A Democracy DAO governance contract deployed by Ethereum Foundation UX Lead Alex Van de Sande (avsa) on February 11, 2016, implementing the tutorial contract fr
Token Information
Key Facts
Description
This Congress contract was deployed at block 988909 on February 11, 2016, by Alex Van de Sande (ENS: alex.vandesande.eth), the UX Lead and designer at the Ethereum Foundation from 2014 to 2018 and co-founder of ENS (Ethereum Name Service). It implements the Democracy DAO pattern described in the Ethereum Foundation blog post series published in December 2015: "Ethereum in practice part 2: how to build a better democracy in under a 100 lines of code."
The contract manages membership, proposals, and voting. Key parameters include minimumQuorum (the minimum number of member votes required for a proposal to pass), debatingPeriodInMinutes (the minimum time a proposal must remain open for discussion), and majorityMargin (the margin by which yes-votes must exceed no-votes). Members can add proposals specifying a recipient address, an ETH amount, and a description. After the debating period, any member can tally the votes and execute the proposal if it passes.
This specific deployment includes custom extensions beyond the base Democracy tutorial: references to a unicornAddress and priceOfAUnicornInFinney, linking the governance contract to avsa's Unicorns project, which was deployed in the same session at block 988949. The deployment represents avsa testing governance infrastructure for his early NFT project on mainnet.
The broader Democracy DAO tutorial was influential in shaping early thinking about on-chain governance. The pattern introduced ideas that would later be refined in more sophisticated DAO frameworks, including The DAO (2016) and Compound Governance (2020). avsa's direct deployment of this pattern in February 2016, just two months after authoring the blog post, makes this a primary artifact of that early governance research.
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Heuristic Analysis
The following characteristics were detected through bytecode analysis and may not be accurate.
Frontier Era
The initial release of Ethereum. A bare-bones implementation for technical users.
Bytecode Overview
Verified Source Available
Source verified on Etherscan.
Show source code (Solidity)
contract owned {
address public owner;
function owned() {
owner = msg.sender;
}
modifier onlyOwner {
if (msg.sender != owner) throw;
_
}
function transferOwnership(address newOwner) onlyOwner {
owner = newOwner;
}
}
/* The token is used as a voting shares */
contract token {
function mintToken(address target, uint256 mintedAmount);
}
contract Congress is owned {
/* Contract Variables and events */
uint public minimumQuorum;
uint public debatingPeriodInMinutes;
int public majorityMargin;
Proposal[] public proposals;
uint public numProposals;
mapping(address => uint) public memberId;
Member[] public members;
address public unicornAddress;
uint public priceOfAUnicornInFinney;
event ProposalAdded(uint proposalID, address recipient, uint amount, string description);
event Voted(uint proposalID, bool position, address voter, string justification);
event ProposalTallied(uint proposalID, int result, uint quorum, bool active);
event MembershipChanged(address member);
event ChangeOfRules(uint minimumQuorum, uint debatingPeriodInMinutes, int majorityMargin);
struct Proposal {
address recipient;
uint amount;
string description;
uint votingDeadline;
bool executed;
bool proposalPassed;
uint numberOfVotes;
int currentResult;
bytes32 proposalHash;
Vote[] votes;
mapping(address => bool) voted;
}
struct Member {
address member;
uint voteWeight;
bool canAddProposals;
string name;
uint memberSince;
}
struct Vote {
bool inSupport;
address voter;
string justification;
}
/* First time setup */
function Congress(uint minimumQuorumForProposals, uint minutesForDebate, int marginOfVotesForMajority, address congressLeader) {
minimumQuorum = minimumQuorumForProposals;
debatingPeriodInMinutes = minutesForDebate;
majorityMargin = marginOfVotesForMajority;
