Governance Pillars

During our observations, we encountered a variety of governance frameworks and principles, ranging from experimental to well-established. A common thread among successful frameworks is their evolution from primitive and tribal social mechanisms. Imposing a synthetic governance framework on a newly formed society is both dangerous and inefficient. It is dangerous because it can disrupt emerging decision-making rituals, and inefficient because an exogenous imposed system hinders the natural, consensus-based decision process essential for the growth of a new social group.

Moreover, we realized that, at least initially, overly diluting the decision-making process might hinder the formation of a core vision for the game, as too many opinions could interfere with the founders’ development process. Once the game reaches maturity and the decision-making process becomes too chaotic, or if the community demands it, we will need to transition to a more structured governance framework.

Therefore, our governance pillars should not impose any rigid voting and proposal process. Instead, they should be as flexible as possible to facilitate organic discussions.

Here are some suggestions regarding the main takeaways from our research journey. Please note that none of the concepts outlined mandate any specific methods or tools to achieve the goal but highlight the importance of maintaining some overarching principles rather than fixed procedures.

All those points should be a social contract between the DAO and the council, the council should be free to follow those guidelines or not, however they will always face the consequences of not being transparent to the community:

• The Core Team should be granted with substantial operational autonomy in making decisions related to core MVP vision and other critical areas essential for the initial success of the game.
  • The Council should regularly update the community about their progress, major decisions, and upcoming milestones to ensure transparency. These decisions will be governed by lazy consensus, giving asset holders a two-week window to raise objections or veto any forthcoming decisions if they disagree.
    • Once a Veto is proposed by an asset holder, it must reach an x % quorum to proceed to the next step, where it is forwarded to the council.
    • If the Community Veto passes, the council has two weeks to either propose amendments to the vetoed proposal or discard it completely.
    • If the council has a disagreement or there are fewer than twelve council members in good standing, the people will vote on the topic with a threshold inverse to the remaining council members’ yes votes. (four vote yes, 66.7% threshold to pass; ten vote yes, 16.7% threshold to pass).
  • The Council should initially release a quarterly update road map. This road map must include the current operational activities (such as game design, game development, and economic implementations) and their status. Additionally, it must outline upcoming game design decisions already discussed and approved by the Council. Asset holders will have a two-week period to veto any of these upcoming decisions, if no veto is expressed then the new road map is finalized.
  • The council should initially release, at least once per year, detailed information on the financial health of the project, including budgets, expenditures, revenue, and projections.
  • The council should release detailed KPIs regarding the in-game economy at least twice per year. These KPIs should include metrics such as the inflation rate, trade volume of in-game assets, resource consumption, wealth distribution among players, and growth indicators like GDP.
• Governance asset holders have the ability to propose new initiatives, veto council decisions, and, if necessary, remove council members.
  • Community driven proposal should be discussed within relevant social circles (e.g. working groups).
  • To avoid excessive spam, a proposal must achieve a minimum threshold of X % (between 1 and 10%) quorum before it can be forwarded to the council, which is then obligated to formally address it. Formally addressing a proposal means providing a written response that includes the final council feedback and detailed considerations or actions related to the proposal.
  • To proceed with the removal of one or more council members, the proposal must first reach an initial quorum within the community. If this quorum is met, a super-majority (75% of the total voters) second quorum must be achieved to finalize the removal of the council member in question.
• To prevent voting power loss, a liquid democracy with ranked delegations might be implemented, allowing users to delegate their voting power to trusted representatives in a ranked manner.
  • Liquid democracy is a useful tool for voting sessions where a majority or super-majority is required. In this context, liquid democracy favors the community by allowing members to delegate their votes to trusted representatives, which helps reduce the concentration of power within the council. However, introducing this system into the DAO may warrant caution, as there could be concerns regarding the potential shift in power dynamics. Therefore, it might be better to delay the implementation of liquid democracy until these concerns are adequately addressed.
• Only User with a governance asset linked to an active subscription to Citadel are able to cast or delegate their vote.
• The autonomous birth of working groups should be encouraged. These groups should have the freedom to self-determine, create their own processes and rituals, and establish internal governance and conflict-resolution structures.
• A progressive decentralization plan should be proposed to the community from day 1
• Some anti-whale staking and liquidation mechanisms should be in place in order to prevent idle accumulation of power (see Governance asset)