The Sovryn treasury (which includes BTC raised, the development fund, the ecosystem fund, and the adoption fund) is of critical importance for the success of the Sovryn project. It is most important now, in the bootstrapping phase of system development. Funds use may include, but is not limited to:
Provision of liquidity in the system
Provision of rewards for liquidity (liquidity mining)
Adoption and promotion of the protocol, including referral rewards, advertising and other marketing initiatives
Grants, bounties, partnerships and ecosystem development
Core team ongoing compensation
Each of these needs can change rapidly from day-to-day and effective deployment of funds requires that highly informed decision makers can make decisions rapidly. These types of decisions can not be made effectively by Bitocracy. If each decision must be voted on, there may easily need to be several votes per day, which is simply not practical. If we wish to make effective use of the protocol treasury, we need an alternative - in the long term and most certainly in the short term. We propose a Treasury Committee - hereafter referred to as the Exchequer in honor of the Bitcoin Genesis block quote.
This is an important proposal - my main concerns are regarding transparency and the ability to modify the process later on, but I believe the proposed steps cover both of these points sufficiently at the current stage, and allow the protocol to cover any ad-hoc needs outside of the specific examples already mentioned.
There is definitely a need for a well-informed group of people to make the strategic decisions regarding the treasury funds. This should be the main focus.
Things like contributor compensation and operational expenses can and should be automated to a large degree.
It is likely that this well-informed group will also have enough heft to carry the vote in Bitocracy and if asset allocation reviews will be done monthly, the voting system should be sufficient and you only need to appoint the executors for the things that can not be reasonably easily automated. It cuts down on the duplication of function and paperwork.
I think the athenian model works best and there are no issues of trust as the people appointed usually have a disproportional amount of skin in the game.
Two questions for the future:
How do you propose to make the foundation legally subservient to Bitocracy?
The legislature in the EU is hazy at the moment and I imagine the rest of the world is not much clearer, if the state wants to crack down, they can, either for unregistered securities sale or money loundering, so how will the foundation get funded?
One workaround that is in aligment with satoshi’s spirit is to use a part of the treasury funds to build a mining farm and then finance the project running expenses from the profits.
We are actively researching the legal entity issue. Any insight on this would be helpful. Our goals includes having a non-profit that is subject to Bitocracy through its incorporation mandate. There are some new models and jurisdictions that we think can facilitate this.
If you have a resident of Malta or Switzerland it would be the most convenient.
In Switzerland utility and asset tokens are not subject to anti-money laundering law, but for class-action lawsuits the law of the land where the suit happens count and if you sold tokens without regulatory approval chances are you can be liable for an unregulated securities sale.
So I think founding a Society for education and improvement of individual monetary sovereignity and funding it from donations would be the most under the radar solution as you are not required to self-report anything besides large cash transactions.
Registering an asset manager in/or affiliated with a SRO would be the proper way. Very deep fiat world, you have to play by their rules, which is not a guarantee you won’t get fined in retrograde.
EU is unregulated, but foundation needs to adhere to the aml and counter-terrorism law, which requires KYC and is in general a nightmare.
In case Sovryn is not incorporated any foundation mandate would be difficult to enforce legally.
A balance between agility and consensus is needed. I imagine it is very difficult to find the middle ground. But one cannot consult on every decision before taking it. It is good to delegate to those who are able to deal with problems in the best and quickest way.
I have a lot of trust in people, and certainly every member of the Treasury Committee gives me a lot of confidence.
Perhaps they can show their management to the Bitocracy every six or twelve months with a confidence renewal SIP.
Finally, I propose that Armando create a new topic in the forum. I am sure there are many lawyers and specialists in the community who will be able to offer ideas on their very important approaches. If I had my way only one jurisdiction would be possible for Sovryn, but it is not under our feet.
I read the SIP and it looks very good to me. Bitocracy checks and balances, check.
Transparency and accountability, check. Exchequer committee members credibility, check check check.
Looking forward to get this to vote in the Bitocracy.
@Mar That is some awesome input as well here in thread. I’m amazed.
I’m very pleased to hear this! Outstanding stuff Sovryns! Our DAO administrates the day to day operations of a tax exempt charitable non-profit organization with a mandate of fiscal justice and economic sovereignty to the world’s unbanked and financially oppressed.
