Dear Bankless Nation 🏴,

One analogy for governance in a large and vibrant DAO such as ours might be that it’s akin to making modifications to the rudder while trying to steer the ship through the deep, and sometimes choppy, ocean. The decisions and actions we take today will impact our experience and our direction in the coming months. In this week's editorial, Kornekt gives us a preview of what we might expect for Season 7 in light of the governance decisions taken in Season 6.

During this week’s Community Call, we were fortunate to witness the launch of the Governator bot in a poll presented by jameswmontgomery.eth, we added the upcoming Hedgey Finance demo to our diaries, and we heard about the release of the Decentralized Arts newsletter’s second NFT drop which will return 10% of proceeds back to the DAO Treasury. The call was summed up with an insightful round table presentation about the scope and direction of the Ombuds office.

For those that were anticipating a gap week in the coming week, please note that the official gap week will run from February 6 - 12. Season 7 will begin on February 13. In the meantime, let's stay bullish and have an awesome weekend. bDAO Strong 💪.

Contributors: Kornekt, Chameleon, Austin Foss, theconfusedcoin, KingIBK, Paulito, anointingthompson1.eth, WinVerse, Liquidiot, Trewkat, siddhearta, HiroKennelly

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Steadying the Ship For Season 7

Author: Kornekt

It's the end of another season at BanklessDAO and it's time to reflect on what we've been building and where that might take us in Season 7. The DAO's Season 6 began with the unpleasant news of the FTX implosion, which amplified the existing FUD in the market. However, the external bearish sentiment did not affect our conviction about the value we're creating, nor did it slow down our progress, as guilds, departments, and projects at the DAO remained focused on fulfilling their mandates.

Season 6 saw governance take center stage with the completion of the GSE Cohort 1 and the initiation of multiple Forum proposals targeted at improving the DAO's governance processes. We're now at a point where we not only count the successes of the outgoing season, but also build upon them as we move forward towards a bright future. We know that, whether the bulls return now or later, we will continue to build structures that advance the adoption of web3.

As we head into Season 7, the DAO will implement several proposals that have already passed, continue discussions around those that are still pending, and will surely see several new innovations that will help propel the DAO's mission. We are always looking towards improving the existing process and ensuring that the Constitution appropriately captures operational realities and is properly refined.

Here's a sneak peek into some governance changes and other possible modifications to our activities in Season 7.

Governance Department

Governance is everyone's responsibility; this mantra has never been more true. However, some members believe we need to establish a department that coordinates governance activities. The rationale behind this idea is that increased efficiency and proper/timely implementation would be achieved if we have a dedicated department that is fully focused on stewarding this aspect of the DAO. The Governance Department will most likely become a reality in Season 7. There’s no precedent for the creation of a department without a pre-existing guild, but the proposal includes a breakdown of the financial implications and seasonal KPIs for your consideration.

Quorum Requirements

What should be the standard quorum for grant proposals and bDIPs? The bDIP 01 aimed to correct the inconsistencies in grant proposal requirements in terms of what was captured in the Constitution versus what was in use by the Grants Committee. The proposal and subsequent Snapshot vote ensured that the Constitution delegates authority to the Grants Committee to set appropriate quorum requirements for grant proposals each season.

In Season 7, we’ll see further activity around quorum requirements, especially for bDIPs — which are proposals to change the Constitution. A new proposal, bDIP 03, suggests we allow for a dynamic approach to setting quorum for bDIPs. The current static thresholds do not account for fluctuations in the number of active contributors through bull and bear cycles. This proposal suggests a dynamic quorum be based on a 30-day average formula. Would this be the best way to go in Season 7 and beyond, or does using a formula leave the process prone to errors? Have your say on this idea.

Shielded Voting on Snapshot

When a token-weighted vote is in progress on Snapshot, users can view the cumulative results, creating the potential for existing results to influence the decision of new voters. No one likes to be the one that stands out like a sore thumb, right? This is obviously detrimental to governance activities, as new voters may simply vote with the majority instead of expressing their true sentiment.

There is currently a proposal to implement shielded voting, a new feature on Snapshot, whereby the results are not available until the poll closes. As a test, shielded voting has been implemented for the current Grants Committee election. While this form of shielded voting is still in its experimental phase on Snapshot, there is community inclination implement it fully in Season 7.

Coordinated Timing Across the DAO

During the season, there were discussions around what time zone the DAO should be aligned to. The Constitution does not specify a standard, and time disruptions occur at the change to Daylight Saving Time in certain regions of the world. We are a global organization, and it is only appropriate that we are aligned to a time zone that is globally accepted.

With the passage of this bDIP in Snapshot, the DAO will now officially operate according to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This change will likely only be evident for guilds and departments that did not previously align their timing to UTC. Though seemingly a minor change, this will go a long way towards ensuring efficiency in the DAO's operations and seeing to it that we operate with a global perspective.

Coordinape Pause / Reduction

Due to the fraud and gaming of the Coordinape system, there were discussions around pausing or reducing the amount of BANK in Coordinape for Season 7. This would keep BANK emission in check as we work around creating a DAO-wide compensation structure that is less susceptible to gaming and fraud. Since the discovery of these issues during the December epoch, there was a soft consensus in the Ops department not to pay out the December round and to pause the DAO Coordinape for the rest of the season. We will most likely continue the pause into Season 7 or drastically cut down on the amount being spent per season. You can read the incident report and vote for next steps in the proposal authored by links.

