TheDAO Security Fund: Donation Terms

Effective September 14, 2026.

1. Who We Are

TheDAO is a Marshall Islands nonprofit DAO LLC. It is not a United States charity, and donations are not tax-deductible.

1.1 The parties. These Donation Terms form the agreement between you and TheDAO LLC, a Marshall Islands decentralized autonomous organization limited liability company (the "DAO LLC"), organized pursuant to the Marshall Islands Decentralized Autonomous Organization Act, 2022, as amended, and the Marshall Islands Limited Liability Company Act, 1996, as amended, referred to throughout these Donation Terms as "TheDAO".

1.2 TheDAO Security Fund. TheDAO operates TheDAO Security Fund, a nonprofit funding program for Ethereum security work. Each project that TheDAO approves for funding is an "Initiative".

1.3 The Site. TheDAO publishes Initiatives and receives donations through the website at initiatives.thedao.fund (the "Site").

1.4 No tax-exempt status. TheDAO is a foreign nonprofit entity organized in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It is not a United States charity and holds no United States tax-exempt status or equivalent status elsewhere. Donations to TheDAO are not tax-deductible. TheDAO makes no representation that a donation is deductible or exempt under the tax law of any jurisdiction.

2. Acceptance of These Donation Terms

Donating means you agree to and accept these Donation Terms, whether you use the Site or send assets directly.

2.1 Donations through the Site. You accept these Donation Terms by checking the box confirming your agreement and completing a donation through the Site.

2.2 Direct transfers. These Donation Terms also apply to any transfer of digital assets you send directly to an Initiative's multisignature wallet address, whether or not you use the Site interface to do it and regardless of how you obtained the address, including from a cryptocurrency exchange, a block explorer, or any other third party.

2.3 If you do not agree. If you do not agree to these Donation Terms, do not donate.

2.4 Capacity and age. You confirm that you have legal capacity to make a donation and that you are at least the minimum age of legal capacity to make a gift in your jurisdiction.

3. What a Donation Is

A donation is a completed gift. The assets become the property of TheDAO when they arrive, and you keep no interest in them.

3.1 Nature of a donation. When you donate to TheDAO, you agree, acknowledge, and confirm that:

(a) a donation is an irrevocable, completed transfer of assets to TheDAO;

(b) donated assets become the sole and exclusive property of TheDAO upon receipt, free of any interest of the donor;

(c) the donor retains no legal, equitable, contractual, or other ownership or beneficial interest in the donated assets;

(d) donations are not deposits, investments, loans, escrowed funds, or funds held for the donor;

(e) TheDAO has sole and absolute discretion over how donated assets are deployed in furtherance of its nonprofit purposes;

(f) a donor has no right, contractual or otherwise, to a refund or repayment; and

(g) TheDAO may reject, restrict, or return a donation when required or appropriate under its compliance policies or applicable law, as further described in Sections 5 and 6.

3.2 Unconditional. A donation is unconditional. It takes effect as a completed gift at the moment the transfer is confirmed on the Ethereum network, and no condition, reservation, right of revocation, or future event attaches to it.

3.3 Selecting an Initiative. Selecting an Initiative tells TheDAO where you want your donation applied. It does not make your donation conditional on that Initiative going ahead, reaching a funding goal, being fully funded, or finishing its work and does not entitle you to a refund or reallocation of your donation if it does not.

3.4 No donor balances. TheDAO does not maintain individual donor balances. TheDAO does not act as an escrow agent, a custodian, a trustee, or a financial services provider for any donor, and nothing in these Donation Terms creates such a relationship. TheDAO holds all donated assets, whether in an Initiative's multisignature wallet or otherwise, as TheDAO's own property, and not as segregated or identifiable property of any donor.

4. How Donations Work on the Site

Donations are accepted on Ethereum mainnet only, in a fixed list of assets, with small minimums, and each Initiative has its own dedicated multisignature wallet.

