Threshold Council Election Nominations - Second Epoch

General
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Hello Threshold community!

Almost a year has gone by and we are here again, it is time for the Threshold Council elections! We are kicking-off this new term elections with this thread.

What is the Threshold Council?

The Threshold DAO is primarily composed of two bodies: the Token Holder DAO, and the Threshold Council. Each body plays a unique and important role in governing Threshold.

The Threshold Council is composed of 9 members. The original council was formed including 4 members elected from the original Keep community, 4 members elected from the original NuCypher community and 1 member mutually appointed by both teams to ensure neutrality. Thanks to the good communication and collaborative environment of the Threshold community, our original communities have been successfully merged and integrated, therefore this division is no longer required. However, for the sake of diversity and representation of all our members, we would love to have a Council with varied backgrounds and competencies.

There will be more information shared about the final responsibilities attributed to the Threshold Council, however we can highlight the main functions of this body:

  1. The Threshold Council is responsible for determining per application staking reward allocations across the protocol.
  2. The Threshold Council holds the ability to veto malicious proposals in the Token Holder DAO. Council vetos serve as a last defense against dangerous proposals (such as one impacting the DAO Treasury) passing in our DAO and executing onchain.
  3. The Threshold Council has the interim responsibility of managing Protocol Owned Liquidity, until proper mechanisms are set in place to manage this directly via the DAO.

The Threshold Council members are compensated by the DAO for their time and commitment to the needed activities. Compensation will be revised for this second epoch, in accordance with the anticipated responsibilities and workload.

How Do Council Elections Work?

Current rules for the Council Elections are gathered in TIP-02. Additionally, we have all the information available from the inaugural Council elections here and here.

To better understand this second epoch elections process and its timeline, we outline it here:

  1. November 7th - December 9th - Nomination period, where you can nominate yourself or nominate another member of the community by replying to this forum post. The nomination post can include a quick introduction, your involvement in our community so far, other relevant web3 background info and reasons why you want to participate in the Threshold Council. Self-nominations are preferred for this, however, if you intend to nominate another member of the DAO, please consult them privately first to verify their intent to run. A person who is nominated by another member must confirm their intent to be a candidate.

  2. December 9th, 3pm ET - Community Call to meet our nominees. Part of the call agenda includes an opportunity for any one to introduce themselves to the community and explain why they are running for council.

  3. December 9th - December 16th - Snapshot vote. This will allow our community members to elect the new Threshold Council members.

  4. December 16th - December 31st - Transition period. The current Threshold Council will use this time for the handover to the new Threshold Council members.

  5. January 1st, 2023 - The new term starts for the Threshold Council.

FAQ:

What happens if there are not enough nominees?
Due to the need for solid security in the Threshold Council, the 9 seats should be filled. In the event that not all seats are filled by the voting process, the current Threshold Council will take a decision to address this problem in the transition period.

What happens if there is a tie?
In the case of a tie, there shall be a run-off vote in the transition period.

What happens in the case of a resignation or a termination?
In the case of a resignation or termination, the Threshold Council will nominate and vote on a replacement for the remainder of the vacant term. There are no term limits for council members.

Members of the Threshold Council will play an important role in governing the protocol. Make sure you fully understand the responsibilities of the Threshold Council before nominating yourself or someone else. If you have any questions join us on Discord and ask away!

Please note that the timeline has been updated

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Wow, the year has really gone fast - even with half of it winter. :slight_smile:

Thanks for outlining this @Luna5 and getting it started now so we have plenty of time before the end of year and holiday season.