Schedule and Funding

Season 7 starts on Monday, February 13, with the official launch via Twitter Spaces confirmed for Friday, February 10 at 16:00 UTC which is during the gap week. There have been several discussions around extending the current season length to help DAO teams focus on fulfilling their mandates instead of constantly developing the next budget, but we're not likely to see a change in season length for Season 7.

At the beginning of Season 6 as part of the seasonal funding process, the Grants Committee distributed a total of 22 million BANK to guilds, departments, and projects. Around 10 million of this was for guilds and departments, with the remaining 12 million allocated to existing projects.

During the season, a further six project teams sought and received funding via Grants Committee: web3 professionals, DAOStewards, Weekly Roll-Up Video Series, Decentralized Arts newsletter, Coordinape Incident, and BanklessDAO at ETH Denver collab.

Closing Thoughts

The bear markets may linger or perhaps we'll burst into the long-awaited bull run. Either way, in Season 7, we're going to continue on our mission of educating and onboarding the world into crypto and web3. To think that it's almost two years that we've been doing this! Yeah, the end of Season 7 will mark the end of the second year of the DAO's existence. Happy Birthday in advance, bDAO!

Even though it seems like we're only one step out of the cave, Season 7 will see us implement more informed decisions on how to improve the DAO's processes; we’ll do what we do, but better. No doubt, there is still much work to be done to make us efficient at fulfilling our mandate, but as we continue building structures and firming up our processes, we'll be beating the drum of progress for the DAO.

🗓 Weekly Recap

Community Highlights

📺 Weekly Rollup Recap With Liquidiot

Join Liquidiot for the most fun you can have in 10 minutes and 32 seconds. With his trademark good humor and whacky take on the previous issue of the Weekly Rollup, Liquidiot delivers shiny bite-sized goodness. Holy mop-top it’s good stuff, Batman!

You can find all the previous episodes on the BanklessDAO YouTube Channel.

If you enjoy these videos and want to see production continue, head to the Forum and vote in favor of the Weekly Rollup Recap S7 Funding Proposal.

What’s New

🎤 bDAO AMA With ENS Domains

Do you want to learn from the best in web3? Listen to this AMA with Nick Johnson, founder of ENS Domains — the blockchain's answer to domain names. Learn how one of web3’s top projects gained awareness and nailed product market fit. Nick also shares what drives ENS to keep innovating and the secret sauce to their success. A must listen!

👨🏻‍⚖️ Legal Guild AMA

The legal ramifications of forming a DAO are still unclear. In this AMA, you’ll hear TheThriller.eth (Adam Miller), lawpanda, James Wigginton, and DAOlexa from the Legal Guild discuss jurisdictions within the United States that have taken a favourable stance towards DAOs.

🖼️ New d’Art Drop

This week’s NFT drop for the Bankless community is titled Connection. It’s a mixed media art piece created by debrabdesign. Once again the NFT is priced at 0.02 ETH and is brought to you by the Decentralized Arts newsletter.

Connection. As the old world and its systems fall away, new connections will be made uniting nature and technology in a symbiotic relationship beneficial to humans and our environment.

Fresh Content

🎙 BanklessDAO Podcasts

Get Involved

🚀 Get Ready for the Season 7 Launch Event

The official bDAO Season 7 launch event is scheduled on Twitter Spaces for Friday, February 10 at 16:00 UTC. There’ll be time for guilds, departments, and projects to present their achievements and update the community about plans for Season 7. To ensure your contributions are not missed, please DM sandeepdas#2062 to confirm who will be speaking on behalf of your team. The agenda for the kick-off will be finalised and closed at 18:00 UTC sharp on February 9.

Learning Opportunities

🎁 DAOlationships Demo — Hedgey Finance

Hedgey Finance allows DAOs to create time-locked tokens backed by customizable NFTs, giving holders access to voting and all token-gated areas of their ecosystem. Hedgey Finance has worked with Gitcoin, Gnosis, Shapeshift, DAOhaus and more!

Join us for a live demo on Wednesday, February 1 at 19:30 UTC in the watercooler voice channel to see how we can create time-locked BANK. To set a reminder, RSVP to the event.

🏛 Governance

Snapshot Votes

Grants Committee Election for S7 and S8

As per our Constitution, BanklessDAO’s Grants Committee (GC) has four seats open for new contributors. During the application period only three contributors chose to throw their hats in the ring:

p8ul.eth
raybankless.eth🏴
Bananachain🏴(Nanner)

Due to there being fewer applicants than open seats this election will differ from previous polls in that it will be one Yes or No vote covering all three contributors. This will also be the first Snapshot vote using shielded voting, meaning the results won’t be known until voting ends on January 29 at 20:00 UTC.

Proposals in Discussion

DAO Code Of Conduct Revamp Proposal Draft 1.1

Infinitehomie.eth has drafted a proposal to expand the Code of Conduct in our Constitution. Currently this section outlines a dispute escalation process but does not address unethical or malicious behavior. This proposal suggests expanding the Code of Conduct to include a framework for dealing with such behavior in the future.