Decentralized autonomous organization

The Bisq exchange network is organized as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The Bisq DAO's purpose is to make the Bisq's governance model as decentralized and censorship-resistant as the Bisq network itself.

The Bisq founders realized that decentralized software—no matter how technically robust—is no good if it’s still controlled by a single entity. All the software’s technical strength would be worthless if the whole project could be ruined by attacking the single entity that runs it.

Thus the need for decentralizing the resources in charge of running Bisq itself. These resources cannot be organized in the form of a company, a nonprofit, or any other traditional organization because a single entity would be a single point of failure. But what to do? How can a project do anything useful without becoming an organization with some kind of structure? How can strategy be determined? How can resources be allocated? How can work get done? How can revenue be earned, and how can it be distributed?

The Bisq project needed infrastructure to provide these functions, and the Bisq DAO is its solution.

This page collects all resources which aim to help you learn more about the Bisq DAO, what it is, and how it works!

General Informtation

Introduction to the DAO

A plain language introduction to the Bisq DAO

Bisq DAO in Brief (videos)

Quick, short video series on the Bisq DAO. Get up to speed with a handful of 3-4 minute videos.

Bisq DAO Basics (videos)

A more thorough treatment of the DAO covering everything from the basics of bitcoin transactions and colored coins to the economic and technical roots of the BSQ token and how it powers the Bisq DAO.

User Guides and Use Cases

User Guide for Traders

Use BSQ to get lower trading fees and compensate contributors

Contributor Docs

User Guide for Contributors

Govern Bisq through the DAO by obtaining Bisq, making proposals and voting

Contributor Checklist

The one-stop doc to help you start contributing to Bisq.

Requesting Compensation and Voting

Contributed to the Bisq Network? Great (and thank you!). Here is how to request compensation for your work.

DAO Proposals

How to make a proposal to the DAO.

Reference Material

Bisq DAO User Reference

Practical details on using the DAO, along with a brief technical overview: read this to understand what happens behind the scenes as you use the DAO.

Bisq DAO Technical Overview

Technical details of (1) what BSQ tokens actually are, how they’re created, and how they’re destroyed and (2) the various functions of the Bisq DAO and how BSQ enables them. The document includes several example transactions so you can explicitly see the processes.

Phase Zero: A Plan for Bootstrapping the Bisq DAO

An overview of the philosophy behind Bisq, the Bisq DAO, why both were created, and how it planned to decentralize its own governance from the very beginning.