I’ll add the reasons I advocated in last week’s Contributor call for allowing community members to nominate others, rather that requiring candidates to nominate themselves (though happy to hear opposing views):

  • Some personality types are reluctant to self promote, or even put their name forward for something like this - but they could be really good candidates

  • Under-represented groups that we should encourage to become more involved - including women - might feel like they don’t fit the “profile” of a Council member

  • There may be candidates who don’t see themselves as worthy, perhaps because they’ve never had such a role - but receiving encouragement from another community member might inspire them to lean in

  • There’s also a value to community members recognizing others’ contributions and talents, and this is a high-profile opportunity to do so

To these points, if there are any current Council members who may not have originally considered running last year but were inspired by someone nominating them perhaps they could share that here as encouragement to others.

Looking forward to this process!

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We self-nominate for the Threshold Council.

We’ve recently become active contributors to Threshold (drafting TIP-040 and TIP-041), however we anonymously contribute to various other DAOs and are active users of many relevant DeFi protocols.

Our interest in Threshold is in facilitating a successful launch of a decentralized Bitcoin bridge.

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I would like to nominate myself. I have been working with the DAO since January of 2022. I am a strong believer in the community and would love to help however is needed.

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We can no longer edit our OP, but wanted to clarify that we will not be seeking compensation if elected to the Council.

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I would like to nominate myself for the Threshold Council.

I have been an active member of the discord channel and have been running a NU/T node since mid-2021.

My background: I hold 2 degrees from UC Berkeley - a bachelor’s in Statistics and an MBA. I am the chief strategy officer for a large (~2000 employees) gaming company.

My current role is mostly remote with occasional business trips (1-3 days, twice a month) giving me the bandwidth to always keep involved and up to date with Threshold.

I have been following/investing in crypto since 2017. The Threshold community is currently the only crypto-related community where I am an active member, but I closely follow several other projects in DeFi and staking nodes. I am passionate about the Threshold project, and feel I can bring an expertise in business and statistics to help make this project thrive and be sustainable for the long-term.

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I second this nomination.

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I would like to nominate @michwill for re-election (bio from inaugural election nomination copied below).

Michael Egorov, Founder of Curve, Cofounder of NuCypher
Michael is well-qualified to serve on the Threshold Council given his familiarity with token economics, decentralized finance, DAO governance, and threshold cryptography. I believe he can provide valuable insight to Threshold, particularly around strategies for scaling tBTCv2 (and a potential associated thUSD product) into cornerstones of decentralized finance.

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I stopped into an Integrations Guild meeting today and was made aware of @derek’s write up from last August re: council duty scope creep. I volunteered to make a short summary, of his report and agreed to post it here.

A TLDR; for Derek Pierre’s August 26, 2022 Threshold Council Operations Report:

Scope Creep
Originally intended to guard against malicious DAO proposals and to set Threshold App staking rewards, the 9 member (1yr terms, 6-of-9 multi-sig) Threshold Council has assumed many additional responsibilities.

The added tasks have induced council signer fatigue and suboptimal business functionality. Derek identifies activities which might well be managed via the Treasury Guild.

Methodology
Derek includes a python script used to retrieve on-chain stats from the council’s Gnosis Multisig (via Safe API).
Appendices A, B and C respectively reflect output of this script,
a similar Dune Analytics query and results of an anonymous questionaire re: council members’ opinions on current processes and challenges.

Findings/Suggestions

  • Move Liquidity Incentives to Treasury Guild, including via automation.
  • Council multi-sig timely (11+hrs prior to deadline) transaction queuing.
  • Employ Gnosis Safe batch functions for signing/execution/simulation/storage of transactions, including sequential or recurring tx’s.
  • Education and coordination of Council members via non/technical knowledgebase, joint calendars and tx creators to provide specifics.
  • Assignation of drawee role to the Treasury Guild for KEEP Coverage Pool → Rewards Pool.
  • Establish regular cadence for gas fee reimbursements to council members.
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tl;dr:

  • The nomination period for Council seats is scheduled to end in 3 days, and we only have 4 nominees so far

  • Threshold would benefit from the community taking a step back for additional discussion before concluding the Council nomination period and moving to a Snapshot vote

  • We offer several options for this, including inviting Council members to extend their term by 3 months

Ashley (MrsNuBooty) and I joined the Integrations Guild weekly call today, and the attendees ended up having a very candid and beneficial discussion regarding the Threshold Council elections (see blitmore’s helpful summary above of Derek’s excellent report from August). Two members of the current Council were on the call and they shared some perspectives on how the role of the Council has evolved over the last 11 months.

