We feel strongly that building a community-led protocol requires community engagement in all aspects of the community and protocol governance. While the eventual goal is to launch on-chain community governance, our bottom up vision of community engagement needs to be validated to the extent possible before investing the time, effort and energy required to create the tools needed for on-chain community governance. To achieve our vision of true community governance, it’s crucial that the ecosystem transition to full stewardship of the protocol and its development as soon as possible, without waiting for the creation of the tooling needed for on-chain governance, and in doing so, validate, test and improve our processes in a fluid and flexible environment, with the participation of the community.
To provide some context:
Where we started
The 0L Network launched with the simplest of governance structures in place, that is, onchain governance for the protocol, wherein the only voters are the validators. The project had no foundation, no DAO, no community governance structure. As an exercise in pure decentralization, it was left up to the community to chart the path to a sustainable project governance model.
Where we are now
In January of 2022, the community adopted a proposal to implement MVP community governance. The MVP process took the form of coordination of effort via a set of working groups. As the illustration below shows, the working groups were organized topically, with two of the groups serving meta functions.
The meta working groups provided coordination between the groups as well as a mechanism for escalating proposals and conflicts. The rules governing this process were codified in the 0L Parliamentary Procedures.
While the working group process has been functional for coordination of tasks and general community matters, it falls far short of actual community governance as onchain protocol governance still resides exclusively in the hands of the validators. Moreover, there is no signalling mechanism or other device for informing the validators about the community’s wishes on particular matters.
The 0L Network Constitution
On 3 May 2022, the community voted to adopt the 0L Network Constitution, which lays out the Community’s foundational values. The creation of the Constitution was a major step towards establishing a decision framework and value system that can serve as the project’s north star as we move forward. You can read the Constitution here.