Regenesis: Let’s meet IRL and revitalize the DAO

[ginoct]

Dear Decentraland Community,

The first semester of this year has been challenging for the DAO. The Grants program was paused without a clear path forward. Creators left the community due to the lack of incentives. Engaged community members stepped away due to persistent personal attacks. Malicious actors blocked important proposals, voting engagement has steadily declined, and key core units and committee members have stepped down due to harassment. Despite some good discussions and working sessions within various working groups, most of the conversations in the DAO have been aggressive and counterproductive. It’s time for a change and we’re the only ones who can make it happen.

While we face these challenges, the Decentraland Foundation is making progress on a new client for our protocol, which could potentially bring more users to the platform. Additionally, the crypto market has shown strong signs of recovery that usually correlate with an increase in our project’s user base. Other major metaverse projects have recently strengthened their decentralization efforts by setting up DAOs and empowering their communities via funding or decision-making frameworks. The decentralized nature of Decentraland is one of our core values—without a strong DAO, we risk losing our distinctive edge. We have an opportunity to rethink how we organize ourselves.

We propose to refund and revitalize our DAO to ensure our community’s success. The challenges we face today, if left unaddressed, threaten to undermine our progress and the impact of our pioneering work in the decentralized technologies space.

What are the problems we’re facing?

Our DAO operates without a clear mission or vision. This lack of direction prevents long-term decision-making, damaging our ability to guide the development and governance of Decentraland. The roles and responsibilities of the DAO within the overall Decentraland ecosystem are not clearly defined. To ensure the project remains decentralized, the DAO needs a clear reason to exist and the power to execute its duties. To coordinate and balance the power of the Decentraland Foundation, the DAO must define its mission, vision, and operational structure.

Since the pause of the Grants program, our DAO has under-utilized its treasury funds. With improving market conditions and the imminent launch of the new Decentraland client, which could attract users back to the platform, there is a pressing need to reinvigorate our funding mechanism for strategic projects. This is essential to ensure our metaverse remains attractive to new audiences and creators.

Another critical issue, already discussed by the community on multiple occasions, is the inefficiency of our token-based governance. This method has proven inadequate in fostering decisions that ensure the project’s sustainability and reach a consensus on strategic initiatives.

Finally, the toxicity we’ve been facing, with issues of personal and professional harassment made it clear that we need to double down our efforts in community stewardship.

To summarize, without a clear mission and vision, we can’t set priorities to inform funding decisions. Decisions are hard to make if governance is suboptimal and collaboration is not structured in a way that respects everyone’s voice.

DCL DAO: Regenesis Summit

To address these pressing issues, we propose organizing an in-person meeting, the DCL DAO: Regenesis Summit

The Summit will be a physical gathering where we can engage in face-to-face discussions to develop comprehensive proposals aimed at restructuring our DAO’s operations.

The success of the recent Decentraland Community Summit in Buenos Aires demonstrated the benefits of in-person meetings in strengthening community bonds and facilitating productive dialogues. The sessions on the DAO and governance design were at capacity, which highlights our need to discuss these matters face-to-face.

Summit Objectives

The primary goal of the summit is to develop a set of governance proposals aimed at restarting the DAO and taking Decentraland to the next level. Key topics to be covered include:

• Establishing a clear Mission and Vision for the DAO
• Rethinking the governance design of the DAO
• Optimizing operational aspects of the DAO
• Formulating a Treasury management strategy
• Revamping the funding mechanisms for strategic projects
• Defining a Code of Conduct for the DAO

Event Details

The meeting will be held for three days at the beginning of September (2 months from now) in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dates: September 5, 6, and 7 (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) based on attendees input.

Proposed Location: Lisbon, Portugal (exact location will be disclosed to attendees). Lisbon is a crypto-friendly and fairly cheap city in Europe with convenient flight time from the US.

Invitation Criteria

To attend the Summit, you must have an NFT ticket in your wallet, which can be minted by those who meet any of the following criteria:

• Decentraland Whitepaper Original Authors
• Decentraland Ambassadors
• DAO Security Advisory Board
• Decentraland Community Summit Attendees
• Wearable Curations Committee
• Revocations Committee
• DAO Committee
• Current & Past Core Unit Members
• DCL Legislator Badge holders
• DCL Top Voter Badge holders
• DAO Members with over 250K VP Consolidated
• Recognized Delegates who voted at least once in the last 3 months

The whitelist was crafted based on a June 10, 2024 snapshot.

