Governance
Bao is a living protocol; its users entirely govern it. The users have full governance power to change anything at any time unless they have already voted to make something specifically unchangeable. The community has approved several processes and structures to allow galaxy members to operate within their frameworks without putting every spend or decision to vote. Decisions not put to a public DAO vote, such as treasury breakdowns or anything that needs sign-off from each of the Galaxies for approval, shall use the Council of Guardians as a proxy. The community has created a governance forum to submit ideas and comments for the different proposals. You can find it here: https://gov.bao.finance/ and a guide for submitting and managing a BIP here
To ensure decentralization on any matter that is not subject to a public vote, this process will create an internal voting method to ensure that no individual can wield influence over the ecosystem even as a perceived leader. These votes will be rare but would consist of things like:
- Disputes on internal budgeting that was already approved (i.e., revoking funds that Galaxies feel are being misused)
- Partnerships, and integrations that are required to be confidential before launch.
- Urgent security matters (such as pulling assets out from staking when CREAM was exploited)
- Removal of a Guardian for failure to perform their duties or uphold the values of the DAO.
The internal votes will consist of:
- 1 vote representing the consensus of the Maintainer Galaxy, who should evaluate the proposal against the protocol's security, the DAO, how it impacts the product roadmap and that it is in line with the principles of the DAO and any legality.
- One vote representing the Treasury, who should evaluate the proposal against any budget request, its impact on the treasury, its impact on the financial health of the protocol, and if the spend counts within existing proposals and frameworks or should have been a public vote.
- One vote represents the Council of Guardians, who should internally vote amongst themselves and evaluate how the proposal impacts the goals of each galaxy and the overall product roadmap.
- One vote represents the Community Galaxy, who are specifically tasked with representing the views and perspectives of the broader community and how they think a public vote on this matter would be represented.
For these internal votes, a 3/4 majority is needed for approval. A 2/2 split vote shall be considered to be a failure.
The maintainer galaxy each year is required to put forward a formal roadmap that includes the main focus of their year and needs them to be reelected. Each October, interested parties may submit an annual proposal to be elected as the Maintainer. On November 1, each proposal shall be put to a vote. If multiple proposals pass, the successful proposals will then be placed into a single governance vote between the successful parties to finalize the election of the new Maintainer. If the current Maintainers are the only ones to put forward a proposal and that proposal fails, they will be deemed to have been not reelected, and they can try to put forward a new proposal, or the DAO can seek out new Maintainers. Once approved, any new Maintainer will take power on January 1 of the new calendar year, giving time for a graceful transition. A maintainer proposal does not need to represent a single person but can represent a group filling the role.
Guardians, once given their position by public vote (historical) or Guardian Council and multisig vote (future), will hold that position unless recalled. Any newly elected Maintainer Galaxy may recall Guardians at the start of their leadership as long as that decision is laid out in their annual plan that is voted on. Otherwise, Guardians will only be recalled from their position by public vote or if they violate the agreement of operating in the DAO (such as security). The Treasury Operations will set up annual funding for the Galaxies based on the proposals of the Guardians and the review of the Maintainer Galaxy, Treasury Galaxy, and Multisig. Once an annual budget is granted, the treasury is obligated to pay that budget through the end of the year. The Maintainer Galaxy has the authority to remove contract permissions, treasury permissions, multisig permissions, or repo permissions from any Galaxy member violating the agreement of the DAO or their position or who is believed to be a security threat. But that will not halt the budget payments to that Galaxy.
Last modified 6mo ago