bDAO Season Role Holder Badges (Otterspace Pilot)

Governance
1

Title: bDAO Season Role Holder Badges (Otterspace Pilot)
Authors: bendobbrick#1111, Lukas B#9835, 0xJustice.eth#6213
Date: Aug 22, 2022

Summary

Partner with Otterspace to issue season delimited role holder badges. This would include all Guild Coordinators and Project Champions. Those persons would then be permitted to issue any other role badges required within their groups.

By mirroring the DAO’s existing roles via Soulbound Tokens, we:

  • Make our org structure visible on-chain
  • Create historic mementos for role holders
  • Create data for future reputations systems
  • Aid the community in communication
  • Participate in the Otterspace rollout and have the opportunity to provide feedback

This proposal is a low-risk way to increase our resiliency, transparency, and reputation mechanics.

BACKGROUND

Otterspace is building a flexible and easy-to-use infrastructure for DAOs to use non-transferable NFTs, which are called Badges. Badges can enable DAOs to perform non-financialized governance, automate permissions (e.g., access rights as part of a season pass), manage community-specific reputation/credentials, and create better incentive systems. The Otterspace product is currently live on the Goerli Testnet and will be launching on Optimism Mainnet in August.

Otterspace is building three components:

  1. A token standard (EIP-4973)
  2. An open-source protocol
  3. An application for easy no-code badge management

Otterspace’s goal is to provide any community with the tools they need to bring Badges to life, whether it is just the token, the protocol, or the application.

Badges

In the Otterspace app, DAO operators can set up their DAO, create badges (EIP-4973 non-transferable tokens) and distribute them to addresses. To avoid non-consensual minting, the Otterspace Protocol requires recipients to claim and mint the badge themselves. Airdrops are not possible. As the protocol is on Optimism, the transaction costs incurred are marginal.

Some of the common use cases Otterspace has helped DAOs with include:

  • Different levels of membership (think newbie vs. core-contributor).
  • Different teams or guilds (media guild, dev guild…).
  • Achievements/rewards like “contributor of the month”.
  • Different roles with a badge expiry date (for example, the 90-day community lead role).
  • Guest pass with a 7-day expiry.
  • Skills (for example, Solidity level 10).

Badge Utility

  • Badges are especially powerful because they can have utility attached to them – Otterspace is collaborating with multiple DAO tooling providers to integrate the badges across the DAO tooling landscape.
  • Badges can be used for governance (e.g., Snapshot), access permissions (e.g., Guild, Discord, Clarity), payments (e.g., Coordinape) and task management (e.g. Wonderverse). Additionally, badges are useful simply as a way of showing off reputation, history, and experience.
  • The Otterspace Protocol is being developed as an open set of smart contracts, so DAOs can compose and integrate pieces into their own tech stack, and other app developers can construct custom front-ends.

MISSION & VALUES ALIGNMENT

Otterspace wants to get more active in the Bankless ecosystem and collaborate for the following reasons:

  • Strong mission alignment around onboarding mainstream users to Web3 through its easy-to-understand user interface.
  • Otterspace wants to support and enable collaboration at scale in Web3, such as in the context of large DAOs like bDAO.
  • bDAO is already considering how SBTs may be adopted to enhance the membership experience and governance, making Otterspace an ideal partner.

SPECIFICATION

The proposal is to generate badges for season-delimited membership of Bankless by using the Otterspace protocol and app. Doing so will:

  • Make our org structure visible on-chain
  • Create a more holistic representation of membership
  • Create data for future reputations systems
  • Aid the community in communication

Learn more: Website, Badges MVP, Pitch deck, Technical documentation, EIP-4973, Mirror

Process

Otterspace is designed to be a decentralized system that can be community managed. However, to begin with the process of creating the first set of badges will be somewhat centralized, with decentralization happening over time.

