Witnet Foundation is now a Non Profit Organization with a new governing board and ambitious goals
The “old” Witnet Foundation
The Witnet project was started in the summer of 2017. Back then, for the sake of getting things started as soon as possible, we decided incorporating Witnet Foundation as a regular C-corp.
We would have loved going with a type of organization that was more in line with the decentralized nature of the project. However, in an attempt to prevent bureaucracy from deterring innovation, we went with the most straightforward legal structure, which felt like a reasonable compromise at the time.
This worked just fine for three years. However, as the Witnet ecosystem thrives and matures, it is time to evolve and adopt a legal structure that more accurately embodies the current role of Witnet Foundation in the context of a broad, decentralized ecosystem.
The “new” Witnet Foundation
Witnet Foundation has been re-incorporated as a non-stock, not-for-profit organization. That is, a proper foundation much alike to Ethereum Foundation, Mozilla Foundation or Rust Foundation.
Witnet Foundation is no longer owned by anyone, it cannot issue stock, and it cannot distribute dividends. All the resources of Witnet Foundation are now legally bound to fulfill its restated mission:
The mission of Witnet Foundation is to steward the advancement of the Witnet oracle protocol and ecosystem, as well as the broader Web3 space, with a focus on fostering research and development of technologies that enhance the decentralization of communications and financial infrastructure in search of more freedom for the individual.
Witnet Foundation is now overseen by a governing board, which will be initially integrated by Adán SDPC and Mario Cao — two of the individuals who contributed the most to the design and implementation of the Witnet protocol.
A new era in which Witnet extends beyond Witnet Foundation and beyond the Witnet protocol
Everyone in the Witnet community — from developers to miners and enthusiasts — can pride themselves on what we have built so far. However, the crypto space moves at light speed. In this ever-changing context, we cannot simply settle for having built what on paper is the most decentralized and robust oracle solution to date.
It is time for the entire ecosystem to double down on our commitment to bringing the Witnet oracle to final users, educating about its features and facilitating its adoption. The recently announced integrations with Aragon and RiveX are just the beginning. Given the strong game-theoretic properties of the protocol, the more usage we can drive into the protocol, the stronger guarantees it can provide, and vice versa.
Luckily, Witnet Foundation is not alone in this journey. This was always an open community effort, and we always claimed that for a project like this to succeed, the development itself needed to be decentralized. More and more vital pieces of the ecosystem — like the block explorer at witnet.network, or the eWit ERC-20 wrapper of the Wit token — are now built and operated by independent individuals and organizations.
In the near future, Witnet Foundation will continue relinquishing more and more of its influence in favor of other independent players in the ecosystem. As a great example, the development of the Sheikah Witnet Wallet will soon be assumed by startup Other Plane, founded by former employees of Stampery Labs — the company that pioneered blockchain notarization and was commissioned for building the first implementation of the Witnet protocol.
Cooperation with other oracle projects is going to also play an important role in this new era. Witnet is going to continue being an active member of the Alliance of Decentralized Oracles, and to push for standardization inside the oracle space, as we are doing with ERC-2362 — a standard for price feed contracts on Ethereum. Bridges to multiple EVM compatible blockchains and Layer-2 networks will also be key to increasing the outreach of the protocol.
But that is not the end of the story.
Our goals are set “moon high”, and we do not only intend the Witnet project to transcend the structure of the Foundation, but also to transcend every existing assumption about what Witnet is today. In this new era, Witnet has the right people, the needed determination and enough resources to pursue its goals in every way possible.
In other words: the decentralized oracle network we all built together was just one single solution to one specific problem. The buidlers in the Witnet community are unstoppable, and you will find them wherever they can do the most to fulfill the true vision of Web3, which doubles now as our mission: censorship resistant technologies for the freedom for the individual.