4.1 Network. The Site accepts donations on Ethereum mainnet only (chain ID 1). TheDAO does not undertake to recover assets sent on any other network, including any Layer 2 network, sidechain, or test network. See also Section 10 (Blockchain Risks).

4.2 Supported assets. The Site accepts native ETH and the following ERC-20 tokens: USDC, USDT, DAI, USDS, crvUSD, BOLD, fxUSD, EURC, and ZCHF. Each token contract is verified onchain before it is offered, and only verified tokens appear in the donate widget. Assets outside this list are not supported. TheDAO may add or remove supported assets at any time, or change the price feeds and valuation methodology described in Section 4.6, and without notice.

4.3 Minimums. The minimum donation is 0.0005 ETH for native ETH and one (1) whole token unit for each supported ERC-20 token. TheDAO may change these minimums at any time and without notice.

4.4 Destination. Each Initiative has its own dedicated Safe multisignature wallet requiring three (3) of five (5) signers. The signers are designated by TheDAO and act on TheDAO's behalf; they do not act as agents or representatives of, or hold assets on behalf of, any donor. Donations go to the multisignature wallet of the Initiative you select, not to a central TheDAO wallet. The wallet configuration is verified onchain before an Initiative can receive donations.

4.5 Attribution is best-efforts. When you donate through the widget, the Site records the transaction hash and verifies the transfer onchain. TheDAO makes reasonable efforts to attribute other transfers, but attribution is not guaranteed. In particular, native ETH sent manually to an Initiative's multisignature wallet address without submitting the transaction hash through the Site may not be counted toward that Initiative's displayed progress and may not appear in the public donation list. A transfer that is not attributed is still a donation, is still received by TheDAO, and is still governed by these Donation Terms. Failure to display or credit a donation gives the donor no right of repayment, credit, correction, and no other claim against TheDAO.

4.6 USD figures are informational. USD amounts shown on the Site are calculated for display only. ETH is valued using the Chainlink ETH/USD price feed, USD-denominated stablecoins are treated as 1:1, and EURC and ZCHF are valued using their own Chainlink price feeds. Prices move and feeds can be delayed or unavailable. The USD figure shown when you donate is not a representation of value or of what TheDAO ultimately applies to an Initiative.

4.7 No accounts. The Site does not offer donor accounts, logins, balances, or stored payment methods. You interact with it through your own wallet. TheDAO cannot reset a password, recover a lost wallet, or otherwise assist with wallet access or security; that responsibility is entirely yours.

4.8 Funding progress includes pledges. Funding progress shown for an Initiative includes announced backer pledges that have not yet been paid. A pledge is shown as "pledged" until payment is received and as "received" after that. TheDAO does not guarantee that a pledged amount will be paid, and an Initiative may proceed, be delayed, or not proceed based on TheDAO's own assessment of pledged and received amounts together. Progress figures are informational and are not a statement that the amounts shown have been received.

5. Use of Donations

TheDAO decides how donated assets are used. There is no right to repayment or refund.

5.1 Application of donated assets. TheDAO applies donated assets toward the designated Initiative in its sole discretion, in furtherance of its nonprofit purposes. This includes the timing, sequencing, and amount of any payment to a vendor or grantee, and whether to make any payment at all, subject to Sections 5.2 and 5.5.

5.2 Initiatives that do not proceed. If an Initiative does not proceed, does not reach its funding goal, is cancelled, or is not completed, TheDAO Security Fund reclaims the unspent funds and, in its sole discretion, puts them toward other Ethereum security initiatives of TheDAO’s choosing.

5.3 No right to repayment; discretionary return. No donor has a right to repayment or refund and TheDAO may, in its sole discretion and pursuant to its applicable policies, return some or all of a donation in appropriate circumstances. Any amounts not returned remain the property of TheDAO and may be used for other purposes consistent with its nonprofit mission.

