What is involved in being a Custodian of eosDAC?

eosdac (58)in #eos • 6 years ago (edited)

eosDAC

eosDAC is an EOS block producer candidate with a founding mission to support and enable the success of DACs by providing open source tools and expertise. These include a suite of smart contracts that encode the DAC’s constitution into executable code and other governance, HR, regulatory and advisory support.

Being a Custodian of eosDAC has the potential to be of great service to the evolution of distributed governance. Those willing to step into the role will guide eosDAC toward the resources it needs to execute its vision on the EOS chain, blockchain in general and society as a whole. As eosDAC creates a living, breathing DAC, we discover and solve the problems inherent in pioneering this new model of open source working. The EOS.IO software is unique in being sophisticated enough to encode and transact these complex relationships, so it is important to test and iterate this model using EOS.IO, and to do so successfully will require a competent and experienced leadership board. Equally, safeguarding block production and moving back into active block production will require the Custodians’ collective leadership and management.

이 게시물은 한국어로도 제공됩니다: eosDAC의 관리인이 된다는 것
Этот пост также доступен на русском языке: Что входит в обязанности Хранителя eosDAC?
这篇文章也有中文简体版: 成为 eosDAC 的托管人需要满足哪些条件？
Cet article est également disponible en français : En quoi consiste le rôle de Délégué au sein d'eosDAC?

The Constitution

eosDAC’s governance is prescribed by its Constitution, which is essential reading for any prospective candidate. You may also wish to refer to this blog post about the eosDAC Constitution, and you can discuss these matters on the Discord #6-legal-and-governance channel.

Overarching responsibility

eosDAC’s governing principles are found in the Constitution and include Nurturing the EOS Ecosystem, Openness & Transparency, and Fairness. Custodians are required to act in accordance with these principles.

The Custodian Board

The Custodian Board is made up of 12 elected Custodians; terms last one week although we expect and hope that many Custodians will be re-elected consecutively subject to the will of token holders. Voting is done by tokenholders and is continuous - a ‘snapshot’ ranking of Custodians is taken just prior to formation of the oncoming Custodian board. Voting by token holders is proportionate to number of tokens held, as on mainnet.

Considering worker proposals

The affairs of the DAC are largely considered and decided through worker proposals, so the primary job of Custodians is to view, communicate with other Custodians about, and vote on worker proposals.

The process of adjudicating on worker proposals is likely to include these steps:

Ascertaining the background and history of a proposal - ideally all necessary information will be given within the proposal itself but on occasion further background may need to be sought actively
Discussing and hearing the other Custodians’ views, whether by voice or over open messaging; if necessary, soliciting feedback from other Members/colleagues who know the worker or workstream in question
Approving or declining the proposal (on chain)
Arranging for decisions to be published on the blockchain
When a claim is made (workers ‘claim’ the proposal for payment when they complete the deliverable), Custodians assess if the deliverable was completed before approving payment. Custodians may put in place systems and structures over time to assist them in this checking exercise

Custodians may also submit proposals for consideration by the Custodian board.

Authorising payments

All payments from the eosDAC EOS account will require multisig approval of nine out of 12 Custodians. Custodians should ensure that payments result from properly claimed and completed worker proposals and then approve the payment on-chain.

eosDAC’s technical engineers will make this step as user friendly as possible and liaise with Custodians to assist them at a technical level.

Communication and meetings

It is envisaged that Custodians will communicate with each other by messaging and voice on Discord and also through (Zoom or similar) meetings. A Custodian is considered to have been present at a ‘meeting’ if they participated in a way that allowed the other Custodians present to view, hear or otherwise interact with their communications in real time. Custodians will determine for themselves the frequency and type of interaction they need to discharge their duties.

Language

The Constitution specifies that proceedings amongst the Custodians will happen in English. This is because English is the lingua franca conjoining speakers of diverse languages. Custodians who do not speak English may need to arrange for a translator, perhaps from within the DAC itself.

Identification

The Constitution specifies that the Custodian Board may choose to maintain a record of Custodian’s contact details (such as address/email address) in such form as the Board chooses. The Custodian Board could also choose not to keep such a record.

Elsewhere the Constitution indicates that the Custodian Board may request ID from Members if it needs to do so to comply with laws, regulations or arbitration.

Custodian remuneration

Custodians are paid according to the following mechanism: each Candidate specifies the remuneration (in EOS) they would like to receive for their week’s term; all elected Custodians for a given week will be paid the median of the amounts each of them proposed.

As guidance, eosDAC’s revenue at the time of writing is less than 10,000 EOS per month; much of this is paid out as worker pay for the block production technical team, community functions, management of DAC systems such as HR and finance, social media management and more. Given that there are twelve Custodians, pay of up to 50 EOS per week would be an upper limit that the DAC could afford as a reserve producer - Custodians willing to serve for less may be viewed preferentially by voters.

Risk and legal

The founding team believe eosDAC is unlikely to be engaging in activities that would attract legal or regulatory attention: the DAC was not and is not involved in the token distribution nor any aspect of token exchange; the DAC is not engaging in activities that could be said to fall under financial regulation (the test for which revolves around storing or transmitting value belonging to others).

Furthermore, eosDAC’s founding team have taken the utmost care in drafting a Constitution that is designed to shield the Custodians from unfair liability (see for eg. clause 3.5, in which Members as a whole share responsibility for the DAC; clause 6.4 in which Members are deemed to have authorised the decisions of the Custodian board).

Candidates should notwithstanding be aware that these are uncharted waters we are exploring - which is why this project is so exciting and, we believe, important.

Custodians may be an individual or a legal entity.

Token staking

Custodians will be making important decisions and better outcomes are likely to result if their incentives are aligned with the DAC’s. For this reason Custodians will be required to stake at least [50,000 EOSDAC - value being discussed, see this post and leave your feedback] tokens though they are free to stake more to signal commitment; the staked tokens will be released after [3-6 months (duration is being decided)] after the Custodian ceases to serve on the Board so long as no adverse consequences resulted from their tenure, such as financial fraud, legal proceedings or demonstrable reputational damage to the DAC.

Nomination process

As a precursor to nominating yourself, please ensure you are a registered Member of eosDAC (meaning you own tokens and have registered at https://members.eosdac.io/).

As soon as Custodian nomination opens - which will be announced on our website and our comms channels - please follow the simple steps to nominating yourself at members.eosdac.io.

Thank you!