Defining a Strategy for Radworks

abbey · February 29, 2024, 12:03pm

TL;DR: This is the Strategy Committee’s first introductory post. It is meant to set the stage and share context for the work we have planned for this year. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the discussion questions listed below.

Hi everyone!

After proposing the formation of the Strategy Committee back in December, we wanted to revisit our current thinking on Radworks strategy and open up for public discussion. We’ll start with an overview of the current state of Radworks: what it is, why it exists, how we got here, and where we’re going next.

What is Radworks?

What got us here?

In 2017, Monadic spawned the open source projects Radicle and oscoin that from inception, were both meant to become a new kind of open-source project — built, governed, and financed on the internet. Over the next couple of years, the projects merged, and became known solely as the Radicle project.

In 2021, the team began the decentralization of the project with the initialization of the network’s native governance token ($RAD). With this, the RadicleDAO was formed, granting the community of $RAD holders the ability to make decisions on how to govern the project’s Treasury and smart contracts. All Monadic contributors transitioned to the Radicle Foundation, a Swiss entity formed in 2020 to support the development of resilient and humane software infrastructures, such as Radicle.

From there, the ecosystem started building two distinct products: Radicle (a sovereign code collaboration network) and Drips (decentralized toolkit for funding dependencies). The Foundation funded and coordinated all core development for these two products up until May 2023, when products were successfully spun out into their own autonomous entities - known as “Orgs” - which are directly supported by the DAO which is now referred to as Radworks. Today, the community continues to collectively govern the Radworks treasury, funding Orgs that do work in line with the Radworks purpose.

Why does it exist?

Since 2017, the driving question behind the project (then, oscoin.io) was:

“What if we could create a decentralized network run by the community and contributors, with a sustainable economy to back it — one in which profits would be redistributed back to those who created value in the first place?”

Therefore, the Radicle project was established with two main objectives:

Develop resilient collaboration infrastructure that respects users freedoms, without a reliance on trusted gatekeepers nor on corporate or state overlords.
Use the newly developed sovereign financial infrastructure (Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi) in order to create new value flows for developers and grow the digital commons.

Radworks (then, the RadicleDAO) was created in an effort to build Radicle outside of the traditional paradigm. If it was built as a SaaS or open-core company, it would force users to remain in a customer/corporation relationship, leaving them vulnerable to eventual extraction. Additionally, if Radicle was to be a resilient collaboration infrastructure that truly respects user freedoms, it needed to be developed with trust-minimization in mind, be accessible to anyone in the world, all while remaining adaptive and competitive in a market with well-funded mega-corporations. The decision was made that the only way out of this pattern was to build free and open source networks that are self-sustaining and community owned. The tool for achieving that vision was the $RAD token, the network-native governance token that enables the collective governance and long-term sustainability of the Radicle network.

Throughout its lifetime, the Radicle project represented three things: Radicle, Drips, and the DAO itself. This reality confused the purpose and brand of the DAO as a whole. Evolving the RadicleDAO into Radworks, allowed us to unlock a clearer focus and a stronger identity for each of our projects while also creating space to re-envision the purpose of the DAO.

What does it “do”?

Radworks’ purpose (defined by its community) is to fund new, resilient, permissionless technologies to cultivate internet freedom. It currently does so by funding:

Radicle is a sovereign peer-to-peer network for code collaboration, built on top of Git.
Drips is a decentralized toolkit for funding software dependencies, powered by Ethereum

It also aims to develop infrastructure and community to demonstrate, reinforce, and bring awareness to the viability of decentralized & open-source technologies (including Radicle and Drips). It currently does so by funding:

Better Internet Foundation: a Swiss non-profit committed to supporting projects and people developing resilient, non-extractive peer-to-peer technologies that promote Internet freedom in addition to playing the role of protector, nurturer, and advocate of the Radworks ecosystem.
Radworks Grants: a community-run organization that funds development that enhances, expands, and enriches the Radworks ecosystem. This includes Radworks-specific third-party integrations, tooling, and alternative interfaces, as well as mission-aligned free and open-source projects.

How does it do it?

Radworks funds its activities with the assets held in its treasury. The treasury holds ~12M USDC and 50% of the total RAD supply (~49M RAD). It is controlled via an on-chain governance mechanism. Holders of $RAD can participate in the decision-making around the treasury by voting and creating on-chain governance proposals composed of executable actions. Currently, these actions include:

Treasury distributions of RAD, ETH, and USDC
Upgrades to the on-chain governance system
Changes to parameters of Treasury-governed contracts (e.g. Drips)

All funded activities are categorized into Orgs. Orgs represent different groups of contributors that are funded from its treasury. To obtain funding, Orgs must pass annual budget proposals through Radworks governance. Orgs serve the Radworks purpose by building technologies for developers that cultivate internet freedom. All Orgs have the autonomy to choose their own governance models, manage their own funds and run their own organizations. Each Org is required to participate in quarterly community calls and report to the community on their progress on the objectives outlined in their annual funding proposals.

