TLDR
That's a lotta Nouns!
Nouns has earned the widest recognition amongst DAOs, not just for its contributions to art and culture, but for doing the most good via the community projects it has funded. Through our Map the Nounsverse project, we saw firsthand the wide variety and scope of projects coming from the Nouns community and fell in the love with Nouns.
However, while Nouns auctions will run, every day, forever, the longterm ability for the DAO to fund community projects has a far less certain future. To be specific, the treasury funding those efforts is operating at a loss with an optimistic two years of runway remaining.
It’s clear that to reach financial sustainability, the DAO needs more high quality, actionable Props that advance the DAO’s mission while returning value. In the same vein, the DAO also has to increase the accountability around the use of funding by approved Props. Beyond increasing the value coming back to Nouns, the way this accountability takes form is critical for the DAO to navigate a constantly evolving regulatory landscape, especially as the DAO stands at an uncertain crossroads regarding its future as a Foundation, DUNA, or other legal entity.
We believe that Decent provides a solution for three problems that can significantly aid the efforts to drive Nouns toward financial sustainability.
Problem 1: For builders to bring better Props, Nouns need better onboarding resources.
The scope and scale of Nouns is daunting, even for experienced Nouners. There’s obvious benefit to making it easier for new, talented builders to navigate the DAO, but we don’t currently have resources to aid that process.
Take Nouns.wtf as a prime example. It’s the most likely landing spot for a potential new builder but is notably outdated. The challenge in maintaining and organizing these resources to better serve Nouns is that the ever-expanding nature of the DAO means that they need to be updated regularly, which requires sufficient resources and consistent, steady guidance. We are fans of Mike Good’s Nouns.world project, and plan to direct newcomers to our onboarding portal there and across other community directories.
By creating and maintaining onboarding resources that reflect the current state of the DAO, we can standardize the Prop process and give builders the information and cultural context they need to understand Nouns and bring relevant contributions that align with the DAO’s needs.
Problem 2: To maximize value for the DAO and prepare for new builders to onboard, Nouns need updated, transparent accountability structures.
As things stand, nearly 60% of funded Props never provide the DAO with a progress update at all. This is largely due to how Nouns’ existing accountability structures are enforced and communicated.
We have some offchain structures for accountability, but they aren't widely used and aren’t enforceable in practice. There are existing onchain accountability structures, but because they aren’t currently prioritized or integrated into the Prop creation process, they have lacked the accessibility and visibility to be meaningfully adopted by the community.
Decent can offer this accountability at the earliest stages of Props by integrating onchain structures that allow funds to be recovered when deemed appropriate by the DAO, in a way that respects the decentralized ethos (and legal framework) that’s essential to Nouns and its ecosystem of existing governance and accountability tools. By prioritizing these solutions as part of the onboarding process, we can ensure that builders receive guidance throughout the entire process.
Problem 3: To remain nimble and capable in an evolving legal environment, Nouns needs adaptable onchain structure to meet legal requirements.
As Nouns considers migrating from the Foundation to the DUNA entity structure, it will be critical for the DAO to stay on the right side of existing and emerging legal requirements. This is a top area of expertise and focus for Decent, putting us in the perfect position to offer Nouns smart contract functionality that enables the DAO to operate in a highly effective manner while complying with the legal requirements of Foundations, DUNAs, or whichever structure the DAO ends up operating within.
Our Solution
We’re presenting Decent as an end-to-end solution that will help increase accountability, enable funding recovery from abandoned Props, and drive the creation of new Props that can bring value to the DAO.
We are asking for 51 ETH to form the Decent Metagovernance Council or DMC which will:
- Author and maintain proper onboarding systems and standardized practices for Props
- Actively participate in governance to help educate and guide contributors,
- Implement post-funding accountability measures onchain via Decent, integrating them with major Nouns activity centers like Camp
As experienced builders who have done the work to understand the Nouns ecosystem, we know firsthand what the experience is like for new builders who want to come in and contribute to Nouns. That experience puts us in the perfect position to deliver solutions that can help Nouns to do more good for the long haul.
At this stage in the game, getting serious might be the most absurd thing of all.
Who We Are
We’re Decent DAO, a collective of builders on a mission to deliver open source software and socialware that help DAOs reach their potential. We’ve experienced the high highs and low lows of full-time crypto since 2017, and live to tell the tale.
As Decent Labs, we worked with companies like BRD (acquired by Coinbase), Sarcophagus (one of the earliest DAOs), and ShapeShift (Portis) to design and build innovative software. We’ve built alongside partners like OpenZeppelin, Safe, Hats, and Sablier, been audited by Halborn, and have been backed by some of the most prolific investors in our industry.
Above all else, we’re true believers in DAOs. It’s why we launched Decent DAO two years ago, and since then, we've been working to give DAOs as ambitious as we are the structures, workflows and accountability frameworks they need to operate effectively without sacrificing decentralization or culture.
We Did The Math
3,200 ETH and ~$595,000 USDC
How much has been issued to Props with an Abandoned, Behind, or Uncertain status with almost zero potential for any funding recovery (Maty’s accountability updates, Proptracker.wtf, Propdates.wtf).
4,687 ETH
The amount of funding issued to 54 props between December 2023 and May 2024. Auction revenues during that same period were 1,378 ETH, resulting in a loss of 3,309 ETH. Of those 54 props, 32 have offered no updates to Nouns.
