Aragon is open source software used to maintain and create decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) on the Ethereum blockchain.
If you're unfamiliar with the term, a DAO is software that runs on a blockchain and provides users with an integrated model for shared management of their code.
Of central importance to the DAOs on its management platform is ANT, Aragon's native cryptocurrency, which grants owners the ability to vote on important decisions regarding the future of the project.
For more regular updates from the Aragon team, you can bookmark the Aragon blog, which contains tutorials, new releases and project integrations.
The Aragon Network was launched in 2016 by Luis Ivan Cuende and Jorge Izquierdo, who also founded the Aragon Association and Aragon One, a company that builds services for Aragon.
In 2017, Aragon held an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) which raised 275,000 ETH (approximately US$25 million at the time) through the sale of ANT coins (also known as tokens). Aragon was publicly launched in 2018 on the Ethereum Mainnet.
It is announced that with the launch of Aragon v2 at the end of 2020, the entire ecosystem will be transferred to the token holder.
To create a DAO, developers first use AragonOS, a smart contract framework.
Modules available through AragonOS allow users to raise funds, encourage contributors to join their community, and make decisions with group participation.
Each Aragon DAO uses three pre-installed functions:
- Finance – Helps manage an organization’s resources. Participants can submit transactions, access transaction history, and view the status of DAO assets.
- Tokens – Cryptoassets used to manage membership and structure within a DAO.
- Voting – Used by token holders to raise issues, vote, and review results.
Developers can also integrate the Agent application into their DAO, allowing businesses to interact directly with smart contracts on Ethereum.
Everyone is free to develop their own application for their organization or publish it for others.
The court of Aragon
Aragon Court is a service that allows users to resolve disputes within organizations hosted on the Aragon network that cannot be resolved by smart contracts.
Through this software, other users (called jurors) are tasked with reviewing the arguments in certain disputes and casting a vote based on their position on the case.
To become a juror, Aragon users must exchange their ANT coins for ANJ tokens, which must then be used or locked into special contracts on the network. The more ANJ a user uses, the more likely they are to be selected as a juror.
Once the dispute is resolved, jurors receive an ANT coin reward and the DAO updates any required rules or results programmatically in the software.
Why is Aragon valuable?
The Aragon cryptocurrency (ANT), allows users to influence the future of their ecosystem.
Users who own ANT help manage the protocol and vote on proposals to determine changes to the Aragon network. The Aragon team developed ANT with the idea that the protocol would then be owned and operated by its users.
Additionally, ANT tokens can be used to purchase ANJ tokens, which are necessary for users to participate in Aragon Court settlement services.
Why use ANT?
You may find Aragon attractive if you want to create an organization controlled by its members rather than a central authority.
The Aragon project could also be of interest to developers of other Ethereum-based applications who wish to integrate a governance model specific to their members.
To date, there are a large number of projects integrated into the Aragon ecosystem, including Decentraland, Althea Network, District0x and Dappnode.
Investors can also try to include ANT in their portfolio if they believe in the future of online autonomous organizations.