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Learnings from the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC)

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near.org

Cameron Dennis, NEAR Contributor

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Cameron Dennis

Leading Partnerships & Integrations @ NEAR AI �
2 years as CEO, Banyan Collective

Product & growth studio �

2 years at NEAR Foundation

NEAR HQ�

6 years as Founder, Blockchain Acceleration Foundation (BAF)

Education nonprofit�

Crypto Evangelist since 2016�

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These are only my opinions and do NOT represent the positions of the NEAR Foundation, the NDC, or anyone else in the NEAR ecosystem or anywhere else

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NEAR’s Origin Story

Founded by Illia Polosukhin and Alex Skidanov as an NEAR AI in 2018
Illia is an AI researcher and co-author of the monumental “Attention Is All You Need” paper
Built NEAR Protocol after encountering blockchain scalability hurdles while paying AI researchers

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�* Network is valued at ~$5B

�* Raised over $800M since 2018 from top funds

* #1 in Active Addresses: 12.4 million

* #1 in Transaction Fees: Less than $0.006

* #1 in User retention: 99.7%, with 58% of April users retained and 5.8 million new users

Quick Statistics

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Vision

User-Owned Internet

All people control their own assets, data, and power of choice

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Where NEAR Is Going

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2018 - 21 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

L1 Ecosystem that can handle real demand

Chain Abstraction

Fully Sovereign OS �(User & Community Owned AI)

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is home to �top consumer apps in Web3

1.5M+�Monthly Active Users

1M+�Monthly Active Users

8M+�Monthly Active Users

6M+�Monthly Active Users

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HOT

250M+ transactions / month

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NEAR has a lot of users...

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Chain Abstraction

Settlement

Execution

Chain Signatures

Decentralized Frontends

Data Availability

User Layer! Front ends are composable!

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Where NEAR Is Going

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2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

L1 Ecosystem that can handle real demand

Chain Abstraction

Fully Sovereign OS �(User & Community Owned AI)

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Decentralization is

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Delivering on Decentralization

NEAR vision: a world where all people can control their assets, data, and power of governance�

If we want to build better governance systems globally, we have to start with our own communities

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Why do we need governance?

Ecosystems, like companies, get bogged down in bureaucracy & politics as they scale

Lack of clear decision-makers or process �↓�Miss big opportunities, slower progress

Public goods must be funded in an open source ecosystem: protocol development, funding & maintaining tooling

Decentralization is difficult, but increases resilience & antifragility for the long term

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Initial Vision for NEAR Digital Cooperative (NDC)

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Motivations for the NDC

The goal is to ensure the protocol treasury is decentralized enough to not receive notice from �
Grant funding for the ecosystem was inactive �
Past grants programs lacked transparency �
Power to token holders �
Benchmark to measure against AI governance system �
Legal liability mitigation for the NEAR Foundation �
Co-founder of protocol didn’t have control �
Projects were struggling in the bear market while grant funding for the ecosystem was inactive

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Preface

There is no perfect governance. We will need to iterate over time.�
Public goods need to be funded and we need to decide which ones should be �
It’s hard to engage groups larger than 15

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Original Principles

Transparency

Public decision making
Votes are explained
Iterative communication �

Goal / KPI Driven

Shared vision / success metrics
Tracking system
Rewarding progress�

Minimize Politics

Clear owners w/ redundancy
Frictionless triage
Dispute resolution

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Original Vision: NEAR Digital Cooperative

Governance structure that balances execution and oversight by the community

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Original Vision:�House of Merit

The most effective ecosystem contributors will act as representatives

Process is based on a public application and deliberation; private vote of existing members with minimum quorum required
House of Merit has veto power on the Executive branch
Serves as a board by providing input to the Executive and allocating budget from the Treasury
Focuses on success of ecosystem as a whole

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Original Vision:�Treasury

NDC governance is structured around control and deployment of funds
Treasury will be the firepower behind decisions and funding public goods
Transparent evaluation of treasury allocations and growing fund-of-funds over time

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Original Vision:�Executive Branch

Elected president and chamber of ministers for efficient decision-making

Regular Presidential elections, Congress can vote out
“Ministers” are needed to drive and coordinate verticals in the ecosystem
President with ministers defines strategy with input from Congress

Defining which public goods are important for the ecosystem
Which parts of the economy will get investment for inorganic growth

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Original Vision: House of Stake

Open Ecosystem Participation

House of Stake is defined by square root of stake of each NEAR account
Does large “referendum” signaling and vetoes for the Congress
House of Stake can veto both House of Merit and Executive
Naturally focuses on economic success of the ecosystem

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Who is going to execute all of this and who decides the team to kick it off? ��

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The Creation of the Trust

5 trusted ecosystem people selected for trust

Purpose Trust, specifically a Guernsey Non-Charitable Purpose Trust (a ‘GNCPT’)

5,662,061 NEAR

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The NDC

Trust / Treasury

The entity that actually controls the money and (maybe) absorbs liability of the elected congress people

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Guernsey

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The Creation of the Governance Working Group (GWG)

Goals

Create a constitution
Setup governance system for elections to unlock additional community funding