Our current Orgs:

Radicle
Drips
Grants
Foundation

Looking forward

Radworks has a purpose, but it does not have a strategy.

This problem is highlighted by contributors in our Governance Feedback Survey:

“At the moment the DAO feels like a middle man that distributes funds – which is very useful in itself – but I find it hard to tell what the plan is for it, in general.”
“…while our strategy has moved to the DAO, we haven’t articulated that strategy as a DAO. This somehow got lost between foundation and DAO transition, but we need a group of people on the DAO to publish a one-pager that outlines the DAO’s strategy for 2024. […]
There are very few individuals (imo less than 7-8) that actively contribute in these conversations and all of them have conflicting interests.
“One thing that I know the Gov Team is considering and discussing, but which I have not heard any public discussion of yet is… the question of what is the long-term vision for sustainability or non-sustainability of the treasury funds.”

Since the original vision for $RAD and “the DAO” has evolved, we must chart a new course for the community to set and define a strategy for Radworks. We believe that 2024 is the year to set the foundations for the long-term success of this ecosystem. On top of that, the Radicle and Drips team are both moving fast towards product-market fit with many releases and partnerships on the horizon. This year we will be bringing forward strategies for Radworks that will drive this ecosystem forward — it’s time to define new additional value propositions for the $RAD token to ensure long-term sustainability and a strong narrative moving forward

Discussion Questions

What still confuses you about Radworks?
When you think of potential strategies for Radworks, what gets you excited?
How do you want to stay up to date with this work?

vporton · March 1, 2024, 7:02pm

I am confused of how can I get my entirely new project (Salaries Science) to be financed by Radworks.

I am excited that Radicle in principle can obtain full-time salaries for developers, because it has a rather big amount of cryptocurrency.

“How do you want to stay up to date with this work?” - The problem is I don’t know. I started to read some forum messages, but I am unsure if that helps me, or what else I should do.

shelb_ee · March 4, 2024, 4:18pm

Thanks for this intro post @abbey + rest of the Strategy Committee! It is exciting to know that there is a focused group working on this and putting in the time and effort into researching and presenting possible strategies for the community to discuss and decide on.

Re staying up to date: While I understand that updates are shared during the quarterly community calls by each Committee within the Foundation Org, considering that strategy definition is an ongoing process, I’m curious if you have any additional plans to regularly share progress and ideas with the community, including ways they can get involved in this work as it progresses. I could imagine something like monthly forum post like the Governance Committee does, or possible more project-based updates/involvement requests depending on what the focus is at the time.

Re strategies: Before deciding on a strategy, I think we need to first discuss and decide on - as a community - what the actual end-goal of Radworks is. Moreover, what does “sustainability” mean to us as a community. Depending on that answer, the strategy options and execution will vary. I know this is something you folks are already thinking about, but your help facilitating this discussion with the community would be greatly appreciated.

lftherios · March 11, 2024, 12:02pm

Thank you @abbey.

I want to start by saying that I believe that Radworks has a narrative problem.

In my opinion, the current narrative is not working for us. Our proposition “We fund new technologies to cultivate internet freedom” has the following issues:

It’s unclear what problem it solves and for whom.
It presents us as inactive - as there is little engagement on the Radworks channels - which is absolutely not the case.
It creates confusion; most feedback I have received about it is “is Radworks a VC now?” - which is not the case.
We don’t have a passion for “funding” technologies or expertise.

While the DAO technically funds technologies periodically, our community’s heart lies in building them. The majority of active participants devote most of their time to building technologies rather than merely financing them.

Considering the above, a shift in Radworks’ narrative is imperative. We can achieve this by capitalizing on the groundwork laid by projects like Radicle & Drips. By emphasizing how all our current pieces fit together and by outlining a compelling vision, including new initiatives like the Radworks Seed Network (RSN), we can redefine our narrative effectively. In my opinion, now is the time for this change.

My proposal

I would like to propose that we pursue the following in order to address the above:

1. Radworks should return to the project’s roots with regards to its messaging.

Radworks is building a sovereign developer stack.
The Radworks ecosystem enables developers to securely host, collaborate and reward open-source contributions.
Radworks is the sum of its parts (Radicle, Drips, RSN).

This means new website material needs to be launched for Radworks and a detailed marketing plan for Radworks needs to be created.

