This Is Not a Game | BanklessDAO Weekly Rollup

Jan 14

Dear Bankless Nation 🏴,

In recent weeks, many of our contributors have turned the spotlight onto Coordinape, which has long been integral as our reward and recognition system for ‘ad-hoc contributions’ to the DAO. This week, the editorial by Tomahawk provides a sobering insight into some of the suspicious behavior, and most recently, outright fraud, that has plagued the DAO’s Coordinape rounds over the last few months.

It's time to take decisive steps towards ensuring that contributors are rewarded in accordance with our values. The discovery and admission of fraud has brought new urgency to this proposal to pause or reduce Coordinape for Season 7, so please read the editorial before adding your vote on the Forum.

Effective stewardship of the DAO’s supply of BANK is vital to the longevity of the DAO. If you want to participate in discussions around this subject, join next week’s Community Call roundtable. If you are interested in bringing your unique skills and experience to the task, you are in luck — applications for Grant Committee membership are open now, with four positions available.

During this week’s Community Call we heard about the Decentralized Arts newsletter’s weekly NFT drop, Bankless Academy’s upcoming writing cohort, and open Dework bounties to fix content on bDAO website. If you are interested in acting as MC for a Community Call and you agree that POAP is pronounced with two syllables, indicate your interest on Discord. Okay, that second requirement is a joke, but seriously …

This is not a game, and not a dry run, but that doesn’t mean we dial down the fun. Let's participate. Let’s bring our best selves. Let’s work together, not in silos. Lastly, let’s have a truly fantastic week!

Contributors: tomahawk, Lanksss, KingIBK, Paulito, anointingthompson1.eth, pub-gmn.eth, theconfusedcoin, Austin Foss, WinVerse, Liquidiot, siddhearta, Trewkat, HiroKennelly

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This Is Not a Game

Author: tomahawk🏴

BanklessDAO’s December Coordinape round was rigged for the personal benefit of its trusted administrator.

This editorial is sad to write, and I typically steer away from DAO drama whenever possible. This time, however, it’s personal.

At least two DAO members who chose not to sign up for the December Coordinape round were impersonated by Whales#7970: myself and Shaun|dancingpenguin.eth. Whales used our handles to allocate multiple sizable allocations of additional GIVE to himself and other wallets in his control. He has admitted as such (see the Ops and Coordinape workstream channels in the Discord for the messy details). There is some additional detail in this Forum post, and decisions about whether to pay the Coordinape round and formal repercussions for Whales are forthcoming.

In the DAO’s first 18 months, we’ve seen examples of paid projects with almost no direction, role holders doing next-to-nothing, preferential treatment to friends, lack of attribution for work that is not one’s own, and many other ethical failings that often arise in web3. However, never have I seen a more blatant attempt to manipulate one of our systems for personal gain than what occurred with Coordinape last month.

Whales had been Coordinape admin for just two months: November and December of 2022. Both of those rounds had anomalies, incorrect calculations, and improper allocations of BANK, as pointed out by Ella Dane in mid-December. Subsequently, an Ops team comprising infinitehomie, Sprinklesforwinners, links, and LiviuC carried out a thorough investigation of the handles and wallets associated with suspicious Coordinape allocations. We are all indebted to these contributors for uncovering the truth of what has happened. Thank you for spending your holiday time (and beyond) pulling the facts from the noise.

Another finding from the investigation is a pattern of improper tag elevation for access to higher rewards. Sprinklesforwinners noticed that some contributors had verified Level 1 tags just in time for Coordinape sign up, prompting the research that has made this pattern clearer. Blockchain forensics data show multiple round-trip wallet transfers to facilitate the Level 1 tier of Coordinape participation for Guest Pass members who reverted back afterwards.

People are gaming the system. Our precious genesis allocation of BANK,
dwindling by the day, is being squandered.

To be honest, I don’t know what is going to happen next. It’s up to the community to clean house now and build the sustainable future we envision. Certainly we may see some Discord handles be socially canceled and hopefully permabanned at bDAO. Coordinape, in its current form and without strong verification capabilities, is probably dead — at least for use with large teams. But beyond that, I don’t know how we will overcome Sybil vulnerabilities on a DAO-wide level. How many Discord handles were (or still are) controlled by Whales? It raises uncomfortable questions from which we should not shy away.

I always tell people the mission of a billion going bankless is going to happen regardless of what any of us does. We are on the cusp of a financial revolution. Everyone in the world is coming, whether they know it or not.

Our job is to keep people safe from the Do Kwons, the SBFs, and all the little grifters out there in web3. And there are a ton. It is of paramount importance that we stamp out corruption within our culture. When we figure it out, we’ll help our other DAO friends do the same in their communities. This battle against untrustworthy actors IS the mission.

To those who are gaming the DAO for personal gain: WE SEE YOU! Your actions are taking place in technology that is built for transparency. The Coordinape data are as clear as day; the BANK transfers are stored on blockchain forever. You cannot scam for more BANK here without destroying your own reputations (and trust me, they rekt).

I try not to pass judgment on people for taking the easy paths of lying, cheating, and stealing. Real life circumstances are vastly different for humans across the globe, and I believe that good people sometimes get desperate. I can forgive a person for theft and deception. But that doesn’t mean I would necessarily give them a second chance to burn me again.

bDAO frens, these folks can’t call themselves value-aligned anymore, because they don’t have the high ideals this mission requires. This DAO is not a game to be won by the most clever manipulator. We are supposed to be helping people, by showing them how crypto sets them free. It’s time for the grifters to move along. Their social capital looks like Caroline Ellison’s profit/loss sheet, and we’re canceling them.

