BadgerDAO Community Council Vote: Loss of Trust and Confidence in the Leadership of the Primary Technical Service Provider to BadgerDAO

General Discussion
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Due to the unforeseen nature of the removal of the Badger DAO Discord from the token holders and community members by Badger DAO’s primary service provider. The Badger DAO Community Council was forced to converse in a private Discord group chat to discuss next steps in how to preserve the decentralization of the DAO. A forum post was created over the weekend with an overwhelming majority of respondents in favor of restoring Discord. The Discord was the primary utility for facilitating the creation of Badger Improvement Proposals. With it the token holders and community members have lost a key vector in governing the protocol. Based on the feed back from the forum and private discussions with a large number of community members that previously would have been held in the public discord, the Community Council has unanimously passed the following vote with further governance to soon follow. This will need to be represented on the forum with a screenshot since Discord has been abruptly frozen:

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The Badger DAO Community Council would appreciate feedback from the token holders, the primary service provider and community members on this decision.

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my compliments to the badger council and its members for taking action, and for being able to do so despite getting rugged of their primary means of communications.

this vote makes it clear to me that the community council agrees on the fact that the shutting down of discord is not an isolated incident, and that there is a deeper problem at hand.

i am looking forward to a response from the board of the association—it is critical to get their side of the story here.

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This is great news. It’s shocking to me that this decision was made with no community input. No discord post, no rff, nothing. Just a straight decision. It removes all trust in the protocol!

It’s very refreshing to see that the council actually care about the protocol, its token holders, and the wider community. There are numerous protocols (such as Aave) which are much larger than Badger with a fully operational discord. When questioning the team, they couldn’t even state the $ value/number of scams that have affected the community. That is appalling!

Making a decision with no data to back is a clear sign of poor leadership. You cannot possibly make a clear statement that the downsides of having a discord outweigh the upsides with no data. If this was the case we’d be seeing a wave of Discord closures across the ecosystem, but we’re not.

End of the day, the protocol is good, the devs are good, the community is amazing, but the leadership team are poor. We need to immediately fix the power dynamics that are being abused here. And let it be clear - those doing the development of the protocol are not the same people making these poor decisions. I’m sure that if requested, they would continue building the protocol & ensuring a stellar launch of E-BTC.

All development on E-BTC is ultimately owned by the DAO. All money invested in its launch, the partnerships created, the smart contracts, everything. Badger can continue to operate with its contributors, the council, & the community without any input from the leadership team.

I am all for this & it’s clear that every other token holder is too. I look forward to seeing this moving to a BIP & the community coming out to show that an abuse of power will not be tolerated.

Thank you to the council!

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Link to restored Discord RFF on Increasing Decentralization

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It’s unfortunate that there’s an attempt to spread a false narrative within the community, especially when contrasting it with the efforts of contributors who have braved the bear market and tackled devastating industry challenges head-on. These leaders have relentlessly worked on developing the Badger ecosystem, a rarity in our space where many shy away from the tough obstacles and often opt for the easy route.

The claims outlined in this RFF and community council proposal that are the basis for the loss of trust are clear lies which represent what looks like an attack on the DAO with the intention to take over governance. Something so disappointing to see as Badger is on the cusp of releasing eBTC to the world after 18 months of building with the support of leading protocols in our space.

BadgerDAO is more decentralized than it’s ever been, with a clear vision in eBTC, exceptional financial rigor compared to the past, transparent on chain operations, all while attracting new ecosystem participants every quarter that share in that direction. This is something the community should be very proud of especially in how far we’ve come.

It’s absolutely critical to ensure everyone and anyone reading this proposal has the actual facts to help build their own perception.

Let’s start by taking a look at how BadgerDAO has made significant progress towards further decentralization over the last 3 years.

Decentralization is a spectrum especially amongst DeFi protocol DAOs and should be looked at across both its operations and the technology it develops. BadgerDAO has made significant progress across both of these areas.

