Dual Governance

Dual governance is a governance design in which two groups share power over a protocol: the holders of its governance token, who propose and approve changes, and the users whose assets the protocol holds, who can delay or block those changes. The best-known version was built for Lido, an Ethereum liquid staking protocol. In Lido's system, holders of its staked-ether token, stETH, can lock their tokens in an escrow contract to signal opposition to a decision by Lido DAO. If enough stETH is locked, the decision is held back, and at a higher threshold a "rage quit" mode lets objecting holders withdraw their ether before the change can be executed. Lido's dual governance went live on Ethereum mainnet in July 2025. The design aims to stop a hostile or captured DAO from harming users, at the cost of slower and more complex decision-making. Also see decentralized governance.