zkDAO - providing training & basic income for ZK developers

Our DAO Constitution:

  1. This is the Constitution establishing the governance of zkDAO. Changes to this Constitution shall require approval by the membership body at large, where each individual member’s voting power will be weighted by their annual Decentralized Basic Income [DBI] amount.

  2. Membership of zkDAO is by design exclusive. This is in part because zkDAO provides funding support for zku.one (ZKU), as such the members together play an important role in facilitating the pedagogical duties of ZKU. Full members will be grantees who have launched a product involving the application of zero-knowledge proof technology (zk-product), with their grant proposal accepted by zkDAO (About the zkDAO category - #3 by hakwan). As such, we expect many to be previous ZKU graduates, where their final project may qualify them for the grant. These grants will allow them to receive DBI through the treasury of zkDAO, and accordingly, voting power.

  3. Acceptance of a zkDAO launch grant proposal, and thereby induction to the DAO, requires positive votes by 5 current governors posted publicly in the Harmony Forum. The governors must evaluate these in a timely manner, e.g. to respond to proposals approximately within a week.

  4. The same person, under the same online identity, can be awarded multiple grants, and thereby achieve a total DBI amount multiple times higher than some other member’s. However, the same person cannot apply for grants using different online identities. Should a single DAO member be found to have multiple membership accounts, all accounts concerned will be terminated and the person will be banned from the DAO.

  5. As per the rules of grant funding, some grantees described above in (2) may elect to receive a one-time payment instead of DBI. These grantees will be given non-voting memberships to zkDAO, also known as half membership. They can participate in zkDAO discussions, and access internal information available to other full voting members. But because of their lack of DBI, they will accordingly have zero voting power.

  6. Other half members include past governors of the DAO, as well as people deemed by the current board of governance (in a 6 out of 9 vote) as important contributors to the DAO, such as playing the role of financial advisory. Termination of an individual’s half membership requires a majority vote by the membership body at large. Full membership associated with DBI cannot be terminated or suspended unless otherwise stated within this constitution document (e.g. sections 4, 18, & 19).

  7. The founding governors of the DAO are listed in the zkDAO proposal posted on Mar 1, 2022 (zkDAO - providing training & basic income for ZK developers).

  8. To prioritize our pedagogical duties at ZKU, a minimum of 5 out of the 9 governors shall currently be teaching at ZKU at any given time.

  9. The remaining governance positions shall consist of two paid governors and two unpaid governors.

  10. One of the two unpaid governors is currently the Director of ZKU, who oversees the running of ZKU. Should this position be changed into a paid governor position, this change would require approval by the membership body at large per Section 1.

  11. The paid governors, like the teaching governors, shall be paid at the rate of $75 per hour for 20 hours per week. Should a payee feel that her/his work does not add up to 20 hours for a particular week, one should claim for fewer hours than stipulated by the maximum cap. All time sheets and weekly reports should be posted in public.

  12. Potential bonuses for the two paid non-teaching governor positions should be determined by the rest of the governance board (7 members), on a weekly basis. As in bonuses for ZKU, these are occasional (i.e. not given by default), should normally be within the range of 0% -25%, up to 50% under exceptional circumstances. Potential bonuses for the teaching staff and teaching governors are to be determined by the Director of ZKU.

  13. To allow for logistical continuity, governor positions shall not be re-elected de novo every funding period (2-3 months). Instead:

– 1. Governors will vote in a secret ballot on each other. To stay, a governor must receive support from the 6 out of 9 governors, including the vote from oneself. If a governor receives less than 6 votes, they will be “voted out,” and the seat will be up for open election by the membership at large. The remaining board can express a non-binding endorsement of individual candidates.

– 2. The team of governors elected internally to stay will have to seek an approval vote, as a team, from the entire membership body. Should the majority of the members (weighted by their DBI amount) vote to disband the current governance board, a general election will take place. Individuals will compete for the different positions, while maintaining the overall structure of the governance teams: 5 teaching staff, 2 paid admin staff, and 2 unpaid admin staff (including the ZKU director).

  1. Non-governing teaching staff members are currently paid at 10 hours per week (maximum), at the hourly rate of $75 per hour. The number of total teaching staff, as well as their maximum payment cap, is to be determined by the board of governance, based on a simple-majority approval vote on the ZKU Director’s proposal. The decision must be made such that our operational costs are sustainable, while maintaining our pedagogical duties.

  2. Besides the primary mandate of funding ZKU activities, zkDAO also allocates a budget for activities to support the engagement within the ZK industry. Another important duty is to maintain the treasury for the continued long-term support of DBI to zkDAO members. Unless otherwise specified within this document (e.g. section 16), all relevant financial decisions require 6 out of 9 signatures from the governors, and the decisions shall be made to support the longevity of maintaining these 3 goals: education (ZKU), engagement (with the ZK industry and relevant researchers), endowment (to maintain the treasury such that DBI can be sustainable for the longest term possible).

  3. For the purpose of logistical efficiency, governors, in a 6 out of 9 vote, may elect to delegate an account which can access a limited amount of funds from the safe, for a specific time limit, without having to collect all signatures for the execution. The primary purpose of this clause is to allow for efficient disposal of ‘petty cash’, e.g. for the purpose of executing ZKU related payments of prizes to students. An investment account will also be created under this mechanism, to allow decisions to be made relatively quickly by a subset of the governors who will oversee the account. These accounts shall be small, relative to the funds reserved for DBI (see section 17).

  4. Without an explicit approval vote by the membership at large, the governance board must under no circumstances allow for the principal funds for DBI (attracted through project launch grants described in [2] and [3]) be deployed for any purpose other than paying DBI to full members, or for generating passive income (e.g. low risk, fixed-rate interest) to grow the treasury for DBI.

  5. Barring exceptional circumstances, such as financial emergencies, voting events shall not be held more frequently than once per week and the duration for each event shouldn’t be more than 72 hours. The governance board shall, where feasible, hold voting for different proposals at the same time within that week.

  6. Voting is mandatory for all members who are entitled to DBI. Failure to vote in 2 out of the past 5 events will lead to suspension of DBI for up to a month, unless there are documented health emergencies (the authenticity of which will be decided by a simple majority vote by the governance team). Failure to vote in 4 or more or the past 5 events will lead to indefinite suspension of DBI until the voting record of the member improves.

  7. DBI and voting power are neither transferable nor inheritable. If a member passes away, membership ends. This is to respect the principle behind section 2.

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