On SuperDAO : Simple Overview Of An Efficient DAO

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SuperDAO

13 min readJan 27, 2017

SuperDAO is an efficient, scalable decentralized autonomous organization in development and ideated around the intelligence and incentivized swarming power of the collective that also leverages nimble product management at its core. Its was conceptualized since the later parts of 2013 before the birth of the Ethereum Platform and the popularization and the infamous “ The DAO” and its resulting catastrophe. Though the negative publicity cast a dubious shadow on the general viability behind “DAOs”, it is is necessary to cut through the noise, to describe how SuperDAO’s position makes sense and how it works at a high level overview. This introduction is meant to serve as a bird’s eye view with brief history, some components introduction and what to expect next.

History & Purpose

Before there was ever “The DAO” or the Ethereum platform, There was Pokereum (formerly called NxtPoker) a decentralized poker game concept in development. SuperDAO( formerly know as pokereumDAO) was intended to govern Pokereum using proposed “complex transactions types” on the NXT platform as explained here. Platform inadequacies on the NXT platform and the emergence of the Ethereum platform as a superior general purpose virtual machine blockchain prompted an inevitable pivot. Over the months and years, picking up ideas along the way, we are finally confident we have a malleable but useful iteration for efficiently managing single or multiple decentralized applications (Dapp) in stages. SuperDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that encapsulates the advantages of a traditional startup with the best attributes of crowd swarming dynamics and intelligence. It has state, representing the progressive decentralization from a single founder to multiple co-founders and collaborators to the final fully decentralized organization controlled by a crowd. The governance system built to be efficient, using a multi — tiered hybrid approach. An internal core team of the most aligned interest to further the DAO and its products making every day decisions based on reputational voting. A sovereign token (Superneum) governing layer steers the organization according to the goals and mission established at inception. Both layers work hand in hand as a system of checks and balances to keep the organization focused on it mission. SuperDAO’s hybrid approach addresses the problem of trying to leverage the best aspects of a DAO to efficiently build and manage products that traditional startups do well, Problems that typical DAO’s are not equipped to deal with, due to inherent disadvantages of crowd dynamics such as Lower Efficiency from diffusion of responsibility or voting apathy.

General Design Model

With security as a forethought and modularity and compartmentalization in mind, SuperDAO encapsulates a simple Hub and spoke multi contact design incorporation some of the early ideas of Doug Eris/Monax (recently renamed from Eris Industries to Monax). Later down the line we took some general ideas from boardroom.to to create a more defined structure to retain certain important values like rulesets, governing principles and bonding.

Modularity

ConsensusX contract is the interface through which every entity/persona interacts with all other contracts in the SuperDAO contract system. The persona is the organizational profile contract with a multitude of attributes and functionality that makes collaboration and interacting with superDAO intuitive and useful. ConsensusX contract is the rigid structure unto which all other contracts are built upon. It is comparable to the Doug at monax represents both a hub and spoke model and action driven entry point into all other contracts. All its major functions and storages is abstracted into libraries, databases with function dictionaries for easy human interaction. A few exceptions are some functions that are critical to the hub consensusX contract itself, like the ones setting managerial contract addresses, databases and libraries. With a few methodologies, community development best practices and security related precautions and post development safety checks we can ensure that we can create a versatile but very safe system that is progressively complex, modular, yet easy as pie for the average proposer to interact with SuperDAO through a simple interface.

Compartmentalization

Similarly, compartmentalizing processes and data helps contain problems if they do occur. For example by using libraries to encapsulate most of our functional logic, we can easily replace an outdated functionality with consensus according to the governing rules and context. Interfaces and contract delegation are useful tools that enable us to achieve such versatility and containment when and if issues occur.

Efficient Mission Driven Governance

General Crowd incentive and Dynamic quorums

With the recent proliferation and success of distributed systems we see that new incentive models perform better than distributed systems of old absent any incentives. In the same vein of thought, why shouldn’t consensus systems follow the same model? The answer is it should and new areas of research in Futarchy indicate that these models would prove to be as successful as incentivized decentralized transaction networks like bitcoin’s. The simple idea behind futarchy is that voting participators are putting value behind what they believe in. Where this blog is by no means an extensive insight into the mechanism for futarchy, our direction at the point in time is to borrow ideas from it to address our crowd governance model. The general idea is that, in order for the general token holders crowd to galvanize and find support for a quorum, it has to be incentivized. We have a theoretical design that incentivizes active participators with a higher skewed payout within a short value (profit) distribution event timeline and punishes apathetic participator with lower payouts. Of course each activity point garnered during any period is shortly reset before the next scheduled distribution event. At the start of the next event, every token holder is eligible at the same rate of payout with every one else. This way we can get an initial participation rate of voters who register at proposal initiation, and then subsequently execute their inclinations in the final steps. Over the long term we would achieve a dynamic quorum not set at any particular point, but one that allows for the dynamic growth of the organization, and accounts for loss of active participatory stake.

