[Discussion] - [Phase 0] Transition to the DAO

[abbey]

The official discussion for the [Phase 0] Transition to the DAO proposal. With this post, the proposal has entered the second phase of the governance process. Please review the drafted proposal and contribute feedback by Monday, August 22nd.

[Phase 0] Transition to the DAO - Discussion

As outlined in The Next Phase of the RadicleDAO post, the project’s next decentralization goal is to have the scaffolding in place to transition Core Teams to the DAO by November 2022 with initial teams transitioned by February 2023.

This proposal outlines Phase 0 of this transition which transitions Radicle’s development runway and contributor token rewards to the DAO. It requests 2.75M USDC to fund six months of Core Teams operational budgets (until February 2023) and 1M RAD to distribute among Radicle contributors who joined the project post- token launch.

Purpose (what’s the “why”?)

To ensure a smooth and successful transition, it is wise to progressively transition aspects of the project where possible. Migrating funding for Core Team operational budgets from Foundation assets to Treasury assets will make it easier to transition Core Teams when the organizational design is ready for “production”.

Additionally, putting contributor incentive programs in place before the transition is incredibly important to ensure Radicle’s contributors can participate actively in the governance of the RadicleDAO.

Background

Full background for the proposal can be found in the Temperature check below

Temperature Check — [Phase 0] Transition to the DAO

[Phase 0] Transition to the DAO - Temperature Check As outlined in The Next Phase of the RadicleDAO post, the project’s next decentralization goal is to have the scaffolding in place to transition Core Teams to the DAO by November 2022 with initial teams transitioned by February 2023. To ensure a smooth and successful transition, it is wise to progressively transition aspects of the project where possible. This proposal outlines Phase 0 of this transition which transitions Radicle’s deve…

Technical implementation

Foundation Runway (USDC)

The USDC will be transferred directly to the Foundation’s Anchorage Custody Account. The Foundation will continue to manage contributor contracts and payments in each contributor’s preferred currency, drawing from the Treasury-funded capital.

Vesting Contracts (RAD)

To ensure these rewards can be allocated by the DAO to current contributors before the transition, the recommended quickest and easiest way forward is to delegate the responsibility for managing the vesting contracts to the Radicle Foundation, with the intention of transferring ownership to the DAO once Core Teams have transitioned.

In practice, this proposal recommends transferring the ~1M RAD for contributor rewards to a Gnosis Safe multisig controlled by the Foundation Council and an overseer (@lftherios @abbey @cloudhead and/or someone supporting the Foundation’s operations). The vesting contracts will be deployed to this multisig, giving the signers the ability to pause, terminate, and update the vesting contracts. The “vesting start date” of each vesting contract will be the date the contributor first started working for the Foundation.

The Foundation will be responsible for managing these vesting contracts until the transition. Once the infrastructure is in place, ownership of this multisig can be delegated among any number of DAO participants, decentralizing control of the vesting contracts to the DAO itself.

Until the transition, the multisig can take action in the following ways:

• If a contributor drastically reduces their average time spent on Radicle (over 50%) within the vesting period, then the multisig has the permission to update their vesting contract accordingly.
• If a contributor leaves the project within the cliff period, the multisig has permission to end or replace (pause) the contract.
• If a contributor leaves the project, the multisig has permission to send the “unvested” tokens back to the Treasury

Before taking any of the actions outlined above, at least one multsig signer must discuss the decision must be discussed with the contributor. To ensure the multisig signers’ actions don’t go unchecked, one member of the contributor’s Core Team must also participate in this discussion.

The vesting contracts should be configured to ensure maximum flexibility for the DAO to upgrade the contracts as it sees fit, as well as create new ones for future contributors.

Impact

As @shelb_ee said in the Temperature Check:

@shelb_ee

Funding core teams over the next 6 months from the treasury will not only get us one step closer to transitioning to the DAO, it will also allow for a smoother adjustment for everyone. This will also be a great learning period for organizers and contributors and leave an opportunity to provide feedback/point out pain points before making the full transition.

Open questions

• What other details do we need to include in the implementation details?
• What is suitable enough infrastructure for handing over control of the compensation and incentive multisigs to the DAO? What security best practices have to be developed?