Its Tech

Then

  • Upgradeable and multisig governed smart contracts across all protocols (amplifies its impact with more live protocols)
  • Significant reliance on other protocols and their assets which proved to be detrimental to both Badger and others.
  • Backed by a variety of centralized assets.
  • Multiple offchain reliances for the functionality of these products.

Now

  • A single protocol in eBTC that is intended to be a primitive others build on.
  • Backed by one collateral asset.
  • Immutable smart contracts and non custodial.
  • Minimized governance on core parameters to further limit human participation.

Its Operations

Then

  • No transparency or understanding around financials and DAO spend
  • No understanding of protocol revenue or profitability
  • No frameworks for operations and treasury management
  • Primarily individual contributors with no experience working together
  • Limited support from professional service providers
  • No regulatory framework or gameplan
  • No ability to interact in a compliant way with partners

Now

  • Financials - Public live financials across the DAO that anyone can view
  • BIP approved frameworks for operations and treasury councils
  • The ability to contract with specialized service providers to improve operational efficiency and create liability protection. This requires the ability to complete KYC/due diligence, to foster partnerships for legal, compliance, accounting and tax, security, development, marketing, and commercial partnerships.
  • 36 independent service providers and contractors supporting the growth of BadgerDAO.
  • A clear regulatory framework supported by industry leading legal councils.

All the while the governance framework has matured and empowers the 30k+ token holders to approve roles on councils and foundational policy frameworks for these councils to operate under. This coupled with the association has proven to enable the DAO to make more informed and efficient decisions.

What’s important to understand is the state of BadgerDAO in 2021 and 2022 as well. In particular after the hack and on the cusp of the largest collapses in our industry (FTX, Celsius, Terra etc.), BadgerDAO was on the brink of its demise.

  • Products weren’t profitable
  • Emission spends were through the roof ($28M projected for 2022)
  • The chaos of formation had the DAO spending an enormous amount of capital on almost 50 full/part time contributors.
  • It lacked specialized service providers to navigate the regulatory difficulties of this space and progress development to ship a truly innovative primitive.
  • No clear mandate for solving these issues.

It was from this point that change started to happen that has put Badger in the promising position it’s in today and the ability to withstand the bear market. One that was tackled initially by many of the contributors that are being wrongly scrutinized in this proposal and that was accelerated with the launch of the Association in Jan of 2023 and driven by its leadership. This included significant cost cutting measures going into this year that are also going to be executed under budget.

Lets talk about the Badger Association

Overall, the purpose of the Association is to foster growth of the Badger ecosystem; to enable technical and operational development by hiring and managing contractors, to progress strategy, partnerships, and governance, and to help evolve legal, security, and overall best practices in supporting BadgerDAO. The Badger Association is not a single service provider. It represents all service providers supporting the DAO and receiving fees today. Including critical software infrastructure, legal, smart contract development, security etc. All with documented, legal contracts in place to support executional obligations.

Losing faith in it is losing faith in every professional provider that has enabled BadgerDAO to continue to be a leading DeFi project that’s building world class technology like you see with eBTC.

The association operates under the current constructs of BadgerDAO governance and BIPs. It always has.

For example, it receives funding approved by the treasury council which comes in the form of a well documented budget. That meets consensus among the 5 of 9 council participants and is posted publicly for the community to review. Like this from last year.

The mandate to which the treasury council operates under adheres to the treasury framework approved via BIP by token holders.

The Association then enables real time updates of financials across a variety of categories. This is made possible as all capital is exclusively onchain. All transactions are public and trackable by any community member.

With this funding the association can legally and contractually engage with service providers that in most cases wouldn’t collaborate with BadgerDAO otherwise. This also allows for liability protection for contributors and service providers in a space that’s filled with regulatory uncertainty.

The Association today consists of:

  • 10 fulltime contributors/contractors
  • 6 part time contributors/contractors
  • 20 independent service providers (across web2 security, web3 security, legal, smart contract development, software services, marketing, creative/design, finance, product, supporting across global markets)
  • Board of directors that require ⅔ consensus on decisions and consists of 2 BadgerDAO founders and 1 of the longest term contributors.