So with that I will bid you namaste.
Tomahawk

🗓 Weekly Recap

Community Highlights

📺 Weekly Rollup Recap With Liquidiot

Happy New Year! Join Liquidiot as he re-learns how to introduce the recap, following some time off for the holidays 😄. This is a fun way to catch up on the previous week’s DAO news, and you can find all the previous episodes on the BanklessDAO Youtube Channel as produced by Liquidiot and Winverse.

What’s New

🛡️ How bDAO is Using Otterspace Badges

BanklessDAO recently piloted Otterspace Badges as a trusted and transparent on-chain system for managing memberships. A recent Mirror blog post by Otterspace provides details how this is intended to work.

Otterspace Badges not only serve as a reliable way to manage membership within Bankless DAO, but they also act as visual mementos that represent a member's contribution and experience within the organization.

Fresh Content

🎙 BanklessDAO Podcasts

Get Involved

Are you interested in helping to build bDAO’s presence at IRL events? Join the team looking to rep bDAO at these upcoming hackathons and conferences; you don’t have to be able to attend to contribute!

ETHDenver Feb 24- Mar 5.
DAODenver to be held during the ETHDenver buidlweek Feb 27 - Mar 1.
DAO Tokyo April 13.
ETHGlobal Tokyo April 14 - 16.
ETHGlobal Istanbul May 26 -28.
ETHBarcelona July 6-8.
ETHCC July 17-20 in Paris, France.
ETHGlobal Paris 21 - 23 July.

That’s just the first half of the year! Visit the #global-events-general channel in Discord to contribute to the DAO’s planning for these events.

Learning Opportunities

🎁 rep3 Demo — Credentialing for Communities

rep3 is developing a protocol that lets communities give upgradable, consent-preserving NFTs to their members. These NFTs or badges could represent memberships, work done by members, participation in calls, and more. The badges feed into most web3 tools, scale with communities, and unlock many use cases like context-based governance and undercollateralized lending.

Join us on Wednesday, January 18 at 19:30 UTC in the watercooler voice channel to learn about rep3. To set a reminder, RSVP to the event.

📖 How To Gitcoin

This learning session from the Education Department covers Gitcoin. See how to contribute to the projects you believe in and help grow the web3 ecosystem during the various Gitcoin grant rounds. Join Ben West in the watercooler voice channel on Tuesday, January 17 at 14:00 UTC. To set a reminder, RSVP to the event.

👁️‍🗨️ How To Etherscan

Etherscan is a block explorer and analytics platform that enables you to access details on any Ethereum blockchain transactions that are pending or confirmed. Do you want to know how to track the BANK and other tokens in your wallet? Join Ernest of Gaia on Thursday, January 19 at 14:00 UTC in the watercooler voice channel to learn about this powerful tool. To set a reminder, RSVP to the event.

🏛 Governance

Proposals in Discussion

🛠️ Governance Solution Engineer Program — Completion of Cohort 1

Following the completion of the first GSE cohort, it is now time to evaluate each of the deliverables the GSE team were tasked with: contributor alignment and strategic prioritization.

This governance discussion and poll will inform the final amount of each GSE’s compensation, given that there was an upfront salary of 75K BANK and a variable amount, tied to results, to be paid later. The Forum post provides details of additional amounts the GSE wishes to distribute to other bDAO members who contributed to the two primary work streams.

🧠 bDIP 04 : Departments

Departments were implemented in bDAO just before our Constitution was ratified, and thus a proper definition was not included. This bDIP would define departments as “operation-critical units of BanklessDAO” without which “the DAO cannot function properly”, and which cannot operate as part of another department or guild. Part of this bDIP also outlines the formal formation process of a new department when applying to the GC.

🤑 Member-Based Funding bDIP 05 — Minor

Now that member-based guild funding has been implemented for its first season, and the guild and department distinction has been adopted, this bDIP looks at describing these funding procedures in the Constitution to provide clarity for DAO teams and Grants Committee. Currently the Seasonal Budgets section of our Constitution makes no mention of the different requirements for guild and department funding proposals, and lacks clarity in terms of seasonal project funding.

🎯 [Community Vote] Grants/Funding Strategy for S7

Our Grants Committee has put forward a list of questions on the Forum looking for community feedback on the grants/funding strategy for S7. There are three suggested templates to support the funding process:

The templates are followed by one question about the overall funding amount for Season 7 and three questions about the GC’s compensation. Please, have your say on these important issues.

🗳️ S7 GC Election Application Submission

At the end of Season 6 four seats on the GC will open up for new contributors and according to this season’s spec the vote for these new GC members will be on Snapshot on January 20. Applicants must be at least L1 and must reply to the Forum post before the end of January 19.

✅ Action Items

☑️ Check out the Season 7 Grants Committee applications in the Forum.

🗳 Vote on the Season 7 Grants Strategy and proposal templates on the Forum.

💡 Attend an education session or demo to learn about the tools of our trade.

🏃‍♀️ Catch up: Review this week's Community Call notes or listen to the recording.

🤣 Meme of the Week

Or.. arguing in the Discord, perhaps?

Heckin Good Dogs @HeckinGoodDogs