Hello bDAO - This is the Season 5 Community Vote!
Previously, this post would have been called a Temp Check, but we’ve decided to go with Community Vote to reflect the importance of some of the elements.
For those who are newer to the DAO, this post serves to collect sentiments on specific DAO-wide topics and inform the Season 5 Specification. Discussion is not limited to the polls included in this post, so if you have an idea or change to propose for Season 5, please include a comment for discussion, below.
Membership Thresholds
The current membership threshold stands at 35,000 BANK to join the Discord. We have the option to increase, decrease, or keep the existing threshold in Season 5.
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Pros of increasing: Requires people sitting at the threshold to “opt-into” the next Season
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Cons of increasing: Increases barriers to entry for new participants
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Pros of decreasing: Increases accessibility for joining the DAO (less of a need for guess passes!)
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Cons of decreasing: Leave contributors with less skin in the game.
- Keep Threshold Unchanged
- Decrease Threshold
- Increase Threshold
0 voters
The current BANK requirement for membership is 35,000. As a follow-up for the membership threshold:
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Hold at 35,000 BANK
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Decrease to 25,000 BANK
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Decrease to 10,000 BANK
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Raise to 40,000 BANK
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A different threshold than the options above (please comment below)
0 voters
Splash Zone and Level 3 (Whale) Status
- Keep threshold unchanged for Whale status
- Increase threshold for Whale status
- Decrease threshold for Whale status
0 voters
Budget
In the past, a capped budget constrained a lot of projects and guilds. In Season 3 and 4 we opened the option for a flexible budget following all project & guild submissions to accommodate mid-season proposals and/or Guilds & Projects seeking additional funding (within reason).
Historical Seasonal Budget Allocations:
- Season 1 allocated 11M BANK
- Season 2 increased spending to 20.5M BANK
- Season 3 we increased spending to 30M BANK
- Season 4 we allocated 22M BANK + 1.2 ETH
For reference, the BanklessDAO treasury currently holds 154M BANK.
In Season 5, we should:
- Keep Seasonal Spending the same as Season 4
- Increase Seasonal Spending
- Decrease Seasonal Spending
0 voters
Funding Requirements
In Season 4, we increased accountability requirements for Project funding greater than 100,000 BANK. Successful Projects were provided only half of their funding request up-front, with the remainder disbursed after an assessment of project milestones mid-season. The GC also developed a new KPI submission process, though the KPI assessments are high-level.
Some feel these are adequate risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding, while others feel they’re not enough.
In Season 5, we should:
- Increase risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding
- Decrease risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding
- Maintain the risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding
0 voters
Simplifying the Funding Process
Going into Season 4, voters opted against reducing funding requirements broadly. However, there has been some discussion around Automatic Guild Funding mechanisms, as access to funding requests tend to involve a lot of time and effort.
In Season 5, we should:
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Maintain current funding access requirements (i.e. all Guilds and Projects must submit funding proposals to the GC prior to season transition)
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Implement Automatic Guild Funding based on the proposed mechanism to alleviate administrative burden for Guilds with consistent function across seasons
0 voters
Grants Committee
The Grants Committee has distributed approximately 30% of its budget for Season 4, which includes new projects only. For context, at the same point in Season 3, nearly 50% of the GC budget had been distributed. This decrease in distribution suggests there were fewer new projects in S4, and/or those projects didn’t request as much funding.
Any funding that is not disbursed during a given season is retained by the GC for future disbursement, and is considered an “interest free loan” from the DAO. This is intended to account for fluctuations in project funding requests from season to season. However, it may not be ideal to have BANK accumulating with the GC for long periods of time, and the GC allocation should typically reflect its needs.
With this in mind, in Season 5 we should:
- “Top-up” the Grants Committee allocation for S5 so they will start S5 with 7M (S4 carry-over funding + “top-up” = 7M BANK total)
- Decrease Grants Committee allocation (<7M BANK)
- Increase Grants Committee allocation (>7M BANK)
- Keep Grants Committee funding the same (7M BANK)
0 voters
Grants Committee Compensation Adjustment for Season 5
This has been included as part of the Community Vote as the outcome might require an update to the Season 5 Specification.
