0. Summary
With the end of team vesting at the beginning of October, this proposal changes the organizational structure of core contributors and establishes a budget for continuing operations through the treasury. Here is what this BIP entails:
- Core Team merges with the Core Contributors Programme
- A budget is allocated to the Core Contributors Programme
- Working Groups are defined in the Core Contributors Programme
- ElevenYellow supports the DAO as a vendor.
To understand the rationale behind what we’ve budgeted for and ensure alignment on the mandate for the Core Contributors, it is important to read the BIP-43b: Strategic Mandate for BottoDAO. For a lighter read on our vision of what’s to come, feel free to supplement your understanding with the recently published Road Ahead Post.
1. Rationale
Team tokens fully vested as of October 8th. For the DAO, that means it is time to decide how to allocate resources to the ongoing development of Botto and BottoDAO. We believe the best step forward would be to merge core contributorship with the core team, formalize this merge with “working groups”, and then allocate a budget for this revised core contributor’s programme.
Here is how the DAO has been structured up until October. This links through to a FigJam with a consolidated directional roadmap view, and a comparison of the old versus new operational structure. On the left hand side of this FigJam, you see the old structure. Next to it, you see the new structure we intend on implementing. You see the directional roadmap on the far right.
Our aim is to decentralize this structure much further than what the proposed setup initially shows; we are firm believers that enabling decentralized contributions will be central to the long term success of the DAO. Today, a significant amount of the operational process is centralized, and we must be considerate in how we further decentralize our ways of working. Healthy decentralization is progressive and takes time.
Leadership of core contributorship will not change: both @hudsonsims and @choobie will retain their roles to spearhead evolution of the DAO. To delineate what this leadership role entails when it comes to managing core contributorship, we see the following as deferred:
- Managing acquisition of talent
- Removal of contributors
- Building out working group structure
- Establishing between-group work processes
We have shared our view on strategic direction to align on priorities and mandate for the Core Contributors. This is based on our proximity to all operations and feedback from the DAO (more feedback welcome!). We will continue bringing up major decisions on Botto’s development to the DAO, as well as seeking feedback on priorities and directionality in our ongoing operations so that we are always operating with the consent of the DAO as its trusted servants. With these mandates also comes the responsibility of reporting and accountability to the DAO and broader community that ensure alignment and consensus with the DAO.
1.2. Accountability & Transparency
It is crucial to maintain transparency across the DAO as a whole and we need significant improvement. Accounting and progress reporting are prerequisites to making informed decisions. We foresee two straightforward changes to immediately make: showing Botto’s direction and progress through key roadmap items, and regularly treasury and accounting reports.
1.2.1. Roadmap
First, roadmap items need to be disclosed across the DAO with regularity. We’ve attempted this in the past with DAO members appreciating its availability, but this was not updated with regularity. Roadmap items moving forward are to be publicly displayed and updated natively through our existing private roadmap (big headnod to @verox for handling this).
This is a prime transparency layer that is more manageable, slots into existing core contributor workflow, and can be judged against the mandate for the DAO. We are excited to share this with you.
See: Roadmap for a timeline overview, and Directional Roadmap for a more comprehensive view.
1.2.2. Budgeting
We have built out a forecasting model based on the initial runway scenarios sheet developed by @thomahawk69. Current costs and known future costs have been included in the forecast. This forecasting model accounts for all existing salaries and roadmap items. We expect some more additions to the budget through individual BIPs as opportunities develop, but this provides a fairly complete view with some flexibility for the team to operate. Assumptions are defined on the right-hand side of the sheet.
To aid transparency, the sheet is publicly accessible on a permanent basis. It allows for anyone to play with runway scenarios as the DAO moves forward. The original sheet will be regularly maintained and reported in a #dao-finances channel on Discord.
1.2.3. Treasury Working Group
A treasury working group will be established within the Core Contributor’s Programme. @thomahawk69 will oversee reporting to the DAO, sign off on vendor reports, and will work alongside Raul from @Carbono to develop and propose treasury management related improvements to the DAO.
1.2.4. DAO Portal
Key data of the forecasting sheet will be directed to a new frontend that we’ve dubbed the “DAO Portal”, which we also believe will bring an extra layer of accountability to the core contributor’s programme in the long run (see Roadmap). We expect this DAO site to be available in the coming 10 weeks.
1.3. Vendor
While the core team is transitioning out of ElevenYellow, ElevenYellow continues to work for the DAO as a vendor to settle costs and manage service provision for tech infrastructure.
1.3.1. Vendor Responsibilities
The vendor holds a significant amount of responsibility in ensuring that Botto remains operationally sound. First, ElevenYellow continues to settle fiat costs of BottoDAO’s operations. This extends to settling any related utility bills, subscription fees, events, travel, exhibitions, or any other aspect of the DAO that involves cost attributions.