2. Radworks should update its tokenomics.

With the RSN proposal receiving enough support, I believe that Radworks has an opportunity to revisit its tokenomics and evolve the RAD token from purely being a governance token to becoming a token that could be used to coordinate all actors, govern the treasury and smart contracts, and reward infrastructure providers.

In my opinion, this is a natural evolution for Radworks and it creates the conditions for the Radworks Treasury to have incoming funds. It also aligns the RAD token with the broader DePIN community (e.g. Filecoin, Akash, Arweave).

To start activating this strategy, I will be requesting funds to start a new tokenomics working group (as part of the upcoming RSN proposal) to evolve the value propositions of the $RAD token.

3. Radworks should put more emphasis on community engagement.

A few thoughts:

My observation is that there is very little governance related activity taking place on the Radworks Discord, Twitter, and Discourse, resulting in sporadic gov facilitation needs (high during November // yearly cycle, really low the rest of the year). This is in contrast to what is happening with Radicle and Drips, where there is a lot of daily activity on their servers.

Taking that into account, I feel that more focus should be placed on Radworks related community work and less on governance processes & frameworks.

The strategy for Radworks that I would like us to pursue is summarized by the following:

We should be leveraging the active contributors & ecosystem projects and the activity that is taking place there → in order to set and amplify the right community tone & vibe → in order to finally surface that towards new and existing token holders.

Speaking of token holders, I think it’s time for this community to realize that traders and investors are an important group of this ecosystem that needs to be taken into consideration. I am sharing the following graphic from Vitalik’s latest post that resonated with me.

I would also like to share some concrete ideas below:

Twitter: It would be beneficial to move beyond mere notifications regarding discussion topics. Perhaps we could post actual summaries of conversations/approaches. Generally, I would prefer if we started creating more engaging content from the discussions taking place on the Discourse forum. We should also start hosting Twitter Spaces across the ecosystems or together with mission aligned ecosystems in order to share and amplify our work.

Discord: It would be valuable to generate more content about Radworks. This could include interviews with existing contributors, deep dives into new features from ecosystem orgs, surfacing interesting comments, or showcasing intriguing takes on governance from other communities.

Ideally, there should be rhythms where new content is posted every week.

shelb_ee · March 11, 2024, 2:58pm

Thanks for this interesting take @lftherios! I generally like and agree with a lot of the thoughts you share here. I broke my comments up by recommendation:

Re Messaging:
The messaging around Radworks was a community-curated creation from last year. Pulling elements from the purpose definition work, it tried to capture what contributors thought the “DAO” was and what community it represented. While the resulting messaging did put a new and broadened lens on what Radworks is trying to accomplish, I have noticed that it has seemed to be confusing for folks as it is very different from previous messaging. I am curious to hear reactions from other contributors and community members on this point to see if others share similar thoughts and feelings. I would also be curious to hear how you imagine gaining community consensus around new messaging for Radworks?

Re Tokenomics:
Token utility has been on my mind for a while now, and it is exciting to see interest and ideas on this topic amongst other community members! I know the Strategy Committee has been working on identifying different strategies relating to sustainability and tokenomics. I would be curious to see their thoughts and existing work in this area for comparison!

Re Community Engagement:

Could you clarify what you mean here? Each of these platforms have different uses relating to governance. For example, the primary medium for discussion on governance proposals is the community forum on Discourse, where as Discord and Twitter are primarily used for sharing announcements, updates and reminders. I worry if we try to encourage discussion around proposals in other places than on the forum, the information around each proposal will start to become more fragmented and harder to track (i.e. some folks will leave comments on Twitter which will then not make it to the forum).

Governance processes and frameworks are really just there for reference/as a resource for the community, and generally do not need to be the focus of discussion. So I agree with you!

Over the past year, the Radworks Twitter has transitioned from being just a “ticker” account with governance/proposal-related announcements, reminders and updates to a more community inclusive space. While governance updates/reminders are still shared there, the marketing team (@sean & co.) has transformed it into a platform that highlights community values and mission, as well as shares updates and news from Radicle & Drips.

Regarding your suggestions for Twitter outlined above, are you referring to “discussions around governance proposals” or general community discussions that come up on the forum? If the former, please see my comment about worrying about fragmenting discussion around proposals. If the latter, while I think highlighting engaging discussions on the forum is generally a good idea, I think it would be a good exercise to discuss as a community what types of “forum discussions” should be highlighted/shared. I think common sense can be a good guide, but I also want to be mindful of soft-power that the individual(s) hold who decide what discussions to highlight on Twitter/other platforms. Having a community generated or agreed on list of types of discussions they want highlighted from the forum would maybe be helpful to maintain fairness and neutrality.

