I find a common theme in the Discord shutdown and this Lack of Trust vote by the Community Council: they both look wild to me.
The Discord Shutdown
The decision to shut down Discord looks wild to me because, in my decision-making matrix, I’d assign security concerns maybe a 10% weight in this particular matter, but definitely not over 50%.
In my opinion, even with Discord’s security concerns at their maximum, the value Discord provides to the DAO still far outweighs the security risks it poses. It appears that most other DAO members share a similar view.
Furthermore, the shutdown process violated the DAO’s governance practices, whether they’re documented or just the spirit of it. This decision directly affects the community, and thus it should have a say in.
It is likely that under the old BadgerDAO decision making process, this wouldn’t have happened. Decisions like these were subject to a Contributors Consensus vote.
With that old process, discussions were had, pushback was received and acknowledged, and decisions were made.
It’s hard for me to imagine this decision made and executed the way it was if that governance practice were still active.
To be fair, the decision was reversed in a couple of days. I believe the community outcry on the forum and in the builder discord was already enough to make that happen.
Had that not been enough, the community would have launched a BIP and a token holder vote to reinstate Discord and prevent future shutdowns.
And only then - if the leadership still refused to reinstate Discord despite a token holder vote, would a Loss of Trust type of vote be justified imo.
The Loss of Trust Vote
Instead, the Community Council jumped the gun in escalating the conflict, and this decision is wild to me too.
First, if the goal was to benefit tokenholders, how does trying to destroy its leadership reputation help this cause?
Second, if the goal is to decentralize, then according to my logic, a vote of distrust stands in a way of improving the decentralization of the org.
The logic is as follows:
- Trust goes both ways.
- Party A has more power than Party B.
- Party B would like Party A to share some of that power.
- Party B exserts distrust towards Party A.
- This naturally erodes Party A’s trust in Party B.
- Now, Party A is asked to share power with Party B, whom it no longer trusts, while also knowing that Party B doesn’t trust Party A.
I hope that makes sense.
According to this logic, in order to decentralize, we first need to rebuild trust.
And a good first step towards that would be to stop assigning ill intent to each other.
That logic aside, let’s get back to why the decision to conduct vote of distrust looks wild to me.
Since I can’t agree with the way the vote is phrased, I’ll try to rephrase the concerns.
Let’s assume the Association:
- Centralized decision-making within a few individuals instead of a wider group, limiting broader community involvement.
- Lacks procedural discipline, or a good understanding of how certain decisions affecting the DAO must be done collectively.
- Neglected community engagement over the last year.
Considering all the Association’s responsibilities, what weight of significance would we assign to these issues? 10%? 15%?
I struggle to see how that can reach more than 50% to warrant a vote of distrust and ‘cancelling’ the leadership.
These areas are also ones that can be improved upon relatively easily.
On the other hand, building a legit product is hard. What importance would we assign to that?
The way I see it, fundamentally BADGER the token right now is in the best place it has ever been over its entire existence.
And if not interrupted by an abrupt suicide mission, there is a decent chance that this fundamental value is going to climb considerably higher over the next few years.
This is due to the fact that now, for the first time in history, BadgerDAO has a product that makes sense - and a sensible roadmap for developing it further.
This state is largely the result of actions of the Association’s leadership - and, in my opinion, it has to be acknowledged regardless of the take on the Association’s modus operandi.
I believe Badger governance is in a relatively fragile state, and escalating this conflict has risks of leading to a colossal value destruction for the DAO and its token holders.
So, on that note, I would like to ask the Badger Community Council to reconsider its vote of distrust.
Since I don’t fully share either your or the leadership’s opinions on the history of BadgerDAO and its current state, perhaps I can offer a different perspective on the matters you find problematic and help find mutually acceptable solutions to them.
I’ll make a thread in the Discord rff if you want to chat.
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My comments in Discord
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Hello all,
I have had the honor of being a full-time Badger contributor since shortly after the launch. During this period, I have worn multiple hats on the technical team – from leading QA to developing several of our smart contracts. Later, I contributed to the product design and project management of eBTC, and recently, I have been leading multisig and financial operations.
Over the past three years, I have witnessed the DAO navigate the uncertainties and challenges of the space. We faced the hack together, survived a bear market, and improved our resiliency and ability to generate value, accomplishments that few organizations in the industry have achieved. These were no easy feats, and I am proud of our community for how far we have come together.
I must acknowledge that the ability to face and succeed against these challenges is owed, in great part, to having the right leadership. With that being said, I disagree with the points listed in the OP regarding the Association’s leadership, and here is why:
Establishing a legal structure to support commercial relationships is a move adopted by all major industry players to enable top-tier collaborations and growth. I have witnessed the challenge that it has represented to develop this setup while prioritizing decentralization by the operational leadership. I have to say that this has been a major feat on its own and represents a huge step forward, not only for Badger but for the industry as a whole. This is a big challenge, and I understand that arriving at its final state will take time, but I can say with confidence that it already is a front-of-the-market tool that enables Badger to navigate the regulatory world while enabling new opportunities (like eBTC) with transparency.
As per the point of “fail to create long-term viable products,” all previous attempts from Badger to fulfill its missions of bringing Bitcoin to DeFi were agreed upon and built with full support by community members, including myself, the OP, and the community council member that listed this point. At the time, these seemed like the right opportunities, and I think that blaming their lack of success on the association leadership is a stretch. If anything, I think that the bold moves made by leadership to refocus our efforts and resources into the development of eBTC sets this project to succeed more than anything before (including the deprecation of products like graviAURA and bveCVX that were not aligned with the DAO’s bitcoin-focused mission nor principles of tech decentralization - something we all clearly strive for as per this discussion).
