Transition Council Authority

Governance DAO Transition
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Transition Council Authority

The Transition Council, which was established to guide our community through this period of change, is seeking BANK-holder support to affirm its authority in implementing changes.

Six Transition Council members were appointed at the June 24, 2024 Governance meeting, per a tlBANK Snapshot vote.

To date, the six appointed members have proceeded with the understanding that active DAO members support the level of consultation and subsequent decision making around a new DAO purpose, name, and brand. Before we move forward with decisions that will further shape our future we believe it’s crucial to have the broader community’s formal and documented backing.

Why We Need Your Endorsement

  • Legitimacy: Your endorsement will provide the Council with the legitimacy it needs to act on behalf of the entire community.

  • Collective Responsibility: By seeking your endorsement, we’re emphasizing that this transition is a collective effort, not just the responsibility of a select few.

What This Means

If endorsed, the Transition Council will have the authority to:

  • Implement its selected new name and brand identity for the DAO (Black Flag DAO) across social media accounts and web presence.

  • Decide on the role of the BANK token and issuance of new token(s) within the new Black Flag DAO.

  • Change the Black Flag DAO membership requirements and organisational structure.

  • Decide on the tooling necessary to operationalize these changes.

  • Update DAO governance processes to reflect membership and/or token ownership rights.

  • Implement an updated Constitution that reflects all changes, including the means by which members can suggest and enact revisions to the Constitution.

These aspects are crucial for our community’s evolution; after nearly one year of limbo, it’s time for action. We understand the significance of these responsibilities and commit to approaching them with the utmost care and transparency. We want to assure you that we are committed to:

  • Maintaining open channels for feedback and suggestions.

  • Transparent reporting of all major decisions.

  • Seeing through the changes to ensure completeness of solutions and continuity of oversight.

  • Working in harmony with DAO Vault multisig signers to safeguard the longevity and integrity of the DAO.

Next Steps

There will be a BANK-holder Snapshot vote on this matter no sooner than seven days after this Forum post. The Snapshot will seek approval for the current Transition Council to hold the authority to make the changes listed above (see What This Means). The Snapshot will be set to the block height as of Friday 11 October 4pm UTC i.e. the commencement time of the most recent Community Call discussion which initiated the Transition Council’s decision to hold a vote.

We acknowledge that this proposal falls outside the categories specified in the Constitution but have committed to following the timing and process laid out in that document as far as possible, including posting on Forum to engage in a public discussion and voting within the BANK-holder Snapshot space.

Before the vote, we welcome your questions, concerns, and suggestions. Let’s engage in a constructive dialogue to ensure that our transition process truly reflects the will of our community.

Thank you for your continued support and involvement in shaping our community’s future.

HiroKennelly, Rowan, trewkat, 0xZFi, WinVerse, coffee-crusher
Transition Council Members

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I’m very appreciative of this forum post and think the scope of work is great. Will def vote for this on snapshot

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I fully support the Transition Council and appreciate the time effort being put forth to move us into the next phase. I look forward to voting in favor.

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I wanted to clarify a comment that I made during today’s community call, as I do not want to mislead anyone by my misstatement. After re-reading the forum post and clarifying with my fellow members of the Transition Council, this bullet in the forum actually means the following:

By supporting this forum post and ratifying the TC powers enumerated within it via the subsequent BANK Snapshot vote, the community empowers the Transition Council to update the Constitution without an additional Snapshot vote. The Constitutional revisions will contain provisions to enable the community to further revise the Constitution, as has historically been the case through the bDIP process.

I hope that I was able to clarify what this forum bullet means for the community and what you will be voting on. My apologies if I confused or mislead any community members. My intentions are to ensure all community members have all the correct facts, information and understanding to participate in governance.

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Thanks for the post, I will vote for the Transition Council.

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After reading the above post, I have two questions:

  1. The transition committee needs to obtain wider community approval. In what form will the community approve it, voting or other forms?
  2. Will the bank token be invalidated? What will be the relationship between the new token issued in the new Black Flag DAO and the bank?
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  1. The transition committee needs to obtain wider community approval. In what form will the community approve it, voting or other forms?

The BANK-holder community will be able to vote on the Snapshot that will be available no sooner than seven days after this Forum post. If it passes, the Snapshot will grant the Transition Council the authority to make the changes outlined under What This Means, including “Decide on the role of the BANK token and issuance of new token(s) within the new Black Flag DAO”.

  1. Will the bank token be invalidated? What will be the relationship between the new token issued in the new Black Flag DAO and the bank?

This has not been decided yet. Ideas are welcome.

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Oh well…this is a bit more difficult for me to throw my whole support behind. It would really depend on the Constitutional updates. This is a pretty vital document and wording is really important. In fact after the first release of the Constitution, we spent 4 months revising and simplifying the language.

All this to say I am generally supportive of this proposal, but I think I want to know more about how the TC will change the constitution before I vote for it. The worst case for me would be to get stuck with a complex, un-vetted constitution. Not saying this will happen, but personally don’t feel comfortable having 7 people rewrite the constitution without any check.

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I agree with links. The community can give the transition committee the power to amend the constitution, but should the transition committee’s amendment of the constitution be supervised by the community? In other words, has the content of the amendment been agreed upon by the community? Can the final revised constitution represent the interests of the community?
If the power to amend the constitution is directly granted without community supervision, I understand that this goes against the original intention of Dao.

