BanklessDAO Weekly Rollup #33: Governance Primer, $GMI Index Launch Phase & DAOpunks t-shirts
Catch up with what happened this week in the BanklessDAO.
Dear Bankless Nation,
The whole world is preparing for vacation and holidays, and so are we, but we can’t spend the next weeks only eating and drinking. No—we need to prepare for season 3. Every guild, every project, each DAO member, we need to think and plan for the coming road ahead.
Our DAO is growing rapidly and with this growth comes unforeseen challenges that we need to tackle if we want to continue operating effectively. Each part of the DAO will have to continue to evolve and adapt. The guilds are doing this by preparing structural changes, splitting roles, creating new ones, and of course, starting new projects. A lot of these changes require participation in governance and changes to our current governance structures, which is why this week we are featuring a Governance Primer, so our new members can discover the easiest ways to start participating in this critical aspect of DAO life.
Governance is everyone’s responsibility—which means now is the best time to level up and get involved.
Authors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild (EthHunter, Cheetah, ThePsychGuy, Ssasho0, kalex1138.eth)
This is the official newsletter of the BanklessDAO. You are subscribed to this newsletter because you were a Premium Member of the Bankless Newsletter as of May 1, 2021. To unsubscribe, edit your settings here.
BanklessDAO Weekly NFT Showcase 🔥
🧑🎨 Artist: Satoshi’s Mom
🏦 Auction Type: Open Edition
💰 Price: 0.0269 ETH
NFT Land
A pixelated meme map of the NFT scene, this 2400x2400px piece has been meticulously put together and features some of the dopest creators in our space. The sale will be open for 48 hours only. If there are remaining copies afterward, they will be burned! Available via Rarible @ 2pm EST, 16th Dec 2021.
Community Highlights
🚀 $GMI Index Enters Launch Phase
We made it! Bankless $GMI index officially passed the Decision Gate 2 snapshot vote on Index Coop with 100% support. WAGMI frens! Decision Gate 2 is the final vote for onboarding products to the Index Coop.
👕 DAOpunks T-Shirt Redemption Period Opens Today!
DAOpunks is excited to announce that today, Friday, December 17, 2021, is the day we bring DAOpunks to meatspace - that's right - the 1/1 t-shirts are ready to be redeemed!
You may recall that each DAOpunks NFT is coupled with a limited-edition t-shirt. The physical shirt features the DAOpunks JPEG along with metadata and a QR code signaling proof of ownership.
The redemption period will be open for one year. Head to www.daopunks.io and click or tap on "REDEEM SHIRT" at the top of the homepage to start the process.
Be sure to watch the redemption video and read the FAQ in the announcements channel of the Discord server. It’s very important to take your time and follow all the steps when redeeming this t-shirt or you will not receive it.
If you have any questions or issues with your order, please head over to our support channel to create a ticket - help will quickly be on the way.
And a shameless plug for the DAOpunks Christmas party tomorrow at 3pm PST in the DAOpunks Community Voice channel. Hope to see you there!
❄️ Season 3 planning continues
Yes, Season 3 is near, so planning continues and is reaching a critical phase. Everyone is invited to take part, raise their voice and cast their vote. If you want to submit a project and budget proposal, create a forum post, explain it and complete one of the following forms:
More details can be found in the governance primer editorial below.
What’s New
🧠 Crypto Sapiens podcast
Pickle Finance is a yield optimizing DeFi protocol that dishes out refreshingly crunchy auto-compounded rewards. Here Larry the Cucumber (Co-founder at Pickle Finance) talk about his journey into crypto, the history of DeFi, how they got involved with building a money fermentation machine, the future of protocol interoperability, and incentive structures. Take it with a grain of salt, because this information is not financial advice. Hosted by Humpty Calderon.
✍️ BanklessDAO Medium
In this second spotlight analysis, the focus is on user-friendliness. Anyone that wants to use DeFI needs at least a basic knowledge of financial services and technology. Not everyone has this knowledge though. It should then go without saying that educational content and new user experience are extremely important. This analysis reviews how three of the projects funded by Perpetual Protocol deal with those problems.
