CKB Community Fund DAO V1.1 Governance Rule

1. Background and Philosophy

CKB Community Fund DAO (hereinafter referred to as the DAO) v1.0 was a successful experiment in community governance, providing us with valuable experience. However, as the ecosystem has evolved, its minimalist rules and fragmented governance tools/platforms have revealed challenges in operational efficiency, project oversight, and community participation experience.

The current governance process of DAO v1.0 heavily relies on the spontaneous actions of community members, as illustrated below:

Loading chart...

By analyzing this process and communicating with former operational contributors, we have identified five major structural challenges at the procedural level in DAO v1.0:

• Lack of Institutionalized Operational Processes: The DAO's treasury is managed by a 2/3 multi-sig treasury committee (Jan, Terry, Cipher), but key operational roles and processes are ambiguous. Who supervises project progress? Who verifies milestone deliverables? Who formally notifies the multi-sig holders to make payments? How is treasury usage disclosed? In the past, some responsibilities (like checking for 30 likes on Nervos Talk proposals, verifying non-technical milestones, and notifying multi-sig holders for payments) were informally and voluntarily handled by community member Jacky, but this was not an institutional arrangement. This reliance on individuals rather than a structured system is fragile and unsustainable: after his role changed, the DAO's daily operations fell into a de facto vacancy.
• Misaligned Oversight Roles and Bottlenecks: In the DAO v1.0 process, once a proposal is approved and the initial budget is allocated, the DAO is completely absent from the subsequent milestone oversight and decision-making. Milestone verification is informally handled by a single member, making it difficult to conduct a comprehensive factual review and disclosure for diverse project deliverables (technical, marketing, design, etc.). This leads to two problems: first, oversight can become a mere formality; second, and more critically, the DAO, as the ultimate decision-maker, is absent from the continuous supervision of the project execution process.
• Fragmented Governance Tools and High Barriers to Entry: The current governance process spans multiple platforms: proposals and discussions on Nervos Talk, followed by formal voting on Metaforo. This fragmented experience not only increases the participation cost and cognitive load for community members but also leads to scattered information and loss of context, which is a major reason for low governance participation.
• Lack of Information Dissemination Channels: During community discussion and voting, the dissemination of proposals relies on personal forwarding by the project team or active community members, lacking an official, neutral channel for information outreach. This results in information asymmetry, where core discussions fail to reach as many community members as possible in a timely manner, affecting the breadth and depth of decision-making. Similarly, after a project concludes, the lack of information channels restricts the community's and the public's understanding of and participation in the latest ecosystem developments.
• Gaps in Key Processes: Projects lack a formal completion report and process, which prevents the accumulation of experience and the reuse of knowledge. The DAO cannot learn and grow from past funding. This process gap means that each new project starts from scratch, unable to build upon a systematic project management and knowledge accumulation mechanism.

These issues collectively point to a core dilemma: DAO v1.0 has a democratic decision-making mechanism but severely lacks the professional, continuous procedural services required to support the effective implementation of these decisions.

This proposal aims to address this dilemma. We do not propose to change the core democratic decision-making rules of DAO v1.0. Instead, we introduce two core components to promote governance optimization and upgrading:

1. A professional operational team serving the DAO: the DAO Stewards, complemented by clear treasury management and governance processes.
2. A brand-new Web5-based governance platform to replace the current fragmented tools and enhance the overall governance experience.

Our goal is to upgrade DAO v1.0 into a more efficient, transparent, and accountable v1.1, enabling the community's democratic decisions to be more smoothly translated into ecosystem development results.

2 DAO Stewards

2.1 Defining "Stewards"

In everyday language, the term "Steward" is often misunderstood as a manager with ambiguous power boundaries in a residential community, sometimes even perceived as a "ruler" within a specific social organization (especially in the Chinese context) due to various real-world issues. However, from a political and sociological perspective, the work of steward is precisely a purely procedural service created to solve the collective action problem.

Modern communities, born from private property rights, have numerous public facilities (like elevators, roads) and public order. Theoretically, these public affairs should be decided upon and maintained by all property owners collectively. In practice, however, it is unrealistic to expect all owners to invest their energy in handling these tedious matters, which is known as the "collective action problem." The emergence of steward, through neutral and professional services, liberates owners from complex public affairs, allowing them to focus on core issues while ensuring the community's normal operation. Its essence is to be entrusted by all owners to provide professional services, without ever interfering with the owners' sovereignty.

In the context of a DAO, this model is a perfect fit. CKB stakers are the "owners" of the DAO, possessing the ultimate decision-making power over DAO governance matters such as the use of funds. But it is equally unrealistic to expect everyone to participate in procedural tasks like following up on project progress, verifying code deliverables, and organizing community meetings. The DAO Stewards proposed here are essentially a professional procedural team serving all "owners," equipped with diverse skills (technical, marketing, research), acting as a neutral service provider to support the daily operations of DAO v1.1.