Several concerns were discussed:

  • The nomination period for Council seats is scheduled to end in 3 days, and we only have 4 nominees (last year there were 18 before the vote)

  • The community is not aware of which Council members are interested in continuing for another term

  • This Friday’s Community call (3pm EST in Discord) will include a “meet & greet”, but attendance has been low for recent calls and participation isn’t guaranteed

  • We’ve experienced an enormous amount of change in the past year, and many challenges loom

Additionally, we believe these 3 points from the original post are material to our ability to both nominate candidates, as well as to vote on the final member list:

  • “There will be more information shared about the final responsibilities attributed to the Threshold Council”

  • “The Threshold Council has the interim responsibility of managing Protocol Owned Liquidity, until proper mechanisms are set in place to manage this directly via the DAO.”

  • “Compensation will be revised for this second epoch, in accordance with the anticipated responsibilities and workload.”

Accordingly, we highly recommend that the Threshold community take a step back and have additional discussion before concluding the Council nomination period and moving to a Snapshot vote (currently scheduled to begin on Monday).

We offer to write a proposal (to be moved to Snapshot) based on the consensus we hope to build on a modified approach. Suggestions include:

  • Delay the Snapshot vote, allowing more time for the Community to understand everything it needs to and better vet what should be a larger candidate pool. A challenge with this is the approaching holidays impacting bandwidth for vote and transition period by Jan. 1st.

  • Extend the term of the current Council by 1-3 months. A challenge here will likely include the need for one or more Council members to conclude their service in December owing to other commitments and/or personal reasons.

  • Invite Council members who are willing and able to extend their term by 3 months (or a different period) to do so, resulting in an election in December for fewer than the full 9 seats. This could also be prudent in terms of extending the time for a thorough handoff to and onboarding of new members - and the DAO recently staggered the guild committee terms to increase continuity.

We also note that with the Snapshot passing yesterday authorizing 15,000 DAI to engage a law firm “for conducting a review and providing guidance to the DAO on an optimal legal structure to protect DAO contributors” (a proposal we both strongly supported) there may be current and prospective Council members whose willingness to serve will increase once that proposed structure is outlined.

We are inclined toward the 3rd option, but most importantly we want to engage the community in a discussion that allows us to align on the best path forward (even if that ends up being no change to the process underway but more clarity on the roles and more nominations). To that end, tagging @Eastban @jakelynch @derek @Naxsun @EvandroSaturnino @ben @michwill @stefanobernardi @fjarri @maclane for your thoughts.

Thank you,

John & Ash

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Posts are limited to 10 tags so also @Luna5 @Will @ZeroInFo56 @nico186 @Nous @Vict0r @the_egg @davidnunez @arj @mhluongo

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Thanks for this excellent write-up. I’m in favor of option 3:

  • Invite Council members who are willing and able to extend their term by 3 months (or a different period) to do so, resulting in an election in December for fewer than the full 9 seats. This could also be prudent in terms of extending the time for a thorough handoff to and onboarding of new members - and the DAO recently staggered the guild committee terms to increase continuity.
  • Option 1 seems to be very challenging, especially in hand over.
  • Option 2 could mean a reduction of the council size with those that are not able to extend, increasing the load and execution timeline of transactions for the remaining council
  • Option 3 addresses these concerns, but ofc in the end it’s a decision of each individual member of the current council.

I think a short term step would be to ask each current council member if they’re ok to extend with x months, so we know what scenario 3 means in practice. Is it to replace 1, 2, 3, 6… seats?

