DeXe Protocol DAO Roadmap: Voyage to Boundless Growth
An important milestone has been reached: the DeXe Protocol DAO Community has adopted the DeXe Protocol DAO Roadmap. This document, designed by a DeXe Protocol community member, relies on the strategic vision and milestones the Whitepaper and DAO Memorandum anticipated, marking DeXe’s path toward decentralization and sustainable growth.
In this article, we will examine in detail the steps implied by the Roadmap and consider why they are necessary for achieving the goals. Let’s start by reviewing milestones DeXe Protocol DAO achieved before adopting the Roadmap. This will give you a clear understanding of the foundation upon which the author created it and the community voted.
Foundation
Launching the Protocol was a significant achievement, executed by a decentralized network of numerous contributors. The DAO, which is responsible for managing the Protocol’s structure, was automatically created when it was deployed.
At the time of deployment, the Protocol’s contributors and validators established the governance settings for voting and on-chain consensus of the DAO. Settings were tuned to ensure DAO’s agility in the initial setup stages and achievable quorum on the BNB Smart Chain, considering a large part of the supply, including the Treasury, unclaimed tokens, and user tokens in the ETH network.
With the launch of the Protocol, a foundational phase of both on-chain and off-chain governance was initiated, leading to several key decisions and essential discussions about the future of the DAO and Protocol.
Among the significant milestones within the DAO, notable events include:
- The launch of a bug bounty campaign valued at 500,000 DeXe tokens;
- A series of proposals for additional security measures: granting Council Members of the Swiss Association the status of on-chain Validators, activating real-time SphereX protection, and several secure minor contract amendments via on-chain voting;
- Initial discussions and voting on introducing the utility of the rewards for participation in governance;
- Debating the strategy for the Protocol’s deployment in new networks.
These steps were essential but marked only the beginning of a long journey towards true decentralization. Achieving the following milestones in the Protocol’s evolution demands complete community activation, consolidation of all DAO assets into an on-chain-managed Treasury, and development of a clear vision for future growth.
Articles of Decentralisation
The DAO and Protocol are committed to a genuinely decentralized management framework. As per the Whitepaper, DAO Memorandum, and various discussions and proposals adopted by the community, this roadmap strives to establish decentralized governance in the hands of DeXe token holders and delegates. The DAO will make decisions based on the consensus of multiple parties, and no single entity will be able to achieve a quorum on its own.
Let’s look at the steps envisioned by the adopted roadmap that outline the visions of the path of transformations and measures toward decentralizing decision-making and, thus, Protocol management.
Treasury Management Transformation
The initial step is transforming the DAO’s Treasury management by locking it in the Protocol’s smart contracts. As earlier, it will be managed by the DAO, although it would allow for seamless governance by processing on-chain voting, proposal execution, and Treasury management in the same contracts of the DAO’s native Protocol. This step is crucial for ensuring that the Treasury can be managed directly and transparently through on-chain DAO voting. As per the DAO Memorandum and other founding documents, the DAO is responsible for managing the on-chain Treasury, and the DAO itself operates through the Protocol’s smart contracts, which it controls. Thus, implementing the mentioned Treasury management system is a logical step toward achieving complete decentralized management through on-chain governance.
Incentives alignment
Once the Treasury management is transformed and executed by the Protocol’s smart contracts, DeXe DAO can activate an incentivization model for the community and contributors. This model aims to motivate active participants and draw them into the governance process. There has already been a discussion among community members on this matter, where the community preliminarily voted in favor of introducing rewards for voting participation and gas compensations for proposal executions. Following the transformation of the Treasury management, a logical next step would be a second round of on-chain voting to activate rewards for governance.
Experts-Delegates Onboarding
Reflecting its core philosophy in the Protocol’s design, it would be proper to establish a governance model based on competence, motivation, and resistance to centralization through anti-plutocratic mechanisms. This intent led to developing a meritocratic non-linear voting system, forming the backbone of the Protocol’s and DAO’s governance model. This system predicts the presence of expert delegates who can govern on behalf of users or the DAO, receiving token delegations from private balances and the Treasury. Experts appointed by the DAO decision can have an enhanced vote strength compared to ordinary holders. At the same time, the system also restrains the growth of voting power with increased concentration in single hands to encourage decision-making decentralization.
The meritocratic governance model is integrated into the DAO’s voting rules. A natural next step in the DAO’s evolution is establishing an expert board and attracting competent, motivated expert delegates. To achieve this, the DAO may allocate a portion of the Treasury for expert delegation, allowing them to participate in the management and receive rewards proportionate to their managed share. Developing and adopting an expert program with rules and values will attract and motivate competent, notable delegates.
Overall, this approach may increase the energy, thought power, and ideas accumulated by DeXe DAO, elevate its Protocol’s prestige and create new opportunities for the development and market adoption of its technologies.
Establishing the Most Fair Quorum Rules
Approval of new quorums and voting settings is crucial to ensure that decisions within the organization cannot be monopolized by one or two allied entities but are distributed among a diverse group, ensuring the decentralization of decision-making. In so-called “decentralized autonomous organizations,” quorums are often kept within a small percentage attainable by the token allocations of small groups of key contributors, leaving ordinary organization members with little impact on decisions and the majority of the token supply inactive in voting. To ensure genuinely decentralized decision-making, a high quorum must be reached that significantly exceeds the token balance of any single or closely aligned parties.
