple one-account-one-vote systems, this implementation assigns customizable voting power to each member. When a member votes, their individual power is added to either the "yes" or "no" tally. This enables sophisticated governance structures where founding members, major contributors, or token holders can have proportional influence while maintaining democratic principles.

Quorum Calculation
The contract calculates required quorum dynamically based on total membership and the configured percentage threshold. A proposal passes only if:

  1. Total votes (yes + no) meet or exceed the quorum requirement
  2. Yes votes strictly outnumber no votes
  3. The voting period has expired

This dual requirement ensures both adequate participation and genuine majority support.

Proposal Execution Safety
Executed proposals are permanently marked to prevent re-execution attacks. The contract uses Clarity's as-contract context to perform transfers from the treasury's principal, ensuring the contract itself acts as the fund custodian rather than any individual user.

Use Cases

Community Fund Management
DAOs can use this contract to manage community treasuries, protocol development funds, or grant programs where multiple stakeholders need collective decision-making authority over shared resources.

Investment Consortiums
Groups pooling capital for investments can use the weighted voting system to make allocation decisions proportional to member contributions while maintaining transparent governance.

Non-Profit Organizations
Charitable organizations can operate with enhanced transparency, allowing donors to participate in funding decisions while maintaining programmatic control through voting power allocation.

Protocol Treasuries
Blockchain protocols can manage their native treasuries through this DAO structure, enabling community-driven resource allocation for development, marketing, or ecosystem growth initiatives.

Governance Parameters

Configurable Settings

  • Quorum Percentage (1-100%): Minimum participation required for valid proposals
  • Voting Period (blocks): Duration members have to cast votes
  • Member Voting Power (custom): Individual weight assigned to each member's vote

Default Configuration

  • Quorum: 51% (simple majority participation)
  • Voting Period: 1440 blocks (~10 days on Stacks)
  • Initial Member: Contract deployer with voting power of 1

Technical Specifications

Performance Characteristics

  • Gas Efficiency: Optimized read/write operations minimize transaction costs
  • Scalability: Map-based storage scales with membership and proposal growth
  • Determinism: Pure Clarity implementation ensures predictable behavior

Data Constraints

  • Proposal descriptions: 256 ASCII characters maximum
  • Member proposal tracking: 50 proposals per member
  • Numeric precision: Clarity's native uint type (unsigned 128-bit integers)
  • Voting power: Unrestricted range (enables flexible weighting schemes)

Integration Points

  • Standard Clarity trait compliance for wallet integration
  • Read-only functions for frontend data queries
  • Event emission through transaction receipts for indexing
  • Compatible with Stacks blockchain explorers

Security Audit Considerations

Attack Surface Analysis

  1. Front-Running: Vote order doesn't affect outcomes (tallies are additive)
  2. Sybil Resistance: Owner-controlled membership prevents identity spam
  3. Griefing: Minimum voting periods prevent DOS through spam proposals
  4. Reentrancy: Clarity's design prevents cross-contract reentrancy attacks
  5. Integer Overflow: Clarity's native overflow protection prevents arithmetic exploits

Trust Assumptions

  • Contract owner acts in good faith (can add/remove members and emergency withdraw)
  • Members vote according to their honest preferences
  • Blockchain itself remains secure and operational

Future Enhancement Possibilities

While the current implementation is production-ready, potential extensions include:

  • Multi-signature ownership for decentralized admin control
  • Delegation mechanisms for proxy voting
  • Proposal categories with different quorum requirements
  • Time-locked treasuries with scheduled releases
  • Integration with governance tokens for automatic voting power calculation
  • Quadratic voting to reduce plutocracy effects
  • Proposal amendments during voting periods

Conclusion

This Bitcoin Treasury DAO smart contract provides a robust, secure, and flexible foundation for decentralized treasury management. Its weighted voting system, comprehensive security measures, and configurable governance parameters make it suitable for diverse organizational structures requiring collective financial decision-making. The clean Clarity implementation ensures auditability, maintainability, and trustless operation on the Stacks blockchain.

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