June 4, 2022

[Notes compiled by envy##9950]

Topics: general updates, NetaDAO.zone launch, Neta DAO Discord launch, beginning single DAO app (SDA) deployment. Many DAOs get the “decentralized” and “organization” parts right, but lack on the “autonomous” part, functioning as little more than committees with extra tech. How do we make our DAO structurally decentralized with an autonomous infrastructure (ex, eliminating information silos, shared credentials/authorization, pivoting to decentralized services)?

Current #

New Discord (discord.netadao.zone) - Initial Problem Recognition

  • discord.netadao.zone entered as CNAME DNS record that points to Discord server’s permalink to avoid spending money on Discord server boosts for a vanity URL (unnecessary recurring cost)
  • difficult to have VoIP/a meeting discussion for a DAO with people having an equal voice without everyone literally shouting over each other
    • setting up “Stage” feature for organized input
    • “DAO can vote on moderation if there’s ever an issue. Or they can make their own NETA DAO. No need to worry about not being [so] inclusive [to the point] where nothing gets done.”
    • how do other DAOs address this problem? even if there’s a “raise hand” feature, who is decided as approvers? small-scale governance?
  • workshop areas established with permission sets:
    • #designer-lounge - art, graphics, sound, video
    • #dev-lounge - software development
    • #marketing-lounge - NETA DAO outreach, promotion
    • #memelord-lounge - NETA-themed funposting
    • #validator-lounge - validator updates and operations
  • CamelJuno bots from community Discord to be set up for DAO Discord - could also export statistics to a page (info.netadao.zone?) for others to web scrape easily

NetaDAO.zone, Continued Software Deployment

  • NetaDAO.zone deployed as container on Akash (http://3rpcrkj69hfnvcqtc2l0akhn34.us-east01-akash.qloudit.com/), code on Github (netadao/netadao-zone)
  • devops (process of rapid software development and deployment) is an involved process for individuals, to perform devops in the context of a DAO sends the complexity through the roof
  • to deploy netadao.zone on Akash, accounts and actions needed to be performed on:
    • Docker Hub
    • CloudFlare
    • Github (also creating an authentication token for the netadao-zone repository)
    • Akash and a deployment certificate (can be done with multisigs but current Akash lease is from an individual throwaway wallet)
    • domain registrar
  • all credentials for NETA DAO operations are presently siloed with an individual or set of individuals
  • for a DAO to be truly decentralized (and later autonomous), all actions need to be done through governance, every single action on every single one of these services (and others) needs to come to the community; no action can be left to an individual after genesis
  • every action being taken on behalf of the organization needs to be able to put to vote or else it isn’t decentralized and thus can’t be autonomous either
  • need to promote continuity of government and increase bus factor to a size of n, with n > total number of DAO participants
    • “if every present member of the DAO was hit by a bus all at the same time, the next group of people should be able to see all the notes, utilize all credentials, and manage all infrastructure operations to continue building where the last participants left off”
  • immediate band-aid solution to credential management: deploy password management suite (ex, Passbolt, Bitwarden) on Akash container to house credentials and implement dead man’s switches between core members
    • potential means of determining designated members for failsafe: number of attended meetings?

The Great Decentralization - Services

  • even with passwords housed and orders of succession established, individual actions are ultimately still performed by singular entities
  • solution: build out a governance suite for integration with centralized services
    • whether through a separate website or a standalone application, add a layer of governance on top
    • pull services into a management suite - DAODAO-like means of interacting with services
    • example: a domain registrar can be pulled into the management suite. within the suite, display a DAODAO-like list of operations to perform relative to a particular service (“Purchase a new domain,” “Modify a DNS record”) that are put to a governance vote. if a proposal passes, the execution of the proposal programmatically accesses your password management suite to retrieve credentials for that service, then performs the voted operation on that service in a way that can mimic the actions of an individual
  • while these issues are present, no DAO on any platform in any ecosystem can be accurately called “decentralized” or “autonomous” or engineered as such and are just functioning as committees with extra tech
  • would address systemic-level issues in DAO operations, collaborative software/tools, and security - eliminates threat of rogue actors through zero human knowledge credential management
  • if a decentralized alternative to a particular platform can’t yet be made due to funding, time, human capital, or engineering limitations, this can serve as a makeshift means of interacting with centralized services in a decentralized manner
  • could allow DAODAO to bridge itself to any group or business to act as both a governance suite and a means of protecting credentials from would-be rogue actors
  • Mark Cuban: “What we have not seen is the use of Smart Contracts to improve business productivity and profitability. That will have to be the next driver. When business can use Smart Contracts to gain a competitive advantage, they will. The chains that realize this will survive.”