These are all contracted engagements with obligations to the Association to execute and with board oversight for quality and safety. Again further showcasing how the Association, its relationships, contracts and expert service providers isn’t anywhere close to friends/family and just the core team. Many of which have shown their involvement publicly.

How the Association is accelerating growth

  • Created a modular structure to support global delivery and expansion of the Badger ecosystem that has resulted in 36 total independent providers. This proactive approach has enabled the turnaround efforts with expert service provider support for development, security, financial, legal and commercial innovation
  • Trending to perform ~9% under budget for 2023, while upgrading specialized support to bring eBTC to market with the highest standards.
  • Engaging service providers to build eBTC across the full technical development cycle that will continue as it introduces new protocols underneath it to foster stability and growth.
  • Supported the $BADGER token through market making due diligence with a leading provider to increase depth, distribution and global awareness.
  • Innovating global legal support to create frameworks for deploying eBTC and supporting the regulatory footprint for $BADGER.
  • Continuing to work towards cutting costs and upgrading service providers to ensure the highest output for the DAO moving forward.

Lets refute clearly false and malicious accusations shared in the proposal above.

  • Falsely suggesting the association has taken power away from BADGER token holders creating levels of “centralization” when that is not the case at all as described above. The Association manages service providers to enable quality and safety of development, which has always been a responsibility the community has empowered to contributors. The last 12 months it’s been operating in this fashion to ensure better regulatory compliance, liability protection and having the ability to interface with professional service providers that require compliant contracts.
  • Falsely suggesting that the association is “heavily weighted towards lifelong friends” when this is inaccurate. There are 5 ppl that know each other well of the collective 36 active contracts with the association to which over 50% of those are independent businesses. These 5 people have been active contributors to Badger since 2021 and earned their way into supporting the DAO starting with grants like everyone else.
  • Falsely presenting the Association as the “primary technical service provider” to the DAO; instead it represents all service providers (legal, security, finance etc.) who have opted into contracts including the contributor who posted this forum RFF.
  • Presenting as if the association has broken governance, rather it has adhered to governance approved frameworks since inception.
  • Suggesting there’s been a failure to create long term viable products, while the original poster and the community council poster were full time contributors building these protocols and some of the most compensated contributors across the DAO.
  • It was the proactive efforts of the Association leadership to push the technology to be more decentralized, reduce security threats and ensure products were meeting profitability standards (Progressing Towards Further Decentralization | by BadgerDAO 🦡 | Medium) that’s allowed Badger to be at the point it is today with eBTC.
  • Falsely suggesting there’s been a failure to present the “return of value” from eBTC development to token holders which hasn’t launched yet when literally last week there was a professional budget for 2024 and product roadmap presented to the treasury council, with the original poster suggesting he was going to approve it. Ongoing discussions are happening within the treasury and a detailed roadmap will be shared with the community soon.
  • Continuing to present the idea that because of discord being in read-only mode there is no community voice. Nothing in the governance process changed, there was a preventative security action on a comms platform that was used for early community conversations. Forum has been the primary place for refining proposals that could be voted on by token holders. Discord is already operational again and is the basis for this attempted attack.

Association leadership has enabled improved outcomes end to end and supported decentralized progression since its inception and will continue to provide quality and safety for the greater badger ecosystem while putting community first.

Unfortunately DAO’s are seeing more and more of what this community council proposal seems to be. The reality is they are individuals with the intent to extract as much value as possible for personal gain or power. Community members should be focusing on the opposite, providing as much value to collectively push the ecosystem forward. That’s how we all win. We’ve demonstrated this intent and integrity since day zero.

Unfortunately many of these contributors lack understanding of the eBTC protocol, its codebase, growth plans, nor do they provide the expertise to push this forward as they haven’t been involved in its development technically, economically, or commercially over the last year. This includes the details of engagements and relationships with the extended service provider network that are supporting eBTC.

I fear the community council has been convinced with false information to follow a crusade without having all the facts.

