If you are new to BanklessDAO and our SubDAO BanklessCN, here is a little introduction:

BankelssDAO or bDAO

BanklessCN - a subDAO project under the bDAO Translator’s Guild to engage Chinese readers.

Season 2 Recap

Since inception of BannkelssCN (a subDAO under bDAO) late October 2022, we have achieved our seasonal goal of:

Fulfilling Translators Guild Season 2 KPI target for funding;

• Establish the media node
• Maintain translation and publication for all Weekly Roll-ups and Decentralized Art
• 100% month to month growth in terms of audience and subscriber number.

Established official publication and distribution nodes across Twitter, Substack, 8btc, and more recently, Weibo and Wechat publication

• Totals circa. 600 of readership; and
• Planning for our first AMA session ETA early Jan 2022

Recruit and retained a small pool of active contributors to our little secluded channel.

One has to navigate through bDAO’s first guest → obtain guest pass → find our CN channel → “say hi” and read on-boarding documents → finally start contributing)

All these have been done with sole support from Translator’s Guild’s grant (our budget for remuneration), there was no other external support and the growth is pretty much organic. Whilst this is an infant step toward our shared ambition (with Bankless) of “bringing one billion people into Crypto/ open finance“, this is a great achievement for BanklessCN (a subDAO under bDAO) and should be celebrated, so I want to take the time to say Thank you and show my gratitude to:

• Season 1 contributor’s who has helped to demonstrate that the Chinese speaking community is capable of taking up translation tasks and provided high participation for the tasks from Translation Guild.
• Season 2 contributors to date for your contributions and putting up with our disorganized on-boarding process and stuck with us thus far, and that you maintain a healthy discussion within the channel and a genuine interest in taking up and completing the tasks on time (for compensations that’s probably not matching your time spent).

With a aforementioned strong foundation to end Season 2 soon, we gaze into Season 3 with the intention of further extending the output of Bankless, and better engaging contributors of different skillets to our DAO activities.

I have penciled down my thoughts below for a new Season 3 BanklessCN governance structure for discussion, per my season 2 proposal, this is a work-in-progress and all constructive feedbacks are welcomed.

S3 BanklessCN Governance Structure

In Season 2, we’ve adopted a flat organization structure with some degree of centralization to Champion, albeit some inefficient and monotonous activities (translation tasks available only), for small operations it has worked so far. Please see schematic below for reference:

But is this structure really optimal and sufficient for a growing subDAO that aim to achieve great things?

Probably not. I observed some points that needed addressing:

• Translation works not enough for all contributors to participate
• un-defined ownership leads to low accountability thus production rate suffers
• Champion is somewhat un-supervised and has too much sayings in DAO operations

There may be more but above is enough for me to conclude that 1) we need a structure in place and 2) extend our activities to suit people of different skillsets and retain talent via role creation and compensation structure.

Further reading to how I came to this conclusion.

Through a couple weeks of on and of thinking, brainstorming, reading, scribbling, I’ve come up with a structure that, to the best of my current understanding and ability, may provide the clarity and stability needed for us over the short term (0-2 years).

Below is an overall picture of the proposed governance schematic

0. Governance Broad

This function consist of involvement from 0.1 Translators Guild and 0.2 External Directors.

0.1 Translator Guild

Provide funding and general support and oversight of BanklessCN, afterall BanklessCN is a project initiative under the Translators Guild and the guild has facilitated the inception of BanklessCN by recruiting a language Champion in Season 2. .

0.2 External Directors

Do not participate in DAO’s day to day operation, only serves to provide advice on strategy and arbitrations when they arise. The ideal candidate is someone who is respected and experienced in the space.

1. BankelssCN Core Team

We humans are social animals in core and through social and integration we achieve great things. In the context of DAO, however, structurelessness means the inevitable formation of small groups (some may call it elitism) will not be governed, nor would any form of accountability can be imposed upon them as they were never given authority/ legitimacy over what they do in the first place.

With clearly defined scope and boundary, we provide guidance and support to talents to empower the DAO and at the same time, there is a clear line in the sand.

The roles will require participation for the whole season.

1.1 Coordinator A

Champion for Season 3 and ultimately responsible for the success of our set goals. Point of contact for internal and external coordinations, day to day running of the DAO, manage Notion and other resources.

* Small budget allowance for posting bounty tasks.

1.2 Coordinator B

Basically assisting Coordinator A with the scope above.

1.3 Project Team

Consist of maximum 4 members to plan and execute pre-planned projects. Talents can apply individually or form a team and apply together.

* Small budget allowance for posting bounty tasks.

2.DAO Activities

2.1 Translation Job Board

Our bread and butter tasks which covers translation of bDAO newsletters and other resources. Forms part of Translator Guild’s seasonal KPI.

2.2 Bounty Board

Project team and Coordinator team will be able to post tasks on this board and anyone with the right skill will be able to claim and complete the tasks for a reward.

This board will accommodate talents with diverse skill sets and get them started with working in a DAO.

2.3 Pre-plan Project Board

This board should display all projects planned by the project team showing progress and record of results.

2.4 New Project Initiative

If anyone feel the need to start a new project, they can post here and through community call or proposal/ votes, the community can decide whether or not this will go ahead.

3.DAO Contributors

This is the group of on-demand talent in the SubDAO that can take up the various roles and tasks. Depending on everyone’s availability, the interaction with DAO can be minimal (e.g. take up one task once in a while) or extensive (take up core team roles).

Summary

• Have a clear and inclusive team structure in place is key to organize and retain DAO’s most scarce resource - Telants.
• Creation of multiple job broads to accommodate talents of diverse skillsets
• Once-off task or fixed term commitments options to provide flexibility.

DAO governance is a big topic and I don’t have it all figured out, hopefully thought try and error, collect feedback, improve and iterations, we will get a better understanding of the “Do’s“ and “Don’ts”.

Next topic would be budget proposal - to address the technicality of remunerations and allocation.