Phase 2: Accountability, Access, Anatomy (Structure).
Current Restructuring Status
DXdao passed a signal proposal titled Alternative Restructuring and Refocus Process [Signal Proposal] on September 20th, 2022. This proposal implicated on-chain some of DXdao’s operational issues and a direction to begin solving them democratically. You can find that discussion in this thread.
Not long after, on October 3rd, 2022, DXdao passed a follow-up proposal encompassing immediate “low-hanging fruit” actions. This addressed 6 key actions:
1). DXdao will impose an event budget targetting $150k annually.
2). DXdao will impose an auditing budget targetting $150k annually.
3). DXdao will commit to reducing the length and/or frequency of its public and internal weekly calls where appropriate.
4). DXdao will temporarily require all new contributors to pass a proposal on-chain to start their engagement.
5). DXdao will launch the DXD guild with 4% REP and commit to further governance discussions to scale this REP percentage higher following deployment.
6). DXdao will immediately disengage from contractors.
You can find the discussion on this topic here.
Now, we enter phase 2. This step focuses on the path toward a DXdao direction and accountability metrics. It acknowledges operational failures of the past and collects the thoughts and ideas of the community into a package of equitable changes that better leadership and grant a clearer picture of what it is that we are doing here.
Findings and Discussions from DXretreat
DXretreat 2022 was an enlightening experience that really highlighted how aligned the contributor base is on difficult topics. You can find some footnotes here.
The group spent much of their time alongside the Lateral team to explore DXdao’s purpose as an organization, a path to reach it and measurable metrics to accomplish them. The outcome of simply sitting down and discussing topics was, in my opinion, immensely important to further the identification of key issues and how to solve them. More on this in a bit.
When strictly focusing on restructuring, there were a few noteworthy presentations to highlight that specifically aimed to tackle points outlined in the initial signal proposal.
Recap
First, I took to the stage to recap the restructuring efforts from the bubblings of controversy to the passage of the Phase 1 signal proposal.
You can view the entirety of the Restructuring Recap presentation slides here, which I would highly recommend for anyone not fully up-to-date on the restructuring process. Perhaps a form of this could be paraphrased for external context as we move through the process?
Largely there wasn’t much information to abstract from this beyond context to set the stage for the retreat, which ended up being immensely valuable – not everyone looks to drill into every aspect of the forum or its discussions. Its exhausting!
Structure
Next, Chris took to the stage to chat about accountability and governance. You can view the entirety of the accountability and governance presentation here. I also believe there are recordings of the talks; if they are all recorded, posting them on this thread would be great!
The talk ran through “three new pillars of DXdao governance”;
- A six-month budgetary cycle for squads usurping the traditional free-for-all contributor proposal process.
- The implementation of a layer between execution and governance to provide unbiased accountability to product initiatives.
- A priorities board that lives downstream of overarching goals and vision of DXdao.
Each of the three “pillars” aim to address key underlying structural problems at DXdao between lack of strategy, accounting or direction.
Moving Forward
Finally, I took back to the stage to chat “Vision and Direction”. My goal was to highlight our current lack of direction and where we can point to in the future with a squad based, highly opinionated presentation. Most important thing is that not a whole lot of the presentation was new ideas, but instead a collection of existing community discussions compiled into a digestible format that could actually be executed upon on at the squad level.
You can view the entirety of the Vision and Direction presentation here.
This talk highlighted a variety of different perspectives to the topic:
- Vision vs Direction vs Priorities
- Why do we need a vision?
- How do the pieces come together?
- Where are we going? – 0xKLOM.eth’s opinionated outlook
- Ascertaining DXdao’s underlying goals and pointing to a direction
- Restructuring – What’s next?
The culmination of this discussion lead to DXdao’s third focused day at the retreat where we truely drilled into our goals. This lead to the informal creation of DXdao’s underlying vision… “Enable Community Freedom”. It also detailed a more specific direction to handle product initiatives going forward. More on this below.
Phase 2: Accountability, Access, Anatomy (Structure).
In Phase 1, topics weren’t insanely controvercial, which allowed for off-chain consensus collection such as discussion through weekly calls and forum based polls. In Phase 2, a similar approach will be attempted, relying on off-chain consensus collection before tackling a signal proposal when a vocal majority have reached an equitable solution. Extremely polarized topics could utilize snapshot. (DXdao governance of course has the final say, the goal is for the community to craft a proposal that will not have issues at the governance stage if possible).