This is what I think may be happening here but the reality is Badgers never quit and they are fearless. That’s my commitment to the community. Unwavering effort to ship an exciting DeFi primitive in eBTC, continuous progression towards further decentralizing the DAO, building innovative partnerships with leading DeFi protocols in the space, helping bring best in class service providers into our ecosystem with deep levels of specialized expertise and acting with transparency while adhering to governance frameworks.

There is a substantial amount of content, detail and plans about to be shared around what the eBTC launch is going to look like and how it could see accelerated growth in the market which in turn will drive more excitement around the Badger ecosystem. This will be coming soon from a variety of ecosystem participants that have deep domain knowledge in these areas and great reputations throughout the DeFi space. I hope we as a community can focus on the excitement around this vs a malicious attempt by a small group of people to overtake governance.

I’m a honey badger through and through. Skin so tough a Machete can’t cut through!

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You almost made yourself look like you were taking the high road until you made these false accusations. The ability for anyone in the community to contribute to eBTC was taken away by the Association by hiding development details for months and months and not engaging the community with details about the road map until a year into the development cycle.

You paint this picture like there is a collective of developers , but you hold the keys to all the contracts. That’s by definition centralization. You choose who gets to play the game. Who looks good. Who gets to be in your inner circle. And you paint a picture like the rest of us are evil.

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I don’t believe our council vote was a vote of no faith of the association as a whole.

To be honest most folks were/are unaware of the Association and the formality of its relationship to Badger DAO.

Unlike the Treasury Council and Community Council the Association’s participants and contractors are not posted or known to most (which I understand to a point, if you’re an employee collecting a paycheck perhaps some discretion with regard to who the rank and file are does not sound unreasonable). If the board of directors has discretionary authority as to what the Association is going to work on for Badger DAO and who is going to do that work it probably makes sense those parties are known. They are being entrusted with millions in Badger DAO treasury funds a year.

In my view there are good people on the councils, in the association and in the larger community with many of us here from near day 0. Ad hominem attacks that the community council is comprised of self-serving, malicious actors being mislead my a very long standing badger (who came from the community and has advocated for the rights of Badger token holders and Badger DAO being governed by democratic process) is misguided at best, malicious and self serving a worst.

This same badger is the one who stepped up to keep lines of communication open to help find a way forward with the afflicted during the exploit when others had to protect themselves from exposure to the potential of personal liability. It’s the same badger who led drafting the treasury council and community council BIPs to give the DAO those pillars to further decentralize Badger. I personally have a lot of faith in the voices that are advocating for transparent governance and oversight of DAO operations.

The recent autocratic decision to shutdown DAO channels of communication (appreciate the reversal of the decision) was alarming to me. I won’t speak to the thoughts/feelings of the other members of the community nor council but I think it’s fair to say I wasn’t alone in my concern.

This community inspired me with the prospect of open, community led governance of a democratized, decentralized organization. Many of the people I’ve met here and through advocating for the Badger DAO share the same values.

I hope we can temper the vitriol and find a path forward that improves transparency for the DAO and offers Badger token holders clarity as to how eBTC can elevate the DAO and it’s mission to bring Bitcoin to defi.

It’s unfortunate how we got to this discussion but it’s a worthwhile engagement to debate now that we are here.

/r
hasherror

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adcv writing here on behalf of the Steakhouse team:

While I am sorry for butting in without having had the track record in the community that many people here have, I just wanted to share our own point of view regarding interactions with the Association.

We’ve been working quite closely with many community members, whether part of the Association, its board, or otherwise, in formulating a plan for eBTC’s launch. We’ve worked closely with @BA_Labs on it too, with whom we already have a really productive working relationship contributing to MakerDAO. The professionalism and passion from everyone involved so far is second to none, and a merit to the community and to the prospect of building a successful decentralized Bitcoin protocol on Ethereum.

I’m familiar with the experience of forum roasting from heated debates and can only urge everyone to stay calm. It’s such a peculiar feature of open source communities that they can inspire so much heated passion, like with the text editor wars. In this latter war, I fortunately don’t take a side because I happen to be completely illiterate, so therefore am unable to use any text editors of any kind.