2.2 Positioning and Mission

• Team Positioning: The DAO Stewards are a procedural service and facilitation team trusted by the community, funded by the DAO, and accountable to all voters.
• Core Mission: As neutral service providers and process facilitators, to provide high-quality operational, oversight, and technical support for community governance.
• Scope of Authority: DAO Stewards do not have the power to approve proposals or make any voting decisions. The objective of all their actions is to ensure the fairness, transparency, and efficiency of the governance process and to present the most complete and neutral information to the community decision-makers.
  • No Decision-Making Power: The DAO Stewards team does not have the authority to approve proposals, nor does it have any voting decision-making power. They are "servants" of community decision-making and governance, not "approvers."
  • No Interpretive Power: The DAO Stewards team has no authority to interpret or arbitrate rule disputes; they can only execute procedures strictly according to the written rules approved by the community.
  • Financial Responsibility: The Stewards team has no autonomous financial authority. Their responsibilities related to funds are limited to:
    • After the community votes to approve a project, notifying the main treasury multi-sig holders to transfer the total project budget to the corresponding project execution wallet.
    • As multi-sig holders of the project execution wallet, fulfilling the procedural obligation of signing for payment after each milestone is confirmed by a community vote, along with other multi-sig holders.
  • As community members, Stewards retain the right to exercise their personal vote on all proposals based on their voting weight.

2.3 Core Responsibilities

In line with their positioning and mission, the core responsibilities of the DAO Stewards revolve around their procedural authority.

• Proposal Lifecycle Management:
  • Proposal Coaching and Standardization: Provide clear proposal templates and assist applicants in refining their proposals.
  • Organizing Community Q&A: Responsible for organizing community AMAs or public debates before a proposal goes to a vote.
• Oversight and Reporting:
  • Milestone Verification: For proposals that have received funding, responsible for verifying their milestone deliverables.
  • Publishing Verification Reports: Publicly release verification reports to the community at each milestone.
• Transparency and Communication:
  • Treasury Asset Transparency: Responsible for operating and maintaining an asset dashboard based on the UTXO Global multi-sig wallet.
  • Information Outreach: Ensure that all important governance information effectively reaches community members.

2.4 Team Formation and Rotation:

• Initial Formation: The first DAO Stewards team will be formed by the CKB Eco Fund to ensure a smooth start. The Eco Fund has accumulated mature experience in project review, fund disbursement, post-investment management, community communication, and promotion through its ecosystem project construction and the recent Spark Grant Program. This experience will be directly applied to the initial setup of the DAO Stewards.
• Subsequent Elections: After the DAO Stewards team has been operational for one year, fully community-based elections will be initiated. Each term for the Stewards team will be six months.

2.5 Operational Funding:

• During the initial formation phase, the operational funds for the DAO Stewards team are proposed within this proposal.
• After community-based elections begin, the operational budget for the DAO Stewards team (such as member salaries, tool development fees) should also be applied for from the DAO every six months in the form of an independent proposal.

2.6 Performance Evaluation and Accountability:

• The DAO Stewards will publish a quarterly work report to the community, detailing their work content, service effectiveness, and budget usage.
• The community has the right to initiate a vote of no confidence in the Stewards team at any time, or to vote on whether to renew their service at the end of their term.

3 Treasury Management Plan

To balance asset security, execution efficiency, and community oversight, we propose a clear two-tier treasury system. The balance and all transfer operations of both tiers of the treasury should be publicly displayed on the DAO governance platform.

• Tier 1: DAO Main Treasury
  • Positioning: The core asset pool of the entire DAO, which is the current Community Fund DAO treasury.
  • Management: Continues to be managed by the existing fund management committee according to v1.0 rules and multi-sig methods.
  • Responsibility: After a proposal on the v1.1 platform is approved by vote, and upon notification from the DAO Stewards team, the total budget in CKB for that project is transferred in a single transaction to a newly created project execution wallet for that project.
• Tier 2: Project Execution Wallet
  • Positioning: A temporary multi-sig wallet created independently for each approved project, used exclusively for that project's milestone funding.
  • Management: Managed by a 2/3 multi-sig, with signers composed of:
    • DAO Steward Representatives x 2: Initially served by Eco Fund representatives.
    • Community Observer x 1: Invited and publicly announced by the DAO Stewards from community members who actively participated in the discussion of the proposal.
  • Responsibilities:
    • Receive the total project budget transferred from the main treasury.
    • Pay the start-up funds and each milestone payment to the project team according to the process.
    • After the project is completed or terminated, pay the remaining funds in the wallet to the project team or return them to the main treasury.

4 Governance Rules and Process

These rules build upon DAO v1.0, integrating the role of the DAO Stewards and making necessary optimizations. All processes will be completed on the new Web5 governance platform.

Loading chart...

4.1 Scope of Governance

Same as DAO v1.0, governing two types of matters:

• Making decisions on budget requests for ecosystem development projects.
• Making decisions on modifying the meta-rules of the DAO.

