Near Foundation Unveils Digital Twin to Represent DAO Members

• Near Foundation launches digital twin system to represent DAO members, aiming to boost voter participation and ensure fairer, faster decision-making in governance.
• Digital twin will complement, not replace, human oversight, providing guidance, summaries, and reminders.

The Near Foundation is set to introduce a digital twin system to improve governance in its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The project is designed to address low voter turnout, which has limited fair decision-making in many blockchain groups.

Digital Twin for Governance

Lane Rettig, a researcher at the Near Foundation, spoke about the plan during the Token2049 Conference in Singapore. He explained that the digital twin will study members’ choices and act on their behalf during votes. The aim is to make decisions faster and ensure that all members are represented, even when they are not present.

As noted, turnout in most DAOs remains low, often between 15 and 25%. This has allowed a small number of active members to dominate decisions and, in some cases, led to governance attacks where harmful proposals are passed by large token holders. Rettig said the digital twin could help reduce these risks by keeping more members involved through representation.

It is important to add that earlier this year, CNF reported that NEAR Protocol’s new House of Stakeholders introduced AI roles in blockchain governance, including assistants, delegates, and even a potential AI CEO.

Meanwhile, this new plan comes at a time when other projects are also building digital agents. As mentioned in our earlier post, the Ethereum Foundation formed an AI team with the ERC-8004 proposal, aiming for trustless AI integration.

In addition to this, as detailed in our last news piece, Former Avalanche CEO Aytunç Yıldızlı joined 0G Labs as Chief Growth Officer. Per the update, he will help 0G scale adoption and establish itself as the execution layer for AI-native Web3 applications.

AI Will Not Replace Human Role

Rettig added that members would still have the final say on major issues. Decisions involving large sums of money or big changes in strategy will continue to need human approval. 

Notably, the digital twin will instead guide members, share summaries of proposals, and send reminders when key matters come up. The rollout will occur in stages. The first stage will focus on simple tools that provide advice and context for members.

Later, the system could grow to represent groups with similar views, and finally, individuals. The Near Digital Collective, the foundation’s main DAO, has already started using a tool called Pulse to track community discussions, showing how the foundation is preparing for wider use of the digital twin.

Different blockchain entities are pushing for first-mover advantage in Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration. As reported in our previous news piece, Fetch AI teamed up with SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol to form the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI). This body was formed to synergize resources in the push for AI innovations.

Cardano, Ethereum, and other top Layer-1 blockchain protocols are also pushing for advances in AI.