We need to improve our framework for how we make decisions. The goal of this exercise is to define types of proposals and to (hopefully) eventually incorporate these changes into our governance structure. This is my attempt to think this through using the recent, real example of deciding what stablecoins our treasury should hold.
To start, I propose we define the types of proposal that our DAO could take:
Types of Proposals
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Protocol Proposal: This proposal is for changes to the official phonon repositories (GitHub - GridPlus/phonon-client: GridPlus client for interacing with Phonon compatible hardware, GitHub - GridPlus/phonon-app, GitHub - GridPlus/phonon-card: Phonon Javacard Applet for Secure P2P Private Key Transfer and Storage, and GitHub - GridPlus/phonon-network: Specification for the Phonon Network).
- Things to consider:
- Would likely involve Pull Requests – could we automate it somehow where an approved snapshot auto-merges code?
- What would the technical review process look like?
- The protocol is still new and evolving rapidly, do we really want the DAO voting for every PR? Right now GridPlus manages these repos. When would that change?
- Things to consider:
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Social Proposal: This proposal asks for agreement for the DAO on something that is not related to our official phonon repositories. Examples include Working Group creation, updating multisig holders, and other one-off decisions the DAO needs to make.
- We already loosely define these proposals in the working group election process. The gist would be to go from Discourse proposal for formal discussion, Discourse vote, then Snapshot vote.
- Is there an instance where Snapshot is overkill? Is a Discord or Discourse poll ever sufficient to commit the DAO to a decision?
- Personally, I would argue “no,” but I’m open to opposing views.
- Governance Proposal: This is a social proposal that asks the DAO amend our official governance structure. The quorum/approvals will be stricter than a regular social proposal.
How do Working Groups Fit into the decision-making process?
Working Groups are created via social proposals. Working Groups are endowed with authority by the DAO when voted into existence. Working Groups will make decisions and take actions based on said authority.
Working Groups vs One-Off Snapshot Votes
When it comes to trying to accomplish something, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to vote on this as a DAO (possibly multiple times), or do we want to create a Working Group to manage this?
An illustrative Example: What stable coins should we hold in our treasury?
With respect to the stablecoin question above, there are two tracks we could take: individual social proposals or Working Group creation.
- A Treasury Working Group could have authority to decide what assets our treasury should hold, as well as direct the multisig to execute transactions to maintain a specific allocation.
- Pros: Theoretically the working group would be managed by experts whom the DAO trusts to manage this.
- Cons: A bit more bureaucratic overhead
- A social proposal could be put forth each time someone wants to propose a change to our treasury’s holdings
- Pros: More agile
- Cons: Requires DAO engagement each time a change is needed
Next Steps
Let’s discuss. If we agree in theory with these types of proposals, then I will flesh out the mechanics with the community and ultimately propose a PhIP to incorporate them into our governance structure. We will need to think about quorums, requirements for how long discussion should be open, etc.
NOTE: This does not answer the question, “How does our DAO define our priorities?” I believe we already have a mechanism for that, and it is the Long-Term Strategic Plan.