Another year draws to a close at SEED Latam, captivating us once more with experiences, challenges, learnings, and evident growth.

In this article, we embark on a journey through 2023, exploring our progress, sharing assessments, and discussing the vision propelling us forward.

We extend heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has been part of this journey, especially the outstanding team at SEED Latam.

Index:

• 2023 Journey

• Highlights of the Year

• The Team Behind SEED Latam

• Community Governance Calls: Analysis and Perspective for 2024

• Conclusion

2023 Journey

At SEED Latam, we're dedicated to contributing value to the Web3 ecosystem through education and active participation in Web3 governance.

At the beginning of the year, we made the decision to structure SEED Latam into two verticals: one focused on driving community and educational activities, and SEEDGov, encompassing delegations and governance activities.

Despite the division, both verticals collaborated closely due to the growing agenda of #SEEDGov, involving the community and the educational focus we are committed to. This allowed us to explore and generate governance-related content, emphasizing the importance of active participation. Meanwhile, we fostered critical thinking through initiatives that add value to the ecosystem.

Highlights of the Year

Regarding significant milestones, there were indeed many. The SEED Latam team demonstrates great potential, with each member contributing to building this project, evident in the achievements and challenges overcome throughout the year.

Below, we'll briefly review each of them:

In terms of Arbitrum, we've established our delegation in the ecosystem, and our delegate Cattin has gained broad recognition within the DAO following sustained effort. For this participation, we've been acknowledged as a Domain Allocator. You can view their report here. Additionally, we recently secured approval for the Delegate Incentive System Proposal, a significant achievement after weeks of iteration in the proposal. This poses a considerable challenge in terms of execution, one we'll address during the first quarter of 2024.

The work of the AVC SoFi has also been exceptional and has quickly gained significant recognition for its efforts. In a short span, we made notable strides: We entered the MakerDAO forum by creating and presenting Sovereign Finance AVC on behalf of the AVC Member SEED Latam in May. Subsequently, in October, we added 0xRoot as a second member.

Currently, SoFi is the AVC with the highest amount of MKR delegated among all Delegates across MakerDAO (28,000 MKR), holding a total voting power of 18.28%, followed by ReFi with 16.51% (25,282 MKR).

During the past few months, three quarterly improvement proposal documents for the 5 scopes (June, September, and December 2023) were presented. Among these, the initial proposal document has been taken up by an AD (Cloaky), who submitted a proposal, subjected it to voting, and received approval. The proposals are MIP102c2-SP12 (and it’s votation) and  MIP102c2-SP15 (and the votation). The 5 MIPs of MakerDAO now incorporate texts conceived, debated, and drafted by SoFi. It's important to note that the delegate with the most delegated MKR in the protocol is Cloaky, with 20,000 MKR delegated to the delegation contract with SoFi.

The second proposal document has been taken up by another AD (PALC), who initiated the process to formalize a proposal.

A comprehensive summary of the 27 preset MakerDAO calls, calls in Spanish and extraordinary calls with Ecosystem Actors, and further expansion of this information can be found in the following link.

Regarding Optimism, throughout this year, the delegation led by Delegate Joxes continued to exercise a community governance model where the community has the opportunity to voice opinions and vote in decision-making.

Throughout the year, the delegation actively participated in evaluating the Missions of Season 4 and presented an extensive analysis regarding Token House members' participation. Additionally, it qualified for the "AntiCapture Commission" for Season 5, and we ended the year with the pleasant news that Delegate Joxes was elected to be part of the Builders category in the Grants Council Reviewer for Governance Season 5, to which we will offer our support and assistance.

Regarding the most recent governance involvements that are still in a growth phase, we highlight Connext, Starknet, and the recently launched Gnosis Chain.

In relation to Connext, our delegation has been gaining prominence within the DAO, positioning us among the top 20 in terms of Voting Power and actively participating in virtually every forum proposal. We've established ourselves as a committed team contributing to the development of both ConnextDAO and the protocol itself.

In the case of Starknet, despite having presented the delegation months ago, we are awaiting updates within the DAO. Meanwhile, we're studying and analyzing the ecosystem, creating educational content about the protocol through the Layer2 en Español team, maintaining a close relationship with the Starknet Foundation. You can find the content on Youtube.

Regarding the recent delegation to Gnosis Chain, this time without an individual representative as a "delegate," we mark our initial platform under the name of SEED Latam, and we're starting a more active participation in this governance.

An initiative that, while not a delegation, has come to life this year is the SEED Node team. We have a node in Rosario ready to be shipped in the first days of the upcoming year to Córdoba, and another one is in progress. We've also delivered talks at various events and generated content about nodes in Spanish, which has gained relevance, being recognized by the EF and chosen for developing more content already scheduled for the first part of Q1 2024.

Regarding to our educational efforts, throughout this year, we have impacted more than 1250 individuals through a variety of initiatives. Among them, we highlight "AULA ABIERTA," and the Community Calls with an average of 200 attendees.

In relation to in-person meetups, we highlight the #Governanceday, the first event in Latin America dedicated to governance, with over 250 attendees and more than 10 speakers from various countries. We have also organized the #SEEDday en Mendoza and participated in  GEERS, LABITCONF, and Ethereum Argentina.

