# Summary
In the current form, to become a Bankless DAO Level 2 member, one must earn/purchase 35k BANK which comes with perks and additional capabilities within Bankless DAO and it’s Discord channel. We understand the importance of the barrier to entry (minimum of 35k BANK) to achieve a higher level within the DAO, but at the same time we strive to create a program to grant level 2 access to worthy participants who do not have the means to achieve 35K BANK themselves. The 35K BANK would not be transferred to scholarship recipients, but instead delegated to their wallets/identities enabling them to receive level 2 membership status, while still keeping the actual BANK token in full custody of the Scholarship Grantor. As significant holders of BANK (1M+ BANK), Advantage Blockchain wants to be one of the first Scholarship Grantors. This would make our BANK tokens more productive within the DAO, by locking up BANK and granting memberships (utility) to worthy participants. We suspect that we are not the only large BANK hodlers who have more level 2 memberships than we can use ourselves. We also suspect as Bankless DAO matures more utility will come alongside being what is now called a “level 2 member” (35K BANK holder). This program would be the Bankless DAO Scholarship Program, and would be beneficial to both scholarship recipients and scholarship grantors.
## Background
Advantage Blockchain proposes a cross guild project between the developers guild and education guild to make “The Bankless Scholarship Program” a reality. Any BANK holder with 100k+ BANK would be able to “delegate” a Bankless Scholarship to a new member of their choosing. By delegating the 35k BANK, the grantor would essentially be locking their tokens in a smart contract delegated to the scholarship recipient’s ETH address. For further sybil resistance, recipients wallet’s could be required to be attached to a .eth domain or a BrightID identity. To further incentivize large BANK holders to become Scholarship Grantors there could be a form of liquidity mining (called Scholarship Mining) added where there is a constant drip of BANK provided from the Treasury to anyone who is granting a scholarship. This drip can then be distributed in a variety of ways, for example to the grantor, grantee, or as funding to the education guild.
## Specifications
The Scholarship smart contract would need to enable delegation by large BANK holders (100K+ BANK) to an Ethereum address (scholar) giving the scholar snapshot voting power and level 2 membership status. Scholarship Grantors still maintain ownership of BANK at all times and can revoke scholarship due to lack of participation (voting, discord, projects). If Scholarship Mining were approved, the smart contract would need to enable an allotment from the Treasury as well as predefined specifications on how much/often to drip BANK to Scholarship Grantors.
## Mission & Value Alignment
-Educational Opportunity - Provides more access, resources and opportunity to those passionate about participating in Bankless DAO. Those passionate about Bankless DAO are likely to be spreading blockchain education to both themselves and their respective communities.
-Encourages large BANK holders to onboard new members into Bankless DAO.
-Allows large holders to optimize efficiency of their stagnant BANK.
-Removes circulating BANK supply from open market by locking BANK into scholarship memberships.
-Scholarship mining would add new circulating BANK supply to the market.
## Success Metrics or KPI
-More valuable contributors/voters to Bankless DAO
-A percent of the 445+ BANK wallets with over 100K BANK becoming Scholarship Grantors.
-A functional BANK sink improving the overall tokeneconimics of BANK
In general, I am in favour of this proposal, because it has a positive intent so I have voted yes.
I wonder what the risks are though and would like to see them further discussed… how the quality of the level 2 status is maintained. Would these be temporary scholarships? Surely anyone who is contributing to the DAO regularly at level 2, will earn enough BANK within a few months to hold their membership in their own right?
Normally holding BANK is not just holding the pass but also a signal that YOU personally, as the contributor and owner believe in the long-term value of BANK and have chosen to hold it. Being the devil’s advocate for the extreme scenario: organisations start buying BANK and delegating to their employees for espionage/influence purposes that aren’t aligned with Bankless goals…Potentially we end up with Leval 2 contributors that represent other interests rather than owning and holding BANK because they personally believe in it.
Could that dilute the culture of the DAO? Just a thought.
I am a guest pass too but this proposal seems a little less lucrative than it is supposed to be. I think one of the reasons Bankless stands out the most to me amongst the DAO space is the warm welcome you recieve once you become a part of it. I honestly don’t feel like I miss out on any “level 2” privileges as such (except the mental health checks which I think should be open to all).
