RFC-000-054 expedite the process of adding additional directors to the foundation before critical decisions are made

Requests For Comment | RFC
1

Name: Expedite the process of adding additional directors to the foundation before critical decisions are made
Category: Governance
Status: Draft
Scope: Begin the process of discussing the best steps to increase the foundation size to help the decentralisation of the project,

Overview

In this proposal have outlined the steps and reasons for wanting an expanded foundation directorship size.

Background

from https://forum.renproject.io/t/rip-000-018-ren-2-0-funding-and-ren-foundation/1465

"Funding Ren 2.0 development

Following the legal set up of the Ren Foundation, it would likely need to conduct a raise to fund continued development of Ren 2.0. This could involve a portion of the inflated tokens being sold at a discount to investors. The Foundation and the DAO will be the only entities that decide how much and when to fund Ren 2.0 development, not the development team. Funding and budgetary considerations would need to be discussed and negotiated at the earliest opportunity."

From the RIP we voted on I do not believe the community voted for a foundation of one person to discuss and negotiate how much and when to fund future Ren 2.0 development like we have now this is a huge centralised risk and too much for one man or women to possibly undertake .David seems to me to be doing a great job but I feel it’s time for the foundation to be expanded before critical decisions on allocation of resources are chosen .

Details

I would propose at least 5 directors of the foundation. 1 director is unfortunately a centralised risk and too easy to be taken down by governments or bribed in some way , it would be good to see what expertise the community has and see if there are people who would be suitable for the role and can add benefit to the work that David has gracefully done so far

We also need details on how the foundation can be expanded as it is unclear currently the process for this to happen.

Things on this front may look as slowing things down but I would counter that on the grounds that if Ren 2.0 is to succeed, the foundation we start from needs to be as solid as we possibly can make it . Also, value of the mint is dependent on the market, if the wider market looks at one director having access to 18% of the supply I do not believe that will look good on our credentials and potential listing criteria for exchanges and market makers who would potentially LP Ren 2.0 , Remember if there is little to no liquidity for the new token you will have a harder time paying salaries offering grants .

I would propose.

  1. We find any active community members who have an interest and skills to work with David on this project.
  2. Decide on what time frame and what number of directors are needed I personally believe this should be done before any of the minted treasury is used

Implementation

The community should discuss the priority of getting additional foundation members on board and if is decided that it is needed plan or potentially vote for additional directors

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According to this post, David is working on this. So I think it would be good to share with the community:

  1. Who precisely is the “we” David is referring to
  2. Can we be privy to these agreements. We are asking for transparency and have been told we will receive it, but instead it seems all legal paperwork is being done by a mostly secret group and will be signed by fairly unknown developers without anyone else’s input. If this is necessary, then a good explanation is appreciated.

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I fully agree with this proposal. I think 5 is too much, thought.

Dave mentioned that “the directors are hard to attract before having a development agreement let alone closure with the debtors” (Discord). He also mentioned “they would have a strong technical, research, and/or operational background with some name recognition, but it really depends on the individual, as everyone has their own strengths and can contribute in their own unique way!” (Discord).

I am not disagreeing with what Dave is pointing but I also agree with this RFC as a transition plan. Community members shall take sits in the Foundation. Those sits could be handover to the right individuals (following David recommendations) as soon as conditions permits. That would bring confidence to the community that things are moving (even if things are confidential and not much can be pass to the community).

The role of those directors should be just collaborate in the transition.

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Dave mentioned that “the directors are hard to attract before having a development agreement let alone closure with the debtors” (Discord).

I am quite positive there are a handful of community members today who would be very willing to serve as a Director. People with experience starting companies, people with strong technical skills, marketing skills, etc.

He also mentioned “they would have a strong technical, research, and/or operational background with some name recognition, but it really depends on the individual, as everyone has their own strengths and can contribute in their own unique way!” (Discord).

Um, yeah, sure the 5 Directors (if that number is chosen) should have a diverse set of skills. Again, I don’t think that would be hard to find within the community today. I’d love to see @S_rank become a Director, he has the technical background and is a long term community member. I’d love to see @ShilliamShakespeare be a Director, he cares deeply about Ren, has done a lot to promote Ren, has excellent Marketing skills, etc. Sure, those are just my opinions, but the Ren community has real talent, not just the two people I mentioned. You should leverage that talent now!

If the goal is 5 Directors, perhaps having 3 for now is enough. Perhaps that’s a more manageable number to continue the excellent work that was started. Expand to 5 later over Q3/Q4, based on needs and progress. But clearly having only one Director is very high risk. And certainly you don’t want the one Director to select the other Directors himself! That must be a community led, community voted process.

This is hard work and Directors need to be paid. It’s quite unfair imo to expect someone to do the work required (the scope of which should be defined) for no compensation. If a Director wishes to waive his/her compensation, OK. But that is up to each chosen Director.

Also, there is still very little visibility on what is happening. I understand some things need to be confidential, e.g. sensitive IP negotiations, or a salary offered for a specific developer. However, there are many things happening in which the community is totally in the dark, and for no good reason, imo. So in parallel to adding more Directors, there needs to be proper reporting and accountability. To give two examples (definitely not a comprehensive list):

  1. Apparently the Foundation will be hiring ex Ren Labs developers. Or at least they were sent agreements. Has there been a proper evaluation of the work they did while in charge of Ren? What is the status of Ren 2.0, and how soon is it from completion? Isn’t this highly relevant before we pay them to continue work? I can see where perhaps they are the only people who could do the work, but if that is the case, I would expect the Foundation to explain that clearly.

