Announcing: The Agora Novo Origo Prize
Cannes, France — April 1st, 2026
A blank canvas. No pre-existing DAO, committees, elected humans. $15K USD for the best governance design. You submit, you critique, you judge.
Update — April 13th, 2026
We're reopening Novo Origo.
After cancelling the original contest, we heard from a number of people who weren't in it for the prize; they just wanted a place to publish a governance design, get it critiqued by peers, and see how it stacked up. That resonated with us. The legal complexity was always about the money, not the ideas.
So we stripped the prize and rebuilt the program around what actually mattered: the conversation.
What's changed
- There is no cash prize, entry fee, or monetary component of any kind.
- Novo Origo is now a community design forum. You submit a governance design, the community critiques it, and qualified submitters vote on which ideas are strongest.
- Submissions are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. By submitting, you also grant Agora the right to build on submitted designs. The best thinking here could directly shape real governance infrastructure — that's the point.
- Updated rules are live at novo-origo.agora.xyz/rules.
What hasn't changed
- The prompt is the same. A blank-slate L1 with the same starting assumptions.
- The rubric, the critique forums, the spirit of the thing — all intact.
The original question still stands: if a truly decentralized network launched today, what should governance look like? We think the people closest to these problems are the ones who should be answering that.
Submissions are open now. Tell us what you want to see built.
Update - April 8th, 2026
We set out to do something ambitious: turn submitters into judges, showcase a novel use case for our technology, and inject some energy into a tough market. We believe the intent was right.
Unfortunately, we have to share some disappointing news.
After further review, we’ve made the decision to cancel the contest.
Like the broader gov/acc movement’s push for experimentation, this contest was itself an experiment. But as designed, it would have put both Agora and judges into legally complex and potentially non-compliant positions across multiple jurisdictions.
Why we’re cancelling
Crowd-based judging can trigger lottery/sweepstakes laws.
In several jurisdictions, allowing a broad group to determine a winner introduces elements of chance or public voting, which can reclassify the contest as a regulated sweepstakes or lottery.
Prize thresholds create regulatory requirements. In parts of the U.S., contests with prizes above $5,000 USD may require registration and bonding—particularly if there is any subjectivity or ambiguity in judging criteria.
Data + crypto + open licensing introduces GDPR risk. Requiring participants to connect wallets, link them to personal data, and release content under open-source licenses creates a complex compliance surface—one that is disproportionately risky for a startup to manage globally.
We only fully understood the scope of these issues after external legal review. Thankfully, this happened before the contest meaningfully launched.
Takeaway
One clear lesson: it is surprisingly difficult to run a globally compliant contest where a large, open group of internet participants acts as judges. Even though the original rules included a “void where prohibited” clause, the reality is that this structure would be restricted in a significant number of jurisdictions.
We appreciate everyone who took the time to engage, think about submissions, or provide feedback. Your interest means a lot. Thank you.
If you’d like to stay informed about future gov/acc experiments, you can add your name here.
What If a Truly Decentralized Network Emerged Now?
Forget legacy governance. Forget token-vote theater. Forget the instinct to recreate familiar political structures onchain.
The question behind this prize is simple:
If a truly decentralized network emerged now, what would ideal governance look like?
Not a better DAO. Not a more credible committee. Not a cleaner election mechanism for human representatives. A new generation of governance: durable, legible, participatory, and capable of steering protocol change without collapsing into plutocracy, capture, or apathy.
This prize is about designing that system from first principles.
Starting Assumptions
To keep the challenge concrete, assume the network has the following properties. These are constraints for the governance problem, not an invitation to redesign the network itself:
- Practical sybil resistance baked into the account structure. The mechanism isn't perfect, no sybil resistance is, but it can be approximated for practical governance. Your design should leverage that approximation without pretending it is flawless.
- An algorithmic emission curve that declines algebraically at the start, then flatlines to a constant rate in perpetuity.
- A treasury funded by a steady stream of protocol revenue, whose ideal sole purpose is to buy and burn the native token.
- Reasonable bootstrap funding for pre-launch development and operational tooling, but an immaculate conception like Bitcoin is being attempted — the chain should be set free with some form of codified, built-in constitution.
- Protocol upgrades are completely handled through governance.
- A quasi-UBI-like property users benefit from embracing the protocol, scaled to local economies.
- Validators as agents who in aggregate are incentivized to operate the network reliably.
- Price context is embedded in the chain. That is, the protocol is aware of a critical KPI: it's own price level.
The Ask
Submit a written plan, optionally linking to mixed-media design. What primitives are needed? Why will it work? Why is it competitive, sustainable or even regenerative?
React to other written plans by commenting. Be harsh — this is your competition. Point out the problems. Feedback is critical. Tear them down. What are their weaknesses? Where do they fail?
Judge the best submission. We're counting on the integrity of the submitters to vote inline with the spirit of the competition.
Win $15K USD. The highest voted submission wins the prize. The community, wins ideas. Win-win.
Submission & Judging Guidance
Your design must solve protocol changes reliably.
Your design must be sustainable.
Your design should comprehensively avoid or mitigate issues associated with prior and popular art — token-weight-based governance, committees of experts, and the known failure modes that come with them.
Your design should attempt code-is-law techniques, handling protocol upgrades, but with nuance. Over-reliance on code-is-law creates barriers for non-technical stakeholders.
Why This Matters
If you've ever complained about governance for any reason, such as low turnout, plutocratic dynamics, committee capture, or proposal fatigue, here is your shot at declaring something better. No legacy constraints. No politics. Just a blank slate and a community of people who care enough to possibly build. Your design could heavily influence the launch of a new L1.
On the other side of this contest, we iterate on governance, together.
Instructions
Read about the contest at novo-origo.agora.xyz/info.
When
The contest will open April 10th 2026. It ends upon the 25th submission or April 31th 2026, which ever comes first.
How to Submit
You can submit and see other submissions here. Be sure to follow the rules.
How to Critique
Every qualified submission becomes a top-level forum, and submitters become critics first, then judges after. You can leave feedback in the forum on every idea. Be polite, but harsh. Feedback is a gift, and in the spirit of gov/acc.
How to Judge
Every participant becomes a judge too. Each submission earns 1 VP. Take a look at the info page for guidance, spirit & intent.
Follow @AgoraGovernance for announcement of when judging starts. Voting will happen on the Optimism chain.
Rules
Full contest rules can be found rules.