4.2 Proposal Lifecycle

Phase 1: Community Review - 30 days

• Proposers submit proposals using a standardized template on the Web5 governance platform.
• Upon submission, the proposal automatically enters a 30-day public community review period. During this time, all community members can discuss it under the proposal.
• The DAO Stewards must facilitate broad coverage of project information and community discussion during this period:
  • Organize at least 2 public Q&A sessions for the community. If multiple projects apply concurrently, sessions can be combined and ordered by proposal submission time.
  • Summarize community discussions, questions, and proposer responses weekly and sync them on the Nervos Talk Community Fund DAO section and various CKB community social media platforms.
• During the community review period, the proposer can continuously refine the proposal content.
• Condition for Passing: There is no threshold in this phase. After the 30-day review period, the proposer can choose whether to proceed to the next phase.

Phase 2: Approval Vote - 7 days

• Initiation Condition: The proposer must hold at least 100,000 CKB in the Nervos DAO to initiate a vote on the Web5 governance platform.
• Voting Mechanism: Voting power is based entirely on the user's CKB deposits in the Nervos DAO, continuing the direct weighted voting model of v1.0.
• Condition for Passing: Follows the core logic of v1.0.
  • Budget Proposal: "For" votes ≥ 51%, and the total CKB voted must be at least 3 times the requested budget.
  • Meta-Rule Change Proposal: "For" votes ≥ 67%, and the total CKB voted must be at least 185,000,000 CKB.

Phase 3: Execution Oversight

• Project Start-up: After the proposal passes, the DAO Treasury and the project execution wallet will disburse the initial funding.
• Milestone Oversight:
  • All proposals involving fund usage will be paid in stages. Initial funding will be limited to 20% of the total budget, with a maximum cap of $10,000 USD.
  • Proposals with a total budget exceeding $10,000 USD must have clear milestones, with payments made per milestone.
  • After each milestone is delivered, the DAO Stewards must publish a verification report within 7 days.
  • After the report is published, subsequent funding requires a quick confirmation vote from the community before it can be executed.
  • If a project has no milestones, the final report and payment will be handled as a milestone.

• Project Full Review, Final Ruling, and Termination (Crisis Management):
  • Process for handling a funding veto during milestone oversight:
    • Once funding is vetoed, the milestone is paused, and this and all subsequent milestone funds are immediately frozen.
    • The DAO Stewards must organize an emergency community meeting within 48 hours to facilitate a public dialogue between the project team and the veto voters to clarify the issues.
    • After the dialogue, the DAO Stewards will summarize the meeting minutes and submit them for a community full review vote.
      • Voting Period: 7 days
      • Voting Options: Terminate Project and Reclaim Funds VS Resolve Issues and Continue
      • Minimum Turnout: Same as for the initial proposal approval.
        • At least 3 times the total requested budget (for budget proposals).
        • At least 185,000,000 CKB (for meta-rule change proposals).
      • Decision Threshold and Outcome:
        • Provided the minimum turnout is met:
          • If "Terminate Project and Reclaim Funds" wins (≥ 51% for budget proposals, ≥ 67% for meta-rule changes), the project is formally terminated, and all remaining funds are returned to the DAO v1.0 main treasury. The DAO Stewards will issue a project termination report.
          • If "Resolve Issues and Continue" wins, the project returns to normal status, and the frozen milestone payment is disbursed.
        • If the vote fails to meet quorum (e.g., insufficient turnout), this indicates the community has not reached a consensus on immediate termination. To respect the veto from the milestone oversight, the milestone funds remain frozen, and the project enters a 30-day rectification period, during which a detailed rectification plan must be submitted. After this period, the community will hold a final ruling vote.
    • After the 30-day rectification period, the DAO Stewards will organize a final ruling vote. To balance governance efficiency with community oversight, this vote uses a "pessimistic governance" model of "default reject with a community approval right", requiring the project team to proactively regain the community's trust:
      • Voting Period: 7 days
      • Voting Options: Approve Rectification Plan VS Reject Rectification Plan
      • Minimum Turnout:
        • At least 3 times the total requested budget (for budget proposals).
        • At least 185,000,000 CKB (for meta-rule change proposals).
      • Decision Threshold and Outcome:
        • Provided the minimum turnout is met:
          • If "Approve Rectification Plan" wins (≥ 51% for budget proposals, ≥ 67% for meta-rule changes), the project is considered "resolved and continued." The previously frozen milestone payment will be immediately disbursed, and the project returns to normal status.
          • If "Reject Rectification Plan" wins, the project is formally terminated as per "Terminate Project and Reclaim Funds."
        • If the vote fails to meet quorum, the project is also automatically and formally terminated as per "Terminate Project and Reclaim Funds."
• Project Completion: The project is successfully completed, and funds are disbursed according to the treasury management plan. The Stewards team creates a completion report based on the deliverables and project implementation process.
• Status Updates: The Stewards team is responsible for continuously updating the project status and funding records on a public dashboard.

4.3 General Rules

• No Proxy Proposals: All proposals must be submitted by the project lead using their `did:ckb` identity.
• No Vote Incentivization: Any form of airdrop or asset incentive in exchange for votes is prohibited.