Following the successful proposal to establish a Council for the Decentraland DAO, elections were held to determine its members. As a result, @maraoz, @agus, @metaryuk, @canessa, and @fehz were elected to the five available seats. Council members’ mandate includes creating and overseeing the Executive Arm, approving annual strategies and budgets, and ensuring alignment with the DAO’s mission.
As Council members, we are committed to transparency, so this communication thread will serve as a space to provide regular updates on key decisions and ongoing discussions.
Communication
As we consider the communication between the DAO and the Council should be open, accessible and transparent, we encourage reaching out through the following channels:
This communication thread - for regular updates and DAO Council Meeting minutes
Office hours - opportunities for direct engagement.
DAO Town Halls - broader discussions with the community.
Next Steps
Moving forward, we will continue to share written updates on our work within the DAO. You can also engage with us in any of the communication channels mentioned above for further discussions.
The DAO Council serves as the governing body of the Decentraland DAO, representing stakeholder interests and providing oversight of Executive Branch’s management. The main responsibilities of the Council are:
Provide oversight to ensure the Executive Branch is in alignment with the DAO Mission.
Represent stakeholders (MANA & LAND holders, content creators, developers, and community members).
II. Governance Processes & Decision-Making Structure
The Council will determine its internal governance procedures and rules for decision-making and dispute resolution, keeping them as minimalistic as possible.
Basic Voting Rules:
A simple majority quorum of Council members must be present for valid votes.
Decisions require a simple majority of those present to pass. Each Council member has one vote, and decisions require a majority vote (3/5, given our current Council size).
Council members must be present (in person or virtually) to vote - no proxy voting.
All Council decisions that directly impact the Executive Branch or indirectly affect the DAO may be vetoed through the standard three-stage governance process.
III. Forming the Executive Branch
The DAO Council is not an execution arm but instead acts as an oversight body. One of the Council’s main responsibilities is to hire an Executive Director (ED) in order to:
Develop a comprehensive 2025 Executive Branch Plan (covering operations, funding, execution strategies, and team structure).
Recruit and structure the Executive Team, ensuring we have a well-organized unit executing DAO initiatives.
Ensure transparent reporting mechanisms to track progress and results.
The ED should be an experienced leader in decentralized governance, operational strategy, and Web3 ecosystems who will be directly accountable to the Council.
IV. Community Engagement & Transparency
The Council will establish standardized communication channels for both internal and external use, ensuring efficiency and transparency.
Communication Thread: to serve as a space to provide regular updates on key decisions and ongoing discussions.
Quarterly Governance Reports to update the community on key decisions and progress.
Open Feedback Mechanisms: Office Hours, AMAs, forums, governance portals, and social channels.
Next Steps:
The Council will announce the hiring of the new ED before the end of the week.
Collaborate with the ED on a comprehensive 2025 DAO Executive Branch Plan by April 3rd.
By ensuring this document aligns with the DAO’s mission, detailing clear deliverables and milestones, budget and support the ED to ensure effective implementation.
By ensuring coordination with the Foundation’s objectives to avoid redundancies and maximize synergies, fostering a cohesive and efficient governance strategy.
As the proposal for establishing an Executive Arm to improve DAO operations has passed, and the foundations and basic framework for the adjacent organization are set, a vote has been executed to elect an Executive Director (ED) for the aforementioned organization, as this is defined as one of the core responsibilities of the DAO Council.
After reaching out to and consulting with several candidates, the DAO Council’s unanimous decision was to elect @ginoct to fulfill the ED role.
As a next step, the Council and elected ED will present an 18-Month Objectives & KPIs strategic document.
Decentraland DAO Executive Arm: 18-Month Objectives
As we announced a few days ago, following internal debates based on the project’s lifecycle, assessments conducted considering past community inputs, and challenges faced by the DAO -those aspects that, due to a lack of organization, ownership, or mechanisms, were left unaddressed- were considered for the development and outlining of a high-level framework.
The Council internally discussed ideas and priorities for this framework, aiming to represent as many perspectives and ecosystem stakeholders as possible. This framework was debated collectively, and each council member reviewed the objectives directly with the ED through one-on-one meetings to avoid bias, incorporate individual viewpoints, and enrich the content. As a result, the creation of a comprehensive, high-level strategic document was promoted, detailing the general principles and medium-term (18 months) global objectives of the executive branch.
We adopted this approach to be as flexible as possible and to add responsiveness to community feedback, emerging opportunities, and evolving needs. That being said, it is also important to highlight that, for these same reasons, this document can be considered a ‘living document’, subject to slight modifications.
Following this announcement, complementary documents will be published in the coming weeks with a deeper breakdown into specific objectives, initiatives, KPIs and the executive branch budget.
In January 2025, the DAO Council was created to oversee the Executive Branch, approve strategy and budget, and uphold the DAO’s mission. Since then, the Council has been having first weekly, then every two weeks, and now monthly meetings. Since the election of the Executive Director, Council members have also been advising and helping him privately and on a Discord channel. This is a summary of the decisions and events since then, and the first Council quarterly report.
Milestones
Feb 10 – First Council meeting.
Feb 17 – Council Charter published defining roles, governance rules, and decision-making.
Mar 10 – OpCo Proposal advanced from Draft to Governance. Council defined it will approve the overall budget and delegate execution to the Executive team with oversight.
Mar 13 – Council defined Executive Director’s job description and compensation.
Mar 18 – Gino appointed as Executive Director after evaluation of multiple candidates.
Carrying on with the planned course of action, we’re pleased to announce that the DAO Council has unanimously approved the Budget and Executive Arm Initiatives documents.
These documents represent a foundational step toward strengthening the Executive Arm’s organizational structure. While not exhaustive, they are intended to serve as living guides, informing our approach to hiring, team structuring, and funds allocation in alignment with our mission and evolving priorities.
The budget and its corresponding breakdown have been discussed and reviewed in depth, ensuring a cohesive and coherent view on proposed allocations, strategic priorities, and the rationale behind each funding area.
Through this post, the DAO Council is formally requesting the DAO Committee (@Rizk@HPrivakos@Tobik) to transfer the approved budget from the DAO Treasury to a newly established Multisig wallet. This wallet will be jointly managed by members of the Executive Arm and the DAO Council, with the Council holding veto power on all transactions to ensure accountability and alignment with the DAO’s strategic direction.
The full details of the Multisig configuration and its designated signers will be publicly disclosed in the coming days to maintain transparency.