Hey @mel.eth,
Thanks for your reply and I will try to address all of the points below.
The Delegate Safe having the ability to reconstitute the three core pods means that there should not be an overlap of signers with the pods.
This is an understandable concern, however, I don’t anticipate any problems with it. I’d be happy to step down from the Delegate Safe personally and be replaced by another trusted party. Given that we are entering new territory, this decision was made because it provides some continuity. For what it’s worth - the Delegate Safe will not go against decisions made by token holders and all of the people on the Delegate Safe are in favor of automating this with code as you suggest. The only problem is that it will take some time to change this.
The two non-individual signers you cited are Defensible LLC (@edwardk) and our Professional Director Firm who is a Director of the Cayman Foundation.
The signing structure is 3-member/2-pods for each multisig . . . would it not be prudent to make the other pods requisite-signers on treasury expenditures? As it stands it appears the three individual treasury signers could drain the treasury without the other pods being able to prevent it.
Corrupting 3-of-3 is not impossible, but highly unlikely. If just one was honest you’d need to corrupt another 2-of-3 in the Operations or Engineering Pods. This is practically next to impossible meaning you’d have to corrupt 4-of-9.
In addition, I’m hopeful that we can establish some on-chain limits on both the Engineering and Treasury Pod actions in the future and it is a topic that has been discussed with Metropolis.
What is the cadence of re-election of signers at the three core pods and Delegate Safe? What entity is responsible for ensuring the legitimacy and accountaiblity of the INDEX token-voting process? Who is eligible to be a signer on the Delegate Safe?
This process is deliberately step-by-step. As such, there is not a specified cadence for re-election yet, but my preference is for a six-month review. As for the entity presiding over that, the goal is no entity and to move to on-chain governance in by the end of June 2023.
No eligibility rules have been put in place for the Delegate Safe as its intended to be temporary.
Who are the current signers on the relevant multisigs
The only relevant multi-sig is the Treasury Account and the relevant signers can be found here. The Operations Pod and Engineering Pod would be new Safes under the new structure.
Have you retained a firm other than metropolis to review and have metropolis successfully transitioned a DAO in this way before? I’m thirsty for details that give me confidence it all stays bolted together through the transition described above.
We have not retained a firm to review, but this proposal has been circulated to many partners who have lots of experience with different governance structures including VCs and also through conversations with people at Aave, Goldfinch, and a few other protocols.
As for Metropolis - they have been successful at ENS as the primary example. You can read more about that here.
Further, some discussion of the relevant utility of the INDEX token in light of these changes would be helpful context.
The utility of the INDEX token is something that has been under consideration for some time. In my personal view, this is secondary to growth and the core DAO functions at the moment, but I intend to spend time working on this problem in the coming months. As for this proposal, I think INDEX utility is out of scope - except for the fact that this proposal gets us closer to an implemented on-chain governance system.
will the signers at least attest to some principle-based behaviors?) I want you all gone from that Delegate Safe and code in your place . . . it’s not meant to be personal and having held a position of power within a DAO I know you likely don’t enjoy that responsibility either as I try and empathize with those that crafted this proposal and are affected by it; is it possible and what steps are taking place at present to get IC gov on-chain given that this proposal doesn’t appear to move that needle?
Yes, as I mentioned above (but it is worth reiterating), I will simply take the actions decided by token holders. And it is important to me to move to on-chain governance. I can speak on behalf of @afromac, @edwardk, and @0x_Dev as well when I say that we will all act in accordance with token holders. Our professional director is also mandated to act in accordance with token votes.
While it doesn’t move the needle on on-chain voting - it does move the needle on on-chain governance. This structure inches us closer to implementing on-chain voting and it makes the processes for selecting representatives clear and transparent. I view bringing the organization structure on-chain as a great first step towards an improved Index Coop.
I hope I adequately answered all of our comments and questions. I’m aware this proposal does not solve all governance at Index Coop, but it does move us considerably in the right direction and it signals our overall intention to maximize decentralization without reducing operational efficiency.
Best,
Anthony