Orbs, a decentralized layer 3 infrastructure project, has introduced OIP-9 — its first formal community governance proposal — seeking approval to establish the Orbs DAO and lay the foundation for the project's initial decentralized governance framework.

The move marks a notable milestone for Orbs, which launched its mainnet in 2019 and has since been developing its layer 3 architecture. The transition to formal on-chain governance follows a broader industry pattern in which established DeFi and infrastructure protocols — including Uniswap, Compound, and Aave — have progressively migrated decision-making authority from founding teams to token holders through DAO structures.

Under the proposal, holders of staked ORBS tokens would gain the ability to participate in Snapshot voting on selected protocol decisions. Implementation would be carried out through DAO-controlled multisig wallets, ensuring that no single party can unilaterally execute changes without community-backed authorization.

The initial scope of governance responsibilities would cover oversight of Orbs' Proof-of-Stake infrastructure, Guardian management, protocol upgrades, and new network-level deployments. Guardians are validators in the Orbs network responsible for block production and consensus.

According to Orbs, the framework is explicitly designed to support progressive decentralization, a model in which a protocol gradually transfers decision-making authority from its founding team to the community. The DAO's powers would expand incrementally as token holders accumulate governance experience. Areas such as treasury management, protocol revenue, and tokenomics could be brought under the DAO's purview through future proposals.

If adopted, OIP-9 would also serve as the governance foundation for Orbs' upcoming Season 1 tokenomics proposal, making this vote a prerequisite for the project's next phase of economic design. An emergency mechanism would be preserved, though its activation would require subsequent community approval, preventing unilateral emergency action.

Snapshot is a widely used off-chain governance tool that allows token holders to vote on proposals without paying gas fees, making it a common choice for DAOs in their early stages.

Orbs operates as a layer 3 blockchain built on top of a decentralized Proof-of-Stake network, extending the capabilities of existing layer 1 and layer 2 ecosystems. It enables more complex smart contract logic and advanced trading functions that are not natively available on underlying base layers. The project's infrastructure powers a suite of DeFi protocols, including dLIMIT for on-chain limit orders, dTWAP for time-weighted average price orders, Liquidity Hub for optimized liquidity access, and Perpetual Hub for decentralized derivatives trading.