This post was prepared with discussion, feedback and edits from @polar
Telos : the goal, the purpose, the end game
Introduction
The airdrop of the ZK token earmarked the genesis of the DAO. Now we have the governance processes and it’s time for the delegates to take action. So, given that we’re at this watershed moment and it hasn’t gotten busy yet. We thought it would be good to unpack the mechanisms we have in their current state and deliberate the direction we are looking to go in. To set the bearings for the DAOs direction of travel.
As delegates, we are coming into formed mechanisms, systems and a chain that has had significant amounts of deep technical work, deliberation and investment. The initiation of the governance system is an important moment. It is the point at which the DAO and chain gains its own life and agency.
It’s important for us, as delegates, to get as clear a view as possible on the intended direction. Essentially catching us up with the deliberative action that has happened so far, so we can best shape our inputs to maximally align with the intended ethos, values and direction of the network.
The DNA of this system is the protocol, the initial state of the governance mechanisms and the ZK Credo. All of these have the potential (perhaps the most potential) to nucleate a high quality ecosystem that could shift the space culturally into the right direction. In many ways, as it stands, the DNA of this chain embodies the whole point of crypto and what many of us came here for (including why we are here now).
We also have a “North Star”, a zero incident security mindset, expanding on chain assets, increasing builders and active addresses.
The question is, how do we get there? The path to these is what will shape the action in the DAO and how delegates should optimally behave.
The Mechanisms
The paths to action in the DAO are currently three fold, in the form of ZKSync Improvement Proposals (ZIPs), Token Program Proposals (TPPs) and Governance Advisory Proposals (GAPs).
ZIPs are relatively clear, this is protocol governance and metagoverance. The mechanism by which the protocol and the core governance process evolve and upgrade. This ideally, will be seldom used since it will materially change the core structure and reality of the protocol. Proposals in this track should have a higher consideration than the others. They will have different risk profile and deeper requirements of technical understanding.
TPPs is interesting. This is really quite different to the standard DAO structure and it’s clear that we’re pushing into a more governance minimised design here. It seems that the idea is that actors bring a new token mechanism that integrates rather directly into the ZK token economics via an approved execution payload. This is cutting edge, as is the minter mechanism, and could really push the space forward.
GAPs are a little more unclear. It seems at the high level to be an onchain snapshot-like signalling mechanism. We can use it to modify documents like the Credo and do elections for things like the Guardians, but it has considerably less teeth than the other two paths, and in particular doesn’t seem to have spending powers.
All in this is perhaps the most advanced protocol DAO design we’ve seen in the space. We have three governor contracts and novel mechanisms for token minting and direct permissionless fully onchain governed paths for modifying the token economy. Very cool.
The Culture Vs Mechanism Trade Off
But there are trade offs here. The lack of obvious classic grant paths, will limit the usual congregation of people here that can bring the DAO / chain culture. That of course also means that you mitigate the grift attacks and noise that can occur around treasuries, so the trade offs can make sense. But, if we want to at least coordinate a group of high quality delegates who can make those high stakes decisions we will need to get more eyes on these forums and ideally build a culture that helps the network grow in the right direction very soon.
Governance minimised designs push humans out to the edges who operate as rational economic actors aligned by incentive structures alone. This minimises the problems that humans bring, but also eliminates human expression and ultimately culture. This may be what is desired for the DAO, pushing cultural formation out to the wider ecosystem. But ultimately, we need artists, creatives, consumer applications and social layer schelling points, or we create another soulless space driven entirely by speculation. This is an important topic at this time, as we’re seeing real evidence that raw unguided economic incentives manifest as toxic unsafe environments in the real world. There is an opportunity here to shape culture at the source. The action here could lead to positive spaces in the real world if it is curated wisely
Some questions come to mind:
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To what degree do we want a DAO culture here? The mechanisms as is, seems to close off many of the paths that would attract people to the chain through conventional means.
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The token programme is innovative, but consequently a new barrier, what are we doing to build the pathway to these mechanisms and how can that be achieved through the systems we have at play here?
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What is the intended scope of GAPs? We will get onchain decision making here, so in theory outcomes of GAPs can be very broad and permissionless, but it would be interesting to more clearly outline the intended scope of what this path can and will do.
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It is becoming the norm to build direct incentive structures for delegates. What is the incentive for delegates to come to the DAO and participate.?
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How often do we expect guardians and security council members to intermediate decisions? Their positionality as veto holders gives them considerable power, do we expect them to be active in shaping decision making (with their veto’s) or only intermediating as a course of emergency course correction?
The ZK Credo
The Credo is aspirational and we wonder if it’s feasible that all proposals align fully to it.
For example, will only proposals that incorporate privacy be expected to be passed by the DAO?
It’s clear there will be a degree of variable alignment to the credo with each proposal. What are the boundary conditions for this? And how do we embody the culture outlined at the ecosystem level. It seems like the DAO would be the place for this kind of action, but the mechanisms don’t seem to provide a space for that to manifest.
A discussion on how the Credo can manifest through the action in the DAO is welcome here. The illustrative examples provided in the docs are helpful, but I think could be broadened and perhaps an ongoing discussion of the kind of things that the DAO desires to see and articulations of the paths a builder would take to get them to market on the chain is needed.
Risks
Delegative systems are the norm and have been used here, but they also have trade offs and risks. There are a number of delegates with comparatively high levels of delegation power in the DAO. In pure one token, one vote systems, this becomes the de facto structure of power in the Token Assembly and if the wider delegate set disagrees with them, there’s a large coordination job to overpower them. Not impossible, but if the typical DAO apathy manifests we may see a very small number of people ultimately control the decision making.
The proposal threshold seems to be set well at this point, leaving a few dozen actors that have proposal creation rights above the threshold, but we also have a small number of anons with low trusted numbers (the number of accounts delegating to delegates is an illuminating metric), which are close to the proposal threshold. The risk here is mitigated by the veto structures, but we really don’t want to use them unless we have to. It’s worth thinking about strategies for coordinating against toxic proposals amongst the assembly.
The guardians and security councils are well composed and contain high quality actors, with excellent levels of experience and trust within the space, but given their ability to intermediate all proposals they have the potential to shape the DAO more than any other actors. The association structure mentioned that delegates can enter sounds again, market leading. It would be great to learn a bit more about that and why it’s there.
As mentioned above, the more governance minimised design is excellent but creates a new barrier to adoption. Ideally, we would see a pluralistic set of token mechanisms plugged into the DAO, but we could end up with a kind of first mover, winner takes all, situation simply due to the ability for financially and technologically capable actors to build aligned and compatible proposals more easily over an open bootstrapped community of builders.
Summary
The intention of this post is to initiate a discussion that closes the gap between the desired performance of the DAO prior to its launch and the work we can do as delegates and wider voting community going forward. To avoid wasted work and frustrated discussions it will be good to align as much as possible on the intended direction and ‘telos’ of the DAO at this point in time.
Finally, there is the potential here to shape a vibrant culture that separates this ecosystem away from the more bland and banal state of many other ecosystems in the space. For example, nurturing a strong cypherpunk / hacker culture with an emphasis on social layer applications that leverage the chain’s native account abstraction would be perfectly timed at the moment. The question is: is that where we want to go? And how do we get there?
