Announcement: Multisig to Unpause Retro Funding

Grants/Funding
1

Announcement: Multisig to Unpause Retro Funding

author: monkeydlinks
squad: monkeydlinks, icedcool, aboveaveragejoe, 0xsenad, jengajojo

Summary

  • BanklessDAO Multisig (0xLucas, AboveAverageJoe, Icedcool, jengajojo, links, Rowan, Senad) paused DAO-wide funding on Feb 14, 2024 because it believed the long-term viability of the DAO was at risk and it was necessary to create space for the DAO to reflect on its past and chart a course forward.
  • The Multisig will open up retroactive funding requests for current tlBANK holders who minted before Nov 26, 2023 for the following purposes:
    • Define the purpose/vision of the DAO.
    • Define the membership structure for the DAO.
    • Create a new brand for the DAO, if needed.

Background

On Feb 14, 2024, the BanklessDAO Multisig took the extraordinary step to pause DAO-wide funding. Since then:

  • The Governance Department has continued to hold weekly calls with retrospectives and discussion.
  • The Community Call continues to be held every week as a gathering and discussion place.
  • The Writers Guild continues to report on the state of the DAO in the Weekly Rollup.
  • Legal Guild, PM Guild, DAOplomats, DAOpunks, and many other groups and contributors have posted proposals and discussions on our governance Forum to help shape the conversation.

Now, two months after the pause, the BanklessDAO Multisig seeks to restart funding for tlBANK holders to submit proposals to help create the next iteration of BanklessDAO.

Rationale

The discussions that have happened over the last two months have convinced us of the following:

  • There is a lot of energy and appetite in DAO contributors to move forward.
  • The Multisig by itself is too small a group to decide the direction of the entire DAO.
  • It’s too difficult to reach consensus on the DAO’s direction with a large, completely permissionless group.

In addition to the above, the Multisig believes that:

  • BanklessDAO is a social DAO. The core of our DAO is people, not code. We use human-controlled multisigs to distribute funding (instead of automatically disbursing based on results of votes).
  • The role of the Multisig is not to take initiative, but to create an environment that encourages our members to take initiative. As stated in the BanklessDAO Constitution, the Multisig has a responsibility to “ensure the perpetuity of the DAO”. Creating an environment of bottom-up initiative by opening retro funding to a group of trusted, aligned contributors fulfills this responsibility in a DAO-aligned way.
  • We should endeavour to move forward in the smallest possible steps. BanklessDAO’s members are purpose-aligned volunteers who may not be able to put in the same effort every week. Our initiatives should be small to account for this flexibility and uncertainty. Put another way, we should emphasize iteration and learning (ie experimentation) more than “getting big things done”.

The Experiment: tlBANK-Gated Retro Funding for Specific Tasks

Based on the points above, the Multisig has defined what we believe to be the smallest possible forward step for our DAO – to open up retro funding in any token held within the DAO treasury for a smaller, value-aligned group of contributors to accomplish the following tasks:

  1. Redefine the purpose/vision of the DAO.
  2. Redefine the membership structure for the DAO.
  3. Create a new brand for the DAO, if needed.

This group of contributors will be defined by wallets that hold tlBANK which was minted before Nov 26, 2023 (the date that the brand-clarity issues with BanklessHQ began). These contributors proved long-term value alignment with the DAO by time-locking BANK with no expectation of future reward. There are currently 185 wallets which meet the criteria, and we expect a much smaller subset of these to be active DAO contributors.

To facilitate this funding initiative, we will create a new Snapshot space with access restricted to this group of contributors, and will consider any funding proposal made by them that aligns with the criteria above. When proposals pass the Snapshot thresholds (listed below), then the Multisig will vote on the disbursement and disburse approved funding as required.

It should be noted that this funding process deviates from our Constitution (in which all funding goes through Grants Committee). The Multisig believes our actions are necessary for the perpetuity of the DAO, and believe that we can amend/update our Constitution when the DAO’s future is more certain.

