Not Just Another Fork
Note: All readers need to understand that everything written here or in other PhantomDAO Medium posts are just ideas of a collective group of many contributors. Everything is subject to change at the discretion of the community. This project is open-sourced with no central ownership or control. When we refer to “we”, “our” or any other plural or collective reference it means contributors together with the community. This is an ongoing experiment and everyone should perform their own risk assessment accordingly.
Foreword
It may be the sense of the community that we have been more quiet than usual here at PhantomDAO. As ways of best launching a protocol like this are explored, it is our intention that we all work together to decide on the best way forward. There is a general consensus in the market that the downside risk of these protocols are limited to either rug pulls or bank runs. We disagree.
What it fundamentally comes down to is this: Phantom is not a company. Our goal is to be used by decentralized orgs as their reserve currency. There will be no central authority, board of directors or benevolent dictator. It’s a protocol created by the community, for the community and run/governed by that same community.
This project should be viewed as an open sourced, community-owned and community-operated DAO. How we move forward will be decided together, when the time is right — all final decisions are to be made by the community.
Not just another Olympus fork
How do you tell when someone has built something incredible? Easy, people start copying en masse. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, after all. Such is the case with the OlympusDAO protocol. It is for good reason, it is a thing of beauty. Eventually, though, the tide of copycats subsides and the innovators arrive.
The goal of PhantomDAO is simple: build a lasting community-owned and operated Crypto Reserve Currency that will still exist in ten years time. It’s an ambitious goal. To do this, the community firmly believes we can not just copy and paste what OlympusDAO created, slap new lipstick on the pig and give it a new name. Instead, the code needed a reboot in order to implement the ideas from Olympus in a new, audited, modern codebase on an innovative blockchain. Key to creating a new Reserve Currency we believe will be innovation and adaptability. So that is what has been built. But what exactly has been changed?
A protocol architecture for growth
DeFi is moving incredibly quickly. Hell, Olympus itself isn’t even a year old. Key to success in this world we believe is innovation. But here is the thing about DeFi: once a protocol is live as a set of smart contracts on a blockchain, unless you are deliberate about the architecture of those smart contracts, it can be extremely difficult and painful to update or improve them. Those that have been following this space for the past 12 months or more will have seen this play out first hand.
In order to avoid these challenges, it has been decided to build the smart contracts that are powering PhantomDAO from scratch. In doing so, three key principles were prioritized:
- Security — no rugs, no pump and dumps, no unexpected leakage of tokens for heavily discounted bond rates. When you interact with a protocol calling itself “a Crypto Reserve Currency”, you expect a certain level of security and professionalism.
- Upgradability — The contracts we deploy need to have a mechanism for upgrades/improvements. Without this, it’s impossible to innovate.
- Community First — Every aspect of how this protocol operates must be decided by the community.
PhantomDAO smart contract architecture is built around four key patterns or ideas:
- Eternal Storage — for those of you that really want to get in the weeds, you can read more here. Essentially, the storage of data has been separated away from the contracts that hold the protocol “logic” such that the logic contracts can be improved without disruption of service.
- Hexagon Layers — At the core of the protocol is a set of generic contracts that will never need to change because, well, they are generic. All the fancy contracts with the fancy logic exist at the edges of the protocol and are implemented using the operations provided by the generic contracts at the core in a design commonly referred to as hexagonal architecture design pattern. This has three key advantages. First, the contracts that are of the highest value (think the treasury and the Accelerator) exist at the core of the protocol with very strict security checks to ensure there is no unintended access. Secondly, because the contracts at the core are generic, they likely never need to be upgraded. As things get more specific and less generic, they sit at the outer layers of the protocol and are implemented as a series of operations using the generic contracts from the core. This makes upgrades and improvements much easier to enact. Finally, small, modular contracts with a clearly understood purpose are easier to audit.
- Strict access checks — because the storage is separated into different contracts from the business logic, a system of strict access checks are easily added to that storage ensuring only authorized callers are allowed to access and modify that storage.
- On-Chain Governance — From day one, everything about PhantomDAO will be on-chain. Nothing will be done without a vote by the community. Our Governance is built on top of the good work of the folks over at OpenZepplin.
Code Audit
PhantomDAO code will be audited prior to launch. In addition to this, all PhantomDAO solidity smart contract code will be open sourced on Github before any tokens are made available. This rocket ship is not going to last being held together with sticky tape. Ten years remember?
Truly Community-Led
OlympusDAO has been the pioneer of (3, 3). It is easy to love what they have created. PhantomDAO seeks to double down and see how far the concept can be taken. What does it look like when token holders are not only working together to create more RFV, but literally deciding everything about how the protocol runs and operates? This is how DeFi is meant to operate. It is the future. If you agree, come join PhantomDAO.
Find us below:
discord: www.discord.com/phantomdao
twitter: @xPhantomDAO