Setting up the Bankless community

  • Within Otterspace, each DAO and sub-DAO/team/guild are represented by an ERC721 token called a ‘Raft’ (a Raft is a group of otters)
  • The wallet holding the Raft Token is the admin of the badge collection
  • First, the main Bankless DAO and sub-DAOs/teams/guilds will be created. The Raft Tokens will be distributed to the wallets that administer those groups

Badge Distribution

  • The main DAO and/or sub-DAOs will issue badges to project champions and guild coordinators
  • Champions and coordinators can then create and issue badges to any other internal role holders.

Badge Term

  • Badges can have expiration dates and artwork that are specific to the season in which they were issued.
  • By limiting the role of NFTs to seasons, we reduce risk and complexity.
  • We also create an on-chain map of our role holders over time.

Potential Future Uses

  • During the seasons, the badges could be used for multiple use cases, such as governance within Snapshot (As considered in the Governator Project Season 3) or access permissions to Discord channels or workspaces.
  • While the badges itself are non-financial (can’t be sold to the highest bidder), they can be tied to a conditional payment, such as a subscription.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

There is no direct cost to implement this proposal, but we are asking all participating cohorts to donate 5k BANK$ to pay for the design of the season’s thematic badges.

BRAND USAGE

bDAO will be listed and advertised as a partner in the Otterspace launch in publications and social media.

SUCCESS METRICS OR KPIS

This implementation is primarily about learning and growing with Otterspace. They are rolling out Community and Contributor pages in the coming weeks and more coarse minting permissions with time. This pilot project puts us at the front of the line to participate and influence the direction of community badging.

NEXT STEPS

  1. Start a channel with all participating badge recipients
  2. Kick off the design process for the season badges
  3. Collect donation pledges
  4. Distribute badges to Guild Coordinators and Project Champions
  5. Create a badge management tutorial for Coordinators / Champions

SQUAD BACKGROUND

Emily Furlong

  • Leading product and community at Otterspace
  • Former Product Lead for creator to fan engagement and support at SoundCloud, Community Lead at Shark DAO, and contributor to Cabin DAO

Ben Dobbrick

  • Leading all things commercial, including partnerships, ecosystem growth and marketing
  • Former early-stage investor and operator in the Future of Work and Web3 space and contributor with PieDAO and SharkDAO.

Rahul Rumalla

  • Leading all technical efforts
  • Former Director of Integrations at SoundCloud – leading developer community, partnerships, and integrations. Previously also Co-Founder/CTO of music Web3 startup https://paperchain.io/.

0xJustice

  • GSE
  • bDAO Constitution Lead
  • Website Project Champion
  • PM Guild Co-founder

POLL

Should we partner with Otterspace to issue season role holder badges?

  • Yes - This is awesome!!
  • No - Bad idea
  • Maybe - Needs revision (Please comment)

0 voters

9 Likes
2

Another front-running initiative :+1:

Hope there is a way to involve Design Guild, to design these badges, for bDAO, as well as for others.

3 Likes
3

Yes sir! That is exactly the plan :muscle:

3 Likes
4

Awesome proposal @0xJustice
100% support for this. Let’s get this implemented asap :rocket:

2 Likes
5

As mentioned in the proposal, the badges can be used across a variety of DAO tools (e.g., Snapshot), and the use cases that we are seeing across other communities using our badges, such as Radicle DAO, Syndicate, or Token Engineering Academy, may also show additional use cases for Bankless in the future.

An additional functionality that we’re working on which may be relevant for you in the future will be the Otterspace missions. Missions can contain a variety of contributions or on-chain actions, which once completed, qualify contributors for a given badge. We believe this could be helpful in onboarding and engaging new contributors!

We’re excited to support the Bankless community in the implementation of season badges and exploring other ways of contributing to the bDAOs success :otter::rocket:

2 Likes
6

I am a US citizen i don’t want any soulbound tokens that can potentially be used to hold me responsible for the income of the dao. Just make an NFT or give me some more DAO punks

7

Thank you for the proposal.

What happens to the SBTs when a users keys are compromised? Does the contract owner simply issue a new SBT? Is yes, isn’t anyone who has their finger on SBT issuance a vector for centralisation?