5.4 The discretion is genuine. The discretion described in section 5.3 is genuine and is exercised case by case. It is not a policy, a program, or an expected outcome, and TheDAO does not operate any procedure through which a donor may request or obtain the return of a donation. Nothing TheDAO says or does in one case, including any statement by TheDAO's officers, contributors, or the operator of the Site, in any forum including chat, social media, or informal communications, creates an entitlement, a precedent, or an expectation in any other case.

5.5 Sanctions carve-out. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 do not apply where an asset is subject to a freezing obligation or where TheDAO otherwise determines that applicable law requires it. In that case the asset is frozen in place, is not used or moved, is documented, and is reported to the competent Marshall Islands authority. No return is made in those circumstances, and TheDAO may be unable to discuss the matter with you, including because applicable law restricts what TheDAO may disclose about a sanctions matter.

5.6 No fee is deducted. No part of a donation is deducted as a fee. Fees payable to Giveth, as TheDAO's round operator, are paid by TheDAO from its own treasury. Giveth acts on TheDAO's behalf in that role, and not as an agent, custodian, or payment processor for any donor.

6. Compliance and Screening

TheDAO screens donations and can reject, delay, or decline them pursuant to its own risk-based controls.

6.1 Internal compliance procedures. TheDAO maintains internal compliance procedures, referred to in these Donation Terms as TheDAO's donor screening and compliance policies. These are internal documents and are not published. They set out how TheDAO screens wallet addresses, handles alerts, and documents decisions. TheDAO may amend these procedures at any time without notice to donors.

6.2 What is screened. TheDAO screens the sending address of each donation it receives, and screens every address again before any outbound movement of assets from a wallet it controls. A screening result does not establish, and TheDAO does not represent that it establishes, the identity of the person controlling an address.

6.3 TheDAO's discretion on a donation. TheDAO may reject, restrict, delay, decline, or return a donation where required or appropriate under its compliance policies or applicable law. TheDAO has no liability to any donor for exercising this discretion, including for any resulting delay or loss of value in the donated assets.

6.4 Source of funds. TheDAO may ask you for information about the source of the donated funds, and may decline a donation if the request is not answered to its satisfaction. TheDAO may also decline, restrict, or return a donation if it later determines that a response was inaccurate or incomplete.

6.5 Internal thresholds. For donations at or above TheDAO's internal thresholds, TheDAO applies identification and enhanced review measures. These thresholds are TheDAO's own risk-based internal controls. They are not statutory requirements of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and TheDAO does not represent that any particular foreign regulatory regime applies to it. TheDAO may change these thresholds, or apply additional measures, at any time and without notice.

6.6 Screening creates no financial relationship. Screening does not make TheDAO a bank, a virtual asset service provider, a money transmitter, or a financial institution, and TheDAO does not provide any account, custody, or money transmission service to donors, and does not create any fiduciary, custodial, or agency relationship with any donor, as further described in Section 3.4

7. Donor Representations

Every time you donate, you confirm the assets are lawfully yours, that you are not a sanctioned person, and that you expect nothing back.

7.1 Representations on each donation. Each time you donate, you represent and warrant that:

(a) the assets you donate are lawfully yours and come from a lawful source, and are free of any lien, security interest, or claim of any third party;

(b) you are donating your own assets, on your own behalf, and not as agent or nominee for any undisclosed person;

(c) you are not a person subject to sanctions administered by the United Nations, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, or the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, or a sanctions list administered by the European Union or the United Kingdom, and you are not owned or controlled by such a person;

(d) you are not located in, resident in, or acting from a jurisdiction that TheDAO's compliance policies treat as prohibited, and you are not using a virtual private network or similar tool to conceal or misrepresent your true location or jurisdiction;

(e) your donation is made without expectation of profit, financial return, tokens, equity, governance rights, or any other benefit;

(f) you understand that your donation is a completed gift and that you will not receive goods or services, or any other consideration, in return;

(g) you take your own tax advice, and you understand that your donation is not tax-deductible; and

(h) your donation does not breach any law that applies to you.

