The Harmony Validator DAO: Fully Elected and Funded.
It is an exciting time to be part of Harmony. The decentralization of the protocol itself was accomplished almost two years ago when mainnet went live. Within the next week, the validator community will vote to introduce a hard fork in Harmony blockchain to set the external voting power to 51%. The next step is to decentralize the operations and treasury to empower the community to scale the Harmony ecosystem.
The first step towards that goal is the establishment of the Validator DAO.
In early May, we announced the seeding of the Validator DAO. The goal was to have the DAO established and standing alone by the end of May.
We were able to establish a mandate and recruit valuable leaders in the Validator community to run for election to be part of the Initial Council. And, as of midnight, May 31st, 2021 — we have our Initial Council.
I am overjoyed to welcome JCR.one, StrongMindsHold, SlugomCrypto, Maffaz.one, and Michael | Mars Initiative to the Validator DAO Initial Council.
Already, the Initial Council is hard at work. They have established an official Validator DAO twitter account — @DaoHarmony, give it a follow — created a logo and held their first meeting. The team at SlugomCrypto had this to say:
“We’re thrilled to be elected to the initial Harmony Validator DAO Council by our peers. We’ve produced a guide to assist new validators with learning the skills needed for daily tasks along with many other helpful tips for validators new and old to review. Since we first started validating in early March 2021, we’ve worked with many new validators and we’re looking forward to assisting with laying the groundwork for many future incoming validation teams.”
When I talked with Michael at Mars Initiative, he told me:
“I’m honored to be part of the first Validator DAO Council. DAO’s are the future when it comes to governance and I’m happy to put in the work to lay the foundation required for further growth and adoption. I urge anyone interested in becoming a validator to please reach out to me. My DM’s are always open.”
Mandate and Purpose
The Validator DAO will be Harmony’s first decentralized autonomous organization. It is focused on the validator community and will strive to reflect their interests. The goals and purpose of the Initial Council will be to draft the “constitution” for the Validator DAO (a governing document of sorts, that lays out how the DAO will operate), leverage the treasury they have to support the validator ecosystem and they will be required to maintain transparency and accountability in all of their actions. The Council has already met once and they will be meeting on a regular basis as they establish a path to the Persistent Council.
Roles and Responsibilities
They are key tasks that the Validator DAO will need to accomplish both operationally and as a goal for the organization. The Initial Council has created a handful of official roles so that transparency is maintained around who is responsible for what. As we get into these roles it is very important to acknowledge a fact about the Council — it is a FLAT organization. No person is in charge of any other person. No individual has the power to fire or unseat another member of the council. These roles are simply assigned to ensure key activities are taken care of.
Executive Officer — as prestigious as this title sounds, the responsibilities of this role are much more mundane. The XO will be responsible for holding people to account for things they have been assigned. They keep the trains moving on time and facilitate any coordination that is needed regarding projects. The Council has chosen StrongMindsHold as their XO for the Initial Term.
Secretary — more of a “corporate secretary” than one of the “admin assistant” type. This individual is the record keeper. He/She calls for votes, records those votes, makes sure that the records of the DAO are maintained and public. The Council has selected JCR.one as their Secretary for the Initial Term.
Treasurer — all funds from the Validator DAO will be sorted in a multi-sig contract requiring all 5 Council members to sign off on any withdrawals. However, there will still be a need for someone to be responsible for the accounting and other financial matters regarding the assets of the Validator DAO. The Council has chosen Mars Initiative as their Treasurer for the Initial Term.
Spokesperson / Marketing — occasionally, someone will be needed to speak for the DAO. Someone should carry the responsibility of creating logos, content, managing social media and outreach. At this stage, the responsibilities of the Spokesperson are small, but carry a large impact. The Council has chosen Maffaz.one as their Spokesperson for the Initial Term.
Technical — blockchain is not a technically simple space. To serve the validator community well, someone will need to be responsible for technical support and assistance bringing new validators on-line, answering questions and being an all-around troubleshooter for technical issues that may plague the community. The Council has selected SlugomCrypto as their Technical Lead for the Initial Term.
Funding
The Harmony Foundation will be depositing 500,000 ONE tokens in the following wallet address by the end of the week (June 11th, 2021):
one16rhg097cg3ukayacdpp8ly8j4ynfpndq59dcxs
This deposit will be the first of 8 over the course of the next 8 months. In total, the Harmony Foundation will be depositing 4,000,000 into the Validator DAO’s multi-sig wallet.
The Initial Council has the responsibility to set up a sustainable mechanism to fund the DAO. Obviously, this mechanism can include staking — but beyond that — it is the responsibility of the Council to ensure good stewardship over these funds.
And…we’re off!
I offer my congratulations to our new Validator DAO council! I look forward to supporting them in their work and building the next great thing on Harmony. I look forward to following their posts, their meetings, tweets and any communication they put out as they organize for the benefit of the Harmony Validators.
Next up: The Community DAO!
