May marked a major step forward in our mission to make onchain governance more adaptable, accessible, and powerful for all organizations. With key upgrades to the Aragon App, new chain deployments, and enhancements to user experience, we’re continuing to lay the groundwork for the future of decentralized coordination, one that scales with the needs of the communities building it.
At the heart of this month’s updates is a commitment to flexibility. Organizations can now create and evolve governance flows on their own terms, plug into their existing infrastructure more easily, and launch with cleaner, branded experiences, all without writing a single line of code.
Unlocking Governance with Any EVM Address
One of the most exciting updates this month is the ability to use any EVM-compatible address as a governing body within the Aragon App. Whether it’s a Safe multisig, an OpenZeppelin contract, or an external DAO, organizations can now plug in existing infrastructure and assign powerful roles, such as veto rights or proposal approvals—across different platforms.
This not only enables more granular and secure governance setups, but it also makes Aragon’s UI more interoperable with the wider ecosystem.
Previously, governing bodies were limited to OSx plugins. Now, any EVM address can be fully integrated and visually represented in your organization’s interface. It’s a meaningful shift toward composability and modularity across the stack.
New Chains: Peaq and Celo
We continued our multichain expansion by launching support for Peaq, Celo, and Optimism. Celo, focused on making DeFi accessible via mobile, now supports Aragon OSx and the Value Accrual Toolkit. Peaq, a layer-1 protocol powering the Machine Economy and DePIN ecosystem, has also integrated our modular governance stack. Additionally, Optimism (the Superchain) is now available across our entire stack, from our no-code app to flexible OSx and Value Accrual Toolkit.
On Celo, we’re excited to support the launch of Celo Public Goods Gauges, built using our Value Accrual Toolkit. These gauges allow incentives to be directed transparently toward ecosystem projects, aligning funding mechanisms with community intent. It’s a clear example of how Aragon’s governance infrastructure can be applied to real economic coordination challenges, and a glimpse into what’s possible when modular tools meet mission-driven ecosystems.
Modular Governance, Evolving in Real Time
The Aragon App now supports a key advancement in modularity: the ability for existing governance processes to create entirely new ones without needing to redeploy or reset. This change unlocks true adaptable governance. Organizations can evolve their governance structures as they grow, without the technical or operational overhead of starting from scratch.
Tips, Tricks, and Improvements
The Governance Designer now supports two types of design flows. For more advanced users, the full-featured builder allows for the configuration of custom proposal types, stages, and roles. For simpler setups, the new “Basic” flow lets users deploy standalone governance plugins—like multisigs or token voting, without needing the Staged Proposal Processor. It’s governance at your pace, designed to grow with you.
We’ve also made it easier to bring in your existing tokens. When creating a new governance process, you can now import governance tokens directly into the app, skipping the need to deploy a new one.
And for those launching on Ethereum mainnet, don’t forget to choose a custom dao.eth ENS subdomain during setup. This not only displays directly in your Aragon App URL, but it also gives your org a verifiable identity that’s readable, shareable, and secure.
Branding got a major boost too. You can now set custom headers on your dashboard that reflect your org’s look and feel. And with full theming support on the way, soon your entire governance experience will be fully on-brand. For orgs wanting a fully custom UI, Aragon’s Custom Build services are available, just reach out.
What’s Coming Next
Soon, OSx smart contracts will be upgradable directly through the Aragon App UI. Legacy DAOs will be able to access the latest features, including the Governance Designer, with no developer intervention required.
This will complete a key milestone: enabling every DAO built on Aragon to access the full power of modular, no-code governance. It’s a major step toward unifying legacy structures with today’s governance standards.
Wrapping Up
In May, we focused on unlocking flexibility, expanding ecosystem reach, and simplifying the user experience. As always, our goal is to make governance not just powerful, but practical, to give builders real tools that scale with them.
If you’re building an organization onchain, now’s the time. Aragon is building the infrastructure to power the next wave of decentralized coordination, and we’re just getting started.
Govern on Aragon: app.aragon.org