We chose this date range due to overlapping data availability with Propdates et al.
1,084 ETH
In the last 90 days at time of writing, 1,084 ETH went to Props. If we assume the current AWOL rate of 60% continues, that translates to 650 ETH unaccounted for per quarter. Projected annually, that equates to 2600 ETH destined for the abyss. If even only 2% of that ETH is recoverable, this Prop will pay for itself in a year.
Prop funding recovery mitigates the problem but alone won’t turn around Nouns from operating at a loss. This means we also need to encourage more Props that make money for Nouns, either by returning value directly to the treasury or provably driving demand for Nouns. So…
We Made a Plan
This is the plan.
Stage 1: Form (In Progress)
Launch the Decent Metagovernance Council
- The DMC will steward Nouns governance, helping builders to create stronger Props, and especially to to guide commercial Props towards intentional value creation for Nouns DAO. This will entail participating in Nouncil, conversations on Farcaster and other digital spaces, and attending IRL events like Nouns Town to ensure that we are completely immersed in Nouns and have the greatest number of opportunities to influence builders.
- To initiate a cultural shift around accountability, we will immediately encourage builders wherever possible to request funding via systems that enable some degree of accountability.
Stage 2: Communicate (In Progress)
Facilitate knowledge transfer between the community, builders, and us
- The DMC will host a series of one-on-one interviews and public forums to evaluate community preferences between accountability strategies.
- To ensure alignment between Prop content, commercial requirements, and the DAO mission, the DMC will integrate with the Nouncil and other delegate and influential stewardship groups.
- The work already being done by Maty, Propdates, Map the Nounsverse and other social accountability and analysis projects will help us to form connections with more builders actively executing on funded Props, and to create an environment attractive to outside builders.
Just one example of what onchain accountability might look like for Prop funding.
Stage 3: Create
Implement socialware and software deliverables to execute chosen strategies
- Synthesizing all of our learnings to date, we will create and maintain a community onboarding and educational portal. It will direct builders to the valuable resources the community has to offer, offer access to community spaces to meet other Nouners, and clarify quickly where value can be added by highlighting the current needs of the DAO.
- The DMC will specifically focus on helping builders to differentiate between impact and commercial Props, and to understand the scope of project that the DAO expects for different levels of funding.
- We will implement the onchain aspect of accountability via Decent, which supports an incredible variety of solutions thanks to its composable and flexible design. Whatever structures the community supports, we can use Decent to enable it and integrate it with Camp and other leading governance clients.
Delegate councils could also become subDAOs, empowered with more definitive authority while still ultimately answering to Nouns DAO governance.
Stage 4: Deploy
Launch Nouns onboarding portal and accountability structures
- As a byproduct of the work we've done to integrate the Nouns governance contracts with Decent's composable governance framework, Nouns will be future-proofed and compatible with the rapidly expanding ecosystem of onchain tools.
Stage 5: Integrate
Continue setting the standard for Prop writing and governance participation
- We will continue to work to attract new builders to the Nouns ecosystem, promoting Nouns as a place for world-class builders to get support and funding, and contribute to an active and vibrant ecosystem.
We anticipate it will take 3-4 months to accomplish all of the goals listed above, with this Prop concluding in Q1 2025.
Budget distribution.
We Acknowledged the Risks
Decent is well known, doxxed, and funded with years of runway. We've been deploying smart contracts to the Ethereum blockchain for a living since 2017, and have executed design, development, and documentation efforts for dozens of projects.
Besides our time and effort, we are putting our reputations on the line in this Prop because we are confident that better direction and structure is possible, without negatively impacting the culture, decentralization, and ethos of Nouns.
Though this Prop hasn't been funded yet, we've already begun to execute. Though our Map the Nounsverse project, we've done the work necessary to deeply understand the ethos, ecosystem, governance, and most importantly, people behind the Nouns. I’ve been participating in Nouncil calls vocally for months and was elected as a Nouncillor last week. I have over 30 DMs open with passionate Nouners who are hungry for change.
DAOs need more nuanced operational structures to execute successfully, and we built Decent for people like us who refuse to compromise on their values to get there. We are happy to refund outstanding budget in the event we aren't providing the value we know we will.
Thanks
Thanks to all the Nouns that contributed feedback regarding our Prop. We've incorporated input from many sources including the Nouncil, the MetaNouncil, several Nouns OGs, funded Prop writers, Nounish DAO and project founders, IRL interviews at FWBfest, Camp comments, and Tavern discussions.
We've implemented it all to the best of our ability in the plan outlined above. This includes reducing the budget by over 40% of our original ask, removing our ask for Nouns completely, and shifting gears to a collaborative approach in order to support the work already accomplished by Krel and the Camp team.
Muchas gracias to Carlos, Chris, Jon, Sky, Willy, Yalor, Bixbite, Toady, Krel, Seneca, Andrea, Drew, Peter, Trevor, Maty, Travsap, Goya, Mike, Wag, Fatty, Pat, Strawbit, Public Nouns, Nouns Breakers, Lil Nouns, Proptracker, Propdates, Nounswap, and more for turning me on to Nouns and offering perspective and data throughout this process over the last four months.
LFG, moondog 🚀
