In light of recent organizational changes and the evolution of our community into Black Flag DAO, I propose to remove all existing delegation of governance rights associated with tokens held by the Black Flag DAO Treasury (also known as the BanklessDAO Vault). Resetting all delegations will enable a fresh start and will empower the DAO community to decide to which parties, if any, token holdings will be delegated.
Background
Previously, BanklessDAO delegated various governance tokens to DAOStewards, a DAO-funded project team, to represent our interests across multiple protocols. This delegation was implemented to leverage DAOStewards’ growing presence in meta-governance and cross-DAO coordination, and also gave Level 2 Members of the DAO the opportunity to lead these efforts and upskill.
In March, 2024, the DAOStewards project team announced that “all assets and responsibilities will be handed over to DAOplomats” — “a professional governance-as-a-service organisation which is driven independently by current and former members of the DAO.” Some DAO members expressed concern at that time about the altered relationship with the DAO, and suggested token delegation should be reversed, but no action was taken.
More recently, the potential for conflict of interest has been raised on this Forum in relation to one Multisig signer being the co-founder of DAOplomats.
This proposal was drafted by @Rowan, @0xZFi.eth and me. The final version has not been reviewed by Rowan and ZFi so any errors are mine.
Proposal
That delegation of all governance tokens by the Black Flag DAO multisig signers (also known as the BanklessDAO Vault signers) be immediately revoked.
These are known delegations; if there are others they are to be included in the scope of this proposal.
Next Steps
If the poll result indicates there is community approval to remove all delegations, I request that BanklessDAO Vault multisig signers initiate and approve all necessary transactions to implement the changes.
Poll
Yes, all delegation of the DAO’s tokens should be revoked
No, delegation of the DAO’s tokens should be retained as per current situation
The proposal seeks to remove delegation and return the governance rights sssociated with them to the DAO.
The evident conflict of interest since commercialisation of daoplomats is enough for me to want to revoke for the foreseeable future.
If you do want to delegate to daoplomats then voting no on the poll will signal that, so I’m not sure what the plan is for?
I’d like to address some of the concerns raised here, point out cons and suggest an alternative course of action forward.
Undelegating will not solve CoI issues
The proposer as well as the one this proposal refers to, both, themselves have conflict of interest, since they are the beneficiaries of the funds in question.
Undelegating today will not stop or create solutions for how CoI from anyone be it the multi-sig or DAO members shall be addressed.
Instead, I propose that the relevant authorities in the DAO draft a proposal for handling CoI and enforce those going forward instead of pursuing actions retroactively
Loss of potential revenue
Optimism’s Airdrop 3 awarded delegators who delegated tokens along with a bonus for delegators who delegated to active delegates.
Tally recently launched it’s protocol which aims to direct the incentives of delegators, delegates and the DAO in a unified direction by enabling delegators who delegate to active delegates to earn APY by staking the native token. Many DAOs including Arbitrum, RARI, Uniswap have adopted this strucutre. Being on the forefront of governance, I strongly believe this will be quickly replicated elsewhere.
Since the DAO does not have any structure in place to continue participation in other DAOs, there is a real possibility that the DAO will loose out on any potential revenue coming out of delegating to an active delegate.
Lack of Governance Incentives
Running an internal meta-governance group in the DAO without incentives has NEVER been proven in this or any other DAO. Infact, more and more DAOs have launched governance incentives and the transition council itself asked for retro rewards for its governance work. Hence, redelegating tokens back to the multi-sig and expecting them to do the work is unrealistic.
However, delegating tokens to a professional organisation which has its independent source of revenue solves the problem of metagovernance without this DAO needing to fund active participation as has been demonstrated by DAOplomats with their 90%+ voting activity in Optimism and SAFE
If the DAO still feels that the tokens need to be undelegated, then in order to prevent a loss of potential future revenue, a ‘Request For Proposals’ (RFP) process should be initiated to procure a suitable delegate
As a final point, governance members of DAOplomats have always been highly aligned with this DAO. @WinVerse and @hirokennelly participate in the Transition Council and the learnings we get as a group from other DAOs can be applied to accelerate the progress of this DAO. Hence I urge the proposers to consider the solutions presented here in order to actually address the issue which have been flagged.
Edited to say this was intended as a reply to Jengajojo, not brianl
This is incorrect. I do not have a conflict of interest as I do not stand to receive any tokens, regardless of the outcome of this proposal.
I assume by ‘the funds in question’ you mean the OP tokens which were intended to be passed on from the DAO multisig to all the contributors involved in the Intents campaign. I have already received the OP tokens allocated to me for that work, unlike some others.
thinkDecade’s Forum post does not suggest a conflict of interest in this respect either, as he has no decision-making power in the multisig group. He also did not call for delegation to be revoked; instead he pointed out the conflict evident in your proposal to have the multisig retain the OP tokens intended for Intents campaign contributors and called for you to be removed from the multisig. He’s not conflicted, he just wants to see all the contributors receive the OP they earned through the campaign work.
It’s telling that despite requests for you to communicate with impacted Intents contributors for many months now, you have only responded once it seems there might be a financial impact for Daoplomats.
Thank you for the information about Tally Protocol.
