What goes into a crypto treasury policy, and what controls stop one person moving the money?

Written down, and approved at the top

Both public company examples in lesson 1 rested on a written policy approved at board level. MicroStrategy's board adopted its Treasury Reserve Policy on 11 September 2020.⁴ Tesla said its January 2021 investment policy was approved by the audit committee of its board.⁵

DAOs write policies too, and many publish them on their governance forums. ENS DAO's investment policy statement (IPS) for its endowment was updated by a vote that passed in June 2026.^1,6 An IPS is a written policy that sets a treasury's goals, risk limits, allowed assets, roles and reporting.¹

What one DAO's policy covers

ENS's 2026 IPS is long, but its parts are a useful checklist. They are one DAO's choices, not rules for everyone:¹

Policies keep changing. On 23 October 2026, KPK posted a draft amendment that would let the endowment use options as part of its regular rebalancing, within set limits: it would earn a fee for agreeing in advance the price of a trade it would make anyway. It was still a draft, not yet voted on, when this lesson was updated.⁷

Who does what

A policy names who decides and who acts. Under ENS's IPS, the DAO sets the goals and limits, reviews results at least once a year, and can appoint or fire the manager. KPK, the manager, invests within those limits and reports every month.¹

Arbitrum DAO split the work on its STEP programme in a similar way: a committee reviewed applicants, a programme manager monitored the chosen products, and the DAO voted on the committee's choices.⁸

Separation of duties

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describes separation of duties as the principle that no one user should have enough power to misuse a system alone.² Its example: the person who authorises a paycheck should not also be the one who prepares it.² It gives the two-person rule as one way to do this.²

A multisig wallet builds this rule into the account, as Module 9 explains. When ENS sold ETH in 2025, it used a separate Safe that needed 3 signatures, with signers representing the DAO, its endowment manager, ENS Labs and a DAO working group.³ ENS's IPS lists "multi-sig controls" and limited, scoped permissions among its controls against day-to-day mistakes.¹

Rules that protect the runway

A policy can also say what may not happen without a vote. Under ENS's IPS, any withdrawal that would take the stablecoins below the three-year floor needs a separate DAO vote.¹ Its runway is checked every week.¹