Introducing Slingshot DAO Governance
Introducing the initial governance structure and mechanisms of Slingshot DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, that is governed by the holders of $SLING token.
Slingshot DAO is a community of many talented individuals, from all over the world, who have come together to build the world’s next big ideas.
$SLING Token
The $SLING token is an ERC-20 token that serves as a medium of coordination that helps people share, improve, and develop ideas and proposals across Slingshot DAO. With $SLING token, members can submit and vote on proposals for the future of Slingshot DAO.
Token Contract Address
The contract address for the $SLING token is: 0xfc9Fa9771145fbB98D15C8c2cc94B837a56D554C on Polygon (PoS).
Token Distribution
In total 5 billion $SLING tokens have been minted on the Polygon Proof of Stake network.
Of this 5 billion $SLING tokens, Slingshot DAO treasury holds 56.04% (2,801,755,357).
The remaining tokens were received by Contributing Visionaries (26.73% or 1,336,744,643), Investors (14.23% or 711,500,000), Advisors (2% or 100,000,000) or were delivered under an Airdrop contract (1% or 50,000,000).
Contributing Visionaries, Investors & Advisors
Contributing Visionaries, Investors and Advisors are community members that believe in the core values of Slingshot DAO and have been involved since the early days.
Their tokens are locked for a long duration and an innovative Voting Power limiter has been put in place, allowing no greater than an aggregate 40% of Voting Power to those locked tokens. See below for further details.
Airdrop
1% of $SLING tokens (50,000,000) have been sent to an Airdrop contract. These tokens can be claimed and locked into the Slingshot DAO Voting Escrow smart contract for 60 days in exchange for voting power (see below).
The Airdrop contract can only be interacted with by the addresses as listed and defined within the contract.
The contract address for the Airdrop on Polygon (PoS) is: 0x7233D650375FB1EB2F9fE4f5733B14D514231f3F
An simple front-end website has been built to make it easier to interact with the Airdrop contract, which can be accessed here: https://slingshotdao.com/airdrop/
After 90 days any unclaimed $SLING tokens from the Airdrop contract will be transferred to the Slingshot DAO Treasury as per the Airdrop smart contract logic.
Useful links:
Voting Power
Slingshot DAO uses a Voting Escrow smart contract to determine Voting Power across Slingshot DAO.
The Voting Escrow smart contract allows a token holder to lock their $SLING tokens within the contract and in exchange calculates a Voting Power value for them to use across the Slingshot DAO ecosystem.
The more $SLING tokens a member locks within the Voting Escrow contract, and the longer they lock them for, the more Voting Power they receive.
A member’s Voting Power automatically decreases linearly over time depending on the length of time they chose to lock for.
When a token lock duration ends, that member will no longer have any Voting Power and can then withdraw their $SLING tokens from the Voting Escrow contract.
The address for the Voting Escrow contract on Polygon (PoS) is: 0x3d7656A11515Fd7bb3057fe2988374379A7404D1
Voting Escrow Calculation
Voting Power as a result of locking $SLING tokens into the Voting Escrow contract can be calculated with the following formula:
(tokenAmount / 126144000) * (⌊unlockTimestamp / 604800⌋ * 604800 — currentTimestamp)
- tokenAmount: The number of $SLING locked in the contract.
- 126144000: Represents 4 years in seconds (4 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60).
- unlockTimestamp: The Unix timestamp when the locked $SLING will be unlocked.
- 604800: Represents 1 week in seconds (7 x 24 x 60 x 60).
- currentTimestamp: The current Unix timestamp at the time of calculation.
Voting Power Utility
Initially members can use their Voting Power in two ways:
- Members can use their Voting Power to vote for their favorite ideas to be built in the Slingshot app. Learn more at https://slingshotdao.com/
- Members can also use their Voting Power to vote on DAO governance proposals. Here Slingshot DAO members can vote on broader proposals for the DAO’s future.
Contributing Visionary, Investor & Advisor Voting Power
Contributing Visionary, Investor and Advisor token locks are not within the Voting Escrow contract. Importantly, this means that those tokens cannot vote on ideas within the Slingshot app.
These $SLING tokens are locked in much simpler, time based smart contracts.
To enable these members to participate in DAO governance proposals, a new voting strategy has been created, giving them equivalent Voting Power, but limiting their total Voting Power to 40% of the available total.
This means that regardless of how many tokens are initially locked with these members, these tokens combined can never wield more than 40% of influence over a DAO governance vote.
In time, these tokens will be unlocked and added to the circulating supply of $SLING, and the 40% limit will no longer be necessary.
The voting strategy can be found here: https://snapshot.org/#/strategy/cap-voting-power
Protocol Rewards
Slingshot DAO has a protocol reward mechanism to encourage community participation in the DAO.
A total of 8% of the token supply, amounting to 400,000,000 $SLING, is allocated for this purpose.
The rewards are programmatically distributed based on participation and interaction with the protocol.
Winning Ideas Rewards
Out of the allocated 400,000,000 $SLING, 50,000,000 tokens are designated for rewarding winning dApp idea submissions, meaning the ideas that received the most votes by token holders in an epoch.
This allocation will be distributed over 52 epochs, which allows multiple opportunities for community members to contribute and be rewarded for their innovative ideas.
Epoch-based Participation Rewards
The remaining 350,000,000 $SLING tokens are allocated for active community members who participate in voting during each epoch.
These tokens are initially programmed to be evenly distributed over 52 epochs, however the distribution rate programmatically varies based on participation.
The exact mechanic encourages continuous participation. Details can be found in the technical docs.
Reward Claim Process
Upon the conclusion of each epoch, the rewards are automatically allocated on-chain, to participating community members, based on their participation respectively.
The rewards can then be self claimed by the token holders who participated.
Amendments to Reward Mechanism
The Slingshot DAO community, through governance and utilizing its governance framework, can propose changes to this reward mechanism.
Such changes may include adjustments to the token allocations, epoch durations, or reward calculation methods.
All proposed amendments will be subject to governance voting, ensuring that the community has the final say in any changes to the protocol rewards.
The Slingshot Foundation
The Slingshot Foundation (“Foundation”), a Cayman Islands foundation company, helps the Slingshot DAO by managing the community’s requests while following a common goal and principles. The Slingshot Foundation aims to foster the growth and development of the Slingshot Ecosystem.
The members of Slingshot DAO can submit Slingshot Improvement Proposals (“SIPs” or “Proposals”), vote on them and successful Proposals are made a reality through the Slingshot Foundation.
Together, the Slingshot Foundation and DAO governance aim to allow meaningful, honest, and just decentralized governance for the wider Slingshot community.
Foundation Directors & Supervisors
The Slingshot Foundation will have at least 1 director and 1 supervisor responsible for the management, decision making and day-to-day affairs of the Slingshot Foundation.
The director(s) and supervisor(s) are responsible for ensuring that all Foundation actions and SIPs to effect are compliant with:
- Their fiduciary duties owed to the Slingshot Foundation
- Applicable law
- The Foundation’s Memorandum of Association
- The Foundation’s Articles of Association; and
- The Foundation’s by-laws.
The directors take actions on behalf of the Foundation to give effect to a vote of $SLING token holders.
The Slingshot DAO Governance Framework
Slingshot DAO uses a community governance framework (“Governance Framework” or ”Framework”) that defines how members can make changes to the way the DAO operates and governs.
The Framework covers everything from how the DAO is structured to how proposals are submitted and voted on.
This Framework acts as the source of truth for the community governance and as keeper of the community curated rules for the DAO.
An innovative feature of this Framework is its safeguard system, allowing some of its concerns to be handled by sub-committees, while still being transparent and always giving token holders the final say.
Critically, token holders always have the power to change any aspect of the Framework through a majority vote.
The Slingshot DAO community governance framework can be found here: https://docs.slingshotdao.com/governance-framework/
Useful links:
The Special Council
Members of the Special Council are elected to protect the democracy, the integrity and the safety of the DAO.
The Special Council advises on proposals, reviews changes to governance, supports the Foundation and helps with dispute resolution when needed.
Initially, there are two members of the Special Council serving an initial term of 6 months. The initial Special Council members are:
- John Fields
CEO of GrowYourBase.
John has background in financial derivatives and REITs.
0x526C0DA9970E7331d171f86AeD28FAFB5D8A49EF - Matt Shaw
CEO of Webslinger Advisors.
Advisor Echelon PRIME Foundation.
Chairman of Argo Blockchain.
0xf8e1492255d9428c2Fc20A98A1DeB1215C8ffEfd
There can be up to 5 persons elected to the Special Council by a majority vote of token holders.
Further details and the methodology to govern the structure, elections, terms, term limits and more, of the Special Council, can be found within the Slingshot DAO Governance Framework.
The current roster of the Special Council can also be seen at anytime within the Governance Framework here.
Useful links:
Working Groups
Slingshot DAOs contributors are organized into Working Groups. Working Groups work together to advise the DAO with its ongoing projects and proposals.
Each Working Group is coordinated by a Guiding Contributor (see below).
Initially 5 Working Groups have been created:
- Operations
- Engineering
- Governance
- Strategy
- Treasury
The creation, remit and closure of Working Groups are all governed by majority token holder vote.
More information about how Working Groups are governed, structured, budgeted, and their responsibilities can be found in the DAO Governance Framework.
Useful links:
Guiding Contributors
Guiding Contributors (“GCs”) each organize and coordinate the efforts of a Working Group. To give the DAO the best advice, GCs have closely matched past experience and skills to their Working Group.
The initial roster of GCs has been appointed for their expertise by the Special Council. These GCs will serve until the first election for Guiding Contributors is organized by the DAO.
The first election for GCs will take place in early 2024, and then at the beginning of each year thereafter.
More details around Guiding Contributor elections, terms, compensation, impeachment and their responsibilities can be found in the DAO Governance Framework.
Useful links:
Proposals
Slingshot DAO members can submit Proposals for the DAO to consider and vote upon.
Proposal Types
Depending on the nature of action or change being proposed, Proposals are organized into different types.
Initially there are 4 types of Proposals:
- Initiative Proposals
- Governance Proposals
- Grant Proposals
- Economic Proposals
Initiative Proposals propose plans of action for the DAO to undertake to achieve its mission(s).
Governance Proposals propose changes to the DAO Governance Framework and how the community governs Slingshot DAO.
Grant proposals propose grants to fund donation based initiatives (donative grants) or to support community development (community development grants).
Economic Proposals propose changes to the DAOs Economic Parameters (see below), which have an impact on the DAOs economics or tokenomics. For example, this could be a changeable value in a smart contract, the price of a digital good or a membership fee.
Submitting Draft Proposals
To begin with, Slingshot DAO uses Discord as its community governance forum. Members can submit draft Proposals by creating a forum post using the available templates.
Once posted other members can discuss and submit feedback on the Proposals to be incorporated.
Proposal Sponsorship
For a draft Proposal to advance from draft to vote, the proposal requires at least 2 sponsors from any members of the following groups:
- Currently serving Guiding Contributors.
- Currently serving Special Council members.
Once a Proposal has met the sponsorship requirement, a vote is setup by the DAO (see below).
Note, however, that a Proposal does not require any sponsors if it is posted by an address on the Snapshot whitelist or an author with greater than 10,000,000 Voting Power (as further detailed below).
As always, all details regarding Proposals, including sponsorship requirements, can be changed via the Governance Framework.
Useful links:
Voting
To get started Slingshot DAO is setup to use Snapshot.org to facilitate gasless off-chain voting for governance. The Snapshot space for Slingshot DAO can be found here.
There are currently 3 types of vote in Slingshot DAO governance, determined by the safeguard value of the item in question, as defined in the DAO Governance Framework.
This is what allows less important changes to be voted on by Guiding Contributors or the Special Council, but ensures that all initiatives and impactful changes are voted on by token holders.
The 3 types of votes are, in descending order of precedence:
- General vote
- Special Council vote
- Guiding Contributor vote
General Vote
A general vote is a vote of all Slingshot DAO token holders.
General votes are conducted using the slingshotdao.eth Snapshot space. This space has been configured to read a members Voting Power from the blockchain as described above.
General votes are currently setup to run for a duration of 5 days and the quorum has been initially set to 1%.
These parameters can all be modified by the DAO as per the Governance Framework.
Special Council Vote
A Special Council vote is a vote of all the currently serving Special Council members.
These votes are conducted using the sc.slingshotdao.eth Snapshot space. Each Special Council member has an equally weighted vote.
Special Council votes are currently setup to run for a duration of 2 days and the quorum has been initially set to 51%.
If both quorum and an unsurpassable majority is achieved during a voting period then the vote can be closed.
Once again, these parameters can all be modified by the DAO as per the Governance Framework.
Guiding Contributor Vote
Finally, a Guiding Contributor vote is a vote of all the currently serving Guiding Contributors.
These votes are conducted using the gc.slingshotdao.eth Snapshot space. Each Guiding Contributor is afforded an equally weighted vote.
Guiding Contributor votes are currently setup to run for a duration of 2 days and the quorum has been set to 51%.
If both quorum and an unsurpassable majority is achieved during a voting period then the vote can be closed.
As always, these parameters can all be modified by the DAO as per the Governance Framework.
Voting Authorship
Votes on Snapshot can be authored by either members of a whitelist (controlled by a DAO Treasury multisig) or by any token holder with greater than 10,000,000 Voting Power.
This allows for token holder representatives such as Guiding Contributors, Special Council or other members to be added to the whitelist and author votes alongside token holders who have the necessary Voting Power.
The 10,000,000 Voting Power voting authorship qualifier also acts as a critical backstop to democracy for the DAO, allowing such authors to bypass the Proposal sponsorship requirements entirely.
Useful links:
- General vote Snapshot space
- Special Council Snapshot space
- Guiding Contributor Snapshot space
- Governance Framework: Voting
Treasury
Slingshot DAO has multiple wallets within the Treasury[, which is held at the Foundation]. Broadly speaking, multisigs are used whenever possible, then hardware wallets and then finally software wallets.
More detailed information and requirements for the Treasury are defined within the Governance Framework.
As of writing Slingshot DAO has 4 multisig wallets:
- Ethereum “Cold Safe” Multisig: 0x4deDb66AB278949b37e86Bb2189240118D358c08
- Ethereum “Hot Safe” Multisig: 0x9adf0C16a4056D1412D4BA2d428e57A8549946D0
- Polygon (PoS) “Cold Safe” Multisig: 0x57c7CB977A0DC7Cb2d76994bDBBAcd6148AF5A97
- Polygon (PoS) “Hot Safe” Multisig: 0x02a43f8Ab7721B4D69b62e6D92bDE2245971aC73
A maintained registry of current Treasury addresses, their wallet type, purpose, signers and justification can be found within the Governance Framework here.
Useful links:
Economic Parameters
Economic Parameters are a community curated register of parameters that can be readily changed across the DAO’s services, protocols, products, and properties.
Formally recording these values as Economic Parameters makes it easier for the community to understand the economics of Slingshot DAO and suggest changes through governance.
Initially, this includes (but is not limited to) parameters such as:
- The dApp idea submission fee
- The number of winning ideas per leaderboard
- The duration of epochs within the dApp
- The maximum funding available per winning idea per leaderboard
…and so forth.
The definitions and governance requirements for the DAOs Economic Parameters can be found within the Governance Framework.
Economic Parameters are managed by Economic Proposals and most often require a majority token holder vote to pass changes (see above).
The current register of Economic Parameters can be found here.