7.2 If a representation stops being true. If any of these representations stops being true, do not donate. If any representation stops being true after a donation has been made, TheDAO's rights under Sections 5.5 and 6 continue to apply regardless.

8. Public Transparency and Data

Donations are public onchain, and the Site shows donor wallet addresses. That is pseudonymous, not anonymous.

8.1 Ethereum is public. Ethereum is a public network. Every donation, including the sending address, the asset, the amount, and the time, is permanently visible to anyone, and TheDAO has no ability to make a donation private, remove it from the network, or restrict who can view it.

8.2 What the Site displays. The Site publicly displays, for each attributed donation: the donor's wallet address in shortened form, an ENS name where reverse resolution finds one, the date, the USD amount, the asset, and a link to the transaction on a public block explorer. The address is read from the blockchain, not supplied by the donor. Displaying this information on the Site does not create any privacy expectation beyond what the Ethereum network already makes public.

8.3 Pseudonymous, not anonymous. Donations are pseudonymous rather than anonymous. TheDAO does not represent that any donation is anonymous, and TheDAO reserves the right to obtain and to disclose information about a donation or a donor where required by applicable law or by a competent authority, or where TheDAO reasonably believes disclosure is necessary to act under Section 5.5 or Section 6.

8.4 Donor data collected. The Site does not require donor names or email addresses. The only donor data the Site records is wallet and transaction data read from the blockchain, together with any information you choose to provide to TheDAO directly, including a name, donation amount, or currency you voluntarily provide to help TheDAO match a deposit made from an exchange or another external source, for example in response to a source of funds request. TheDAO does not sell donor data.

8.5 Record retention. TheDAO keeps written records of screenings, compliance decisions, and donations for seven (7) years, in line with its record retention practice, or longer where required by applicable law, litigation, or an ongoing regulatory matter.

9. No Advice, No Offer

Nothing here is advice, and a donation is not an investment or a security.

9.1 No advice. Nothing on the Site or in these Donation Terms is investment, legal, tax, accounting, or financial advice, and you should not rely on it as such. You should seek your own advice before donating.

9.2 Not a security. A donation is not a security, a financial instrument, an investment contract, a loan, or a deposit. Nothing on the Site is an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument in any jurisdiction. TheDAO makes no representation as to how a donation is treated under the law of any jurisdiction other than the Marshall Islands, and you are responsible for determining whether any additional requirement under the law that applies to you affects your donation.

9.3 No tokens or governance rights. TheDAO does not issue tokens, shares, units, or governance rights to donors, and a donation confers no membership in TheDAO and no right to participate in its decisions, and no right to any future token, airdrop, or other distribution of any kind.

10. Blockchain Risks

Blockchain transfers are final. If you send to the wrong place, TheDAO cannot get it back for you.

10.1 Transfers are irreversible. Transactions on Ethereum are irreversible. TheDAO cannot cancel, reverse, or amend a transaction once it is confirmed. TheDAO has no obligation to seek, support, or participate in any effort to reverse a transaction, including through a network fork or similar coordinated action.

10.2 Assets TheDAO cannot recover. TheDAO cannot recover assets sent to a wrong address, in an unsupported asset, on a network other than Ethereum mainnet, or lost through a mistake, a failed transaction, a compromised wallet, a phishing site, or a fraudulent copy of the Site. You are responsible for checking the address, the asset, and the network before you send.

10.3 Costs and volatility. You bear all transaction costs, including gas fees, and all price and volatility risk on the assets you donate.

10.4 The Site is provided as is. The Site is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. TheDAO does not warrant that the Site will be uninterrupted, error free, or free of harmful components, and does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any figure, progress bar, price, or listing shown on it. TheDAO does not warrant that the Site is free of security vulnerabilities, and you assume the risk of connecting a wallet to, or transacting through, the Site.

10.5 Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent permitted by law, TheDAO is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, or opportunity, arising out of or in connection with a donation, the Site, or these Donation Terms, except to the extent caused by TheDAO's fraud or willful misconduct.

