The ecosystem-wide Decentralized Governance Index sits at 6.38 — a healthy B grade across 44 tracked DAOs. But this week's story isn't the composite. It's what's underneath.

We completed a major data infrastructure upgrade this week: historical proposal backfill. For 19 DAOs that previously showed placeholder scores due to governance inactivity, we now calculate scores based on their last active governance period. The result: the most accurate ranking we've ever published.

Biggest risers:

• Optimism +3.87 → 7.1 — Jumped from the bottom half to #13. Historical data reveals strong delegate engagement (DEI 6.4) that was invisible when only looking at a 90-day window.

• Stargate / LayerZero +3.58 → 6.8 — Similar story. Active governance in its peak period scores solidly in the B range.

• dYdX +3.54 → 6.8 — Another Infrastructure DAO showing real governance health when measured against its active period.

• KlimaDAO +2.95 → 6.2 — Strong grassroots participation (GPI 6.0) lifts this Public Goods DAO out of the basement.

• StakeDAO +2.35 → 8.3 — Now #2 overall, with perfect scores on HPR and DEI.

Notable declines:

• Wormhole -3.69 → 3.2

• Euler Finance -2.82 → 2.9

• Bancor -2.62 → 3.4

These three DAOs still show limited governance data. We're working on completing their historical backfill.

The surprise: Public Goods DAOs lead the ecosystem. The category that exists to serve the community also governs the best. Gitcoin, Giveth, Octan, and KlimaDAO all score above 6.0.

The most revealing metric this week is Delegate Engagement (DEI). The spread is enormous:

• Top: Frax (10.0), StakeDAO (10.0), Gitcoin (9.1) — delegates who actually show up

• Bottom: Hop Protocol (0.8), Yearn (0.8), BanklessDAO (1.2) — delegates holding power but barely voting

A DAO can have perfect human participation (HPR 10.0) and still have governance problems if its delegates aren't engaging. 15 of 44 DAOs score below 3.0 on DEI — meaning their delegate layer is essentially decorative.

This week we had a substantive discussion in the Lido governance forum about delegate structure. BCV (an ENS and Lido delegate) argued that Lido needs a decentralized delegate set functioning as an oversight layer — not just a rubber-stamp committee under Labs. The question of whether delegates should be generalists or specialists is one our Focus metric in the Vote Quality Score tries to address. The debate continues.

All data is free and open at chainsights.one/matrix. No login, no paywall.

Wallets lie. We don't.

The ecosystem-wide Decentralized Governance Index sits at 6.38 — a healthy B grade across 44 tracked DAOs. But this week's story isn't the composite. It's what's underneath.

We completed a major data infrastructure upgrade this week: historical proposal backfill. For 19 DAOs that previously showed placeholder scores due to governance inactivity, we now calculate scores based on their last active governance period. The result: the most accurate ranking we've ever published.

Biggest risers:

• Optimism +3.87 → 7.1 — Jumped from the bottom half to #13. Historical data reveals strong delegate engagement (DEI 6.4) that was invisible when only looking at a 90-day window.

• Stargate / LayerZero +3.58 → 6.8 — Similar story. Active governance in its peak period scores solidly in the B range.

• dYdX +3.54 → 6.8 — Another Infrastructure DAO showing real governance health when measured against its active period.

• KlimaDAO +2.95 → 6.2 — Strong grassroots participation (GPI 6.0) lifts this Public Goods DAO out of the basement.

• StakeDAO +2.35 → 8.3 — Now #2 overall, with perfect scores on HPR and DEI.

Notable declines:

• Wormhole -3.69 → 3.2

• Euler Finance -2.82 → 2.9

• Bancor -2.62 → 3.4

These three DAOs still show limited governance data. We're working on completing their historical backfill.

The surprise: Public Goods DAOs lead the ecosystem. The category that exists to serve the community also governs the best. Gitcoin, Giveth, Octan, and KlimaDAO all score above 6.0.

The most revealing metric this week is Delegate Engagement (DEI). The spread is enormous:

• Top: Frax (10.0), StakeDAO (10.0), Gitcoin (9.1) — delegates who actually show up

• Bottom: Hop Protocol (0.8), Yearn (0.8), BanklessDAO (1.2) — delegates holding power but barely voting

A DAO can have perfect human participation (HPR 10.0) and still have governance problems if its delegates aren't engaging. 15 of 44 DAOs score below 3.0 on DEI — meaning their delegate layer is essentially decorative.

This week we had a substantive discussion in the Lido governance forum about delegate structure. BCV (an ENS and Lido delegate) argued that Lido needs a decentralized delegate set functioning as an oversight layer — not just a rubber-stamp committee under Labs. The question of whether delegates should be generalists or specialists is one our Focus metric in the Vote Quality Score tries to address. The debate continues.

All data is free and open at chainsights.one/matrix. No login, no paywall.

Wallets lie. We don't.