Metrics of Success

  • # of problems solved (of the three problems posted above)
  • # of proposals passed on Snapshot space
  • # of members involved in process (ie. discussion, voting)

Specifics of Snapshot Space

  • Any wallet which meets the criteria can post/vote
  • No quorum
  • All votes will have two options: Yes or No
  • Simple majority
  • Minimum seven-day voting duration
  • Public voting - no shutter/masked voting

Next Steps

It’s important to note that the experiment above is a temporary step, aimed at giving initiative back to our membership. After running the above experiment, we hope to have a better understanding of what the next steps of the DAO should be, which could include things like:

  • Updating the Constitution
  • Running another experiment with a different group of wallets/tasks
  • Continuing to execute on the tasks listed in the experiment above

Temp Check

The Multisig is mandated by the Constitution to ensure the DAO’s perpetuity.

This poll is included to understand DAO sentiment. The Multisig will use it as guidance on how to proceed, but is not obliged to abide by the results.

POLL - Do you agree with the actions put forward by the Multisig?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain
0 voters
4 Likes
2

In addition to agreeing with the content of the proposal, I appreciate that the proposal was crafted in partnership with and taking feedback from the governance guild as well as the DAO at large, over the course of a few weeks.

4 Likes
3

I do agree this is a good step forward, but I’m still confused about the ‘retro’ aspect.

The tasks which are mentioned:
“1. Redefine the purpose/vision of the DAO.
2. Redefine the membership structure for the DAO.
3. Create a new brand for the DAO, if needed.”

and the lead in sentence:
“to accomplish the following tasks”

… these all give the impression that the funding will be provided up front, but you have previously confirmed for me that the funding would be provided after the tasks are completed.

So what is the workflow?
It seems a little chaotic to have people working on such important tasks without any indication that there’s support for the direction they’re taking.
It makes more sense to me that the proposal and Snapshot vote would signal in principle approval for the direction and clear targets for outputs and then retro funding could be awarded following delivery. This still could get messy though, if there is disagreement about whether the work meets those targets, and given the nature of the tasks it would be difficult to define success without a follow up vote.
I’d appreciate some clarity from the Multisig signers on this, with thanks :slight_smile: .

2 Likes
4

The short (and maybe unsatisfying) answer is that the multisigners haven’t provided an opinion on workflow. There is no proposal template, no requirements to gather consensus, nothing like that.

The multisig will consider any proposal which gets a simple majority on Snapshot. By consider, I mean put any specified transactions up on SAFE. Each multisigner then accepts or rejects the transaction at their own discretion (as stated in the constitution). Most multisigners have said that they will reject any request that is not retro funding.

The hope is that limiting grants to a trusted group will lead to our treasury being used most wisely. This trusted group can define any workflow they want. They can use the Snapshot space for any votes they want.

Does that answer your question?

3 Likes
5

Without commenting on the actual contents, I’d like to add some framing from international law

  • the original impetus was a unilateral gift from BanklessHQ (at least I didn’t see any conditions but then I can blame old age for poor eyesight) of the so-called headless brand here
  • the lawyers qualified in US law can argue whether or not there is promissory estoppel but you can think of it as a social compact (aka treaty) and now the social compact has broken by being grabbed-yanked back, multi-sig is calling for constitutional delegates to formulate a new protocol

Over the past centuries, state practice has developed a variety of terms to refer to international instruments by which states establish rights and obligations among themselves. The terms most commonly used are the subject of this overview. However, a fair number of additional terms have been employed, such as “statutes”, “covenants”, “accords” and others. In spite of this diversity of terminology, no precise nomenclature exists. In fact, the meaning of the terms used is variable, changing from State to State, from region to region and instrument to instrument. Some of the terms can easily be interchanged: an instrument that is designated “agreement” might also be called “treaty”.

As someone who dabbles in international structures, culture and context gives rise to different language. I put forward this “lexicon” (give it the name 1986 Vienna convention) to help bDAO delegates to be consistent in discussing the concepts; or negotiations in a new “protocol” to the prior “treaty” keeping an open mind on how different people communicate in forging a new convenant or other instrument eg

Modus Vivendi
A modus vivendi is an instrument recording an international agreement of temporary or provisional nature intended to be replaced by an arrangement of a more permanent and detailed character. It is usually made in an informal way, and never requires ratification.

