What is Aragon? | Chain Knowledge Encyclopedia

To help more beginners increase their understanding of the blockchain industry, Chain Catcher has established the "Chain Knowledge Encyclopedia" column, which organizes and edits publicly available information on the internet to introduce important concepts and projects in the blockchain industry. We welcome reading and communication.

Aragon allows users to create decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) on Ethereum. With its suite of applications and services, Aragon makes the creation of DAOs easy and accessible, suitable for organizations ranging from clubs to companies to non-profits, which can collaboratively manage finances and decisions through distributed infrastructure.

According to Aragon, there are currently over 1,700 organizations built on the Aragon network, with a total project market value exceeding $3 billion.

The products offered by Aragon include a client, tools for creating and participating in DAOs, the Aragon network, a broader DAO composed of DAO networks, a non-profit organization that allocates the proceeds from the sale of Aragon tokens, the Aragon Association, and a dispute resolution system: Aragon Court. Additionally, Aragon has two native tokens. The Aragon Network Token (ANT) is used for participating in platform governance and can also serve as a bond to create the less common ANJ token, part of which will be used in the unique Aragon Court dispute resolution mechanism.

Aragon's Blockchain Technology

Each Aragon organization is created based on the smart contract aragonOS, which defines the scope of the organization and the rights of participants. Organizations can also implement functionalities such as fundraising, voting, and payments by installing applications. This technology is open to everyone, and anyone can develop an application for use within an organization based on Aragon, which can also contribute back to Aragon's ecosystem.

Moreover, in addition to programmable smart contract protocols, Aragon also supports human-readable protocols and contracts, and Aragon organizations are independent of each other, not requiring organizations to use ANT within their communities, thus providing infrastructure services to some organizations in a more open manner.

ANT Token and Governance

By holding ANT, users can participate in the governance of the Aragon network DAO and Aragon Court. Specifically, holders of the Aragon network token can modify the Aragon protocol, which contains human-readable rules that guide the decisions of the Aragon Court, change relevant parameters of the Aragon network, and manage the common funding pool.

Aragon Court

Organizations built on Aragon can use the Aragon Court functionality to arbitrate disputes they cannot resolve themselves.

When an organization escalates a dispute to the court system, both parties must submit fees, and then jurors are randomly selected to review and adjudicate the dispute. Anyone can join the juror pool by placing ANT tokens, which will then convert to ANJ. After the jurors make a decision, it is determined by a majority vote, and the parties in dispute can choose to appeal the decision, sending it for review by a larger jury.

To continue the appeal process, both parties must deposit additional collateral. If neither party deposits more collateral, the preliminary ruling is finalized. If only one party deposits additional collateral, the judgment will automatically favor them. If both parties deposit more collateral, the appeal will proceed. Parties can appeal a fixed number of times until the dispute is submitted to the entire jury, which will then make a final ruling. Jurors who participate in the voting will receive a portion of the total fees, while jurors who do not vote will lose their staked tokens.

Latest Developments in Aragon

The Aragon platform has become a powerful tool for managing organizations, undergoing multiple upgrades and iterations. In addition to launching the ANJ token specifically for Aragon Court, the ANT token of Aragon is also migrating to ANTv2, which uses a more streamlined mechanism for executing platform governance. This makes using Aragon 66% cheaper and supports fee-less transactions. This update is a step towards the release of Aragon Government, an upgraded version of the platform's development landscape, simplifying the complex multi-signature confirmation process and allowing for off-chain "optimistic" governance.

Currently, with its easy-to-use templates and applications, Aragon opens up DAO creation to the general public and paves the way for establishing new organizations in the era of decentralization.