Overview

TerraHarvest DAO is the decision-making tool for TERRA and LAND holders in the virtual world of TerraHarvest. Through voting in the DAO, the DAO also controls the LAND and Estate smart contracts.

Making changes to DAO-owned records and contracts can only be made using predefined proposals

These proposals, submitted votes, and final results are stored in IPFS via Snapshot, a gasless voting client. Approved proposals with binding actions are enacted on the Ethereum blockchain by a committee using a multi-signature wallet. This committee is overseen by the Security Advisory Board (SAB), another multi-signature with trusted key holders. The community will vote to establish this committee.

The DAO is powered by smart contracts

All DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations, are part of a new approach to organizational management and decision making made possible by Ethereum.

Ethereum extended what’s possible with blockchains by adding the ability to decentralize the handling of data more complex than just records of token ownership. Ethereum did this by allowing people to put smart contracts on a blockchain.

What’s a smart contract?

A smart contract is a computer program that is run on the Ethereum blockchain. It can store both functions (bits of code that do things) and data (information). Smart contracts are often compared to vending machines. If you put in specific inputs, you get specific outputs. If I walk up to a vending machine, insert $1, and press the “orange soda” button, then I’ll get an orange soda if there’s any left in the machine. If there’s no more orange sodas, I’ll get my dollar back.

Smart contracts work the same way, people can interact with them by sending information with the expectation of receiving specific results or information. Just like the vending machine doesn’t have a little person inside handing out sodas, smart contracts are automatic (dare we say, autonomous).

If you’d like to learn more about Ethereum smart contracts, the Ethereum documentation is the best place to dive in.

The DAO controls TerraHarvest critical smart contracts

The second important quality of smart contracts is their ability to own other smart contracts.

That's right, each smart contract has its own address (just like your Ethereum wallet address) that allows you to own other smart contracts and cryptocurrencies.

So, in a little more technical terms, a DAO is one or more smart contracts that can perform specific predefined tasks and maintain ownership of cryptocurrencies. DAOs are built in such a way that they will only perform their tasks under specific conditions, such as the approval of a proposal voted on by a group of people who own a certain token (such as TERRA or LAND). All of this is done on a blockchain. Hence the name “decentralized autonomous organization.”

The transfer of any of the DAO's TERRA, modification of the LAND or Estate smart contracts, or modification of any other listed information controlled by the DAO can only be done with the approval of the TERRA and LAND holders.