Minting Details

To mint the access NFT, you must log in using a wallet that meets the Invitation Criteria stated above on this website (The ticketing system is powered by Unlock Protocol. You can check the smart contract here)

The price to mint the NFT will be 120 DAI, as a way of financing the meeting (venue, technical support, food & beverages) and to ensure commitment from attendees. Funds will be credited to this multisig wallet: 0xB107eBE018527343200fDA15bFf16a00701D805F

The signers of the wallet will be: gino (Gov Squad member), HPrivakos (DAO Committee member), Tobik (DAO Committee member), Zino (GSS member), Maryana (Revocations Committee member), and Yemel (Decentraland Foundation Executive Director)

Travel Aid Fund

Acknowledging that some community members may face financial constraints, we have secured funds to cover travel costs of up to $2000 for selected attendees. Those receiving aid will be refunded one week after attending the meeting.

To apply for travel aid fill out this form. You will get an email confirming or rejecting the request by July 19th. The selection will be in charge of the donors that provided the funds. Please note that you will still have to mint your NFT to access the venue.

A wallet will be created for those who wish to contribute to the travel fund and help more community members attend.

Call to Action

• Leave comments and provide feedback on this topic.
• If you are seriously planning to attend, let us know if you have any preference for the first or second weekend of September.
• Mint your NFT as soon as possible so we can plan the capacity accordingly.
• Consider contributing to the travel fund if you have the means to do so.

Let’s come together to reinvigorate the Decentraland DAO and take our community to new heights. Your participation is crucial for our collective success, and we look forward to seeing you in Lisbon!

DCL DAO Regenesesis Summit Organizers

[Tobik]

The summit was for many of us very important to start thinking on a new direction for the DAO, but we need more people involved.

This meeting will be totally worth it, things can finally start to change.

[Canessa]

I strongly agree that we need a different way of rebuilding this DAO. Working groups, Discord threads, Town Halls…while all of them have the potential to bring forth constructive ideas, none of them have succeeded in solving the systemic challenges that continue to plague us. This is the second pause we have faced. The first only stymied the bleeding…but we have a fatal wound that without being addressed, will certainly just land us back in the same place, (only with less and less money in our DAO). Failure is a very real possibility as we move forward.

I would prefer we take action now, rather than in the chaos of another bull run.

[szjanko]

I think that this would be a really good idea! The DAO needs to realign and optimize its strategies before the upcoming launch of Decentraland’s new client. With the new client finally pushing the limits of what will be possible in terms of user experience, it is crucial for the DAO to restructure and fix all of its previous problems ahead of this launch. During the next two months, before the proposed DAO Summit, the community needs to come together and propose multiple options on how to improve the DAO’s processes. This restructuring will enable us to clearly outline a vision for the platform’s needs and allocate grants to projects and teams that will actually deliver substantial value to Decentraland. Unlike much of the spending over the past four years, focused and strategic grants will now have the potential to attract and retain users. With the new client offering an enhanced experience, developers and content creators can deliver experiences that will keep users coming back.

[PunkPink]

During this time there have been proposals and attempts at change but without a defined direction, each week that passes without resolving these issues, Decentraland is one step behind in the race to lead the metaverse. Holding a Summit to present points of view and clarify the path we must follow is a key element for success.

This Summit provides a new opportunity to solve the problems that the DAO currently has, while in my opinion I would have believed it would be more convenient for efforts to be coordinated to hold an intensive IRL event of more days in order to be able to finalize a clear plan in situ and take action right at the end of it, although I understand that not everyone would be able to attend a Summit of these characteristics. Anyway, I really appreciate the value of this idea since I feel that it can be the beginning of a promising future for our platform.

I will attend, but for my part I am very interested in the Regenesis Summit being held on September 5-7, since starting on the 10th I have a trip scheduled that I would not want to cancel. I hope that the colleagues who decide this can value my comment and take it into account when deciding the date, thank you.

[maraoz]

Congrats @ginoct for spearheading this. I’ve been having similar private conversations for more than 1 year now, and I’d love to see changes along these lines. Let’s give the DAO its second life!

ps: this reminded me of this post where I proposed to get the DAO funded for the first time. First DAO epoch was an interesting experiment, but I think most agree we need to try a different model moving forward.

