[Community Vote] Season 4

General
1

Hello Bankless DAO! Season 3 is coming to a close and I’m sure we’re all thinking about Season 4.

Previously this post would have been called a Temp Check, but we decided to go with Community Vote to reflect the importance of some of the elements.

For those who are newer to the DAO, this post serves to collect sentiments on specific DAO-wide topics and inform the Season 4 Spec.

Membership Thresholds

The current membership threshold stands at 35,000 BANK to join the Discord. We have the option to increase, decrease, or keep the existing threshold in Season 4.

  • Pros of increasing: Requires people sitting at the threshold to “opt-into” the next Season
  • Cons of increasing: Increases barriers to entry for new participants
  • Pros of decreasing: Increases accessibility for joining the DAO (less of a need for guess passes!)
  • Cons of decreasing: Leave contributors with less skin in the game.
  • Increase Threshold
  • Decrease Threshold
  • Keep Threshold Unchanged

0 voters

The current BANK requirement for membership is 35,000. As a follow-up for the membership threshold:

  • Raise to 40,000 BANK
  • Hold at 35,000 BANK
  • Decrease to 25,000 BANK
  • Decrease to 10,000 BANK

0 voters

Splash Zone and Level 3 (Whale) Status

  • Increase threshold for Whale status
  • Decrease threshold for Whale status
  • Keep threshold unchanged for Whale status

0 voters

Mega Whale Zone

There are now nearly 30+ addresses with 1M BANK or more. Season 4 could create an additional whale channel for those that have reached the seven-figure threshold.

  • Create Mega Whale Zone
  • Don’t create Mega Whale Zone

0 voters

Gelato G-UNI BANK/ETH LP Tokens

The community recently launched Gelato Vaults for BANK/ETH liquidity on Uniswap V3. These are ERC20 tokens that we can begin supporting as membership access.

  • Support Gelato G-UNI BANK/ETH LP Tokens
  • Don’t Support

0 voters

Season Duration

There has been some discussion around increasing season length. Increasing Season length would provide longer timeframes to reach project and guild KPIs and goals, but could reduce flexibility of the DAO as funding access is largely tied to seasonal rotation. Should we:

  • Maintain season duration at 3 months
  • Increase season duration to 4 months
  • Increase season duration to 5 months
  • Increase season duration to 6 months

0 voters

Budget

Season 1 allocated 11M BANK while Season 2 increased spending to 20.5M BANK, and in Season 3 we increased spending to 30M BANK For reference, the treasury currently holds 182M BANK with an additional 33M expected to vest during Season 4.

  • Increase Seasonal Spending
  • Decrease Seasonal Spending
  • Same Seasonal Spending as Season 3

0 voters

In the past, a capped budget constrained a lot of projects and guilds. In Season 3 we opened the option for a flexible budget following all project & guild submissions. By flexible budget, we mean we will accommodate all guild and project budgets (within reason) and add a Grants Committee + DAO-wide Coordinape.

There is no current framework for capping funding for flexible budgets. There has been some discussion around increasing accountability for budget allocations in Season 4, which would help ensure guilds and projects meet their KPIs before accessing additional funding.

With that, here are the options:

  • Maintain flexible budget without changing accountability constraints
  • Maintain flexible budget and increase accountability constraints
  • Transition back to fixed budget

0 voters

Funding Requirements

Currently, projects and guild budgets are evaluated largely on the proposal. There has been some discussion recently that more KPIs, milestones, value alignment mechanisms and reporting requirements should be implemented as part of funding requirements. Should we:

  • Keep funding requirements the same
  • Encourage use of KPIs, milestones, and reporting for all funding
  • Encourage use of KPIs, milestones, and reporting for large amounts only (>100,000 BANK)

0 voters

Simplifying the Funding Process

There can be a lot of overhead in order to access funding, where proposal development can take weeks for larger projects and guilds. There has been some discussion around reducing proposal requirements and the overhead involved for funding requests. Should we:

  • Maintain current funding requirements
  • Reduce proposal requirements and increase accountability (e.g. KPIs, milestones, reporting)
  • Reduce proposal requirements without increasing accountability

0 voters

Grants Committee

The Grants Committee has distributed over 45% of its budget for S3. It’s worth noting that most projects have been funded and will qualify for S4 direct funding. In S4, we should:

  • Increase Grants Committee Funding (>7M BANK)
  • Decrease Grants Committee Funding (<7M BANK)
  • Keep Grants Committee Funding Unchanged (7M BANK)

0 voters

It has been proposed that the Grants Committee impose greater accountability requirements for the projects it funds. This may increase the overhead of projects that receive funding through the Grants Committee, but it should help ensure projects achieve their goals and DAO funding is well spent. With that in mind:

  • Increase accountability requirements for projects funded through the Grants Committee
  • Maintain current accountability requirements for projects funded through the Grants Committee
  • Decrease accountability requirements for projects funded through the Grants Committee

0 voters

Guild Funding

Season 3 distributed 8M BANK to the 12 guilds in Bankless DAO. You can get a full breakdown of the funding distribution here. In Season 4, we should:

  • Increase Guild Funding
  • Keep Guild Funding Unchanged
  • Decrease Guild Funding
  • Transition to Flexible Funding

0 voters

Project Funding

Season 3 distributed 11M BANK to the 17 projects in Bankless DAO. You can get a full breakdown of the funding distribution here. In Season 4, we should:

  • Increase Project Funding
  • Keep Project Funding Unchanged
  • Decrease Project Funding
  • Transition to Flexible Project Funding

0 voters

Contributor Rewards

Season 2 expanded the Contributor Rewards to multiple rounds, including monthly rounds for Contributors, Level 1s, and recent Guest Passes. In total, 3.5M BANK was distributed via this method. Season 3 increased contributor rewards further, with 4M BANK distributed via the same methods.

In Season 4, we should:

  • Increase Contributor Rewards
  • Decrease Contributor Rewards
  • Keep Contributor Rewards Unchanged

0 voters

Coordinape Rounds

Follow-up on the frequency of the Coordinape rounds: In Season 3 we voted to maintain monthly Coordinape rounds. In Season 4, we should:

  • Continue Monthly Rounds
  • Discontinue Monthly Rounds and Revert to Seasonal Rounds

0 voters

Hourly Compensation Guideline

Seasons 1 through 3 featured the hourly rate guideline at 1,000 BANK per hour. There have been ongoing discussions around changing this figure. These are important considerations for contribution to the DAO when BANK has a lower fiat value in a bear market, as compared to when BANK has high value in a bull market. Keeping in mind that this is a guideline and can be adjusted throughout the season, the rate guideline for contributors should fall at:

  • 1250 BANK/hour
  • 1000 BANK/hour
  • 750 BANK/hour
  • 500 BANK/hour

0 voters

For more context, see the compensation working group post.

Please keep in mind that none of these poll results are final, they simply represent the DAO’s sentiment as we build out the Season 4 spec, which will go through its own independent governance process.

5 Likes
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We defeated Quorum. We need to defeat this hourly $BANK thing.

Unless we’re going full socialism where the person who distributes poaps makes as much as the devs that built the Bankless Checkout. As someone who distributes POAPs, they shouldn’t be compensated the same rate…

10 Likes
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Thanks for taking point on this @Rowan!

Some thoughts on how I think we should shape this:

Membership Threshold

  • Opinion: Reduce

I’m a strong proponent of decreasing the threshold for membership access. This will make bDAO membership & contributions more accessible and reduce our reliance on guest passes. I’ve written about the issue before and the membership threshold is the simplest lever that we can pull to minimize the issue.

I’d be in favor of reducing to 10,000 BANK and allowing us to virtually eliminate the guest passes since bDAO would be accessible for most people with a small purchase. However, I understand people’s reservations around this given it’s a large decrease.

Splash Zone

In tandem, I’d be okay with reducing the splash zone access to 100,000 BANK (10K BANK + 100K BANK seem like two very clean thresholds in my mind).

Don’t think there’s a need for the mega whale zone yet.

G-UNI

We’ve migrated our DAO-owned liquidity to Uniswap v3. Gelato is an automated manager for Uniswap V3 LPs and in return for providing liquidity, LPs get ERC20. Given that we support other LP tokens, I think this is a no brainer

Season Duration

Opinion: Increase to 4 months

Think it’s wise for us to start increasing the length of Seasons as we’ve begun to dial-in on processes and understand what to expect on a season by season basis. This will allow us to focus on working and completing milestones.

Funding

Opinion: Decrease

This one is a bit controversial. But after reviewing multisigs across projects and guilds, there is a ton of BANK that is still there, meaning projects + guilds aren’t allocating all of their funding. There’s no need to distribute BANK if it’s not being used. In addition, there’s still 50% of the GC funding left available.

Overall, if we’re not spending and allocating all of the BANK for each initative, there’s no reason to distribute it out. That said, I want to ensure contributors feel well-compensated and want projects to continue to grow and thrive. Just my opinion :slight_smile:

Reducing emissions is also good for secondary markets!

Funding Requirements

Opinion: Increase accountability + emphasize value alignment

I think we need to increase accountability across the GC + PM groups. Projects should be required to report to the GC at least once or twice a season to report on progress and ensure accountability.

The other thing I want to keep pushing for is to ensure each project has some sort of value alignment mechanism. This can be either revenue share with the treasury, BANK buybacks, or membership perks if they’re a non-revenue generating project.