Superdao Governance

Superdao governance as a whole embodies an idea called the “onion model”; a multi-tiered/layered abstraction set, that enables interaction and a system of checks and balances from one layer (reputation : merits or core team workers) to another (tokens : Superneum) based on the constitutionalDNA set at inception. At the core of this model is the constitutionalDNA which allows for a definition of mission, vision and contractual values of SuperDAO. These definitions can be referenced within the DAO during an organizational proceeding to enforce rules and deter harmful behavior not conducive to the set purpose of the DAO. A multi-heuristic voting process usually follows to finalize such proceedings.

Core or reputation layer (Merits)

A little higher above that is the internal reputation-based layer called “Merits”.This layer is a committee (supercom) of ALL active working participant earning “Merits” for impact based contributions. This layer allows fast and efficient decision making in the internals of the DAO using Merit based reputational voting. Subdivided into “minicoms” or sub committees that specialize in domain specific decision making. These could represent Dapp teams, financial analyst, human resources and so forth. Disputes arising from Minicom consensus are usually finalized by the larger “Supercom” consensus. Minicoms also provide Supercoms or token holders with critical informed voting insights garnered from their collective domain specialization. Contributions at the “Merit” layer can be “structured contributions” according to the predefined team member limits and timely compensation. Contributions can also be arbitrary (bounty hunters) working on pre-approved tasks of high impact to SuperDAO’s short term or long term goals.

Token Layer (Superneum)

This is a slow moving consensus layer that has absolute power over any decision as long as its proposals are not anti-missionary to SuperDAO. This layer utilizes a specialized dynamic quorum that is incentivized by value emitted in the DAO. Primarily Tokens (Superneums) are the ultimate form of membership, they provide proof of membership to the DAO. Superneum tokens also serve as proof of participation indicators, requiring active participation in the some of the DAO activities to extract any value from the the DAO. Some of the activities requiring active participation include; check and balance processes, dispute resolution within Supercoms and Minicoms, bounties reallocations and general assessment. A minimum criteria for participation is established before hand for the right to be able to claim excess reward value from dapp product and service pools.

The idea is the outer sovereign token layer does not come into play on the daily decisions of the inter layer (core). Though some token holder with enough tokens could start a proposal overwrite decisions made by the core through a token holder proposal, but token holders generally make the big directional decisions, steering the organization incentively aligned towards the set goals.

Consensus

Since there are two layers in SuperDAO’S governance, consensus action can be two modes : either in core or token holder mode. These modes of consensus are activated during a proposal registration. Proposals using the Superdao framework are two -stepped: registration and actual execution. and for proposal resolution, there is alway a steady quorum for the internal core layer, but in the token layer, actual voting quorum is determined at voting time. Any proposals started need an indicated number of participators who will be rewarded with value (profits) skewed larger than their inactive counterparts. The makes the protocol a highly reactive, and dynamic quorum seeking, incentive voting experiment, similar semantically but different than the active stake snapshotting and active stake decay model at makerDAO.

Proposal, Proposal Categories and disputes

Proposals using the Superdao framework are two-stepped: registration and actual execution. The rationale behind the models is with simplicity in mind where token holders can register a proposals and then use the resulting proposal data to execute on the registered proposals. It is also useful for indicating at what layer of interaction with the organization a specific an individual would like to. Proposals are categorized, some of the proposal categories are in Administrative, ControlsAccounting, Spending, Payroll, Payments, vesting schedule. Likewise proposals can be disputed when the target proposal could be potentially harmful to the mission os the organization. Stake requirements for certain proposal categories are useful for freezing the stake, to prevent spam and or to automatically invalidate any active proposals when there is movement of the required stake, by proposal creator during the ongoing proposal process. Another idea in exploration which came out of the makerDAO’s blog is the rate limiting and Incremental stake cost for simultaneous proposals initiations. Proposal disputes are harmful initiatives to the organization. They must be vetted and justified by specialized groups called minicom. Any positive majority outcome to stop such harmful proposal of such attack can result in the loss of the attackers stake. For now we have a few basis covered but more ideas could be incorporated for a more robust system and secure system to voter manipulation.

Reputation

On the core level a unit of impact and activity measurement called “Merits” determines consensus voting influence. While values decay based on inactivity new members can drastically attain reputation by contributing to the infrastructure and its components. Reputations points are weight on the roles played within the organization, impact and continuous activity

Simple User Experience

At the base of the SuperDAO organizational framework is the simple to use interface called the Persona. The persona is the organizational profile contract with a multitude of attributes and functionality that makes collaboration and interacting with superDAO intuitive and useful. With the emergence of Uport into production status, Uport integration with the persona makes for the most intuitive user experience weather on a mobile or desktop device. Below are some of the functionalities but not an exhaustive list;