The direction set by leadership has allowed the organization to take a step back, evaluate its mission, and build something with a clear market fit and strong values of tech decentralization. Under the previous state, we were on a path of repeating the same mistakes, and I appreciate the courage and work that this shift took for the success of the DAO.
Lastly, and on a personal note, I can say from meeting the BA leadership in person and spending multiple hours working by their side through the last few years, that they are a group of people of the highest integrity, which is sadly a rare case in our industry. My conviction of this plays a major role in my confidence in the project. I know with full confidence that, at the end of the day, they have always acted with the well-being of the community and values of decentralization as paramount. I know… this was supposed to be about trustlessness, but I am only human and found that trusting the people I work with is important - and I do.
With all of the above being said, I just want to add that I agree on the move to bring the Discord back – although we should not stop finding ways to make our communication channels safe for everyone. I also agree that the core team can do a better job at increasing the transparency of our processes, and I will be more than happy to help push efforts in this regard forward. There is nothing to hide; in fact, there’s a lot to showcase, but perhaps we just got a bit busy in building mode that we overlooked this, and we should set the right structures so that it doesn’t happen moving forward.
Let’s be as relentless as always and find a way to come to a solution so that we can all keep building together around this mission.
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All respect Saj. 
Let’s find the path forward that formalizes the relationship this now year old organization has with the DAO so we can get back to being excited to see eBTC ship!
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And what is the end goal of this malicious group who pretend to act on behalf of the token holders?
You can’t just state something like this without backing it up. So you are accusing me of being malicious? Or are you accusing the entire Community Council? Or are you accusing a set of token holders?
What’s our malicious goals Will I am?
Instead of acting high and mighty because you have all the power. How about you take personal responsibility for the mistake you made in shutting down the discord. Admit that it hindered governance and you know it. Instead of spreading lies and misinformation.
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Nice to meet you badger family! My name is CodingNameKiki and l am currently working under the Badger Association by providing security reviews to the final mitigations shipped after the eBTC contest on code4rena.
l don’t think it’s reasonable for me to take a side here without knowing both of the stories, but l agree that closing discord without proper communication was a harsh move and thankfully was properly reversed in response to the community feedback.
Badger is currently building one of a kind product offering the most decentralized synthetic bitcoin ever made, this will significantly affect the current state of Defi and make a positive impact on the Badger ecosystem in financial, reputational and investional way. So the BADGER token is bound to increase its value with time.
l personally believe that this product will be a good starting foundation and Badger will keep expanding its ecosystem offering new different products which will both favour token holders and the overall state of Defi.
l see there is heat here between badger members and it’s normal we are humans - everyone has a different opinion on the situation, everyone tends to side with what he believes is right. But l do think we all have one goal in mind which never changed and it’s to make the Badger ecosystem a better place.
A good suggestion would be to take a step back, re-think the situation carefully and l am sure that a mutual decision will be made without the unneeded heat between the badger family.
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hello there and great to hear you’re contributing to the success of launching eBTC! I believe all want to find a path forward that gets everyone pointed in the same direction and get back to the exciting parts of badgering.
many of us have been advocating for and badgering in the community in various capacities since the founders had the foresight to launch the DAO with a fair launch distribution of the governance token.
to folks seeing this discussion from the outside for the first time might wince at where the conversation has gone.
we are all badgers, we are all relentless and we all came to badger dao (and more importantly stuck around with badger dao) because we believe in the vision to democratize, decentralize and BUIDL for Bitcoin in defi.
i implore everyone to get to the table and get the relationship between the association and the DAO formalized so everyone gets get back to the business of shipping cool shit and trying new things.
please🦡
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Hi there,
I’m Antonio, an independent security researcher. During my engagements in July, August, and September, I was involved with the implementation of invariant tests on the eBTC protocol.
Throughout this process, I had the opportunity to engage with dapp_whisperer, spadaboom, and other members of the Badger Association. I want to emphasize that all my interactions with these individuals and the community were conducted in a professional manner.
I hope that all parties can collaboratively find a resolution for this issue and continue the success of Badger and its aim of better integrating Bitcoin into the DeFi space.
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All this could be settled over a drink!
Online is fun and all, but sitting and having a chat seems to be what’s required here, an open conversation in person:)
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Stay focused Spada, the project needs your leadership, vision and persistence.
Somewhat ironic that these ‘petty’ issues arrive at this particular time, an incredibly exciting time.
Some saying ‘you hold the keys’ and ‘choose who gets to pay the game’ etc etc, using these simple (and somewhat relatively inaccurate) terms , and yet they can’t seem to quite define or understand what it is to lead, to work, to persevere.
They all seem to 'seek truth, but as Oscar Wilds once said, ‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple’.
At times being strong is not a choice but it’s the only option.
Stay strong.
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I appreciate everyones input and hard work. I know we can over come our differences and find a way to harmonize. We have a life changing opportunity in front of us, let’s make the most of it. I will continue to give my support through thick and thin, Badger will win.
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As Badger is so exciting and as a long time holder and fan, i just spent hours reading though posts again! Chris is the founder and makes some important points.
He addresses the concerns raised by the Badger DAO Community Council, dismissing them as a false narrative aimed at undermining the efforts of dedicated contributors and disrupting governance. He emphasizes the progress made towards decentralization, transparency, and operational efficiency within BadgerDAO, highlighting the role of the Badger Association in fostering growth and managing service providers. Spadafora refutes accusations of centralization and failure to deliver value, asserting the Association’s commitment to community-driven governance and the advancement of the eBTC protocol. He urges the community to focus on constructive contributions and the upcoming launch of eBTC, rather than divisive actions fueled by misinformation.
Whichever side you take after reading through, i urge all to put things into perspective, what an exciting time right now, an opportunity.