We also want to mention a significant milestone of the year: the "CaSEEDta." For the first time, the majority of SEED Latam had a meeting place in Argentina for a few co-working days that have marked a turning point for everyone. Undoubtedly, something that should be repeated soon.

The Team Behind SEED Latam:

The team supporting SEED Latam has experienced significant growth. Initially, we were just five people in the general team, with community support, taking the first steps under the name SEED Latam after the rebranding. Simultaneously, there was a leadership change, with Candela assuming the new role of Community Lead and allowing Romina to become the Governance Coordinator.

After consolidating a new team with defined roles and thanks to participation in RPGF2, SEED Latam managed to expand and project itself. At the end of the year, we have a team of 20 people involved in various initiatives: the general SEED Latam team, governance coordination, six delegations, and a Node team.

We want to take this report to express our deep gratitude to Romina, who left her position as Governance Coordinator in December after being with us throughout the year and contributing significantly to SEED Latam from the beginning, adding great value to the community and each of its members. You can find more details in her thread.

Amidst these changes, we want to recognize and thank the ongoing efforts of Noa, who takes on the role of Operations Lead, and Axl, collaborating as the Strategy Lead in governance.

The question of who is behind SEED Latam is common, and although you can see a reflection on the map, it does not fully capture the changes over time. There are many more people in our environment whom the article characters do not allow us to thank: former team members, the previous "Hardcore" of DeFi Latam, and all those who join us at each in-person meeting or participate online from different points in the region.

SEED Latam goes beyond its core; it is the result of the collective effort of all the people who make this project possible. We adapt to the rapid pace of the dynamic ecosystem, and our flexible and adaptable structure has brought us to this point. We invite you to meet SEED Latam 2024.

Community Governance Calls: Analysis and Outlook for 2024

Community governance calls played a pivotal role in the decision-making process of the delegations. A total of 51 governance calls were held, resulting in the distribution of 1391 POAPs.

In each call, SEED Latam members shared information with the community, conducted analysis, listened to presentations, and voted accordingly, especially in the cases of Optimism and Arbitrum.

We adopted the practice of governance calls, inspired by initiatives stemming from Ethereum BA 2020 and subsequently embraced by DeFi Latam. With the same drive to share knowledge and deliberate, we incorporated this approach. While these calls opened dialogue and gave voice to more Latin Americans in the delegation process, upon reflection, questions arise about optimizing processes and improving outcomes to organize these calls in the coming year.

The analysis of the time and energy dedicated to organizing these calls lead us to reconsider the dynamics for 2024, seeking to enhance both internal work and community satisfaction.

The current internal process for each call involves a series of tasks that require coordination across various roles, resulting in an average time of 7 hours for each call. These tasks include reviewing voting on Snapshot or Agora, internal delegation reading and information cross-referencing on the forum; requesting the activity organization, information gathering for dissemination by the comms team, designing the flyer and the POAP; setting up Snapshot and the call itself involving the entire team, among other activities specific to each call.

In line with the before mentioned, we are transitioning from a community voting model to a more executive approach. Reducing the frequency of governance calls offers both internal and external benefits:

• Internally, it eases the burden of organizing them before proposal deadlines on platforms like Snapshot and Agora, allowing us to dedicate more time to other priorities.

• Externally, it avoids call saturation and facilitates the broadcasting of other valuable content, while mitigating manipulation practices in decision-making and ensuring more informed voting outcomes.

It's important to note that an evolution in the dynamics doesn't mean excluding the community from the process. After evaluating historical votes and conducting community surveys, the primary goal of this transformation is to enhance and optimize activities. Therefore, governance calls will continue, changing their frequency to keep the community informed. We'll introduce new practices like newsletters and extraordinary calls at crucial times, and, above all, add educational activities, aligning with SEED Latam's promised high level and quality.

Lastly, another crucial aspect that has been a subject of reflection at different times of the year and will be considered in future activities is that governance transcends borders. Although our name "SEED Latam" indicates our focus on Latin America, over time and on various occasions, we have identified with other communities and emerging global projects that share similar socioeconomic conditions and builders with the same motivation to strengthen the ecosystem. Likewise, the need to strengthen collaboration with projects and delegates worldwide has led us to reconsider our scope and begin generating content not only in Spanish but also in English. To specifically address governance-related topics, we've launched a new Twitter account called SEEDGov.

Conclusion

This year has seen significant growth in SEED Latam in terms of team, structure, knowledge, and reach. The distinction lay in our dedication and commitment, present from planning to execution, despite resource limitations.

The changing narratives of a constantly evolving ecosystem have allowed us to explore and iterate. Today, after years of work, we find ourselves at a turning point, where we're working on each process to have a greater impact on the activities we undertake by incorporating tools and new procedures.

It can be said that we are currently in a phase of "Discovery," where after many tests and experiments, we are committed to continuing to improve and grow from Latam to the world.

Our decision not to limit ourselves to a specific structure has not constrained us but has allowed us to experiment, explore, and build, always guided by our ethos and mission: to make a positive impact in our region.

After all the learnings of the year, both positive and negative, we eagerly anticipate new challenges as we continue to iterate on the essence of SEED Latam. Governance knows no boundaries, and neither does the impact we want to create.

Welcome to another new stage of SEED Latam; we are confident that in 2024 we will reap the fruits of the seeds we have sown.

No one is going to hand us the history.