In any Badger flame wars, I just want to urge everyone to consider that we might all actually be on the same side.

Our enemies are the money printers, the ECB and the lizard people, not the Badgers.

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Thanks for this response. It’s great to see Badger upgrading itself and bring in new contributors. Lets make sure we push forward in a Decentralized manner. I for one support a peaceful less heated way forward, but sometimes you have to stand up for what is right even if it’s uncomfortable.

Be Badgers Be Relentless.

ps. “vi is better”

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As a recent addition to the team, stepping into the role of Senior Software Developer as a contractor to the Badger Association just a month ago, I feel it’s important to share my initial impressions and extend my support during this critical period. Despite my brief tenure, the collective strength and vision of the Association’s leadership have already made a significant impact on me.

In my short time here, I’ve gained a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities that come with decentralization in the DeFi space. The Association leadership’s approach to navigating these complexities, particularly with the upcoming launch of eBTC, is not only impressive but also a clear indicator of a strong, forward-thinking team.

The commitment to financial integrity, operational transparency, and ecosystem development is evident even to someone new like me. This focus creates a solid foundation for innovation and growth, aspects that drew me to this opportunity in the first place.

I respect the manner in which the Association leadership has addressed the recent challenges and criticisms. It showcases a level of professionalism and dedication that aligns with my understanding of what the Association represents - resilience, innovation, and a strong community ethos.

As I continue my journey with the Badger Association, I am eager to contribute to our shared vision and support the goals set forth by the Association’s leadership. The ethos of facing challenges fearlessly resonates deeply with me, even in these early stages of my tenure.

I am optimistic about the future and proud to be part of a team that not only acknowledges challenges but also sees them as catalysts for growth and improvement.

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I agree completely, the fact that they chose to realize their mistake and restore the Discord is commendable. Welcome aboard to the great experiment of DAOs. It’s great to see the Association leadership push in everyway for greater Decentralization by restoring the discord.

As the late great Charlie Munger said:

“I like people admitting they were complete stupid horses’ asses. I know I’ll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes. This is a wonderful trick to learn.”

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Welcome to the association and to the DAO. Would love your input on increasing Badger decentralization

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Not that I don’t like BA. I am sure they will be great for helping eBTC development. But the topic at hand is about decentralization.

“The side with the money pays people to respond”
“The side without the money begs people to respond”

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Amazing the community gets to hear from contributors it didn’t even know existed, this is great! The community finally gets introductions after calling out the associations approach to community involvement.

This is an inclusive community, so welcome everybody!

Please, feel free to talk up how good the association is from the inside since the community and token holders already shared their view.

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Hi All,

I’d like to share my thoughts on Badger DAO and the Association. While I may not be completely informed on past community actions like Steakhouse, I feel compelled to highlight the commendable professionalism exhibited by the Association.

As a service provider in the crypto space, I regularly engage with numerous protocols across the spectrum of centralization. In this context, Badger DAO’s commitment to decentralization is palpable. Their efforts to enhance existing products, introduce new ones to the market, and actively involve the community all underscore their dedication to a decentralized ethos.

Having conducted our own due diligence as a service provider, our interactions with everyone associated with the Association have consistently been marked by professionalism and passion. It is evident that their primary goal is to contribute to the development of a successful decentralized Bitcoin protocol on Ethereum.

It’s heartening to observe a collective alignment of interests, with everyone seemingly working towards a common goal. In such a positive environment, resorting to false accusations and subsequent turnover within the Association would likely be counterproductive and detrimental to the shared objective.

Let’s continue fostering a constructive and collaborative atmosphere to further the cause of decentralized finance.

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Hi all,

This is monetsupply posting on behalf of BA Labs. While we’ve only begun our engagement with Badger recently so may lack some historical context, I want to share our perspective from our brief time working on eBTC.

Everyone we’ve worked with so far has been mission driven and laser focused on shipping and making eBTC a success. This is extremely bullish for the eBTC protocol’s growth prospects and for Badger DAO overall. Our dealings with the Association have also been commendable, and it’s clear to me that they take their responsibility as stewards of community resources extremely seriously.

