Hi everyone! I’ll do my best to address feedback in this thread. I want to emphasize that this poll is broad and meant to gather general community sentiment on whether we should rethink how the DAO operates. For more detailed discussions on specific topics, please refer to the RFCs I’ve published. That’s where we can start agreeing (or not!) on a path forward. If we try to do everything here, the thread may become too difficult to parse, and important details might get lost.
I’ll begin by addressing some points raised by LL, the former sole member of the Strategic Core Unit.
Centralization vs Decentralization
If we look back at the origins of decentralized and distributed networks—specifically the 1964 paper by Paul Baran titled On Distributed Communications—we see his famous network topology:
The concept of having groups with deep context who can make informed decisions while being held accountable by the community resembles a decentralized, bottom-up network. Power doesn’t radiate from a central node; instead, it’s granted by the peripheral nodes (the community) to the hubs (Councils or individuals with context).
It’s interesting that you’re concerned about centralization yet suggest handing control of the community treasury to the Decentraland Foundation, an organization where the community has no say or decision-making power. Doing so would solidify the power of a single entity, moving us closer to a centralized structure. In contrast, the ideas being proposed here involve creating an entity with execution power, hired by the DAO and accountable to the community.
VP Distribution
Let’s be honest: those holding significant assets (VP) and decision-making power don’t want to lose that power. How do we overhaul the voting power mechanism without their support? We need to reach a point where the DAO’s execution power gives VP holders confidence that we are acting efficiently, spending funds wisely, and aligned on shared goals to improve the project as a whole. Once we have that foundation, we can experiment with new ways of distributing power to the broader community.
In Lisbon, we revisited ideas like the Hybrid proposal, Quadratic Delegation, Contribution-Based Incentives, and even creating a sub-DAO for all curation duties. I wouldn’t say this issue has been overlooked; it was discussed in detail, as shown in the meeting notes.
Accountability
I fully agree with the idea of setting term limits for Council Members and structuring how they engage with the community. @esteban had some good thoughts on this, and I’d recommend continuing the conversation in the RFC. If this moves forward, we can include these points in the draft or governance proposals.
Finally, I’d like to ask what’s the idea or question behind the friendly reminder regarding the DAO Committee. Are you suggesting that we should go to an on-chain-only governance mechanism? By doing that we would leave a lot of people who cannot afford gas fees out of the voting system.