members.length++;
members[0] = Member({
member: 0,
voteWeight: 0,
canAddProposals: false,
memberSince: now,
name: ''
});
if (congressLeader != 0) owner = congressLeader;
}
/*make member*/
function changeMembership(address targetMember, uint voteWeight, bool canAddProposals, string memberName) onlyOwner {
uint id;
if (memberId[targetMember] == 0) {
memberId[targetMember] = members.length;
id = members.length++;
members[id] = Member({
member: targetMember,
voteWeight: voteWeight,
canAddProposals: canAddProposals,
memberSince: now,
name: memberName
});
} else {
id = memberId[targetMember];
Member m = members[id];
m.voteWeight = voteWeight;
m.canAddProposals = canAddProposals;
m.name = memberName;
}
MembershipChanged(targetMember);
}
/*change rules*/
function changeVotingRules(uint minimumQuorumForProposals, uint minutesForDebate, int marginOfVotesForMajority) onlyOwner {
minimumQuorum = minimumQuorumForProposals;
debatingPeriodInMinutes = minutesForDebate;
majorityMargin = marginOfVotesForMajority;
ChangeOfRules(minimumQuorum, debatingPeriodInMinutes, majorityMargin);
}
// ribbonPriceInEther
function changeUnicorn(uint newUnicornPriceInFinney, address newUnicornAddress) onlyOwner {
unicornAddress = newUnicornAddress;
priceOfAUnicornInFinney = newUnicornPriceInFinney;
}
/* Function to create a new proposal */
function newProposalInWei(address beneficiary, uint weiAmount, string JobDescription, bytes transactionBytecode) returns(uint proposalID) {
if (memberId[msg.sender] == 0 || !members[memberId[msg.sender]].canAddProposals) throw;
proposalID = proposals.length++;
Proposal p = proposals[proposalID];
p.recipient = beneficiary;
p.amount = weiAmount;
p.description = JobDescription;
p.proposalHash = sha3(beneficiary, weiAmount, transactionBytecode);
p.votingDeadline = now + debatingPeriodInMinutes * 1 minutes;
p.executed = false;
p.proposalPassed = false;
p.numberOfVotes = 0;
ProposalAdded(proposalID, beneficiary, weiAmount, JobDescription);
numProposals = proposalID + 1;
}
/* Function to create a new proposal */
function newProposalInEther(address beneficiary, uint etherAmount, string JobDescription, bytes transactionBytecode) returns(uint proposalID) {
if (memberId[msg.sender] == 0 || !members[memberId[msg.sender]].canAddProposals) throw;
proposalID = proposals.length++;
Proposal p = proposals[proposalID];
p.recipient = beneficiary;
p.amount = etherAmount * 1 ether;
p.description = JobDescription;
p.proposalHash = sha3(beneficiary, etherAmount * 1 ether, transactionBytecode);
p.votingDeadline = now + debatingPeriodInMinutes * 1 minutes;
p.executed = false;
p.proposalPassed = false;
p.numberOfVotes = 0;
ProposalAdded(proposalID, beneficiary, etherAmount, JobDescription);
numProposals = proposalID + 1;
}
/* function to check if a proposal code matches */
function checkProposalCode(uint proposalNumber, address beneficiary, uint amount, bytes transactionBytecode) constant returns(bool codeChecksOut) {
Proposal p = proposals[proposalNumber];
return p.proposalHash == sha3(beneficiary, amount, transactionBytecode);
}
function vote(uint proposalNumber, bool supportsProposal, string justificationText) returns(uint voteID) {
if (memberId[msg.sender] == 0) throw;
uint voteWeight = members[memberId[msg.sender]].voteWeight;
Proposal p = proposals[proposalNumber]; // Get the proposal
if (p.voted[msg.sender] == true) throw; // If has already voted, cancel
p.voted[msg.sender] = true; // Set this voter as having voted
p.numberOfVotes += voteWeight; // Increase the number of votes
if (supportsProposal) { // If they support the proposal
p.currentResult += int(voteWeight); // Increase score
} else { // If they don't
p.currentResult -= int(voteWeight); // Decrease the score
}
// Create a log of this event
Voted(proposalNumber, supportsProposal, msg.sender, justificationText);
}
function executeProposal(uint proposalNumber, bytes transactionBytecode) returns(int result) {
Proposal p = proposals[proposalNumber];
/* Check if the proposal can be executed */
if (now < p.votingDeadline // has the voting deadline arrived?