Stateful : Since the internal members are working collaboratively every day it makes complete sense to be able to self indicate availability through certain time interval. For example, a week of absence of the initial founder with the most reputation (merits), indicates that the next in line with the most reputation takes on duties meant for the absentee.
Specialization : The personel contract enables individuals to associate what they do with the organization profile.
Attestation:(vouches): Along side with organization profile, there is also the ability to vouch for new team members entering into a period of probationary work.
Function access simplicity: Starting a proposal is as easy as it gets as explained above. So is calling a simple function to indicate intent. All functions exist in a contract storage dictionary mapped to human readable text for easy layman access and use.
Multi - ERC20 token storage sending capability

Impact Based Task Bounties

All contributions in the organization are awarded with rewards based on impact to the organization. This reward dynamic yields a meritocratic ranking outcome in reputation(merits) of working members (or supercom). Contributions must be impact the organization positively, valuable and acceptable to the overral Superdao framework. Thereby all contribution is based on immediate, mid-term or long term impact and a weighing criteria for measuring the potential impact to the organization. Superdao also maintains a bounty claim system by which rewards for contributions can be received. Tokens and or Ether are given as a reward for work done on pre-approved tasks contributing to the goals of the DAO and or its components. Bounty claims for tokens can be in any category including marketing, community contribution, organization and actual code contributions. A percentage of the budget allocation of all tokens are awarded to short term bounty hunters. The claim system enables self evaluation in the hopes that close to or honest self evaluations gain an extra percentage portion of the awarded tokens for the claimant, while claimants proven to be dishonest are penalized with a percentage deduction or even outright denial of claim along with the reviewers.

Contributions Categories

Contributions can be structured or unstructured. Structured contributions just mean part of the core team limit (founders, early adopters and early contributors). The core team limits put a number limit on the amount of people that can receive a reward package of scheduled payments and rewards for scheduled contribution. Unstructured contributors on the other hand have to use the claim system to claim deserved rewards for pre-appoved completed impactful contributions. Unstructured contributors are basically skilled bounty hunters, filling in where necessary to make the organization as a whole more effective to its goals.

State & Progressive decentralization

Bootstrapping the Superdao is a delicate process necessary to gradually bring the DAO from conception to full crowd governance.
SuperDAO utilizes three defined smart contract enforced states to indicate its stage of development, operation and governance modes

isBootStrapped:

This is the initial stage of development with just the founder or with a number of developers. Most of the decisions rest with the benevolent founder with support of early backers and or other contributing developers and general members. During this state the founder can award bounties freely with input from cofounders from the development and marketing bounty budgets to value adding contributors. The Superneum Promissory contract enables collaborators to function effectively, with backer aligned multi-signature threshold payouts.

isFunded:

This DAO state indicates that decisions are made in a democratic transparent manner using reputation votes by committee of developers, founders and all other parties involved in furthering the state of SuperDAO.
At this state a portion tokens meant for public allocation has been distributed to the public and funds are democratically managed with important checks and balances.
Note : At this stage Crowd based token holder control is not yet activated.

isLive:

This DAO state indicates a post crowd enabled distribution event.
The ultimate decision rest in the hands of token holders but day to day decisions are made by the committee of founders, organizers and developers, with the supreme right of token holders to veto decisions by proposals. Full operational DAO is activated during this DAO state. The committees can award bounties freely, but major vote outcomes of holders serve as the supreme authority regarding what can be repealed or awarded

Fund Security and Mutually Aligned Spending

We are taking extreme precaution and careful thought to provide the safest methodology for securing funds while also aligning interests of backers of the SuperDAO organization. The solution to address smart contract design issues as it relates to fund management is to keep funding contract design as simple as possible. For SuperDAO, in the live state, funds are stored in a simple contract that can receive positive signals from a spending proposal outcome in order to release funds. Proposals themselves as described above are metered and protected by stake. A live practical example this form of security mechanism and interest alignment with backers, can be seen in the SuperDAO’s bootstrap state promissory token fund holding and release mechanism. The contract depends on a 65% threshold stake approval of backers in order for the development team to withdraw funds from it. This way, backers can evaluate and approve team progress every step of the way.

Where we are, whats next & what to expect

We have overcome some inertia and are at a point where we can begin to provide more frequent public facing frequent updates, so you can track this blog to find out what the team is up to each week. Here is our new updated roadmap and here is what to expect over the horizon in the Immediate to mid-term

Pre-sale 40% discounted Superneum promissory tokens up for grabs while they last. The contract is audited by Zeppelin smart contract solutions and its source is publicly verified on Etherscan.
Documentation and easy set-up tutorial integrating uport to be hosted on http://docs.superdao.io/. The documentation will go live and public a week before the crowdfunding.
The initial starting constitutional principles will follow the public delivery of the documentation.
Crowdfunding happening in under 30 days.

For now, since SuperDAO just completed internal and external audits of its promissory token and if you are one of the people that likes early bird 40% discounts you can follow this tutorial to get some Superneum promissory tokens. Hopefully there are some still left, Hurry on now. good luck :)