Aragon Announces New Foundation to Help Steer the DAO Management Project

Aragon, a platform for building and managing Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), is creating the Aragon Foundation, a new governing body that aims to help the project move past a tumultuous phase and further its development.

The Aragon Foundation will be led by a so-called Strategic Council, a group of high-profile Ethereum community members who are tasked with formulating strategies, allocating funds, advising the Aragon team and fostering developers. Memebers of the council include Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, and Sacha, one of the leading researchers in the Lido ecosystem.

In November 2023, the Aragon Association, which was an entity overseeing the Aragon DAO, announced its motion to dissolve the entity and enable user redemptions of its native token ANT.

The Aragon Foundation will inherit funds left over from the legacy Aragon Treasury that are not redeemed by the ANT Redemption Initiative, which is set to end on Nov. 2. The ANT token is up roughly 35% since the initiative was announced and currently trades at a $280 million fully-diluted valuation.

As of Oct 28, 82.5% of the outstanding supply had been redeemed for ETH.

The Aragon Foundation will operate as an ownerless organization that aligns with Aragon's values and mission. The Aragon team will remain independent from the Foundation.

“There is an entirely new governing body, and it is composed of people who have been Aragon supporters and users,” Aragon CEO Anthony Leuteneggar told The Defiant in an interview. “There will be alignment around one singular mission, and you have professional people who can fulfill that mission.”

Aragon, which launched in 2017, provides users with no-code DAO creation and management tools. Through Aragon users can distribute tokens, set governance parameters and authorize wallets for voting simply through its interface.

It believes that “the future of humanity will be decided at the frontier of technological innovation and human collaboration.”