Regarding the Radworks Discord - Since the split of the community channels, we have been on a journey to figure out how this space could be used in the most effective way. After being plagued with spam and trolls, we made some changes to channel settings & authorities (see change log) which has already made a HUGE difference. Although the changes are new and there is more that can be done, we have already witnessed the # general channel transform into a space for meaningful contributor interaction. We really want this to be a space for cross-collaboration/pollination and information sharing amongst the various Orgs.

Regarding your suggestion for the Radworks Discord, I think some of this has will continue to happen naturally (Orgs posting updates/highlights from things they’re working on, sharing useful external links, etc.). If this were to become a “coordinated” effort, who do you imagine leading this work? Do you think it needs to be assigned to a role or could we maybe just encourage contributors from the different Orgs to post more in these channels?

ange · March 12, 2024, 11:07am

Thanks for kicking this off, @abbey. And @lftherios, I appreciate the tangible recommendations on how Radworks should move forward.

I agree that a more whittled down version of the current purpose is appropriate. As I mentioned in [Request for Comments] What's an Org? - #7 by ange “In order to define whether work “is aligned with Radworks” and how an Org can support Radworks in getting that work done…we need to agree on a scope for Radworks that is more narrow than its current purpose.”

I think that a Discourse poll - something I know Abbey and Ele have discussed - would be a good way to move this proposal forward. It’s an easier, more accessible, and cheaper way to engage the community. It enables individuals to participate more closely to the text and ideas they are reviewing. And therefore something we should consider using more frequently to reach consensus on ideas or get a temperature check.

This is a very exciting shift. And as @lftherios has worked on the project’s tokenomics in the past (and has some very relevant skills related to mechanism design), I think it would be really helpful to have him work more closely on this topic as well as define and evaluate the additional team members (skills) necessary to get this work done.

While I generally agree with this, and would support moving forward on this, I think the next steps should look more closely at the following questions:

What problem are we solving for?
What outcome do we want for 2024?
What does a successful community (impact of outcome) look like in 2024?
What skill sets do we need to be planning and executing on this work?

The answers to these questions should then inform some sort of “Community Development Plan” that would outline the concrete objectives that would build towards the outcome we need and empower the community we want. Discussion of these questions and creation of this Plan should be led by someone who is familiar with building community amongst both developers and token holders. The Plan should inform how different communications channels are used - and how each one contributes towards the desired outcome. I think specific decisions on how to use Twitter vs. Discord vs. Discourse are out of scope for this thread. Though I do agree with @shelb_ee that such a plan should

sean · March 12, 2024, 11:24pm

This is an excellent discussion. It’s great to see a lot of these ideas and it looks like there is some broad alignment in a number of areas.

I agree with @lftherios that the community will be most vibrant when it is focused on the value that our current and future users can realize from our products.

Given that we have a number of disparate channels across our different groups, one idea I think is particularly important for us is aligned with your thought here, Ele:

Governance is super important but it can also be distracting for some users. We would really benefit from is a unified view of our audiences across different channels.

I started exploring with different tools that can help us with this, and the one that seems to have the most traction is Common Room. It supports a ton of different platforms. As you can see in this screenshot, we’ve already started the process of connecting them, and are poised to continue this effort. Once we have alignment on community engagement as a priority as well as the goals we’re looking to accomplish, we can proceed with this tool or identify another tool that works better.

Re: Radwork’s Twitter account, I echo @shelb_ee’s clarification to your characterization @lftherios - we’ve increased our focus on posting more frequently with community values & mission-related content (until a recent pause was requested. We’re hoping to formulate and roll out a unified social strategy to our (recently created) Radworks Farcaster account in addition to Twitter/X soon.

Re: posting content specifically targeted to traders & investors - I’d like to discuss this more, but generally air on the side of not doing this due to the risks involved, and due to the distraction that this type of content can create. I’d urge us to further define/refine more mission-critical audiences before expanding to this segment.

I’ve connected with @abbey about doing a meeting this week to discuss marketing strategy. I think the most interesting topic in this conversation might be this part of your note, @lftherios:

It would be great to have a conversation with you, @cloudhead & @abbey about this to discuss how it would work in practice - ie how we would staff, manage and fund the people doing this work?

Looking forward to discussing these topics in more detail in the coming days & weeks to figure out our next steps!

abbey · March 14, 2024, 11:39am

Thanks @lftherios for the proposal and feedback! It appears we have some initial agreement on further refining Radworks’ purpose and messaging. Let’s use a Discourse poll (thanks @ange for the suggestion) to gather sentiment from contributors on proceeding with this proposal:

Should Radworks shift its narrative?

We should refocus Radworks’ messaging on sovereign developer tooling and initiate a new marketing plan.

Yes
No
Unsure/Other (provide your reasoning below!)

0 voters

Will drop some more comments regarding community development & engagement later this week