If you're into DAOs and Web3

A way in. A working draft, November 2026; expect it to change.

In this page

Why every organisation on The Grove is a DAO from its first day, with no tokens, wallets or gas
Why token voting broke, and how a say that money can't buy works instead
How the blockchain gives each organisation independence all the way through
How an organisation takes a legal form, and can leave the network with everything
Which chapters to read first, in order

If you were drawn to DAOs, you were probably drawn by a good idea: an organisation whose rules are carried out by code its members agreed, rather than by an officer, with nobody who can quietly change the terms. You've probably also watched what happened next. Votes clustered in a few large holders. Most members stopped taking part. Treasuries were drained by people who bought or borrowed enough tokens to push a proposal through. Much of the talk has since moved on, to AI agents and to blockchains as quiet plumbing underneath.

The idea was right. The governance wasn't.

What you'll find here

A DAO from day one. Every organisation on The Grove is a decentralised autonomous organisation: its rules run as code its people agreed. Today that runs on a test bench. When The Grove goes live, each organisation will be its own independent DAO, running its own copy of the operating system with its own DNA growing in it, controlled by nobody else.

No tokens, no wallets, no gas. Nobody holds a token, pays a fee to act or handles cryptocurrency. The only part of the blockchain anyone touches is signing in, with Internet Identity and the passkey on their phone or laptop. The organisation pays for its own computing, and its money stays in its own bank.

A say that money can't buy. Token voting makes say a thing you can purchase. In 2022 an attacker borrowed enough votes to empty a project called Beanstalk in a single transaction. On The Grove, money can fund the work but never buys a say. The weight behind a decision is trust that peers give and can take back, in each forum and on each kind of matter. Consent comes from the people who carry the work, advice from those it touches, and every stage runs on a clock, with a timelock on high-impact changes. Trust and money are kept apart as two currencies.

The invitation is the vouch. Joining starts with someone already inside vouching for you, with limits on how often and how soon. Two seat holders can put a newcomer on hold. The levels of proof are written in: signing in to belong, proof of being a unique human for the floor, and a full identity check for anyone who holds a seat. No provider has been chosen for those checks yet.

Independence all the way through. The point of running on a blockchain is that nothing the organisation stands on is owned by someone who could pull it away or use it as leverage. On the Internet Computer, each organisation's software runs on many independent machines that must agree on every change, holds a whole application rather than a tiny contract, serves its own pages, and can be changed only by its controllers. At go-live, control passes to each organisation's own decision-making. That independence is what makes an organisation sovereign.

A legal form, collectively stewarded. An organisation can take a legal form so it can sign, bank and employ. That legal body is part of the organisation, stewarded by it, and it points at where decisions are actually made: a passport, not a new king. Whoever signs holds a role, not power.

Leave with everything. Every organisation is designed to carry the system sealed inside its own space, choose every change, and leave with its records, its people's agreements and the code itself. Two organisations can form a network of their own and open the code between them. We've chosen not to open-source it for now, and the book says why.

What's still open

The Grove is still being built and tested, with simulated organisations. Independence, sealed copies of the system and the Steward organisation that looks after the code are decided for go-live and not yet built. The identity checks have no provider. And whether a new network that loosens a guardrail must ship under a different name is still to be settled.

Where to start

Chapter 6, Why an operating system. Every organisation a DAO, why token voting failed, and the six reasons for the Internet Computer.
Chapter 11, Making decisions. Consent, advice, clocks and timelocks in place of a token vote.
Chapter 12, Trust. Trust as governance weight, given by peers, with no way to buy a say.
Chapter 17, Money and value. Two currencies kept apart, a shared commons, and a floor.
Chapter 10, Belonging without a seat. The invitation as a vouch, and what each level of proof unlocks.
Chapter 18, Into the legal world. How an organisation becomes a legal entity without making its signer the boss.
Chapter 27, DNA, the network, and why not open source. Sealed code, leaving together, new networks, and the Steward.
Chapter 1, A society of sovereigns. What sovereign means here, for people, for organisations and for a society.