We’ve seen our share of intra-DAO conflict in other engagements such as MakerDAO, which saw some pointed disagreements emerge in 2021/22. However, as with Maker, I believe that Badger has a bright future driven by a shared purpose. The vision of a decentralized BTC on Ethereum is extremely compelling and we’re excited to contribute to this with the rest of the Badgers. :badger: :handshake:

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Sadly, the responses to this thread are from:

Association Leader - Spada
Council Members - Myself, Hasherror, Freddy
Treasury Council Member - Gosuto
RemBadger Holder - weapon
Association Third Party Payment Recipients - Steak house , abdullah, MakersMark and BA Labs

Not a single (non-paid) token holder has felt the need to respond to commend either side.

Our community has become a tight knit group of paid associates. (with the exception of gosuto who is now unpaid on treasury council).

Instead of infighting, lets recognize the fact that we could do a better job of decentralizing the protocol and grow the community. Which is pain stakingly obvious by the group of respondents to this thread. Lets all go look in the mirror and wake up tomorrow and find a way to build a DAO.

eBTC and Badger must be tied together and live or die together which means building a vibrant decentralized community. And if we are all that it’s got because of the bear market or whatever circumstances then lets work together to grow the protocol.

Visibility and transparency build trust. Trust builds community. Community builds long lasting ideas.

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**For the record this reply was in response to @1500Badger post above suggesting that the Assocation had unilateral control over BadgerDAO and that there was little visibility around how it was created. That post was since edited and removed but its important for readers to understand how things work for the purpose of transparency

Im not sure where unilateral power comes from. There is none. Please don’t suggest falsities and pretend you don’t know anything. If you are referring to discord that’s not the association.

The association simply receives funding from the treasury council under the token holder approved policy (which you are on) with a treasury council approved vote which is in my post above, uses that to pay service providers who opt into contracts on their own regard (which you are one) and ensures those contracts meet their legal obligations on both fronts.

You were also there from the first day it was created as it was discussed openingly with many many deep conversations with all active contributors. Who then decided to opt in, sign contracts and we’re excited to final have more liability protection (which you were one)

Contributor contractors were something that were always delegated to contributors to mange while adhering to the compensation policies approved in governance. All were adhered to under that and the grants program which again you know in detail.

There has always been openness and transparency around what service providers of the association are working on and made public by them if that is there code, content or ideas.

New service providers have accelerated in the last 6 months as the association is only a year old (as you are well aware) and as we’ve seen recently more public work is consistently being shared.

It’s important to acknowledge these service providers are community members and token holders as well. It’s not one fence or the other and we all have different preferences for communication.

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I acknowledge that service providers are community members and token holders as well.

Why not just solidify this through a BIP rather than coming into this thread and introducing it to token holders for the first time and throwing me under the bus like I’m some sort of bad guy for asking questions and highlighting concerns many token holders have had for a long time?

When you and Lipp introduced the idea of the association to me there was promise that Badger.com would allow anyone to join and there may be a requirement to hold Badger tokens. None of that came to fruition and now the Association has incredible power over the Badger DAO as we can see in this thread.

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GM advc. Pleasure to meet you and excited to have Steakhouse engaged with Badger DAO. We’re all excited to see eBTC ship and experience the fruits of the Badger core team’s year plus labor.

Balance sheet management expertise and a clear operating vision to support eBTC and Badger DAO from Steakhouse sound like a very clear value add opportunity.

In my view, this forum string and the RFF discussion taking place in the discord (which I hope will positively lead to a governance BIP for Badger token holders to vote) is one of restoring trust in key stakeholders of this DAO and ensuring token holder confidence in transparency and rules of engagement for all parties.

I’d value your perspective with regard to what type of governance requirements have been necessary with the other DAOs Steakhouse is engaged.

Are there typically governance votes enabling entities like the Association to operate for DAO benefit?

Are statement of work and other contracted relationships that involve payment in equity or other Treasury funds typically put through a DAO governance process?

Genuinely interested in your experiences.

r/
hasherror

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