🔒 Security Models: AccessControl vs Ownable
Compare OpenZeppelin patterns for smart contract permissions
Design access control for DAO operations
Your Progress
0 / 5 completed🛡️ Permission Security Models
There's no one-size-fits-all security model. Early DAOs might use single admin for speed. Growing DAOs adopt multi-sig for safety. Mature DAOs layer on-chain governance, guardians, and role separation. The right model depends on treasury size, operational tempo, and decentralization values. Most production DAOs use hybrid approaches: multi-sig for treasury, time-locks for upgrades, guardians for emergencies, and governance for major decisions.
🎮 Interactive: Security Model Comparison
Compare different security models to understand trade-offs between speed, security, and decentralization. Choose the right model for your DAO's needs.
👤 Single Admin
One address has full control. Fast execution but single point of failure.
- •Fastest execution (no coordination)
- •Clear decision-making authority
- •Simple implementation
- •Low gas costs
- •Single point of failure (key compromise = game over)
- •No checks and balances
- •Centralization risk
- •Requires complete trust
Early-stage projects, testing, low-value DAOs, or when speed trumps security.
Small NFT project with trusted founder holding admin key during initial development.
🎯 Choosing the Right Model
<$100K: Single admin acceptable. $100K-$1M: 3/5 multi-sig minimum. $1M-$10M: 5/9 multi-sig + time-locks. >$10M: Multi-sig + on-chain governance + guardian system. More value = more security layers.
High-frequency trading protocol? Need fast execution (multi-sig or guardian). Slow-moving investment DAO? On-chain governance works fine. Match security overhead to operational tempo. Don't use 7-day governance votes for daily operations.
Known doxxed team? Multi-sig with those individuals. Anonymous contributors? Require on-chain governance. Less trust available = more decentralization needed. Can't sue anonymous admin if they rug, so remove admin powers entirely.
Launch phase: Single admin for rapid iteration. Growth phase: Multi-sig as assets accumulate. Mature phase: Full governance + guardian hybrid. Progressively decentralize as risk/stakes increase.
🔄 Migration Paths
Most DAOs evolve through security models as they mature. Here's the typical progression:
💡 Key Insight
The "best" security model is the one you'll actually use. On-chain governance is theoretically most decentralized, but if it takes 10 days to execute a bug fix, your DAO might get exploited first. Multi-sig is more centralized but pragmatic. Perfect security that's too slow is useless security. Real-world DAOs use hybrid systems: multi-sig for routine operations (fast), time-locked governance for upgrades (transparent), and guardian for emergencies (reactive). Layer security mechanisms to match threat models and operational realities. Pragmatism > purity.