  2. What budget is allocated to developers for the rest of 2023, and based on what scope of work? What is secret about a total expected costs for 2023, based on the agreements that were sent out? Who developed the scope of work, and did it include a review of the status of Ren 2.0? Perhaps put another way, how will we measure success?

It would be great for the Foundation to commit to monthly reporting, plus a monthly Q&A session with community members. Substantive reporting, not revisiting the almost complete lack of detailed info from the past couple of years.

Final point, perhaps a bit more general: what is the process for implementing an RFC? How does it go from an RFC to actually something requiring action by someone with power (currently just the Foundation, apparently)? Who determines that there is enough support for that?

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Thanks for getting the process going with regarding additional directors @S_rank.

As the foundation grows and evolves, it will be inevitable for us to have a solid structure in place consisting of highly skilled and prominent individuals - all acting in the best interests of the project and its future direction/success.

From what I can recall on the Discord, David is very much on board with adding additional directors to the foundation, but for a start I cannot think of a more suitable member to be the initial director on the list. He’s arguably the most technical, and skilled member in our community and deserves to have the best people supporting him.

Like with the developer negotiations, I can’t see this particular topic gaining significant traction until we have secured funding. Only when we’ve minted the required tokens and have a refilled treasury, can we get a sense of what we’re really dealing with, and what we can ‘afford’ with our new budget so to speak.

This RFC is still very much needed however, and I expect a lot more discussion and debate to come flooding back into these discussions once funds are secured, and interest peaks with announcements about Ren 2.0 etc.

It’s a no-brainer to me that we are going to need multiple directors as the Foundation matures.

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Just to clarify, RIP-000-018 mandates the minting of 180 million new REN tokens, the vast majority of which will go to the Ren Foundation, currently controlled by one person.

Doing some rough math, the total going to the Foundation would be around 144 million REN (probably even more, as there are no longer 2000 registered darknodes). 144 million REN = 11.2 million USD at today’s prices.

RIP-018 states the following:

It is proposed that the tokens minted to the Ren Foundation are not locked, to give the Foundation the flexibility to impose lockups when it is doing fundraising or grant payouts with the community’s best interest in mind. It is, however, recommended that the Foundation imposes lockup conditions on all allocations, whether to darknodes, investors, or the development team.

Do you really think it’s a good idea to hand over 11.2 million USD in tokens to one person with zero restrictions on how those tokens can be used? I would call that community governance malpractice. Are there no other community members within this entire project that can serve with David as Directors to provide assistance and oversight?

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You’re correct in this assumption.

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I would be happy to lend my services for the good of the foundation and the REN community

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One person in charge of that is not really tenable in my eyes we need some trusted members in the community to help oversee it and support David would build a small amount of trust back into the REN community .

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I totally agree that it makes sense to help David out and add more directors as quickly as possible, for all the reasons outlined in this thread.

To that end, I would be happy to serve but I would also want more details on what the expectations are for a director. If it is a full time job, then I already have one so that would be problematic to say the least. What are the roles and skillsets that would best serve the community? What is the time commitment? etc.

I think 3-5 is probably a reasonable number for now, but it could also depend on what skills are needed and if we could use more than 5, and they are available, then we should not set that as a limit. I suggest the following as a straw man:

  1. Anyone that is willing to step up as a director to help the community, let us know in this thread.
  2. David (or someone else) could organize a video meeting with each one to discuss skills, etc. so they can sort out what we need and get a commitment to be put on a ballot.
  3. David (or someone else) could then set up an RIP to briefly summarize the skillsets for each candidate and how they could support the community and then use the RIP to hold a vote.
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Sure I made a short introduction where you can see my opinions.

Hello Darknode Community,

Zelero here and I’m looking to take on a director role for the Ren Foundation. I believe we can do better, and I’m not the type to just sit and watch potential go to waste.

Despite our ongoing interactions with David and his unwavering dedication to the Ren Foundation, I’m concerned. I fear our current approach with Alameda - this seemingly endless waiting game - is wasting precious time and energy.

Last December, we, the darknode community, passed an RFC to inflate the supply by 200M REN (equivalent to roughly 20M USD at current rates) into our project. It’s about time we leverage this decision to move things forward. Here’s my strategy:

  1. Inflating Supply: Currently, we’re trapped in a cycle, waiting for a new token and a swap contract for the old REN tokens and REN 2.0 tokens. This doesn’t need to be such a lengthy process. We have the capability to kickstart this without waiting for legal’s go-ahead.
  2. Hiring Developers: While I don’t discount the possibility of some original Ren devs returning, we shouldn’t be betting all our cards on that. The reality is they’ve been waiting for months, and it’s unlikely they’ll keep waiting indefinitely. Instead, let’s bring in a fresh team of developers or rehire some of the original ones, if available. We give them a clear directive - ‘Plan B’, which involves working on the remaining closed-source code. This ensures we have a safety net in case our negotiations don’t pan out.

On the topic of funding, more funds equal more progress. I’m surprised when I hear “funding hasn’t held us back.” Then where is the progress? If I am given the chance to take up a director role, be assured that we won’t be stuck in this standstill. We won’t be choosing between Alameda negotiations or Plan B - we will handle both simultaneously. Let’s wrap up foundation work, assemble a talented dev team, and launch Ren 2.0. The DAO can be figured out once we have a functioning protocol in place.

Let’s look at the numbers for a moment. Before the Alameda collapse, the Ren team was raking in around 400K USD per year. With our current reserve of 20M USD, we have a long runway ahead. Working on Plan B isn’t primarily a monetary issue - it’s about having the resolve to make it happen.

So, Darknode community, are you with me? Are we going to continue waiting, or are we ready to take control and steer this ship in the right direction?

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