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OK, thank you for your reply. I seldom participate in community activities, but seeing that there are transition committees that stand up to solve problems when the project is in crisis shows that our community is very resilient. I will continue to pay attention until the new brand is replaced.

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Hi links.
I do understand that on a general basis, it’s not ideal to consolidate the process of deciding the updates to the Constitution to a small group.
However, you know that I led the rewrite of the first Constitution, and that Hiro was also right there on the job - you know that we were highly attuned to clarity and community expectations during that process.
You also know that all six members of the Transition Council are long-term, experienced members of the DAO who have (correct me if I’m wrong!) earned the trust of other DAO members they have worked with.
This proposal asks the community to trust that the TC will act in the best interests of our community. For those who don’t know us very well, I understand that could be a big ask. I’d suggest listening to some of the meeting recordings where we have discussed pros and cons of various actions, to get a sense of how much we care about taking this community forward in an ethical and collaborative way.

TC members are putting our reputations on the line here. We are transparently asking for the authority to make changes and we are openly committing to producing a Constitution which reflects those changes. We are not going to add unnecessary complexity or try to sneak anything through, and we’re going to ensure that there is a clear process for suggesting and enacting future changes to our governance. Once that is done, we step back.
The Constitution is simply the documentation - if you’re comfortable giving the TC the authority to make the changes then the Constitution flows from that.

The active community indicated support for a Transition Council. In my opinion, we can’t deliver a timely and effective transition without the authority to make meaningful change.

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Speaking with @hirokennelly and @Trewkat has allayed my fears. Both were part of the group who revised the previous constitution over 4 months and they’ve assured me that they would spearhead this effort and gather feedback from the community before committing into the Constitution.

Hiro and Trewkat have been stalwart stewards of this community and I trust them to do what is right and look forward to their efforts.

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First, thank you for this proposal and all the work done by the TC.

I agree with Link’s concern but I do have trust in the council and will support the proposal. Just a question on the process later on: Will there be a revision of the constitution at a later stage, like one year in or when we eventually come in “conflict” with a wording? Will there be any plans for a process like that?

(I do understand that a constitution should not be adjusted/changed on a regular basis but there’s also the case that we’re in a very turbulent environment with a lot of changes)

A quick comment on the name. My first association was to ISIS (the terrorist organization). I have not been around since before the summer so I know this is late and I will also support the name. But I just want to know if you’ve considered this association and found arguments that the name still stands?

Thanks again

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Probably any name we come up with could have a negative association in some language / culture / context. It’s interesting that you get there first - I’m sure others do, too. So for some people there could be a momentary negative connotation with the name but I don’t think there’s any risk of real confusion. When I hear “Black Flag” I definitely think of the band first (it’s also the entire first page of Google results). After that I think of the Jolly Roger, then the POW/MIA flag, then the DQ flag in car racing, then Assassin’s Creed, and then the bug spray. I would never get to ISIS. And even when someone says isis I think of the Egyptian goddess first.

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I love it!

And I guess I’m glad my first association isn’t the most common one.
Thanks for your reply.

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Any preliminary thoughts on this that can be mentioned here?

I give my support to the TC. (That support is not contingent on the answer by the way, I was just curious)

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Time to go on. Thank for this team, i love all the good vibes that you are giving us.

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Let me say from the outset: I have had a crazy two years and have not been involved in Bankless activities other than vaguely keeping track by reading the regular updates. Thanks for all the work that has been put in.

However, I kept my BANK because I have always believed in the vision of a movement of people that are paving the way to enable people to go bankless and help others to go bankless.

I do want to say something, but having been so uninvolved, please do feel free to totally ignore this. I promise I won’t be offended. I do think it should be said though.

It is very seldom that organisations come up with a name where you simply read the name, and immediately understand 100% what this organisation stands for, or if you don’t quite get it, with one more word you do.

Bankless is such a name. The first time I saw it, I loved it. I immediately bought some BANK, subscribed to the podcast, and tried to get involved. Unfortunately, I got totally lost in the Discord conversations, and not having much free time to work on this, I could not figure out how to add value, so eventually just gave up. However, I kept my BANK because I still believe in the vision of a world where banklessness is going to be a real option. I still hold a few hundred thousand BANK.

Even if you don’t immediately know what Bankless does, if you said, Bankless, and then added only the word Web3, probably 99% of the people who are within your target audience will immediately know that this is an organisation who is trying to create a movement that will enable us to break free from the constraints of the current global banking system. And almost every person who is in any way involved in the Web3 world supports that mission – even if they might not want to go totally bankless themselves. The creation of a world where that becomes possible, is a powerful mission.

It is very, very difficult to come up with such a powerful name.

If I were you, I would not give that up.

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I trust many of the Transition Council (TC) members, especially the ones I’ve known since our time in the then Writers Guild @hirokennelly, @Trewkat, and @WinVerse (whom I currently work with). However, this is not to imply that I don’t trust the other members of the Council.

Great job, TC! I have confidence that you will continue to act in the best interests of the DAO. Keep up the good work.

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This is very important, and very reassuring. Thank you for this clarification. I was concerned that any organisation with the label DAO still plans to include the community in voting decisions.

I hope the TC will do their absolute utmost to continue to include the community, as best as possible, and giving them opportunityb to contribute in time as has been the case in the past.

This may not be possible in the immediate short term, but I would love to see this held closely as a future aspiration.

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