Advancing the Aragon Mission

Aragon built the first DAO framework and remains the only project solely dedicated to developing and maintaining an open-source governance protocol. Today, it is one of two widely used governance protocols on Ethereum, securing billions in value for projects like Lido, Curve, Taiko, and Morpho vaults.

The Aragon Foundation empowers developers to build open-source smart contracts and supports teams creating sustainable businesses to bring this technology to market. Its role is to steward Aragon’s governance infrastructure for the long term, ensuring it remains successful and impactful. This includes advancing research and development, supporting product-market fit, onboarding institutions, and scaling toward mainstream use.

We are in an era of accelerating technological change and deepening geopolitical fragmentation. Digital systems are reshaping society faster than governments can adapt, while trust in legacy institutions is eroding. This is resulting in a growing dependency on global digital infrastructure controlled by a handful of private or state actors, which compounds systemic risks: single points of failure, opaque control, extractive models, and threats to civil liberty.

Decentralized governance enables credibly neutral infrastructure, an alternative that ensures the rules underpinning digital platforms are transparent, enforced predictably and autonomously, and resistant to capture by any single authority. Distributing control and embedding accountability into digital infrastructure reduces reliance on centralized actors and gives people direct control over the systems they use. 

“In doing so, Aragon delivers on the promises of decentralized organization, placing autonomy back where it belongs: in the hands of the user.” - Polar

To work toward fulfilling its purpose, the Foundation’s immediate goals are:

Resilience is not built in isolation. It is forged through use and scaled through adoption. For governance infrastructure to be truly resilient, it must be battle-tested across diverse contexts and proven under high-stakes conditions.

Aragon OSx is the only governance protocol built for modular permission management instead of fixed primitives like token voting (OZ Governor) or multisigs (SAFE). This architecture gives OSx the flexibility to support diverse and evolving governance needs, making it a core onchain access-control operating system.

Importantly, OSx’s architecture ensures that what works in one organization can inspire and empower another. Successful governance models are not locked within single projects; they can be securely adopted and adapted by others, multiplying their impact across the ecosystem.

Past governance frameworks were built as monolithic systems, locking protocols into rigid, one-size-fits-all models that ignored each protocol’s unique architecture and needs. Applying decentralization indiscriminately rather than strategically, these systems often led to operational chaos, misaligned incentives, and ineffective decision-making. Decentralized governance must adapt to each protocol’s design, applying decentralization where it matters for security and legitimacy while keeping operations effective.

Aragon OSx’s modular design allows organizations to build governance systems with far greater flexibility and efficiency than legacy frameworks, including Aragon OS. It is already enabling novel governance models. Taiko, Ethereum’s first based rollup, pioneered a dual-track system with token holder vetoes and encrypted emergency governance. A new wave of gauge voting and vote-escrow lockers is emerging on OSx, with early adoption from projects like Puffer, Mode, and YieldNest. These models can be securely and easily adopted by other projects, accelerating innovation across the ecosystem.

Yet broader adoption remains critical. To earn the trust of the industry and institutions, OSx must demonstrate resilience in practice over time. Most importantly, it must show that decentralized governance works by helping organizations succeed.

“Experimentation has moved the space forward, but now we need to prove outcomes. The real test of decentralized governance is whether it creates and sustains value and resilience in the systems we help build.” - Sacha

Resilience also means sovereignty at every layer. Organizations must be able to fully control and adapt their systems without relying on centralized intermediaries. When governance infrastructure is secure, flexible, and scalable, it becomes more than code–it becomes critical infrastructure for society.

What success looks like: 

• The value secured on Aragon OSx increases over time, reflecting growing trust and adoption.
• Leading protocols control assets and upgrade systems directly on Aragon OSx.
• Developers build and share bespoke governance models on OSx.
• New use cases emerge that stretch the boundaries of what onchain governance can do.
• Aragon tooling remains vulnerability-free, upholding its track record as one of the most secure protocols in Ethereum’s history.
• The governance of the Aragon OSx protocol itself is decentralized and credibly neutral.

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Builders of transformative technology can wait for regulation or lead by showing how their systems strengthen society. As governments face unprecedented complexity regulating technology, decentralized governance offers a path to transparency, accountability, and resilience beyond what traditional regulation can enforce.