🎨 Lets design a POAP or two
Design Guild is running not one, but two POAP design competitions.
BanklessDAO Season 2 POAP Competition: If you are L1 or higher, then you can design the winning POAP to be issued for voting on the Season 3 Spec on Snapshot. The prize is 5000 BANK - mmm yummy.
Design Guild weekly meeting POAP: Even if you don’t win the first competition, there is a second chance. This time you will design the POAP for the guild’s weekly meeting through S3 and earn 1500BANK. The competition is open for everyone with a Design Guild tag including Guest passes.
Both will be closed simultaneously on 31st Dec 2021 at 12:00 UTC and voting will be open on January 1, 2022. So, what are you waiting for? Drink a creativity potion and go earn that BANK!
Details in Design Guild #job-postings
🦘 Bankless Australia launched
Bankless Australia launched on December 16, 04:30 AM UTC. The new node is set to work on interesting projects and also dive into the metaverse!
Get Involved
🎙 AMA with Copper Launch
Join NFThinker for an AMA with Ri, Product Owner of Copper Launch. We will discuss how Copper is enabling the free flow of capital for projects and investors across the globe. Other topics include multichain token launches, liquidity balancer pools, Arbitrum, Polygon and Ethereum mechanics.
👨🏫 Setting up a Substrate Blockchain
Developers guild member Tiki is setting up a Knowledge share session on “Setting up a Substrate Blockchain”. If you are interested tune in on Dec 21st.
#whyweDAO
🙏 Sponsor: UMA — Diversifying DAO Treasuries. DAO Better.
Governance Primer
By EthHunter
Organizing people is like herding cats some days! There must be easier ways to do this…
Governance is a word that is not understood by most people. That is until they start getting involved in a DAO. Governance sounds a little too similar to governments, and as such, most of us have not really wanted, or needed, to take part in it.
In short, governance is a mechanism used to create the structure or framework that allows groups of people to cooperate as effectively and efficiently as possible. This is a very important aspect of DAOs and human interaction in general. Included within the governance framework are models for how to adequately compensate people for their efforts and contributions to the DAO, as well as best practices for how to stay in alignment with a DAOs mission and values while continuing to build a strong vibe. It is the governance structure that determines how many of the interactions we have as a decentralized social system actually happen, and it is always changing and evolving to make the cat herding seem easier!
As we wind down season two, we have a lot of governance proposals coming down the pipeline for the next season. In order to best prepare our new DAO members, we’ve prepared this governance primer to help you understand the importance of taking part in the upcoming governance procedures.
“Governance is everyone's responsibility” -Nonsensetwice
Getting Involved
For those of us wanting to live a bankless life and take part in DAOs, there are a few things we need to learn in order to set off on the right path. In order to thrive in this space, you need to start understanding how governance works and how to get involved. You are just as responsible for governance as the rest of us!
At BanklessDAO, some of the ways you can get involved are:
Attend Guild governance calls
Read up on polls in #polls-discussion and vote in #polls
Write, take part in, and comment on forum proposals
Register your wallet and vote on Snapshot
What does getting involved actually look like?
Like many areas of the BanklessDAO, the easiest place to get started is to attend a guild governance call and start to talk about governance. Governance calls are an open space for members to meld ideas and have constructive, engaging conversations about challenging topics. The topics vary from broad overviews of concepts and projects to “rubber meets the road” conversations about challenges that need to be solved in a timely manner. It's all too easy to look at this space with too much optimism and then be stuck when something goes wrong or we outgrow our current framework.
Governance is an iterative process.
Luckily, the bDAO is a very forward thinking group that's great at identifying and assessing the various hurdles we encounter on a regular basis, then designing solutions as we go! We are all on a journey, and as such we need to keep adapting to the changing landscape. The purpose of all of these conversations is to create an accurate idea, create a proposal that can be brought to the DAO to gain consensus, and then be ratified.
Got an idea for a project? Write a proposal!
