This is the sixth in a series of updates, given about my experiences from my point of view. This should be my last update. But, I am going to continue weekly. As my journey isn’t over. I haven’t accomplished a thing.

To recap, I chose this writing style, hoping to show and bring emotion into web3 and to connect with readers. Human readers.

Last week, I left off with an enlightening epiphany that contradicts my usual actions. 

This week, I tried to stay that course, but that isn’t how I can navigate through the velocity of this steady rollercoaster ride since I ventured into this rapidly evolving frontier of web3.

And the truth of it is, that’s just not me. I am not mechanical or artificial. I am human. My emotions directly reflect my physical and emotional state, good, bad, or ugly. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely want to be positive and be accepted. But conforming to what others do just isn’t me. 

I steadfastly refuse to fall in line and think, behave, or believe in things that I don't. 

After some heavy back and forth with my conscience (which is an ironic word if you break it down), my purpose searching led me directly back to values. The top of that list consists of honesty, integrity, and authenticity. I apply this to all decisions and choices that I make. 

With some help from @links and @NFThinker, I incorporated mission vision and values with how I would approach onboarding. 

I am an L2 member at BanklessDAO (semantics would refer to this as a core contributor in other areas) 

Looking for the original History of the Bankless Mission, the DAOs vision, values, and the purpose of an L2 member, I hit a wall with a few things.

• Not everyone has the same values 

• Some have a personal mission that involves is not aligned with integrity

• Our history is mutable

I also stumbled upon We Are the Black Flag.

While these first two paragraphs:

“To be bankless is to seek freedom. Freedom to do what you want to do — to be who you want to be. Throughout history, people have hoisted the black flag in the face of authoritarian rule. The black flag is a declaration of our intent to be free. It is a symbol of our resolve. 
BanklessDAO was created to steward the bankless movement. We fly the black flag as a beacon for all freedom seekers; to create a space for us to gather and grow.”

reign more than true, It was the last paragraph that got me:

“To be bankless isn’t a goal, it’s a way of life. It is the decisions you make every day toward self-sovereignty. Slow or fast, as long as you move towards freedom, you are bankless….
We are the black flag. Let’s fly! 🏴”

I read this a few times. I remember reading about the black flag before. I still see the 🏴 emojis on handles, now wondering what happened to the black flag bearers of the Bankless Mission? 

Here’s what I found:

The History of BanklessDAO and the written documents that outline our Governance Framework is fragmented down to the smallest shard. 

Of course, making it hard to piece together. 

The pieces that fit together show that the History and Governance of BanklessDAO are also mutable and erasable.

Documents ratified by a snapshot vote have been edited after voting had concluded. Forum posts have been edited after voting had started. 

A deep dive into that showed this supposed decentralized system ironically has concentrated all of the administrative power into the centralized hands of a select few. 

This is the opposite and coincides with the ethos of Ethereum itself, which is the foundation on which our community was built. This would actually be quite naive, according to Ethereum. 

I wrote this forum post about it. Luckily, I found a previous forum post by former BanklessDAO leader, now Uniswap Labs innovator Frogmonkey. The forum post outlined the protocol for black swan events such as this. 

The Miro board that once outlined how we could onboard newcomers has now changed to reflect some of what I have found.  

We have to get our house in order before we invite others in. 

I have yet to find out what happened to the black flag bearers and the original Bankless mission I suspect it was buried below the greedy hands of those seeking to solely fulfill their own mission. 

Instead of wondering, where did all the black flags go? I will focus on flying mine high and proud. 

This starts with changing the now corrupt and centralized governance to one that follows the Decentralized ethos on which our community is based.