The format for these polls once again focuses solely on YES vs NO instead of any semantics. If you can’t vote YES, what would it take for you to lean in that direction? This will simplify consensus collection and remove stress (was very successful in Phase 1!). It also worth noting that the signal proposal for Phase 2 does NOT require that DXdao have the perfect solution to each of its issues, but instead can identify an equitable path forward even if it will require additional exploration within Phase 3.
I again remind the community that this process is completely open, and invite anyone willing to step in and make their own interpretation of Phase 2 utilizing the findings of this thread or any other consensus collection methods.
Governance and Structure
Budgetary Cycle
- Yes
- No
0 voters
This may be the largest proposed change. Each squad would be required to create a budget trailing a six-month period to operate. This would remove free-for-all contributor proposals directly to governance, and, instead, shift that responsibility to squads (who cannot exceed previously approved budgets without an amendment).
This will require squads to be consistent with the documentation of goals, processes and KPIs.
The specifics of operation, including integration with governance accountability layer, streaming squad payments, and amendment process are to be explored within Phase 3.
Squad Accountability Councils
- Yes
- No
0 voters
Councils will aim to integrate an unbiased//external voice into our accountability structure. These elected individuals would not be involved in the day-to-day, but instead, hold squads accountable through governance authority.
The councils would provide a “report card” for squads that governance can use to when considering the next budgetary period. These councils could also have a “stick”, or ability to revoke a budget halfway to defer a decision to DXdao governance.
The specifics of ability (stick, exact tasks) should be explored within Phase 3.
Priorities Board
- Yes
- No
0 voters
The priorities board exists as a global operating direction for the DAO. What needs to be done now, in a week, or in a month? Everyone should know what these things are and how they point back to DXdao’s vision and goals. (More on this below). Governance should also be able to utilize this information to make an informed decision on squad budgets.
The specifics of priority collection should be explored within Phase 3.
Vision and Direction
“True North”
- Yes
- No
0 voters
DXdao hasn’t had a formal vision maybe ever. Although some have tried, its more clear now than ever before that this vision is required to look back upon.
“Enable Community Freedom” points to our approach of solving problems in DAOs as a DAO first organization. We strongly believe DAO’s are the future of coordination and are putting in the effort to create freedom for ourselves and all online communities. We should have this flag to look upon and inspire us when making decisions.
The statement should be a vague yet powerful overarching narrative that we all connect with, whereas a mission statement would articulate an approach to solving it.
Mission statement should be strongly deliberated throughout Phase 3.
Where are we going?
- Yes
- No
0 voters
The idea of a product pipeline or suite is not new by any stretch of the imagination, but an informal delegation of the topic has resulted in misguided product efforts in the preceding year. By ascertaining the flagship product as DXdao’s primary priority, everything begins to flow downstream. What piece of the puzzle would improve the pipeline? How can we incubate projects that could be natively built into this pipeline?
The idea of a fully interconnected product built around our leading governance execution is the true epitome of open source. Sure, you can fork any piece of the puzzle, but the ecosystem itself creates an incredible MOAT where communities would have no reason to leave. This is the key to DXdao’s profitability without negative governance monetization.
Exploration of all specifics on this topic should be deliberated throughout Phase 3. Products wouldn’t be locked specifically to the flagship and can still exist outside of it. DXvoice plans to wireframe this flagship product and its associated user experience, provided this clause passes in its current form.
Individual Squad Actions
There will be no poll here, as the discussed actions fall cleanly within the execution portion of Phase 3. I did however want to call attention to these budding discussions as I expect them to evolve throughout the remainder of the year.
Slides 10 through 19 highlight these discussions and my personal opinions on current squad efforts and where we can point by the end of the year. View the Vision and Direction presentation here.
Example from the presentation focused on DXgov.
Conclusion
As a majority of these changes focus on the direction of structure and future product efforts, there is no budget implication in Phase 2. Alongside the passage of Phase 1, the current budget is as follows:
- Annual expenditure: $2,864,268
- Stablecoin Runway: 4.05 Years
If I have missed anything that would be valuable to include, lets chat about it over the calls and within this thread. The original signal proposal implied a submission date of Oct 31st, 2022. Due to travel (and personal sickness) this discussion is live a bit later than I would have liked, and it may make sense to push this date back slightly provided there is any conflict or topics to be deliberated further.
Once again, a big thank you to all participants of this process thus-far. Between the active restructuring efforts and fantastic DXretreat, I am incredibly optimistic for the future of the organization.
Massive massive thank you. 