The scope of the work of the Grants Committee has expanded considerably. Compared to Season 3, Season 4 has not only seen additional work items like consulting projects on their KPI definition and measurement. We also realized that being a Grants Committee member can be lived in many different ways depending on your skills but also your interest in using the Grants Committee mandate to evolve and shape the position or the DAO in general.
To incentivize Grants Committee work and to increase transparency, what work is being performed we propose to change the compensation structure of the Grants Committee.
Base Salary
The base salary should be compensated for the meeting attendance and for living the individual’s interpretation of the Grants Committee mandate. In addition the Grants Committee lead has the responsibility to prepare the weekly meets and in general coordinate the activities of the Grants Committee
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7 Grants Committee Members; compensation 50k BANK/member
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2 Grants Committee Leads; additional compensation 25k BANK/lead
Bonus Salary
A bonus salary should be granted as a Coordinape round. This bonus salary should compensate for Grants Committee members who e.g. initiate process improvements to the Grants Committee, initiate an evolution of the Grants Committee mandate or initiate an evolution of the DAO as a whole within the mandate of the Grants Committee.
This Coordinape round should have a total volume of 250k BANK
Bounty
Recurring tasks that can be well defined can be bountied out. This allows also that these tasks could be taken on by someone externally to the Grants Committee.
We think of the following tasks to be bountied out:
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Accounting work → 2hrs/week*13 weeks = 26k BANK
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Recording of GC sessions incl. basic audio clean-up and transcript (2k BANK per session by AV guild for 13 weeks) → 26k BANK
Total compensation request 702k BANK
Please note that this operational and remuneration funding is distinct from the Project Funding managed by the Grants Committee, as seen in polls above.
Going forward, we should:
- Increase Grants Committee allocation according to these proposed changes
- Maintain current Grants Committee allocation (please provide comments below)
- Increase Grants Committee allocation but not to the extent of this request (please provide comments below)
0 voters
Guild Funding
Season 4 distributed 8.6M BANK + 1.2 ETH to the 12 guilds in Bankless DAO. You can get a full breakdown 12 of the funding distribution here. In Season 5, we should:
- Keep Guild Funding Unchanged
- Decrease Guild Funding
- Increase Guild Funding
0 voters
Project Funding
Season 4 distributed 13.3M BANK to the 17 projects in BanklessDAO. You can get a full breakdown 12 of the funding distribution here. In Season 4, we should:
- Keep Project Funding Unchanged
- Increase Project Funding
- Decrease Project Funding
0 voters
Contributor Rewards
This post generated considerable discussion and we’ve included it in the Community Vote as part of a process to formalize any changes that might be made to bDAO’s use of Coordinape going forward. Please carefully review Links’ post and if you have any concerns, please identify them in the comments below.
In Season 5, we should:
- Implement the proposed changes to bDAO’s use of Coordinape
- Maintain the way bDAO currently uses Coordinape
0 voters
Season 2 expanded the Contributor Rewards to multiple rounds, including monthly rounds for Contributors, Level 1s, and recent Guest Passes. In total, 3.5M BANK was distributed via this method. Season 3 increased contributor rewards further, with 4.5M BANK distributed via the same methods. In Season 4, we chose to maintain the same allocation (4.5M BANK) for distribution via Coordinape.
In Season 5, we should:
- Keep Contributor Rewards Unchanged
- Increase BANK Allocation to Contributor Rewards
- Decrease BANK Allocation to Contributor Rewards
0 voters
Governance
The GSE have been developing proposals for changes to the way bDAO governs itself. One of the proposed changes is to create a bDAO Constitution and bDIP Standard. To formalize the process for any changes made to the way bDAO governs itself, we’ve included this as an element of the Community Vote.
In Season 5, we should:
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Make the necessary changes to the Season 5 Specification to allow the GSE to implement the proposed bDAO Constitution and bDIP Standard
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Not include this as an element of the Season 5 Specification (for any number of reasons - please specify in the comments below so your concerns may be addressed)
0 voters
Please keep in mind that none of these poll results are final, they simply represent the DAO’s sentiment as we build out the Season 5 spec, which will go through its own independent governance process.
If you feel anything is missing, or you would like to include something for consideration for Season 5, or you have thoughts and ideas you’d like to share on what has been presented here, please comment below!