8

There’s nothing special about token types to the federal government. Your wallet address is just as liable as any token you may own. The big difference here is the DAO will be able to actually surface org structures and control access as a community. It’s also the beginning of reputation. You will be able to build a history of leadership and work history in DAOs. There is no tie to any fiat identity in any of this.

9

The badges can be turned off like traditional physical badges and also have expectation dates. It’s very sophisticated. Otterspace wrote a whole new token standard to advance this tech and they are only just getting started.

10

Hi @Jengajojo, Thanks for your thoughts. Ben from Otterspace here. I wanted to add some comments to what @0xJustice mentioned.

We are addressing these concerns in the protocol directly:

  • Badges can be revoked (expired) by the issuer. This can be done in the case of account compromise, so the Badges have no power after the account has been compromised.
  • Currently, the issuer would issue a new Badge to a new account in the case of compromise, but we are actually working on a reassignment process based on social validation. We are still early in designing this and are excited to work with the community on this topic.
  • To answer your question about centralization – you may wonder who is the “issuer”. The issuer is the Bankless community, and it’s up to the community to decide who can act on its behalf.
  • Currently, you can use a Gnosis multi-sig wallet to act as the issuer if you want to prevent centralization.
  • In the future, you will be able to manage the issuance via a smart contract controlled by the DAO, but I wouldn’t recommend this because it would be extremely inefficient (aka voting every time a new Badge is issued).
  • To address the balance between centralization and convenience, we are working on a system whereby the DAO can decentralize by distributing specific permissions to badge holders. For example, you could decide that any holder of the “team lead” badge can act as the issuer for a guest pass badge. These settings will be entirely configurable by the DAO, which allows you to choose how you want to distribute power and permissions to badge holders to prevent inefficiency.

Ultimately it is up to the community to decide what functions of the Badges protocol they want to decentralize and to what degree. There’s always going to be a trade-off between convenience and decentralization and it’s up to the community to decide where to land on the spectrum. Otterspace’s goal is to provide the tools to go fully decentralized or to be more centralized for the sake of efficiency.

3 Likes
11

Like the idea. Support the proposal as an improvement but have some wonderment about possible unforeseen or unintended consequences but not smart enough to express written concerns. Kind of understand why some express opinion concerning liability in USA as lack of regulation concerning DAOs and token ownership being individually sued.

1 Like
12

I will never accept a soulbound token from the dao. Never sign up for it and consider this risky given the state of American imperialism. If you want to potentially be held responsible for the revenue generation of the dao go for it. Not me

13

Youve obviously never had to deal with US snipers or tear gas

14

What risk does a non-trenasferable token present that your wallet does not? You have your entire doxed CV in your online bios (including ENS).

2 Likes
15

Badges are based on EIP-4973 and maximally compatible with NFTs.

2 additional points to what was already shared above

  • You can ONLY own the badge if you provided your consent (as a EIP-712 signature) to do so. You would have to claim it and it will be a very concious action taken by the claimant, unlike being airdropped using NFTs.
  • At any given point if you do not want to own this badge. You can perform a full disociation via “burning” it. The spec above details this.

If privacy is your concern, I’d argue this is a better token model for you than NFT :slight_smile:

2 Likes
16

Nothing in the specifications mandates guilds to adopt otterspace.

17

No one said it did. It’s an opt-in pilot.

18

Big update on this initiative!: @Bpetes will be taking over this now. His knowledge of decentralized identity, reputation, and the NFT badge issuance playing field is unparalleled and fits directly within the mission of the DAO Cartography scheme. I have shared all the relevant docs and channels with him. Posting this update here for transparency and clarity. LFG!! :muscle: :fire:

3 Likes
19

Hi,

TImDaub, EIP-4973 author here. We specifically designed the specification so that you have as much control as possible. EIP-4973 implements consensual minting, meaning before any token reaches your wallet, your signature (and consent) is require. And even after receiving it, you can always burn the token at any time.

2 Likes