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Original Principles

Transparency

Public decision making
Votes are explained
Iterative communication �

Goal / KPI Driven

Shared vision / success metrics
Tracking system
Rewarding progress�

Minimize Politics

Clear owners w/ redundancy
Frictionless triage
Dispute resolution

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Introducing NEAR Digital Collective V0

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NDC Core Principles (V0)

Inclusiveness�(Non Infringement or Bias)�
Adaptability (Antifragile)�
Transparency (Openness)�
Contribution & Reputation 1st then Rewards (Ecosystem 1st)�
Declaration of Conflicts (Anti-Cartel)�
Collective Decision Making (Voting)�
Freedom to be Yourself (Censorship Resistance)�
Commons for Everyone (Safe Spaces)

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In order to accomplish all of this, there was A LOT that needed to built QUICKLY…

Sybil resistance system (i am human) w/ SBT standard��Voting system

DAO tooling

Nomination
Voting
Rebuilding current framework

Random Coordination: Kudos, Voice, On-Chain Docs

Legal structure

Charters & Community for Grassroots DAO��

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V0 Process

V1 Process

MDAO

Trust

MDAO

GWG CDAO MDAO

MDAO

Payees

Post on Gov Forum + Offchain accounting to Trustees

Post on Gov Forum or AirTable

Monthly bulk payment

Monthly individual payments

MDAO

Trust

MDAO

Payees

Monthly bulk payment

Monthly individual payments

HoM

CoA

Funding Request

Funding Request, aligned with Budget Package

Setup Package

Budget Package

Funding Request

Voting Body

Constellations �& Nodes

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XBwM76ylQ5duwdxGhBPo249JYXwpGTZO/view

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The Infamous V1 Election

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Election Timeline

Nomination Tool: https://near.org/nomination.ndctools.near/widget/NDC.Nomination.Page

Voter Education: https://pages.near.org/blog/ndc-v1-governance-elections-faq/

July 19, 2023 — Start date for candidacy submissions on BOS and get I-AM-HUMAN SBT
September 1, 2023 — Deadline for Voter Registration via I-AM-HUMAN
September 1, 2023— Deadline for applying for an OG Badge for candidacy eligibility
September 7 — Deadline for candidacy submissions
September 8 — Voting begins at Near APAC in Vietnam
September 22 — Voting ends

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Voter Graph: https://near.social/mob.near/widget/VotersGraph

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Election Integrity Committee

Full Report: https://near-ndc.notion.site/Election-Integrity-Council-Transparency-Report-f5db1dd47908470cab4d50484cce2498

All Whistleblower Cases: https://near-ndc.notion.site/e1eeaba34c8e487f8cf6cfe729827a8b?v=1248fff7374645edbfb76b3eaf1f6a58

18.38% of the total votes were compromised
13 candidates were disqualified
157 voter accounts were determined to have engaged in activities that jeopardized the election's integrity
Couldn’t track vote buying payments from other chains

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Ecosystem OGs lost and those elected didn’t want to participate

Problems with V1 Elections

Everything was public

https://near.social/vadim.near/widget/elections

Voting tools were hard to use

https://near.org/election.ndctools.near/widget/NDC.Elections.Main

Anyone with a face could vote = popularity contest + Cartels Emerges

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Problems with V1 Elections

Faces were bought, clear election fraud

Whistleblower campaign started from Election Integrity Committee

Election Integrity Committee Report

18.38% of the total votes were compromised.
13 candidates were found to be associated with activities
157 / 854 humans votes nllified

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Introducing NDC V1

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Houses self-organize and execute defined V1 vision

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Outline of New System

Astra ++: https://near.org/astraplusplus.ndctools.near/widget/home?page=home

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Short & simple headline here

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Tweet: https://x.com/Cameron_Dennis_/status/1718972482403590378

I started pushing back

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Tweet: https://x.com/Cameron_Dennis_/status/1718972482403590378

I started pushing back

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What started failing…

Not clear Bylaws for Houses that indicate their

Transparency commission got corrupted

One of the first thing that the HoM tried to increase their salaries..

Legitimate builders didn’t want to deal with the bureaucracy

Grassroots DAOs too much governance & not the most experienced

Became overmanagement, 1 month budgets, need to collect micro-grants monthly and submit on monthly basis

Real builders in ecosystem looked at governance as a distraction

No aligned incentivizes with token

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Introduction to the NDC Ops Team

Entire Report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_i-l0Ez0TCoJfT0QrZAnv1Sj8p5NSPci6uuuOopqBME/edit?usp=sharing

Hired by House of Merit to

Design new voting systems
Improve governance tools
Stand up compliance team�

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Introducing House of Stake

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House of Stake

Stake-weighted voting to prevent Sybill attacks.�
Snapshot calculates voting power with quadratic weighted voting with threshold. �
Private voting via Secret Network

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More info at: https://www.gauntlet.xyz/resources/near-house-of-stake-governance-proposal

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NDC V2 Private Voting

Secret network contract (secret storing)�
Registration contract�
Voting contract�
Relayer

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Private Voting Mechanism: https://hackmd.io/OE1T25Y8QuO1npb4D9OKhQ

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Twitter: cameron_dennis_ ��

Email: Cameron@banyan.gg

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