A Discussion on DAOs Performance, Funding, and a way forward

Governance
24

@shestov , This forum was made exactly for this reason. To engage with each and every DAO that has been funded and allow them to speak on their own behalf in ONE place. I’ve stated this many times and I am more than willing to continue to donate my time in researching any DAO that would like to show more data and deliverables. Please make sure that you have read all of the posts and replies to better understand my stance.

For the record, this post mostly covers the DAOs that were funded. I researched every DAO on the forum and mapped out their financials in a separate spreadsheet. So if there are over 50 DAOs accounted for in my writing that have been funded, imagine how many there are that were declined. I read those too. There are nearly 20 hours of research and writing that have gone into this thread, all of which is my free time that I use for our community because I want to see positive change and sustainable action moving forward for all of us.

I have read the ONE month in review document and have slightly modified my post on the ONERuDAO, but the fact does remain that the DAO was approved with very little upfront support on the forum.

After the last funding round, this DAO became very quiet and I understand that the war may have some affect on that. But these are the facts. Additionally, I cannot read the Russian language and there are posts on the forum that have not been considered. Still, those posts fall within the two month period of activity from this DAO.

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25

I understand you are volunteering on this work. But the sentiment of your post looks more like the attack on DAOs. There were a lot of scammers and low-effort people (fortunately, they are gone) operating DAOs. But there were/are also a lot of bulders and true believers. In your research, I suggest you have a chat with DAO governors before releasing any summary statements on a particular DAO.

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26

ONERuDAO was approved fast because @nickv initiated it and directly delivered the ONERuDAO vision to the Harmony core team. Some DAOs would closely follow the Harmony Foundation vision and provide feedback on its operation. ONERuDAO was one of such DAOs. We have bootstrapped the DAO and set the working process as per Harmony Foundation guidelines, and then started to experiment with evolving: explored moving DAO operations to Gnosis; discussed and did some preparation for ONERuDAO native token launch (derivative token 100% backed by ONE; we had a discussion and brainstorm with Developer DAO on that); proposed and prepared the implementation of the new model for regional DAOs funding and rewards distribution to governors (to change the static 75 $/h model so something more practical and fair).

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27

I appreciate reading this kind of constructive back-and-forth and hope that we can all see the positivity in what @Pioneer is doing, as well.

I think that if any party has true and good intentions, and cares about the developmental future of the Harmony Blockchain project, they will look at this exercise as a chance to show their integrity and maybe even renew their energy and the vigor with which they started this building process. This is a time to build.

Anyone who had dishonest intentions won’t care to show up and comment.
Anyone who had honest intentions but lost their inspiration and takes offense at this exercise should probably look in the mirror and step up to do what is right (by the investment made by the community in their project).

Truly, this DAO experiment has been divisive and was mismanaged in many ways, but it is not a completely wasted effort and it requires the core team to step up (as I believe they have in many ways) to correct mistakes, but also those who received funding to get back to work if and when possible.

@robinnagpal - having spoken to you about your project and walked through one of the guides on my own, I know it has a ton of potential. DAO onboarding is a challenge and I think your idea is fantastic and if executed could significantly assist DAOs with the difficult process of bringing contributors in, in the future.

I could not read your replies because they have been removed, but I would hope you will continue with what you started and come back to the table. A bear market is the perfect time to follow up with the DAOs that have signs of life and start moving on the project again. I think you owe it to yourself and to the community.

@Pioneer made some very good points and was fair in his comments, I feel.

@shestov - I admit I don’t know anything about your project other than what I’ve read here, but it sounds like you are invested and I am truly sorry about what is happening in Ukraine now. Hope you and your family and the rest of your circle are safe, if you are there/from there, and that this nightmare ends soon.

We have opportunity now to build and grow this thing, despite the FUD and other negative things that have hit. If Harmony is going to make it out of this bear market, we all need to work together and do our part.

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28

Though I much appreciate the job @Pioneer has done on the investigation of the hack, I can only concur with other DAO governors that, if you are writing a report/summary/discussion on DAOs’ performance, maybe at least a good 10 minutes to do thorough research on each DAO. Our intitial funding proposal and mandates are here: zkDAO - providing training & basic income for ZK developers

All fundings so far have been disbursed according to the mandate and the required operation cost. Very transparent, not sure why you are using the word “confusing” to describe us. Something like this can really hurt DAOs’ reputation.