|| p.executed // has it been already executed?
|| p.proposalHash != sha3(p.recipient, p.amount, transactionBytecode) // Does the transaction code match the proposal?
|| p.numberOfVotes < minimumQuorum) // has minimum quorum?
throw;
/* execute result */
if (p.currentResult > majorityMargin) {
/* If difference between support and opposition is larger than margin */
p.recipient.call.value(p.amount)(transactionBytecode);
p.executed = true;
p.proposalPassed = true;
} else {
p.executed = true;
p.proposalPassed = false;
}
// Fire Events
ProposalTallied(proposalNumber, p.currentResult, p.numberOfVotes, p.proposalPassed);
}
function() {
if (msg.value > priceOfAUnicornInFinney) {
token unicorn = token(unicornAddress);
unicorn.mintToken(msg.sender, msg.value / (priceOfAUnicornInFinney * 1 finney));
}
}
}
contract MyToken is owned {
/* Public variables of the token */
string public name;
string public symbol;
uint8 public decimals;
uint256 public totalSupply;
/* This creates an array with all balances */
mapping(address => uint256) public balanceOf;
mapping(address => bool) public frozenAccount;
mapping(address => mapping(address => uint)) public allowance;
mapping(address => mapping(address => uint)) public spentAllowance;
/* This generates a public event on the blockchain that will notify clients */
event Transfer(address indexed from, address indexed to, uint256 value);
event FrozenFunds(address target, bool frozen);
/* Initializes contract with initial supply tokens to the creator of the contract */
function MyToken(uint256 initialSupply, string tokenName, uint8 decimalUnits, string tokenSymbol, address centralMinter) {
if (centralMinter != 0) owner = centralMinter; // Sets the minter
balanceOf[msg.sender] = initialSupply; // Give the creator all initial tokens
name = tokenName; // Set the name for display purposes
symbol = tokenSymbol; // Set the symbol for display purposes
decimals = decimalUnits; // Amount of decimals for display purposes
totalSupply = initialSupply;
}
/* Send coins */
function transfer(address _to, uint256 _value) {
if (balanceOf[msg.sender] < _value) throw; // Check if the sender has enough
if (balanceOf[_to] + _value < balanceOf[_to]) throw; // Check for overflows
if (frozenAccount[msg.sender]) throw; // Check if frozen
balanceOf[msg.sender] -= _value; // Subtract from the sender
balanceOf[_to] += _value; // Add the same to the recipient
Transfer(msg.sender, _to, _value); // Notify anyone listening that this transfer took place
}
function mintToken(address target, uint256 mintedAmount) onlyOwner {
balanceOf[target] += mintedAmount;
totalSupply += mintedAmount;
Transfer(owner, target, mintedAmount);
}
function freezeAccount(address target, bool freeze) onlyOwner {
frozenAccount[target] = freeze;
FrozenFunds(target, freeze);
}
function transferFrom(address _from, address _to, uint256 _value) returns(bool success) {
if (balanceOf[_from] < _value) throw; // Check if the sender has enough
if (balanceOf[_to] + _value < balanceOf[_to]) throw; // Check for overflows
if (frozenAccount[_from]) throw; // Check if frozen
if (spentAllowance[_from][msg.sender] + _value > allowance[_from][msg.sender]) throw; // Check allowance
balanceOf[_from] -= _value; // Subtract from the sender
balanceOf[_to] += _value; // Add the same to the recipient
spentAllowance[_from][msg.sender] += _value;
Transfer(msg.sender, _to, _value);
}
function approve(address _spender, uint256 _value) returns(bool success) {
allowance[msg.sender][_spender] = _value;
}
function() {
//owner.send(msg.value);
throw;
}
}