This section focuses on understanding the drivers behind the proposed project. E.g., Why should this project be undertaken?
Problem Statement: What problem does this proposal seek to address?*
DAOs hold the promise of collective power—but the communities most ready to use them are the ones they’re currently failing.
Designed around hyper-individualism, most DAO infrastructure ignores—or outright crushes—the collective realities of Indigenous groups (or any collective organisations). These groups, which already coordinate billions in ecological and economic value, are decentralised by design and by tradition. They don’t need to be taught how to self-organise. What they need are digital tools that align with how they already operate.
Digital tools built on Westphalian patterns of thinking, born of nation-states — systems emphasising individual ownership, authorship, and top-down control — are fundamentally misaligned with Indigenous ways of organising. They fragment collective identity, embed extractive dynamics, and exclude communities who already steward land, knowledge, and resources through deep relational value systems, decentralised, and intergenerational models. Until DAO tooling respects these principles, it will remain unfit for Indigenous peoples—and for any community that seeks to govern together. In summary, DAO tools are not (yet) fit for purpose.
The missing piece in Cardano’s DAO infrastructure isn’t only more code—it’s a shift in mindset. We need a collective-first architecture built on the principles that Indigenous communities have validated and honed for centuries. A mindset where the group—not the individual—is the fundamental unit of coordination, identity, and governance.
Currently there is no infrastructure within Cardano that truly supports modular, collective-first, and polycentric governance. Existing tools prioritise static, centralised structures over adaptable, community-defined coordination. This absence leaves Indigenous, cooperative, and civic groups without the building blocks they need to steward shared identity, manage intergenerational resources, or scale their governance models from a single hapū (a tribal collective, each with the authority of a sovereign nation) to a wider network of nations.
Without the work proposed here, Cardano risks missing a historic opportunity: to become the first blockchain ecosystem to genuinely support sovereign, place-based, community-led governance—digital infrastructure that reflects the realities of the world we live in, and the world we want to build for Indigenous people. Ultimately, for all people.
Quick Reality Check: DAO’s – what the data and discourse suggest
Proposal Benefit: If implemented, what would be the benefit and to which parts of the community? Please include the demonstrated value or return on investment to the Cardano Community.*
Historic & Unique—Indigenous DAO tools to onboard 100s of groups stewarding billions of economic & ecological value.
This proposal directly supports the development of essential collective-first infrastructure. It delivers a fully data-sovereign, local-first identity system—standards-aligned to meet the unique needs of Indigenous peoples, cooperatives, and civic groups, and their deeply relational, communitarian values and operating systems. It is designed so that it will always be owned by the people, rent-free—ensuring true autonomy over identity, governance, and infrastructure.
By lowering barriers to entry with the Mātou Protocol (a collective identity pattern), and the accompanying community and developer kits (CDK & SDK), Mātou Collective can welcome hundreds of tribal nations—thousands of humans—to the ecosystem. These tools are designed to support both custom technical development that fits community needs, and community development that helps leaders weave people and technology together.
For the Cardano community, this proposal offers both strategic and tangible benefits: