CDF Referendum: Post Launch Q&A
The CDF Proposal launched on January 12th and there has been a high volume of discussion in Telegram about the features outlined.
While we cannot make changes to a proposal that is currently up for vote, we can answer the main questions or objections that have been voiced in an effort to ameliorate any fears. These are mainly my answers as a team member and I stand by them.
- The full text of the proposal can be found here.
- The on-chain version of the proposal for voting is here.
- If you want to comment or join the discussion please visit the Telegram group.
- Why is the Emergency Committee getting 1MM EOS?
The EmCom is not “getting” 1 million tokens. The EmCom is being tasked with acting as stewards for 1 million tokens. This is an important distinction. The community must vote and so direct how and if the tokens are to be spent. The EmCom has no authority to transfer the tokens to another account without community vote.
The one million is much larger than the budget posted for the EmCom and the Portal because the fund is not just there to fund EmCom and portal; it is there to fund the first proposals that the community approves. It isn’t up to EmCom to spend the money — it’s up to the community to direct how the EmCom disperses it. 1MM represents the maximum spend that the community can possibly use during the period before the categories are established. The figure is a best guess at the most the community could possibly spend, keeping in mind that we were budgeting for “unknown unknowns”. It’s just a matter of “better to have and not need than need and not have.”
The entire amount could be needed, but probably won’t. The balance unused is burned or returned. Three different things can trigger the burn or return of unused balance: the Successful establishment of Categories, OR removal by community, OR Six months of operations. (Six months is the life of the EmCom with one caveat: should there be unfinished business, the structure is flexible enough to allow the term to extend slightly. However, this would require community approval. All other triggers stay in place.)
If the community did spend all of the money and did not want to replenish the the pot for EmCom’s duties that would also mark an end, albeit there would be nothing to dispose of.
2. Why not split the proposal into separate proposals? (i.e. a burn proposal, a Bootstrap Team proposal, a portal proposal, etc.)
The legislation that we drafted is intended as a cohesive whole with interlocking parts. If some parts are passed and not others, the end result would not be viable.
- EmCom — this is required to manage the competition and to create the best practices precedents that will guide future CDF efforts, or other attempts to access the .saving account for stakeholder driven development.
- Portal — this is required for voting on chain and communication concerning the proposals, forums, on-chain reports from the various governance structures, tally system for on-chain voting.
- Funding — this should be self evident but without funding for operations and for community approved proposals nothing happens.
- Competition & Categories — this is the ultimate goal: an entirely community designed and driven set of categories, limited in funding and scope, to allow for the greatest variety of governance options so EOS as a whole can figure out what works best, while limiting theft, abuse, or waste.
- Eosio.saving fund management and token retirement — there are 2 main reasons for including a “burn”:
* First, there is a large, vocal contingent who fear that the CDF will encourage rampant waste. By taking the funds out of the equation from the start, we hoped to reduce fears; and,
* Second, changing inflation is a matter of code and should more properly be handled by a separate referendum, but since we don’t know yet if 5% is truly high or not, shutting the flow off is a very drastic measure. We felt that the entire community is best served if the CDF sets a precedent of taking the minimum needed and safely removing the remainder from play.
3. Why only 6 months to create the other governance structure?
Granted, in hindsight 6 months can appear too short. There were a few reasons for picking this range though:
- The EmCom will be putting in a lot of hours for what is essentially unpaid, high consequence, high visibility work. During their tenure they have to forego any business opportunities that would have the appearance of conflict of interest. Asking them to stay at this longer would be unfair;
- If the community wants to build category proposals and vote on them, 6 months should be adequate. If the community doesn’t care or won’t do the work, more time won’t improve the situation;
- This is a prototype body asking for community trust. Limiting the term to the minimum needed to do the job was the best argument that could be made against the more unhinged attacks of “power grab”.
4. Why have an unelected group of 7 form the EmCom, rather than hold an election?
First of all, this will not be an unelected team. The community voting for the Referendum elects them. Secondly, this is a bootstrapping enterprise; there are no mechanisms in place for an election. Any such election mechanisms would have to be designed and built, and then configured into wallets and portals. Who should do this work? The truth is anyone who did that work would then be challenged because they, in turn, had not been elected. Such is the nature of bootstrap endeavors. To avoid this tangle of recursive complaint, the slate of nominees have been made public, their EmCom powers are negligible, and if elected will serve only long enough to replace themselves by elected governance structures.
Overall, a lot of questions have been focused on the EmCom. This is a mistake. The EmCom is only the temporary gantry required to launch the CDF. Focus on the rocket.
5. What protection will be in place to ensure that the members of EmCom won’t run off with any of the tokens?
Owner permission is designated to eosio@active and the active permission set up as a 4 of 7 multisig, with keys provided by the 7 members of the EmCom. There will be a 48 hour delay built in to transactions. Since the EmCom only oversees the spend directed by the community, an onchain tally of a successful community vote precedes every 4/7 multisig signature. BPs can confirm the tally and block or delay any suspicious assignment of funds.
There have been some critics who have responded to this with “yeah but the EmCom could still steal and the BPs might not be motivated to block it.” it is very hard to answer this — anyone on the street could hit people in the head and steal wallets, bank tellers could stuff their pockets and leave for lunch, parking attendants could sell parked cars for parts. The way this is all prevented is by making it hard to steal and moreover making it very hard to get away with.
6. How much do the EmCom get paid for this?
The EmCom representatives each receive 1 EOS per meeting for roughly 16hrs of work each, per month. In other words 1 token = between 1 and 16 manhours — very good value to EOS. This is an honorarium and is a placeholder to signify that this is a group of people volunteering their time and effort for the betterment of the entire EOS ecosystem.
7. Why can’t the BPs just handle the .saving account?
A stable and healthy government requires checks and balances. Today there are no effective balances to BP power. Giving the BPs access and approval over the entire inflation fund almost guarantees fraud, waste, and abuse — not because every BP would be unethical but because there is nothing to stop all projects that get approved from originating within the BPs themselves. The BPs are for profit businesses but spending a Common Pool resource should benefit everyone. The Incentives just do not align even with offering BPs every benefit of doubt. And given that there are already strong suspicions and indications of an unassailable cartel existing in the BP ranks, how could the community ever regain control?
8. What happens if this proposal is rejected?
Nothing happens. The way a proper referendum is supposed to be created, as far as i understand, is that a “no” vote equals the status quo. I suppose those from the original workgroup who were not completely demotivated would create an exit report of learnings. I would like to believe that I would try to help future endeavors by other people.
9. Given we have the benefit of hindsight here, what would the proposer like to change prior to implementation if approved.
It would be very good if some of the experts could advise on tightening up the MSIG permissions. However, there is very little leeway to change anything that has already been detailed because it is on-chain and currently being voted on. That said though it should be recognized that the Portal budget and the EmCom budget are very conservative and likely less will be spent than is budgeted for now.
10. What is the proposed method of “the community” proposing and approving governance structures.
The honest answer is no one knows the process yet because we haven’t created it. Creating that process is one of the major duties of the EmCom. There can be no definitive answer yet, but the process will likely have a flow along the lines of
- Party A has an Idea, and they bring it to the various fora and the EmCom and other people informally for feedback.
- Party A brings the beta draft of their idea to EmCom and the proposal is jointly reviewed with Party A and EmCom according to the ideas on the third page of the outlined “Proposal Assessment Overview” from the referendum.
- Party A makes adjustments recommended by EmCom, to the extent Party A is willing, and the proposal is posted to the Portal with comments from EmCom and introduction from Party A.
- Voting.
11. There have been some comments — rather than questions — that are, not statements about the proposal, but statements about the speaker’s beliefs:
A. Inflation should be lowered.
This is an argument that is beyond the remit of the CDF. However, the CDF was created in such a way that the de facto inflation is reduced to 2% at most, unless the community decides it should be higher.
B. Development should be privately funded/voluntarily funded.
Nothing is stopping anyone from running such a system in parallel to the CDF. in fact not even a referendum would be required to launch this. Anyone who wants this should go for it. The CDF is a first pass attempt to build the development program that inflation has been set aside for.
C. Committees or bureaucracies are by default bad.
It is harder for a committee with named public figures to be improperly influenced without being caught than for a whale to run a campaign to manipulate voting. A committee structure is no more intrusive than a proxy; it allows people to focus on the details of individual projects in a way that the community cannot. And, counterintuitively, committees scale better than community votes on every matter because voter fatigue is less likely.
