KIP-12: Kwenta adminDAO Framework, Replacing the Core Contributors and Core Contributor Committee

Author
StatusApproved
Created2022-02-09

Summary

The proposal outlines a framework for a subDAO that manages administrative and operational responsibilities across the Kwenta protocol.

Abstract

The adminDAO will be responsible for the administrative, operational, and human resource management component of the DAO. The adminDAO will replace the Core Contributor Committee. The Core Contributors will be dissolved and be replaced with community member roles including management and specialist roles.

Motivation

The adminDAO will offer a transparent and decentralized process to managing administrative responsibilities across the protocol.

Specification

The adminDAO will follow the policies below.

subDAO position management:

The adminDAO will manage all DAO roles other than the treasuryDAO (with the exception of some curation on the part of the adminDAO) and the Elite Council. The DAO Contributors, Product Elites, marketingDAO, and devDAO will be under the purview of the adminDAO. The adminDAO will have the ability to appoint, dismiss, and identify new roles for DAO members at their discretion.

DAO role appointment process:

In the event the adminDAO finds that an individual is needed to fill a delivery gap in the protocol, the adminDAO can either appoint someone directly or they can open an application box (a form people can submit their information to which is open to the public or a closed group) for a fixed period of time and select a candidate from the application box. The adminDAO is responsible for active recruitment in the event that no optimal candidate has been found. The adminDAO, in collaboration with management contributors, will vet candidates with whatever means they feel necessary. Compensation packages must have adminDAO, management contributor, and treasuryDAO approval. The adminDAO and management contributors must be in agreement with the decision to hire a candidate. If one party supports the hiring of the candidate while the other does not, they can bring it to the attention of the Elite Council where a vote can be done on whether to offer the individual the DAO role or not.

The Elite Council and adminDAO must be in agreement in the event a management contributor is appointed or dismissed.

Elite Council members will continue to be elected in 3-month epochs by token holders.

TreasuryDAO handling

Future treasuryDAO members (eg. new additions or replacements to the current treasuryDAO) will be appointed by the Elite Council, however, they cannot choose themselves. adminDAO members will have the responsibility of curating a list of trusted community members which the Elite Council can choose from. The adminDAO will also be responsible for confirming that the Elite Council did not choose a member on the Council as a treasuryDAO member, as treasuryDAO members are anonymous to the public, only the adminDAO and Elite Council will be aware of who the treasuryDAO members are. The adminDAO and Elite Council are responsible for establishing reasonable compensation for treasuryDAO members, the two parties must be in agreement of the outlined compensation. Note that this overrules the KIP-2 which states treasuryDAO members are chosen solely from an open ballot box process.

DAO role dismissal process:

In the event a DAO member needs to be dismissed from their position, driven by either the adminDAO or management contributors, the adminDAO, as well as the management contributors, must be in agreement with the dismissal. If one party agrees while the other does not, they can bring it to the attention of the Elite Council where a vote can be done on whether they dismiss the individual or not. Once a dismissal has been approved, the individual will be given two weeks’ notice by the adminDAO. Any outstanding package agreements will be paid out if applicable and the privileges of the DAO member will be removed at the end of a two-week period. The adminDAO and management contributors retain the right to alter the two-week process in an irregular situation.

DAO role recusal process:

In the event a DAO member decides to recuse themselves from their role, they will inform the adminDAO and provide two weeks' notice prior to the date of their dismissal. The adminDAO will then either open an application box or appoint someone to replace the role directly. The application will be open for a period of one week for submissions. Once the applicant has been selected, the new DAO member will take over the position as soon as the existing member's dismissal date has been reached. The adminDAO retains the right to directly appoint someone should they feel an ideal fit for the role is available. DAO members that properly follow the quitting procedure are eligible for a 200 sUSD reward for their compliance.

Management Contributors:

There are only two management roles currently available: operations management and development management. These positions can be reduced or expanded upon with the introduction of a KIP. These are senior positions held by individuals that are responsible for ensuring their branch of the protocol is functioning smoothly. These individuals are responsible for delivering on roadmap goals by coordinating with other DAO roles. Management contributors will have structured packages as a retainer for their services.

Specialist Contributors:

Specialist contributors are individuals that the adminDAO recognizes can provide continual value to the Kwenta protocol through their specialty. These individuals would receive structured packages as a retainer for their skills and will act as resources for the community PM, marketing council, and management contributors to deliver on their goals.

New role identification:

As subDAOs increase in sophistication, it will become prudent to add more roles that are compensated by the DAO. The adminDAO will work with subDAOs to identify these new roles and determine if the DAO has the capacity and budget to support their establishment. A new role can be filled by direct appointment or an open application box (as noted in the DAO role appointment process).

Performance review:

It will fall under the adminDAO to regularly do performance evaluations in collaboration with the management contributors. The review will analyze DAO role output, their engagement with the community, and any other factors the adminDAO feels are worthy of consideration. It will be up to the adminDAO to establish a cadence and process for performance reviews. Performance reviews will help identify DAO members deserving of additional rewards as well as DAO members holding back the potential of the protocol. It will be up to the adminDAO to determine how to proceed with the information attained from performance reviews.

