Committee Weekly May 31, 2022
Attendance
links, rene, Icedcool, kouros, jameswmontgomery, lion917
Date
May 31, 2022
Last Edited Time
Mar 16, 2023
Last edited by
Note-taker
Recording
Multi-select
Accounting
- Bank for the remaining of the season: 7,059,211.713
- Average BANK per week left : 784,356.857
- Grants Committee Funding tracking
Discussion
Grants Committee Procedures
VOTE: Do you agree to adopt the Grants Committee Procedures as stated in the above proposal?
- Yes: links, Rene, Icedcool, Kouros, jameswmontgomery, lion917
- No:
- Abstain:
THE MOTION PASSES
Project: DEGEN
Multisig: 0x438F3B7FE34A9D9687D32A81a0Cfcd05b8d2E8EF
Speaker: JonValjon.eth#5554, Slinkypotato
Ask: 721,000 BANK = 1,188,674.73 - 147,674.73 (already paid for infrastructure) - 320,000(paid from previous multisig)
KPIs (discussed last week)
- # discord servers
- # premium events/subscriptions
Since last time
- executed transactions
- funds moved to new DEGEN multisig and Support Server
- Slinky/JVJ will sign IP release for Mad Hatter and other contributors will sign an agreement for DEGEN IP
Why does control of the multisig matter?
- Multisigs are the only mechanism that we have to uniquely identify projects.
- They are our blockchain-native consensus primitive, and essentially show we have community support and continuity
- Lack of a multisig is evidence of underlying issues in the project
Two identified risks:
- Centralization risk. This project is centred around a single contributor, SlinkyPotato
- He owns the development and deployment infrastructure, the code (which is now closed source), the GTM and support infrastructure, and the verified Discord keys.
- Centralization around a single person is a problem - what happens if that person has a better opportunity or gets hit by a bus? All assets that the DAO and fellow contributors have invested will be lost
- This is a second time that this happened - previously happened during Bounty Board and the Github and was in a position to kick people out of the project
- Turnover risk. This is not the same team that built the successful DEGEN
- The people who built the GTM, support, talent/team-building infrastructure are all gone.
- That means that the success that you have had so far is less likely.
Response to centralization risks - DEGEN states that there are some operating agreements, standards, and plans to extend access to more members
- hoping to address these concerns through creation of a corporation and operating agreements
- so the legal agreement with the corporation means that the keys are owned by the corp and not an individual
- open to other solutions - they don’t know if there are better ways to do this
- their research has shown this to be the best approach
- Operating agreement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Po4lsLtXmf3goUFpisJbMow2WIMaEdS4EtIYCq_rn4/edit?usp=sharing
- james: How do you reconcile multisig approach with SlinkyPotato owning 80% of the DEGEN LLC?
- links: I restrict myself to just the on-chain entity and leave the interaction with the fiat corp to the project. So I don’t reconcile it.
- lion isn’t too worried about centralization, more important to get revenue and maybe centralization will help. It’s up to the project to make it work
Response to turnover risk
- talent and infrastructure - SlinkyPotato was the only person who onboarded JVJ
- PM and strategy - didn’t have any tasks or strategy, they were working on TONS of features (lists at least 5 major features)
- support team and ambassador - they were helping grow DEGEN and support users
- so far, SlinkyPotato and JVJ have been able to handle this, continuing to grow the # of servers
- JVJ has skills in finance, entrepreneurship, support, e-learning design, taught himself to code
Two core contributors have a lot on the go - day jobs + half time and full time on DEGEN
- they have been able to do it so far, but having more teammates would help
- they need a frontend dev to make DEGEN successful
Disputes in DEGEN so far based on DEGEN culture - how would you avoid these in the future?
- Contributor agreement (above) allows people to not expose themselves (can just be ETH address)
- they distribute work based on bounties
- to open up infrastructure - contributors must have a bigger stake in the project (i.e. equity, KYC)
- Icedcool would like to that there is no way for people to abuse a central position of power
VOTE: Do you agree to fund DEGEN for 721,000 BANK as stated in the above proposal with the KPIs mentioned above?
- Yes: Rene, Icedcool, Kouros, jameswmontgomery, lion917, links (provisionally)
- Icedcool states that his previous engagement with DEGEN and ombuds, had him feeling that he should be an abstain, but because of the importance of this discussion and the precedent it sets in terms of the GC to ensure that projects are value aligned that he should have an opinion and vote.
- He voted yes because:
- Degen has made reasonable attempts at resolution of the conflict, and come to a solution.
- That they are further defining operating agreements and ownership definition to ensure this does not happen in the future with additional contributors.
- James states that if the ombuds conflict had not been resolved, his vote would have been no. It’s not great that we have to navigate this conflict, and will likely vote no if there continues to be ombuds cases with DEGEN
- No:
- Abstain:
THIS MOTION PASSES
Project: bDAO Media partnerships with Global ETH events
Forum post: https://forum.bankless.community/t/banklessdao-media-partnerships-with-global-eth-events/3578
Speaker: jengajojo.eth🏴#5896
Ask: 398,500
KPIs? What does success look like?
- mission_KPI
- self-sovereignty_KPI
VOTE: Do you agree to fund bDAO Media partnerships with Global ETH events for 398,500 BANK as stated in the above proposal with KPIs to be determined asynchronously?
- Yes: Rene, Icedcool, Kouros, jameswmontgomery.eth, lion917, links
- No:
- Abstain:
THIS MOTION PASSES