I want to double click on membership perks as I think this is an avenue we, as a community, haven’t pushed for. If you’re a bDAO project, you should create a membership perk by holding BANK! Some examples:

  • Bankless Academy → Unlock more modules if you hold BANK
  • Bounty Board → Unlock more available bounties if the admin (the DAO) holds BANK
  • USM → Get a discount at checkout if you hold BANK
  • DAO Dash → Unlock bonus insights when you hold BANK

You get the idea! These are just some high level ideas and should be taken w/ a grain of salt. But the takeaway should be if you’re running a project and don’t have an a revenue stream, ask what utility can you add to the BANK token via your project! Hold, spend, burn, to receive X, etc!

Coordinape

Opinion: Decrease to monthly contributor + seasonal DAO-wide

I think we’re reaching exhaustion on Coordinape and the constant need to allocate GIVE to contributors. I’ve missed out on allocating a few rounds myself. Coordinape is a great tool for compensation but should not be the primary comp mech (ideally it’s from contributing to projects and guilds). It’s a lot of overhead, especially when we do 3x rounds per month.

I’d be in favor of a monthly contributor round and then a DAO-wide seasonal round with a large pool.

Comp Rate

I’d defer this one to the GSE to fix this, but the blanket comp rate for everyone isn’t optimal. It was a short term fix for an issue on how people could value their work in the early stages of the DAO.

I think we’re at the point where we could open it up for anyone to determine their own market rate based on talent, experience, SoW, ROI for the DAO, etc.

Again - gonna defer getting this solved to the GSE but I don’t think this “universal rate” should continue as it dosn’t make sense anymore.

Don’t think I touched on everything but wanted to share some thoughts as we build out this spec for S4!

bDAO Stronk :muscle:

7 Likes
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I think it would be helpful to show the dollar value of each BANK item. As an industry we must move away from denominating everything in native tokens. It is difficult to evaluate and comparisons season-over-season are tricky given varying market conditions.

Why not approve a value in fiat that is paid in BANK tokens (e.g., $30 an hour, paid in $BANK)? This will maintain a constant value regardless of market cycle.

On @0x_Lucas 's comments regarding compensation:

Coordinape is still largely an experiment. We like this service because it aligns with the ethos of decentralized comp and it is a performance-based pay element. It will be interesting to see how it scales, and how DAOs manage psychological issues when evaluating peers (e.g., recency bias, visibility of work, popularity contest, free riders, race/gender bias).

We would caution a heavy allocation to Coordinape (or any other service) during these experimentation phases.

Comp differentiation may be needed so contributors are rewarded fairly for their role. This will help with attraction, retention, and motivation. We are happy to work with GSE to develop a compensation framework or provide compensation market data.

C3 Group

4 Likes
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Really strong thesis for BanklessDAO Season 4 specs @0x_Lucas

Thanks for writing this out

1 Like
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GUNI my biggest take home thanks

7

Possibly the worst definition of socialism I’ve ever seen.

1 Like
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Quorum isn’t an enemy to be defeated, it’s an assurance that members are active participants rather than passive holders of tokens.

1 Like
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Simplifying the Funding Process

There can be a lot of overhead in order to access funding, where proposal development can take weeks for larger projects and guilds. There has been some discussion around reducing proposal requirements and the overhead involved for funding requests. Should we:

I’m not aware of the current requirements for proposals, so I’m abstaining until I get more information. If someone could link me, I’d appreciate it.

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She’s referring to the time BanklessDAO painted ourselves into a corner by adopting a quorum which was higher than advisable. We ended up not being able to pass any snapshot proposals until we « defeated it ». Search « firming up governance » on the forum and snapshot for more details of our epic blunder.

Search « proposal template » in the forum and you’ll start to see stuff. Here’s one: Proposal Template

1 Like
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Those are guidelines more than rules from what I saw.

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I love the concept of the spec for Season 4 and thank Lucas, et al. Lots of choices. Pretty well agree with Lucas on all points. My choices were an attempt to make bDAO more inclusive. Decrease bank for L1, loved the thoughts in support. Extend the runway. Reduce overhead. Provide more accountability. Concerned about loss of talent. Not a big fan of Coordinape, so many but understand and want to see it maintained. Like the 4 month season. Experiment on! Good Frens!

1 Like
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Really enjoyed the read through. In the midst of familiarizing myself with the group and this was extremely helpful. Full of context and I really like the idea of a 4 month season. Thank you!

3 Likes
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I’m wondering about why only the first option got maximum support every time !!!

Could it have been a different set of outcomes, if the unchanged (default) option liberally moved across 1,2,3&4 !!!

Thanks @Rowan for an informative & insightful post, especially for a new joinee like me.

1 Like
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It’s a great point. I agree, for future polls we should mix it up so we don’t create bias.

16

Good point. In all of polls options should be in random order and worded neutrally. But ultimately in most DAO voting “everything passes”.

2 Likes