Yet as governments move to regulate crypto worldwide, most policymakers lack the technical knowledge to engage deeply. Their perspectives are often shaped by large, centralized players, risking regulations that ignore or undermine decentralized systems. Without understanding how decentralized governance works or why it matters, regulators won’t incentivize it, and institutions and builders won’t adopt it.

This is where Aragon can lead. Over the past eight years, Aragon has built a trusted brand by delivering secure, credible infrastructure and supporting an ecosystem of builders and tools that have evolved with the crypto industry. As the world moves onchain, Aragon can help connect crypto-native builders, institutions, and policymakers.

“Regulation is arriving across jurisdictions. It’s up to us to engage constructively, stay focused on outcomes, and work together across the industry in a spirit of collaboration to safeguard the features of decentralization.” - Eagle

Aragon has a responsibility to provide practical, technically grounded insights that show the value of decentralization and encourage its use. By educating stakeholders, shaping regulatory clarity, and showcasing how decentralized systems work in practice, Aragon can reduce barriers, build trust, and become a trusted resource for implementing decentralized governance.

What success looks like: 

• Aragon is a credible voice regulators and civil society seek out to better understand decentralized governance.
• Policymakers understand decentralization through concrete examples.
• Regulations recognize onchain governance as a valid compliance solution.
• Builders choose Aragon because they trust its expertise and longevity.
• Aragon helps projects navigate and respond to regulatory developments.
  
  

Institutions are beginning to cross the threshold into onchain systems. As regulatory clarity increases, financial infrastructure providers like Robinhood, PayPal, and Stripe are exploring real-world asset tokenization, launching stablecoins, and integrating crypto infrastructure more deeply into their products.

“Institutional adoption isn’t a distant future, it’s already in motion. To meet this moment, we need to raise the bar across the ecosystem, delivering infrastructure that meets the expectations of serious operators without compromising the values that brought us here.” - adcv

These organizations require robust, secure, and adaptable onchain access control to manage critical assets and operations. Access control isn’t just a technical function; it is the gateway to institutions adopting decentralized governance as a tool.

Aragon has been a pioneer in crypto governance, with a seven-year track record securing billions in onchain assets. Aragon OSx is optimized for secure and granular permission tracking, offering the flexibility for institutions to design governance systems tailored to their operational complexity while meeting stringent security requirements.

However, building for DeFi protocols is one thing; scaling to institutions is another. To ensure OSx can meet institutional standards, Aragon must understand the evolving requirements of institutions and adapt its products and services accordingly.

By preparing for institutional adoption, Aragon can help new entrants adopt governance systems rooted in credible neutrality, building an open, resilient digital economy that serves not only users and investors but society as a whole.

What success looks like:

• Institutions pilot Aragon OSx for onchain access control within their operations.
• Aragon engages directly with institutional onboarding initiatives such as Etherealize and the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance.
• OSx meets defined security, compliance, and operational standards required by institutional users.
• Decision-makers have clear, high-quality resources demonstrating how Aragon OSx meets institutional governance needs.
• Aragon is recognized across the industry as a credible provider of institutional-grade governance infrastructure.
• Aragon actively participates in forums, standards bodies, and events shaping institutional blockchain adoption.

Guiding Metrics

The Foundation’s guiding metrics track meaningful adoption of Aragon’s governance infrastructure while ensuring its long-term sustainability as an open-source public good.

• Monthly revenue of teams funded by the Aragon Foundation ensures the infrastructure can be developed and maintained in perpetuity. Tracking sustainable revenue for the teams building the protocol ensures it can continue serving users effectively and reliably over the long term.
• Monthly revenue growth of applications using Aragon reflects the economic activity enabled by Aragon’s protocols. It serves as a proxy for the technology’s relevance, ability to support diverse and evolving use cases, and potential future revenue streams.

Together, these metrics reflect the Foundation’s commitment to fostering decentralized governance infrastructure that is widely adopted, economically viable, and resilient over the long term.

As digital systems become more embedded in society, the need for decentralized and resilient infrastructure grows more urgent. Aragon exists to meet this need. By supporting the adoption of Aragon OSx and its evolution as robust public infrastructure, while also advocating for greater understanding and implementation of decentralized governance, the Aragon Foundation is laying critical groundwork for the future. 

A digital world rooted in credibly neutral infrastructure offers stronger safeguards against the consolidation of power and greater agency over the systems we rely on. This is the world we choose to build.

If you’re working toward these goals, please reach out at info@aragonfoundation.org.