I believe the levels were put in place as quality checks + loyalty checks. I understand that quality can come from a newcomer too, but loyalty is something one has to prove over time. I might have an orthodox view of this but the proposal seems to paint the L2 position in a light far brighter than it actually deserves (or maybe I’m too ignorant of what secret channels y’all are hiding uo there). As for the snapshot proposals, most L2s already take opinions from their respective guilds and have discussions in dao-general.
The ability to issue a guest pass seems to be the only benefit then; I think it’s more of a responsibility than a privilege tbh. On top of it, yes L2s hold important positions within the guild but that is a testament to their commitment and consistency rather than brute power or inherited privilege (as might have been the case in a legacy comp).
I cannot comment upon the benefits of locking tokens within scholarships, I believe it will lead to a functional deficit in Bank supply = more price. I am not sure if that’s a priority for our DAO at the moment though, someone told me that there are other ways to pump up the price but right now we are really focusing on consolidating our position as a social DAO.
Coming to the coordinape rounds since L1/L2s probably get to participate in it (i know guest passes probably do too because frog mentioned something like that in today’s community call but I’m too dumb to not be ignorant) but… Coordinape is a means to an end: fair compensation. I know other DAOs which use collab.land but holy smokes Bankless blows the crap out of it. It has an amazingly high tipping rate for compensating newcomers. Heck! I remember being tipped by Marvel on my first day for simply introducing myself lol. So yeah…
I like a lot of the ideas in this proposal. As someone who just earned L2 after some extremely generous tips from members, I can attest to how good it feels to get that extra bump to make it over the 35k threshold. I’d like a little more explanation on keeping the BANK in custody of the grantor and how that works on the ground level (Is it a snapshot feature? Is it “revoked” after they reach 35k on their own?). Thanks!
There are a number of issues that need to be worked out for this proposal. I would start with involving Edu guild and Dev guild who are unaware of this proposal but listed as necessary to execute this proposal. Second there is concern on my part as to how Banklessdao would support transferring voting rights to those that have not achieved level 1 as it could actually make a sybil attack easier particularly if quadratic voting were to occur despite what is written in the proposal. Third, I would want input from Dev Guild regarding the ability to generate and validate the necessary smart contracts.
I appreciate the intent of this proposal and the exploration of the utility of the BANK token, although ultimately I think the aim of this proposal is already achieved via a Guest pass.
For clarification:
Level 1 is with 35k BANK.
Level 2 is granted with a nomination and a vote.
I see this proposal aiming at getting people to level 1 so that they can get involved and earn BANK for themselves, with smart contracts developed to automate components and align incentives via the Scholarship Mining(which sounds like a degree of an escrow contract with a distribution of BANK).
Guest passes already allow for this as people can get a Guest Pass, then get involved and earn up to Level 1(35k BANK), without the BANK distribution yield overhead or smart contract risk.
Additionally, as @ThePsychGuy has stated, the level progression is an important component of alignment towards the DAO, whether you’ve invested sweat or financial capital. I feel concerned that scholarship-ing people up to level 1 could chip at that.
I would love to explore different BANK utility ideas, but ultimately voted No on this, as I think it is unnecessary.
I agree with what Homeless and ThePsychGuy have stated. This is essentially providing the opportunity for someone who has proven their loyalty and commitment to the success of BanklessDAO, but cannot afford the BANK to make it official with the level 2 designation. I like the idea of providing this opportunity, but as written it just seems like this proposal is a shortcut for anyone who hasnt built up that credibility yet. I dont love the idea of buying influence. Or being gifted influence as this proposal suggests. This doesnt seem like a “scholarship”. Assuming this person has put in enough work to justify level 2 status and hasnt gotten enough BANK through tipping/salary roles/bounties, there should be another way to earn that designation if they can’t afford it. It needs to be earned, not given.
Having always indicated Level 2 as a mere recognition of what has been done in the DAO and having the DAO already created several ways to acquire a Level 1 by participating in the work of the DAO, I do not understand the usefulness of the proposal.
This proposal could also create a bond of dependence between the grantor and the guarantee issuer, consequently reducing the recipient’s independence of judgment and behavior.