I think it would be worthwhile for this DAO to consider staking via Tally once available, perhaps allowing Tally to choose a delegate: “When a user stakes their token in the Tally Protocol, they receive a stLST token in return that can be used in DeFi or restaking and can be exchanged at any time for the equivalent amount of underlying DAO token plus any accrued rewards. Holders can choose to delegate the voting power of their token to themselves, to someone else, or to allow the Tally DAO to choose a delegate on their behalf.”
@Jengajojo you also have provided misinformation to the multisig about the compensation of op rpgf grant. I was trying to contact you for long. Check your dm. All this for the daoplamat delegation? People toiled their work for months, and you think it is fair to use it for the benefit of your team ?
A conflict of interest arises when personal interests potentially compromise impartial judgment, undermining trust and fairness in decision-making. Voting on a proposal that financially benefits someone creates a direct conflict. Your personal interest in securing funds could override objective evaluation of the proposal’s merits, even if unintentionally. This was demonstrated in the OP votes in favor of distributing tokens which was done by all parties who were the beneficiary of those funds
When the multi-sig posted its decision on the final funds distribution, the sole course of action was to post allegations against one member of the multi-sig while calling for a new election in order to secure the funds in question is also a direct conflict of interest.
this is incorrect allegation since there is no direct financial impact for DAOplomats, but for the DAO itself
This is incorrect as has been clarified by @Rowan later on
I didn’t vote no or yes, as I believe neither outcome is the best for the DAO.
A DAO’s currency is contribution. From what I understand, DAOplomats is actively involved in meta governance. Rather than letting things go as they are (no vote) or stopping them from operating with our tokens (yes vote), we should seek to create a positive-sum game where their efforts strengthen our network. For instance, every vote they make with our delegations can include a link to our discord/website.
As a governance group, DAOplomats should be tasked with defining this game. Instead of yes/no, give DAOplomats a date to produce this proposal after which the delegations will be removed. This will set a positive-sum mini-game for DAOplomats to play.
DAOs are starved for contribution. Rather than set hard limits on participation, let’s experiment with new ways forward.
So @Trewkat It’s worth asking, does it make sense to revoke DAOplomats’ delegation only to let Tally DAO randomly assign Black Flag DAO’s voting power to an unknown group? With DAOplomats, you know the people behind the organization, their values, and their commitment to governance integrity.
Moreover, there are numerous other critical discussions around Black Flag DAO’s development that need attention. Bringing up this topic when there’s no clear issue with DAOplomats’ delegation feels unnecessary.
If there were concerns about how DAOplomats handled the delegation, then revocation would be a reasonable discussion. However, removing the delegation without clear reasoning—only to let an external platform decide the fate of Black Flag DAO’s governance power—doesn’t seem logical.
does it make sense to revoke DAOplomats’ delegation only to let Tally DAO randomly assign Black Flag DAO’s voting power to an unknown group?
This proposal seeks to remove delegation and return the governance rights associated with them to the DAO. I simply noted that perhaps allowing Tally to choose a delegate would be a course of action we could investigate in future, but that is not what this proposal suggests.
With DAOplomats, you know the people behind the organization, their values, and their commitment to governance integrity.
That’s correct, and I don’t believe there is value alignment. We have a situation in which a person with a direct decision-making role in the multisig is also the beneficiary of the rewards associated with delegation of the DAO’s tokens. A conflict of interest is not simply when someone has an interest in the outcome, but when a person who can influence the outcome also stands to benefit from it.
there are numerous other critical discussions around Black Flag DAO’s development that need attention.
I know. Those matters have much of my attention. The three of us who drafted this proposal have been part of the Transition Council and felt that this is important enough to propose action.
If there were concerns about how DAOplomats handled the delegation, then revocation would be a reasonable discussion. However, removing the delegation without clear reasoning—only to let an external platform decide the fate of Black Flag DAO’s governance power—doesn’t seem logical.
I do have long-held concerns about how DAOplomats handle the delegation. I have previously asked for updates on the voting rationale and been told I can go and find that information on the external DAO’s forum. As far as I’m aware there has not been any attempt to get community feedback on any external proposals, even while the group was a project supported by the DAO.
I did not include those concerns in this proposal because while I think consultation would be appropriate in this case, I’m aware that most delegates don’t consult everyone who has delegated voting capacity to them.
Regardless, the conflict of interest, which is clearly present and has been demonstrated through the proposal to withhold the OP tokens intended for contributors, is a logical reason to withdraw the delegation.
‘some people are more equal’ is a quote from the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, I would associate that quote here.
The system of transparency is broken, It’s a personal feeling.
I have been trying to contact different parties of multisig to do a meeting concerning the op distribution for months, you can check it on the forum and in treasury channel. I also put evidence regarding the same. Any clarification on the matter can be put forward. But the approach by multisig doesn’t feel like a dao. It’s more like a private company setup where nothing shall be discussed, and one member is telling to approach other parties of the multisig who are not responding.
Withholding our tokens, blag flag dao is build on top of it and restructuring it. Good approach to silence things more.
Since this op token recieved are because of my effort too, the approach you took for delegation is my concern.
For all that i can understand, DAOplomats are being doing a great work inside the governance space and they are truly committed members of ours in the very beginnings, if we revoke all the permissions maybe the governance representation that we are having inside their different L2 and protocols it’s going to be less important.
I invite our DAO to make a different approach, maybe ask for a report for DAOplomats (even that they have different communications threads) and the future-past benefits that they had with this delegations and how our DAO can get some revenue or reputation based in their work. This would get us a more diplomatic approach other that just revoking all the governance permissions.
