Wrapping up 2024, we find ourselves reflecting on the standout moments in the governance landscape of the Internet Computer (ICP). The year saw a host of impressive developments, making it a benchmark period for the evolution of decentralised governance. As we shift gears into 2025, this three-part series will spotlight the crucial technical strides, the guiding principles of governance for the NNS DAO that oversees ICP, and the SNS DAOs managing individual dapps, alongside updates on the technological roadmap.
Let’s begin by exploring the noteworthy achievements of DAO communities on ICP in 2024.
2024 proved to be an remarkable year for onchain governance on ICP. Throughout the year, the Internet Computer introduced a range of governance features, many driven by community requests. These updates showcased the governance systems’ strength, reflected in record numbers and a surge in community and developer engagement. Remarkably, 18 of the top 20 most active DAOs on DeFi Llama, measured by the number of successful proposals in the past month, operate on the Internet Computer.
With the year’s conclusion, the Internet Computer’s governance roadmap reached the Plasma milestone, unveiling various features enhancing user and developer experiences. Upcoming articles in this series will cover the most compelling governance features released in 2024.
Governing the Internet Computer (NNS)
The Network Nervous System (NNS) acts as the decentralised brain of the Internet Computer, managing its protocol through an onchain DAO. Unlike traditional blockchains that rely on forks for updates, the NNS allows the ICP protocol to be upgraded directly by a community of ICP token holders, ensuring that the system evolves in terms of security, efficiency, and scalability.
Since ICP’s Genesis on May 10th, 2021, the NNS has processed over 11,800 proposals. These proposals enhance the Internet Computer’s protocol for efficiency and security, manage the network by updating node machines, evolve the NNS DAO by adjusting tokenomics and voting rules, and more. The consistent number of proposals processed over the years underscores the system’s stability, with a notable decrease from 2022 to 2023 due to automation reducing manual proposal requirements.
Governing Dapps on the Internet Computer (SNS)
The Service Nervous System (SNS) offers a DAO framework that lets any decentralised application (dapp) transfer control to a community of SNS governance token holders. This decentralisation means developers must submit proposals for updates, which the community votes on. 2024 witnessed a significant increase in SNS proposals, with the number processed rising by 513% as the number of SNSs doubled from 14 to 30.
WaterNeuron, an ICP-based liquid staking protocol, emerged as the most active SNS DAO, using an automated mechanism to copy and vote on NNS proposals. Other active DAOs included social media dapps like OpenChat and OpenFPL, followed by DEXs such as ICLighthouse and ICPSwap. For detailed data, each SNS is visible on the ICP Dashboard.
Launching an SNS includes a decentralisation swap, allowing community members to exchange ICP for SNS governance tokens, thereby integrating into the SNS DAO community. These swaps have provided crucial funding for continued development post-launch, with 2024 seeing new launches raise over $38M, surpassing 10M ICP since Genesis.
Decentralised governance is foundational to the Internet Computer, underpinning the security and integrity of the protocol and the DAO-governed dapps. With each passing year since Genesis, the progress has been remarkable, and 2025 is already shaping up to bring further advancements in ICP governance.