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29

Hey,

I appreciate the feedback and have outlined the hours of research that went into this document in its current stage above. That being said, zkDAO is labelled as confusing and honestly I have been meaning to follow up, because they/ you are obviously doing something very actively. I read everything on the forum and see the constant grant proposals being added into the space. Is there any chance of getting an AMA with zkDAO representatives, or even a vc in the 1DAO Alliance Discord Server. I am more than willing to add to my summaries and this is the initial account that contains some broad strokes for the DAOs that require a deeper dive.

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30

To be very honest, I think DAOs are in survival mode right now and the last thing we need is micromanagement (if you realize, 1DAO meetings have been paused, too). Our DAO is really trying to pivot and generate new revenues IF Harmony cannot guarantee future fundings.

That being said, our Discord server is open to public (with some student-only private channels) and we have newsletters published every month on our website zku.one. You are welcome to check out those.

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31

I completely understand and this post is meant to be a WIP report that consolidates a massive amount of disorganized information in a single place that we can discuss. I don’t aim to micromanage, but I am a project leader myself and I understand how tough these times are for everyone. If you’d like to at least see the questions that I annotated specifically for zkDAO, I will post them below. If you feel that there is a resource that I can read in greater detail, please link it and I will do further due diligence.

Questions for zkDAO

What makes your DAO sustainable aside from a steady stream of grant funding? Do you have any successful projects on Harmony that are self-sustaining at this time? How many projects have been granted funding through the zk program?

What type of ‘students’ attend or utilize the ZKU? Do you have any success stories from that user base/ graduate?

How many paid TAs are there and what are their salaries? How are hours logged and what are their deliverables?

I understand that ZK is broader than the Harmony community, but how has ZKU and zkDAO made a positive impact on Harmony directly?

What are the credentials for becoming a zk TA? And the administrative staff? (afaik each of these people are paid $8,000/ month)

The deliverables aimed to onboard many developers into the zk space. How has that gone so far and does this overlap with the current Harmony Core Developer DAO’s mission to onboard developers?

In your mission to support graduates in their post-training travel expenses, how many people have received funding, how much, and how is this process overseen?

Regarding Decentralized Basic Income (DBI), what has been the progress so far in establishing the program and how has it sought to or achieved sustainability, As this requires a vast amount of revenue stream?

Are any DAO members currently receiving dividend payments from treasury investments?

How many Subject Matter Experts (SME) have held seminars for the zkDAO and in what capacity ?

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32

Thanks for the questions. We will try to make plan to address each one of them in the future. The answers to a lot of them are public info that has been posted in our website, especially covered in our April, May, and June newsletters.

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33

I actually went to the site and the discord invite link there is invalid, as is the one provided in the 1DAO Alliance Server. If you can send an invite to me I will continue to do my own research. As of now I have read all pages on the site and am up to speed.

It is the invite link on this page: ZKU FAQs

Additionally, are there are treasury documents or expenditure reports?

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34

Can you try the discord invitation linked on our Twitter? https://twitter.com/harmonyzkdao

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35

Thank you for the post and current status

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36

@Pioneer ~ with regard to the LighItUpDAO - you don’t have that quite right. All the reporting for the DAO is here:

Also I don’t agree with your opinion that our deliverables are ‘largely superficial.’

We accomplished and exceeded the deliverables that we promised when funded. In my opinion crypto education, visibility for digital artists, and learning real skills are not superficial.

Bravo - on this in depth analysis, I also like to call it out when I see it. So I respect your courage.

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37

Wondering what people think of governors/signatories getting payed % of Treasury per hour with a min threshold and max cap?

So $1000 in Treasury at 0.1%/hr is $1/hr.
If Treasury goes below $1000 rate goes to 0.0%/hr
If Treasury goes above $75,000 rate is capped at $75/hr

Payout would be calculated from Treasury value at the end of the term/month. And of course these numbers are arbitrary, numbers could be voted on.

I think this puts the incentives in the right direction. Signatories are incentivized to be safer with funds, use time productively and grow the Treasury.

Thoughts and criticism welcomed :blue_heart:

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