A few basics for what a project proposal requires:
Initiatives organized around specific outcomes that benefit the DAO
Often require cross-guild resources
Often require funding
Spearheaded by a champion(s) and a squad willing to commit their time
Have measurable outcomes
Impact DAO revenue streams or brand image
Voting
Voting is important, and every idea has to start somewhere!
Sometimes voting is simply a temperature check inside Discord or a forum proposal to gain soft consensus on an idea, and sometimes it’s the beginning of something big for bDAO! Brainstorming is a great way to fill in gaps and create discussion around a project or idea and to gather a feel for how it is being received. Some examples of this are:
What should our next move be?
Weather or not members would be interested in an event or activity
Future project proposals and requests
Opinions on which design to feature on guild swag
Seasonal specs adjustments that determine future changes
Soft Consensus
The first stage of the process is known as Soft Consensus and is usually done through forum proposals or Sesh bot, or even more informally in Discord posts with emojis to signal your opinion. Sesh bot does not allow for anonymous voting and this type of vote isn't token gated. As such, it's a one vote for one person system. The information collected here is valuable and informs the creators as to when something needs to be revised or if it can head up the pyramid for further consideration once traction is gained. At this phase, either a poll or a draft of a proposal is needed. Some use cases are:
Nominations to L2 for people’s meaningful contribution to the bDAO
Temp checks and revisions needed for proposals
If we should change the schedule for the holidays
Gap week as interim between seasons.
Any project that you would want to go to hard consensus
This is also the stage where some more formal answers are received. Soft consensus voting usually consists of a few standard options (1) Yes (2) No or (3) Adjustments Needed, and a space to vocalize said adjustments either in the chat or by adding an option to the poll. This is normally where a proposal or idea either goes up to further stages, or back down for conversation and revision before attempting the process again.
Hard Consensus
There are however many proposals or projects that tackle bigger issues or need funding, and need to pass through all the steps in order to be funded and implemented. These changes and proposals are often complex and need to be properly communicated to the DAO, with proper time for members to digest and process new information. The proposals that make it to this point are usually very well polished and concise. They have passed through multiple stages and drafts, and have had opinions and revisions applied. Soft consensus has been passed at this stage and a more official and formal vote is needed to finalize.
Voter fatigue is real!
For these reasons, we have a very comprehensive proposal process that makes it possible to reduce the amount of voting needed and thus, increase participation in votes, giving the DAO a more accurate representation of the DAOs opinions and sufficient quorum.
What is Quorum?
Quorum requirements are formalities to achieve sufficient consensus. At Bankless however, we have taken it a step farther. Even if a proposal reaches quorum as well as meeting voting requirements, it is the responsibility of the authors and squad of the proposal to capture feedback and make adjustments to achieve better alignment. If someone raises a good point or has sufficient disagreement, revisions will be made to incorporate that feedback.
Snapshot
The Final stage of the process is on-chain voting, where the proposal is sent to Snapshot for hard consensus. These votes are the most important inside bDAO and as such are token gated, where the voter must connect their wallet to Snapshot and vote with a specific token (in our case BANK), where the amount of token held reflects the weight of your vote. As an example:
Total amount of BANK used to vote: 1,000,000 BANK
You hold and vote with 1000 BANK
Total vote weight: 0.01%
Why do we need Governance?
Keeping the DAO running and heading in the right direction is HARD! It takes a lot of collaboration and it isn't light work. Testing is necessary, and we need to make adjustments as we go. Sometimes you just don't know until you do the damn thing! The solutions that were made in the first few seasons were needed to get us to this point, but now we face new challenges due to rapid growth within the DAO. We need to be mindful of our current challenges and continue to create the solutions necessary to maintain our steady journey west.
Nothing is set in stone!
This space is constantly evolving and changing as we go. Governance requires upgrades and members need to continually level up. It's kind of like changing the engine of a plane as it's flying! It is super complex and yet we can trust in our forward momentum to carry us through. With a community as big as Bankless, if we fail to make governance a priority we would most certainly lose our way and ultimately succumb to Moloch! This is not an option for many of us!