Trusted members:

adminDAO members can assign a trusted member of the community a “Trusted” role either in Discord or with an NFT. A community member would be proposed as trusted by either adminDAO member or Kwenta community member. adminDAO members would vote on whether the nominee is deserving of a Trusted role; if a majority is reached in favour of adding the member as trusted, the role/NFT will be given to the member, if the vote fails, the member does not receive the Trusted NFT but can be proposed as Trusted again in a months time. Members who are trusted will be eligible for more sensitive roles such as the treasuryDAO or full-time management roles within the DAO.

DAO role compensation:

The yield earned from staking the Kwenta treasury will be used to compensate DAO roles. It will be the responsibility of the adminDAO to establish and honour DAO role compensation. The treasuryDAO retains the right to adjust the amount of rewards the adminDAO has access to at any time. The adminDAO will only have the ability to assign how much a given address will get from the yield being generated by the DAO; they will not be able to custody those funds. At the end of the four-year inflationary period, the DAO will use the 20% of inflationary rewards, along with any other incentives stakers collect, allocated to the treasury (outlined in the inflation and fee allocation section of KIP-4) to continually fund roles in the same manner as outlined above.

In the event a DAO role requires a structured compensation package, the adminDAO will propose a package to the treasuryDAO who will then approve, adjust, or decline the request. This will include the use of sUSD attained via Aelin. Once V3GM (Synthetix Protocol Upgrade) is in place the adminDAO may receive a multisig and a budget to handle payroll; until then, the treasuryDAO will send out funds.

Compensation packages for the Elite Council and adminDAO do not fall under the purview of adminDAO. The Elite Council will be responsible for establishing adminDAO compensation with the treasuryDAO being responsible for paying the adminDAO.

The Interim Elite Council will establish future Elite Council compensation. Once the first token-elected Elite Council is in place, this compensation model will go into effect. Afterward, a CKIP will be required to change the current compensation package to an alternative model.

Bonuses for DAO roles:

The adminDAO will be responsible for identifying a productive way to distribute bonuses to DAO participants that have a strong positive impact on the DAO. Some possible examples include milestone-based bonuses for relevant DAO members or a recurring community-wide voting mechanism. The establishment of this mechanism will be the responsibility of the adminDAO members; the adminDAO can experiment with bonus structures as they see fit. The treasuryDAO will be responsible for establishing a budget for bonuses.

Individuals with multiple roles:

Individuals can have multiple roles. It will be up to the adminDAO to reach a majority decision (⅔ in support of the motion) to assign an individual multiple roles. The only members that cannot have the same role are future additions or replacements to the treasuryDAO as they cannot also be Elite Council members.

adminDAO administrative and operational responsibilities:

The adminDAO will be responsible for tracking and working with the treasuryDAO to compensate DAO roles when applicable for the following areas: travel expenses, software tooling stipends, benefits stipend, vacation tracking, and record-keeping. A high-level breakdown of how funds are being used can be requested from the adminDAO by the community at any time. For any information deemed sensitive (Ex. An individual’s salary, an individual’s token package, etc), community members are required to have a Trusted label to access this information.

adminDAO member appointment:

The first adminDAO will be composed of what is currently the Core Contributor Committee in order to make the transition process as seamless as possible. There will be three positions open in the adminDAO. This may be increased or reduced by the Elite Council.

In the event there is an open position on the adminDAO, the Elite Council will then open an application box for a new adminDAO member to fill the role. The application will be open for a period of one week for submissions. Once the applicant has been selected by the Elite Council, the new adminDAO member will take over the position as soon as the existing member's dismissal date has been reached. The Elite Council retains the right to directly appoint someone.

adminDAO recusal:

In the event an adminDAO member decides to recuse themselves from their role, they will inform the Elite Council and provide two weeks' notice prior to the date of their dismissal. The Elite Council will then open an application box for a new adminDAO member to fill the role. The application will be open for a period of one week for submissions. Once the applicant has been selected by the Elite Council, the new adminDAO will take over the position as soon as the existing member's dismissal date has been reached. The Elite Council retains the right to directly appoint someone should they feel an ideal fit for the role is available. adminDAO members that properly follow the quitting procedure are eligible for a 200 sUSD reward for their compliance.

adminDAO dismissal:

In the event the Elite Council decides that an adminDAO member is no longer a fit for their role, they can forcefully remove someone from their role by stripping them of their ability to access adminDAO-related responsibilities. The Elite Council will then open an application box for a new adminDAO member to fill the role. The application will be open for a period of one week for submissions. Once the applicant has been selected, the new adminDAO will take over the position as soon as the existing member's dismissal date has been reached. The Elite Council retains the right to directly appoint someone should they feel an ideal fit for the role is available.

Elite Council overruling:

In the event that a DAO member is found to be behaving maliciously, the Elite Council retains the right to vote and, if a majority is reached, have the member forcefully removed from the DAO as well as their compensation package revoked.

Disolving the Core Contributors and Core Contributor Committee:

Once the adminDAO is live, the Core Contributor Committee will be dissolved with members being grandfathered into management roles founding adminDAO members. Existing Core Contributors will be grandfathered into specialist contributor roles appropriate for their specialization. All agreed-upon compensation packages will be honoured by the adminDAO. Existing vesting token contracts will be held in custom smart contracts for this purpose. In the event a grandfathered-in Core Contributor member recuses themself or is dismissed from the DAO, the remainder of their vesting token package will be clawed back to the treasury. Unused Early Core Contributor tokens (as described in the Tokenomics and Distribution KIPs) will be returned to the treasury for the use of future role incentivization.

The adminDAO will go into effect once the token distribution process has been completed.

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