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PS if people still feel a little lost, I do have frameworks but they are designed more for earlystage startups searching for a market so not sure how well they translate to a civics style repurpose/pivot.

6

I’ve sold 2.5M $BANK when I saw the draft of this proposal, and I don’t see why any remaining holder wouldn’t do the same.

The authors have made it clear that BANK holders will have no decision power going forward, neither is there any will to generate value for holders.

So - basically RIP $BANK token, but I wish you luck on your journey with your new insider DAO.

2 Likes
7

It does answer my question, thank you links :smiling_face:

“They can use the Snapshot space for any votes they want.”

That’s helpful to know, as I had envisioned the Snapshot to be only used to request funds be released by the multisig. In theory, it could be used to shape direction (with mutisig signers’ input as tlBANK holders too) and then to formally propose retro funding, and in this case the first vote could be good supporting evidence for the latter.

Who will actually have the permission to post to Snapshot within this trusted group?

Also, just a thought in response to the comment by mgoesdistance - how easy would it be to set up delegation so that BANK holders can delegate to a tlBANK holder during this period of reduced governance?

8

I’m not sure why you keep repeating the false narrative that BANK holders have no decision power. I’ve already explained to you that there are 3 types of proposals in our Constitution: grant proposals (which request funds from the treasury), governance proposals (which change our constitution), and general proposals (for elections and signaling). This announcement only deals with grant proposals - BANK holders are welcome to take governance and general proposals through our governance system if they wish (including calling for a vote to remove the existing multisig for our actions).

What’s more, the multisig paused grant proposals precisely because too much BANK was being emitted without creating value. Our actions were meant to safeguard our treasury, so we certainly do have BANK holder interests in our mind.

Your recent proposal makes it clear you don’t really buy into the principles of decentralized governance, but since you don’t maybe it’s a good thing you sold your BANK.

Everyone currently holding tlBANK that was minted before the cutoff will be able to post to snapshot. This is around 185 people.

As far as I know, BANK is already delegateable, although you’d have to do it straight from the contract via Etherscan. @Icedcool would know more than me.

4 Likes
9

Because I made the decision to leave the server a few weeks ago I don’t feel that it is right for me to vote on this proposal however:

I am curious about whether a plan should instead be put forward towards the decision of whether the new ‘DAO’ needs to be created BEFORE you unpause funding.

Is this putting the cart before the horse?

It may not be. (And I don’t feel strong enough to say that this should be voted against or for)

Either way, good luck!

10

Excellent news, but it makes me feel a bit confused.
Here are my feelings: We have lost a lot of people, valuable people, committed people and many who just passed by and will not be remembered.
However, there are still projects that wish to carry on with the black flag of BanklessDAO and build in the name of the mission, in our case Nacion Bankless started the journey in rough seas and strong winds, to reach a complicated terrain. I would love to know how we can participate in this new identity of the DAO, given that we believe that the Spanish content we offer, the mission we champion and the contributors want to continue participating and have done so, we stay because we believe that this will go ahead. But where do we leave the projects? We are not also an essential part of the DAO or if it would be possible to create a branch of public goods, where we continue pushing efforts.
Those word are mine, and not represent the sentiment of Nacion Bankless

1 Like
11

I support this temp check, as it grants more power to the greater DAO community, specifically tlBANK holders, from the multisig, allowing them the right to post grant proposals on Snapshot.

To me, this demonstrates that the decision-making power of our treasury and the utilization of those funds by this larger group, the tlBANK holders, indicates that we are moving in a positive direction towards more decentralized governance.

1 Like
12

Read your own proposal. This is about ‘who decides the direction of the DAO.’ Not a minor technicality about funding allocation process. But then again, it’s an Announcement, not a proposal you are genuinely looking to get feedback on. Plus, you made it sufficiently clear the multisig can do whatever it pleases. Therefore - best of luck.

13

it is hard to say what is a beat approach to our situation, but we have to move forward, otherwise number of people in the DAO would only decrease

opening up proposals to Snapshot is a good thing, and wider DAO community, that is aligned by tlBANK, would have a chance to vote on it

hope to see some good proposals how to get through this

3 Likes