I’m personally unfortunately not able to extend >Dec 31st 2022

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I would like to nominate @fjarri for re-election to the Council.

Bogdan Opanchuk, Threshold Councilmember, Software Engineer @ Entropy, Ex-Software Engineer @ NuCypher
Bogdan is well-qualified to serve on the Threshold Council given his familiarity with blockchain, cryptographic engineering, and DAO governance. In addition to his contributions while a NuCypher team member, he has also written an independent nucypher/PRE client from scratch (GitHub - fjarri/nucypher-async: Experimental async proof of concept for nucypher library).I believe he can continue to provide valuable insight to Threshold as a Council member.

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I second Bogdan’s nomination for re-election to the Threshold Council.

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I would vote for a combo of all 3 options.

  • Re-elect anyone who is willing/able from the current Council
  • Ask current Council members who don’t intend to go for re-election to stay on for 2 additional months (January+February.)
  • Delay snapshot vote to get to a transition period of 3/1 instead of 1/1.

Reasons being:

  • Holiday season
  • Crypto negative sentiment seemingly reaching highs right now.
  • Our marketing guild have recently been really hitting the ground with promoting Threshold, and would like to give it more time to have its effects.
  • The reasons mentioned in the post

I’m one of the few new people who have expressed interest in being on the Council, but don’t want to just get auto-voted in because of lack of participants.

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@maclane and @Vict0r, thank you for the nomination. I am not opposed to just extending my current term for a few months either.

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I also second Michael’s nomination for re-election to the Threshold Council.

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Please note that the timeline has been updated

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Thanks, @Naxsun, @JP1, @maclane, @Vict0r, @fjarri for weighing in - and @Luna5 for your extensive and effective coordination efforts.

So here’s our understanding of where we stand now:

  • 3 current Council members are not able to extend their service beyond 12/31/22

  • Discussion indicates support for the other 6 Council members extending their terms through February for continuity and onboarding (we’ve heard no other suggestions or any objection in meetings/conversations we’ve had over the last 2 days)

  • 2 current Council members have indicated they are willing to serve another 12-month term if nominated and elected (reminder: anyone nominated by someone else and wanting to be on the ballot needs to post here accepting the nomination - so that the community has clarity and we can prepare the final list)

Based on this, Ashley & I will now make a formal proposal on this Forum (dropping the link here as soon as we do).

Our DAO rules call for the proposal to be open 3 days for comment, at which point we can move to a Snapshot vote. *

So this would be the updated timeline, unless achieving consensus takes more time:**

  • Through December 8: Nominations continue on this Forum post (as well as nominees accepting or declining)

  • December 2 - 5: proposal to update the Council elections is open for comments (we’ll post tonight)

  • December 6 - 10: Snapshot vote on that proposal

  • December 11 - 15: Snapshot vote to fill 3 Council seats (who will serve January - December 2023)

  • December 16 - 31: Current Council welcomes and onboards 3 new members

  • February: Nominations for filling the other 6 Council seats (who serve March 2023 - February 2024), “meet & greet” session, election via Snapshot

- John & Ashley (aka @MrsNuBooty)

* The Snapshot period is 5 days, unless the proposal includes a provision to shorten that; we see no need to do so, but of course anyone is encouraged to weigh in with that and/or other changes.

** Hopefully, consensus won’t take longer, based on our efforts promoting discussion, including highlighting the Council election process and this Forum discussion in the Discord and on today’s Community call - those slides are posted in our Notion here; the recording is here).

Link: December 2 Threshold community meeting

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I would like to nominate @MrsNuBooty for the Threshold Council.
I have personally worked with MRN as a contributor, community member, and Marketing Guild Member for the past year. She is hardworking, dedicated, and shares the Web 3 values and vision aligned with the Threshold Network.
She has demonstrated ongoing commitment and has made countless contributions to the DAO. I think she would make a great addition to the Threshold Council.

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