Second, the vendor helps identify, evaluate, and maintain relationships with suitable external service providers. The vendor will also resolve issues directly with external service providers. AWS, Vercel, and other hardware arrangements are straightforward examples. ElevenYellow also provides and manages the infrastructure necessary through external service providers. This pertains to the actual set up and ongoing maintenance of all hardware, as well as managing its security.
It is ultimately up to the DAO if it wishes to change service providers or infrastructure, and so it will work with ElevenYellow to secure partnerships with existing and new external service providers that can further reduce cost (think hardware).
All fiat costs will continue to be settled by the vendor. Importantly, these costs will be settled in USDC moving forward. In the past, project costs were settled in $BOTTO.
1.3.2. Vendor Rebate
Costs settled by the vendor have averaged ≈$24,000 per month. ElevenYellow has offered a 100% rebate on all “General & Administrative” and “Professional Services” (back office management, legal, etc. when managing service providers) for a minimum period of 1 year. Costs in these areas have averaged ≈$17,000 per month. These costs will be itemized but not expensed to the DAO for the next 12 months, after which the DAO and vendor will review this rebate clause. This saves the DAO at least ≈$200,000 in the next 12 months.
2. Proposal Specifications
Listed below are the proposed changes from this BIP. Changes would be immediate.
- Botto core team merges with Core Contributor Programme, led by @hudsonsims and @choobie
- Budgets are allocated to core contributor programme
- ElevenYellow continues to work as a vendor to the DAO.
- Accountability practices are implemented (see §1.2.)
3. Budget
To ensure ability to execute on the mandate, we seek budget approval for the following:
These budgets also allow for the DAO to pursue its strategic direction in the coming year. Should any forecast predict a budget to be exceeded, the DAO will be alerted prior by the treasury working group. Separate projects (collaborations, partnerships, etc) will continue to have their budgets approved in their own BIPs. Budgets are set for a period of 1 year but may be adjusted down at the discretionary advice of the treasury working group. The start date of these budget items would be set for October 8th, 2023.
3.1. Core Contributor’s Programme
Requested Monthly Budget: $70,000 USD, 100,000 BOTTO, 4ETH
Currently, ≈$55,000 is allocated to core contributors including the core team. A further 100,000 $BOTTO per month is requested as additional compensation for contributorship, with up to 62,500 $BOTTO allocated for recurring payments. This allows the DAO to ensure that we are somewhat competitive with remuneration when considering dollar denominations. A budget of 4 ETH per month is also requested, with 2.5ETH currently allocated.
3.2. Community Initiatives
Requested Monthly Budget: 50,000 BOTTO
This allocation is for core contributors to set up small tests and marketing initiatives to the benefit of the community. An example would be the recent JokeRace competition, or the RadarDAO and UX surveys.
3.3. Software & Hardware
Requested Monthly Budget: $15,000 USD
This allocation is to ensure that the DAO is able to scale its experiments and support existing infrastructure, software (subscriptions & licenses), and hardware. We intend on exploring partnerships with infrastructure providers to reduce these costs.
1.6.4. Marketing/Events/Travel
Requested Monthly Budget: $5,000 USD
This allocation is requested so that we may more aggressively support events that may act as cultural catalysts. Major events that require team member presence, such as Christie’s, or an exhibition opening need to be budgeted for as well.
4. Criteria of Success
While we believe that gauging the success of this proposal is contingent on general performance of Botto - and our ability to deliver on the strategic direction put forward (see BIP-43b: Strategic Direction), here are some tangible ways to measure its success:
- Overall Accountability: Regular and accurate budgeting, reporting, and reporting on goal progression to the DAO.
- Sentiment - Community Satisfaction: Ongoing surveys with regularity (quarterly), or other feedback mechanisms to measure community satisfaction with DAO operations, governance, and community initiatives can be set up and results published.
- Finances - Burn Rate / Runway: Monitoring burn rates and runway is a straightforward way of gauging performance of Botto.
- Participation - DAO Involvement: Increase in active participation from all DAO stakeholders, demonstrated by voting, proposal submissions, or other forms of engagement.
5. Disadvantages
While we intend on reducing core team risk and further decentralizing, operations accountability is largely deferred to @hudsonsims & @choobie. Although we understand that this process is iterative, this proposal also doesn't clearly address the long-term viability of the DAO’s operations, focusing mostly on the immediate future. Finally, this proposal suggests rolling unallocated budgets to the next month with the exception of the Core Contributor Programme budget, which could be seen as encouraging unnecessary spending to utilize the full budget. We believe the treasury working group operates as a shrewd gatekeeper to ensure budgets are not overcommitted to any budget line item, and can provide transparency for other DAO members to further scrutinize.
6. Links