11. Vendor Selection and Milestones

TheDAO picks the vendors and judges the milestones. Donating gives you no say and no relationship with a vendor.

11.1 TheDAO decides. TheDAO alone decides which Initiatives are funded, which vendors or grantees are engaged, what the milestones are, whether a milestone has been met, and whether to pay, delay, reduce, or stop payment. These decisions are final and are not subject to appeal or review by any donor.

11.2 No relationship with a vendor. Donating to an Initiative does not create any relationship between you and any vendor, grantee, contributor, reviewer, or other participant in that Initiative, and gives you no right to direct, approve, or veto any decision about it. No such vendor, grantee, contributor, reviewer, or participant is authorized to make any representation or commitment on TheDAO's behalf.

11.3 Published plans are not commitments. Information published about an Initiative, including scope, budget, milestones, and timelines, describes TheDAO's current plans. Plans change, and published figures and dates are not commitments to you. TheDAO has no liability for any change to, delay in, or discontinuation of an Initiative's scope, budget, milestones, or timeline.

12. Changes to These Donation Terms

These Donation Terms can change, and the version in force when you donate governs your donation.

12.1 Amendment. TheDAO may amend these Donation Terms at any time by posting an updated version on the Site, effective as provided in Section 12.3.

12.2 Which version applies. The version in force at the time of your donation governs that donation. Amendments are not retroactive. This applies separately to each donation; a donor who makes more than one donation over time is governed by the version in force at the time of each one.

12.3 Notice of material changes. Material changes shall be flagged on the Site with an updated effective date. A change is not material solely because it affects the matters described in Sections 4.2, 4.3, 6.1, or 6.5.

13. Governing Law and Disputes

Marshall Islands law governs these Donation Terms. Disputes are resolved through negotiation and, if necessary, arbitration seated in the Marshall Islands.

13.1 Governing law. These Donation Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Marshall Islands, without regard to conflict-of-laws or choice-of-law principles.

13.2 Dispute resolution.

(a) Negotiation. The parties to a dispute arising out of or in connection with these Donation Terms shall first attempt in good faith to resolve the matter through negotiation.

(b) Small claims option. Nothing in this Section 13.2 prevents either party from bringing an individual claim in a small claims court of competent jurisdiction, if the claim qualifies for that court's jurisdiction.

(c) Arbitration. Any dispute not resolved through negotiation, and not brought in small claims court under Section 13.2(b), shall be finally resolved by arbitration administered by the Swiss Arbitration Centre in accordance with the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration in force at the time of commencement, or by such other arbitral institution as the parties agree in writing, by a sole arbitrator. The arbitration shall be conducted online or by submission of documents only, without an in-person hearing unless the arbitrator determines one is necessary. Unless the parties agree otherwise, the seat of arbitration shall be Zurich, Switzerland, the language of the arbitration shall be English, and the award shall be final and binding, with judgment on the award enforceable in any court of competent jurisdiction.

(d) Class action waiver. All disputes shall be resolved on an individual basis. Each party waives, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, any right to participate in a class action, class-wide or consolidated arbitration, or other representative proceeding.

13.3 Severability. If any provision of these Donation Terms is held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, such provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect. Any invalid provision shall be replaced by a valid provision that most closely reflects the original intent and economic allocation of risk.

13.4 Entire agreement and waiver. These Donation Terms, together with the policies they reference, are the entire agreement between you and TheDAO in relation to your donation, except where a separate signed agreement (for example, a Backer Pledge Agreement) between you and TheDAO governs a payment, in which case that agreement prevails to the extent of any conflict. A failure by TheDAO to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

14. Contact

Here is where to write with a question about a donation or compliance.

14.1 General questions. Questions about these Donation Terms, or about a donation, can be sent to info@thedao.fund.

14.2 Compliance questions. Compliance matters, including source of funds requests and screening questions, should be sent to info@thedao.fund.

14.3 Registered address. TheDAO's registered address is 852 Lagoon Road, Majuro, Marshall Islands MH 96960.