This would go against everything crypto is and must be: disintermediation, empowering of the individual, sovereign identity. While we claim we want to free ourselves from bank loyalty, we are introducing reputation lending.
I voted no, I don’t understand the upside for BanklessDAO.
We have member perks for members that holds BANK one of these would be Governance. All other areas of the DAO are open to guest passes, so for me I only see risks by opening Governance up to people not risking their own funds. (assuming this is talking about L1 and not L2)
For L2 there is few benefits of scholarships since its not a monetary barrier to the title, its the closest we get to reputational positions/votings and I would rather increase that barrier than decrease it. I understand the good intentions and wanting to put their bank to use, but this is not the way in my opininon.
I understand the aim of involving more and more people, but I have voted NO.
A part from what has been said above, in my opinion the proposal negatively impacts on the incentive mechanisms of our DAO. People should work and engage in order to acquire and retain the 35k level. It works super fine; we have plenty of success stories. I don’t see the need of breaking this virtuous circle.
Moreover, I feel that it could be discriminatory to members who stepped in the DAO with guest passes and acquired the L2 status through work and recognition.
The reason for this is that although many people may not have the ability to outright purchase 35,000BANK, it is relatively easy to earn that within the DAO, and in the process of doing so, people get a stronger sense of community, deeper understanding of the dynamics and projects, and also discover how they can best contribute to the movement. By handing out the BANK, I personally would have likely spent a lot more time just listening in and not becoming engaged with the process and committing time to advance the effort.
Within 3 - 4 weeks, I reached the 35k mark and became a level 1, and with that accomplishment, I felt motivated enough to leave my normal job to go all in on DAO. I saw that this is real and there’s work needing doing, and that I can be rewarded for the efforts I exerted.
Being able to earn BANK is empowering and freeing, as well as community building! I love the thought, but the Guest Pass is an excellent way for people to join up and participate that addresses this issue in my own personal opinion.
I have changed my vote to abstain now that Frogmonkee has assisted me in the clarification of my status as a guest pass holder. I am more than willing to earn my membership back rather than apply and possibly accept a scholarship.
Some interesting mechanics here. But what I’m thinking is
if this is a way to yield farm BANK, the sponsor is incentivized to onboard as many scholars as possible, regardless of their motivation and contribution
if this is a way for a scholar to get free access to the DAO, there is no incentive for them to actively contribute and work towards growing the DAO together (they don’t own the BANK so no upside, also no downside from being idle)
I do like how this incentivizes BANK holders to onboard more people into bankless but we would need to do it in a way that incentivizes them to onboard the right kind of people, not just anyone. If there is a clever way to address this, then I could support the proposal. Otherwise it is a NO.
I like this proposal. I think it is smart to bring more people into the community, it grows the network effects. Allowing new people to participate in the DAO can only help, as far as I can see. This should add some diversity to the community. Because the coins are locked up, its not like these delegated members can decide to sell. Let’s try it. This is why I voted YES
Bankless community, we hear you. There was so much tremendous input to our proposal on why our concept has merit but also some concerns. We don’t want to give the impression large $BANK holders can “give away” scholarships to someone before he/she has earned it. We would like to continue this conversation and find ways to push a positive proposal forward. We have some initial thoughts as to how to reframe this proposal and appreciate all feedback.
Instead of allowing new entrants to skip the line and receive Level 2 membership status through the form of a “Scholarship”, we think it could be beneficial to allow delegation of voting rights to existing Level 2 members who have earned their status within the DAO. This will benefit existing Level 2 members by giving them more of a voice on proposals while also incentivizing new members to work up to a Level 2 membership status. We envision a webpage for Level 2 Members where they can create a profile to become a Delegate for the DAO. Through this page, any $BANK holder can read each delegate’s profile/opinions/values to better distribute votes to members within the DAO.
Advantage Blockchain appreciates the opportunity to vote on proposals but we believe it’s fair to assume there are others within the community who have a much better understanding on the impact each proposal will make. We also see this as a mechanism to further decentralize large $BANK holders voting power, especially those who do not play a large role in what is going on within the DAO.
Again we appreciate everyone’s feedback and value the insight of the Bankless community members. We plan to address more comments and prepare a further, more detailed proposal to help the community better understand our vision.