It has been stated many times in the DAO and once before here, but it is important enough to reiterate!
“Governance is everyone's responsibility”
Now is the time to get involved and start to contribute to the future of the DAO.
#justDAOit
🏛 Governance
📱 Mobile App Season 3 Roadmap Voting
The proposal seeks to bring roadmap governance for the product we own and constantly use into the Bankless app. Particular candidate features that could be added to the app are opened up for polls to get feedback from the community. Since this resource is absent in many decentralized organizations, the proposal could gives us a competitive advantage and potentially be a revenue-generating asset. The polls help in assessing the interest and direction of the features, so go out and vote on them here.
💂🏼 Decentralization of Notion Permissions Proposal
The DAO's Notion page had security issues; well, not any more! In order to keep our workflow protected, this proposal seeks to tighten the grip on permissions to Bankless Notions site. It suggests decentralizing the Notions permissions to allow each guild set its own permissions. For DAO-wide pages, a Notion administrator from the Ops Guild will be appointed.
💪🏽 Discord Reorganization
Bankless is growing rapidly and our Discord channels have hit the maximum limit! This proposal offers four key solutions to manage this problem. For all the guilds and projects within the DAO, a channel limit and pre-defined channels are proposed to be implemented. Further, the most trafficked channels are proposed to be included as threads in the #start-here channel.
👨🏼💻 Website Project Season 3 Proposal
BanklessDAO website is the face of the DAO and helps onboard new members. The website requires regular updates and the addition of fresh content to let the outside world know of our projects and activities. This proposal seeks to put together a team to supply regular and fresh content to the website and enable us to be a market leader.
☎️ Community Call Revamp for Season 3
With a huge audience, the Community Call is a great platform to build BanklessDAO culture. We ought to utilize it effectively. This proposal seeks to revamp the call structure with specific time stamps. The first 30 minutes will be for the project leaders and keynote speakers and the new format will focus largely on Q&A.
🎙 Community Call Streaming/Recording
Soundman has been recording and/or streaming our weekly community calls for free up until now. It is time that we compensated him for that. This proposal seeks to compensate Soundman for his work. He will also be responsible for streaming the community call on Twitch and Youtube as well.
📚 EPA Season 3 Budget Proposal
The proposed Season 3 budget of our fellow editorial-and-publishing arm (EPA) is out on forums. Aiming for sustainability by Season 6, the EPA will be focusing on nurturing better client partnerships, improving talent acquisition, and member development. The proposal is packed with various strategies EPA plans to deploy and to scale up; do check it out!
🏦 Bankless Loans Grant Proposal S3
The Bankless Loans project aims to create a front-end for Liquity, an interest-free loan protocol. After successful implementation, Bankless Loans will earn LQTY rewards (roughly 2%) distributed by the protocol.
👷♂️ Governance Solutions Engineer Program
Bankless DAO is suffering from two main problems: contributor retention and strategic prioritization. This proposal to seeks to address these problems by having a dedicated team who will offer enhanced solutions. The team will consist of the three members elected as Governance Solutions Engineers. To refine this proposal, go out and vote here.
Action Items
💸 Grants Committee Applications: Apply to be a role holder in Grants Committee.
✍🏼 Season 3 Specification: The first draft is out on forums! Get involved and share your feedback.
🌎 Check out IMN project: Check out various geographical branches of bDAO born out of our International Media Nodes project.
🏃♀️ Catch up: Review this week's community call notes or listen to the recording.
🙏Thanks to our sponsor
UMA
UMA helps DAOs build products to diversify their treasury. Most DAO treasuries are imbalanced, holding too many native-governance tokens. By using UMA’s success tokens and KPI options, DAOs can fortify their treasury, preparing for any market while building loyalty.
👉 Join the #bankless Channel in the UMA Discord.
👉 Tell UMA What DAOs you belong to.
👉 Verified Bankless DAO members can earn KPI Options. Go to the Discord to learn more.