The Great Decentralization - Platforms and Software

  • crypto has completely fallen out of favor with what it was designed for
    • Luke Smith: “crypto was not designed to make money - that happened as an accident”
  • cryptocurrency is Free and Open-Source (FOSS) software and principles applied to economics
  • Discord, Github, Telegram, Cloudflare, Heroku, Amazon Web Services, centralized domain registrars - all of these are bad! We do not have data sovereignty! We do not have ownership over our tools or infrastructure! Running on Google Cloud and AWS and calling yourselves decentralized is not real decentralization regardless of how permissionless blockchain application code is written!
  • solution: not only deploy self-hosted software instances to maintain data sovereignty but use existing application bridges to move bases of operations back to self-hosted FOSS alternatives
  • several Akash templates already exist (ovrclk/awesome-akash) - wrestle away NETA DAO’s core infrastructure to Akash-deployed alternatives while providing bridges to centralized services
  • a problem with FOSS platforms/social networks is that people tend to move from proprietary software to FOSS at once and fail to provide choices or meaningful ways to follow, creating their own walled garden
  • will accelerate Akash adoption, FOSS tech adoption by building self-hosted alternatives and sounding the alarm on proprietary software’s omnipresence
  • bring back the ethos of FOSS to crypto and promote survivability

Community #

  • Pupmos AMA - on track, on schedule for 6/9 - will be speaking in “Pupmos” when responding - GPT-3 translator being provided

Howl (@howl_social)

  • a number of us assisting with other prominent Juno Network names - Discord is public, testnet is up - anyone interested in testing can let us know and we’ll relay to the team to grant access to the alpha testing area
    • DAODAO code is being integrated with Howl at a base level, users will be able to propose/vote/access governance directly from Howl - could potentially replace Commonwealth
  • testing presence giving NETA DAO additional street cred, Idols could be one of the first profile picture collections available on Howl
  • speaking to Callum: single Howl app could be possible - if Howl does aim to replace Commonwealth, a single Howl app could point to a single DAO address
    • howl.netadao.zone - self-host “gateway” into it that uses our DAO as a landing page to show our proposals/discussion but could act as a gateway to all of Howl if preferred
    • similar to federated software instances - could use our page as a preferred means of interacting with the entire Howl network

What value would Howl involvement be with Neta DAO?

  • NETA DAO could be one of the first DAOs to settle on Howl, bringing activity and allowing for more team networking
  • would allow us to be very transparent on DAO funds, people would be able to tip in HOWL (and by extension signal support for ideas)
  • could allow development to be more focused, develop an ecosystem instead of using many separate individualized platforms

Trooprs Decision

  • asking community and Rendrasc if we want to move away from Passage - Passage team had not responded to us after an initial set of messages and upon initially responding, said that they were still not ready and that we may want to discuss moving to Stargaze or another platform
  • Ren approved rough draft of potential options, wants to make sure it gets to Passage before posting for a community decision - this chapter needs to close, Ren needs to be supported for the work he’s done

Idols (idols.zone / @BeholdIdols)

  • dynamic NFT collection, smart contracts for minting are being written this month
  • 30% of every mint is going to NETA DAO treasury
  • Idols are split out into five seasons - each season will give the NETA DAO 30% of commission with trailing royalties (in contrast with Trooprs where the DAO is to receive funds only from the initial mint - 80%) - Idols serving as long-term regenerative funding of the DAO
  • whiskey and wtrsld testing smart contracts mid-June, end of June possible mint date - we would be minting on our own platform
    • we want this to be native to Juno and not on Stargaze as cross-network transfers are not yet available due differences in code standards
  • validator integration - if a Neta DAO validator is launched, owning an Idol could benefit you with a higher APR (DAO validator taking lower staking commission)
    • could work with other validators to negotiate additional benefits based on ownership of Idols - signifying “this person is part of NETA DAO, they are interested in the long-term success of the network - this person’s participation is valuable”
  • pitch presentation available upon request and is making the rounds among Juno devs to help with technical clarification and signal the desire to collaborate
  • Idols intended to be a personal IP for the time being because of plans that would need to be centralized to accomplish (ex, getting animation of Idols inside the application, Idols upgrading by wallet activity) - would be too hard to move individually
    • Rive.app used for animating vector graphics - the Idol you mint is not the Idol that will update - updating contract json to “evolve” Idol
    • Seasons 1-3 will likely just be the jpegs before further animation is implemented
  • after Season 5, wtrsld open to handing operations over to the DAO and letting community build the story, put in games, etc.
    • creation of an extended universe: Seasons 1-5 can act as the core story with later functionality added to encourage long-term participation, development, and creative efforts (“expansion packs” on top of a “base game”)
  • keeping with the spirit of Juno’s permissionless contract structure, could document development and export resources to Junotools - refine process and develop into an application for others

Misc Ideas

  • implementation of Secret Network’s Blackbox using NETA to mask transactions?
    • interface not great in its current state but functional
    • Deaddrop similar to ideas discussed in previous NETA meetings

Future #

Contact:

  • DAODAO team - share notes and gather feedback on DAO operations and infrastructure

Do:

  • work to deploy self-hosted password manager on Akash to begin establishing failsafes
  • explore development on a Single DAO App (RAW DAO’s structure), work with DAODAO on bug fixing
  • continue backtesting for grid trading bot and evaluate

Remember:

  • @Tardigrades_NFT expressed interest in working with NETA - explore in the future