[Cartney]

A good proposal,the DAO should have clearly mission and vision,lead the DCL ecosystem to the future.how the DAO and commitees all have an open mind,keep thinking in i 1st priciple,can treat all positive and nagetive comments with fair.
Then should have an transparency DAO mechinism which will released after set, have clearly infra and ecosystem plan to improve users experience and enhance engagement,have market cap and assets manage plans to make sure we are not only issues tokens and assets,but also have comprehensive plan to make tokens and assets value.

[ArtReYou]

Why not using Decentraland (Virtual World) for meetings? I thought the Metaverse is excactly made for to do meetings like this

[PunkPink]

Currently the metaverse is not yet developed enough to allow interactions on the same level as an IRL event.
Initiatives like this can allow us to do this and much more in the future at Decentraland.

[ArtReYou]

How about using Zoom or Discord Video Calls for this kind of “Workshop” then?

[Darynkon]

Malicious actors blocked important proposals

@ginoct Please provide links to these proposals ?

[yemel]

Hey everyone,

Huge shoutout to Gino and the team for kicking off this awesome initiative. The DAO really needs a fresh framework to operate effectively. Without it, we risk misusing our treasury and missing out on big opportunities.

At the Decentraland Foundation, we’re working hard to bring you a new client with better performance and an improved experience. But we can’t do it alone. We need the DAO to step up in creating great content, onboarding users, and bringing in partners. We need a stronger partnership between the Foundation and the DAO.

I’m really looking forward to the DCL DAO: Regenesis Summit and can’t wait to join you all. To help ensure as many community members as possible can attend, I’m happy to donate to the travel aid fund.

Let’s come together and make the DAO better than ever.

See you in Lisbon!

[Tudamoon]

I am excited to be attending this centralized meeting.

[Tudamoon]

@web3nit

They just want to make a party for the “selected elite” and create hype.

Glad you finally understand. Turned your head to the Argentina trip when you were invited. Too bad I won’t see you in Lisbon.

[BanJarod]

Which whitelist criteria do you meet?

[Tudamoon]

I am a “recognized delegate” that has voted in the last 3 months

[PunkPink]

The current system has flaws that cannot be resolved with small changes.The DAO requires a drastic modification at a structural level to correct these problems.

Furthermore, the launch of the new client can be an important turning point that allows Decentraland to catapult into a predominant position.

The DAO’s current issues need to be resolved right now to have the right means to propel the platform to a new level.

[PunkPink]

I understand your point of view @ArtReYou, but currently there is no medium that allows the same flow of ideas as a face-to-face meeting. This matter requires a thorough, fluid and more agile brainstorming than any other communication format supports.

The DCL Community Summit was an example of how powerful IRL events can be, we was able to share more ideas and thoughts in 3 days than during the last year at Decentraland through online communications.

The metaverse has the potential to become a more powerful option than an IRL event, but currently it is not, which is why we must continue working with the best means we have so that Decentraland can lead that revolution.

[Gamer]

hi i just find out about this meeting by tudamoon . i recently had really big issue with one of te dcl project called dual arena ,which its founder injester took my 1000$ dollars rewards and plus 500$ rewards of other players now no one is taking resposibilty for this .idcl really need to come up with solution ffor this likd of issue .i want to attend to this metting if its possible . in the past i also wanted to apply for dcl ambassador but entry time was over . i am still interested in this role.i been in dcl for almost two years now i know most dcl creator and project owner . i love to meet them in person

[maryana]

Thanks @ginoct for gathering this together.

With the upcoming launch of the new client and recent DAO issues addressed in many working groups (financial planning, vp distribution, grants program freeze, moderation), it’s clear that we’re at a pivotal moment for a revamp. This will require some difficult conversations and serious rework.

At the summit, the face-to-face conversations in our DAO room were so meaningful and different than interactions in a discord call. There are plenty of community members wanting to make positive changes for the future of the DAO. To prepare for this meet-up, and as @szjanko mentioned, conversations and working groups should be set-up to gather thoughts to serve as a baseline for what should be discussed (this will make the meet-up more efficient as well).

I truly believe this meet-up will yield positive outcomes, as it will be a continuation to the positive discussions that occurred at the summit, synchronize all the past working group discussions led by @Fehz & @web3nit. Plus, having foundation members like @yemel attending will help align the DAO with the upcoming client & overarching roadmap.

Personally, the 12-14 days work better, however, I’ll help contribute to the governance & financial planning conversations as I can (if I cannot attend on the 5-7th).

Lets prepare the DAO for a successful 2025. Other DAOs are watching and taking note!