Establishing an expert delegate board and delegating a portion of tokens from the Treasury can increase the quorum by utilizing Treasury tokens in decision-making. It’s essential to design the economy and vote distribution that will allow gradual achievement of a high quorum, up to a simple majority (50%+1). This model should account for circulating tokens and phased token delegation from the Treasury, correlated with gradual quorum increases, to ensure the quorum is attainable and the DAO is functional.
Given DAO’s non-linear voting system, experts will possess a higher voting coefficient than regular users, allowing for a smaller portion of tokens from the Treasury to be delegated to achieve a fair, simple majority (50%+1) than is needed in linear voting. Consequently, the voting power of tokens delegated to experts recalculated through the non-linear system could be significantly higher, allowing for an increase in quorum with even lower delegations than via linear voting. A detailed model, quantified and proposed alongside the expert program in subsequent proposals, should be developed after community discussion and the transformation of the Treasury’s management. It would be great if all concerned community members familiarized themselves with the unique aspects of DeXe’s non-linear voting model and discussed what the expert DAO program should look like to achieve a greater quorum and gradually decentralized decision-making.
Treasury Management Transformation
The initial step is transforming the DAO’s Treasury management by locking it in the Protocol’s smart contracts. As earlier, it will be managed by the DAO, although it would allow for seamless governance by processing on-chain voting, proposal execution, and Treasury management in the same contracts of the DAO’s native Protocol. This step is crucial for ensuring that the Treasury can be managed directly and transparently through on-chain DAO voting. As per the DAO Memorandum and other founding documents, the DAO is responsible for managing the on-chain Treasury, and the DAO itself operates through the Protocol’s smart contracts, which it controls. Thus, implementing the mentioned Treasury management system is a logical step toward achieving complete decentralized management through on-chain governance.
Incentives alignment
Once the Treasury management is transformed and executed by the Protocol’s smart contracts, DeXe DAO can activate an incentivization model for the community and contributors. This model aims to motivate active participants and draw them into the governance process. There has already been a discussion among community members on this matter, where the community preliminarily voted in favor of introducing rewards for voting participation and gas compensations for proposal executions. Following the transformation of the Treasury management, a logical next step would be a second round of on-chain voting to activate rewards for governance.
Experts-Delegates Onboarding
Reflecting its core philosophy in the Protocol’s design, it would be proper to establish a governance model based on competence, motivation, and resistance to centralization through anti-plutocratic mechanisms. This intent led to developing a meritocratic non-linear voting system, forming the backbone of the Protocol’s and DAO’s governance model. This system predicts the presence of expert delegates who can govern on behalf of users or the DAO, receiving token delegations from private balances and the Treasury. Experts appointed by the DAO decision can have an enhanced vote strength compared to ordinary holders. At the same time, the system also restrains the growth of voting power with increased concentration in single hands to encourage decision-making decentralization.
The meritocratic governance model is integrated into the DAO’s voting rules. A natural next step in the DAO’s evolution is establishing an expert board and attracting competent, motivated expert delegates. To achieve this, the DAO may allocate a portion of the Treasury for expert delegation, allowing them to participate in the management and receive rewards proportionate to their managed share. Developing and adopting an expert program with rules and values will attract and motivate competent, notable delegates.
Overall, this approach may increase the energy, thought power, and ideas accumulated by DeXe DAO, elevate its Protocol’s prestige and create new opportunities for the development and market adoption of its technologies.
Establishing the Most Fair Quorum Rules
Approval of new quorums and voting settings is crucial to ensure that decisions within the organization cannot be monopolized by one or two allied entities but are distributed among a diverse group, ensuring the decentralization of decision-making. In so-called “decentralized autonomous organizations,” quorums are often kept within a small percentage attainable by the token allocations of small groups of key contributors, leaving ordinary organization members with little impact on decisions and the majority of the token supply inactive in voting. To ensure genuinely decentralized decision-making, a high quorum must be reached that significantly exceeds the token balance of any single or closely aligned parties.
Establishing an expert delegate board and delegating a portion of tokens from the Treasury can increase the quorum by utilizing Treasury tokens in decision-making. It’s essential to design the economy and vote distribution that will allow gradual achievement of a high quorum, up to a simple majority (50%+1). This model should account for circulating tokens and phased token delegation from the Treasury, correlated with gradual quorum increases, to ensure the quorum is attainable and the DAO is functional.
Given DAO’s non-linear voting system, experts will possess a higher voting coefficient than regular users, allowing for a smaller portion of tokens from the Treasury to be delegated to achieve a fair, simple majority (50%+1) than is needed in linear voting. Consequently, the voting power of tokens delegated to experts recalculated through the non-linear system could be significantly higher, allowing for an increase in quorum with even lower delegations than via linear voting. A detailed model, quantified and proposed alongside the expert program in subsequent proposals, should be developed after community discussion and the transformation of the Treasury’s management. It would be great if all concerned community members familiarized themselves with the unique aspects of DeXe’s non-linear voting model and discussed what the expert DAO program should look like to achieve a greater quorum and gradually decentralized decision-making.
Expansion & Growth
The DAO and Protocol are ready for scaling and growth. Alongside the DAO’s evolution, it’s crucial to scale the Protocol’s contracts, attract new projects and DAO members, and establish a strategy for sustainable growth. In my opinion, key scaling directions should include deploying contracts on new chains and creating a grant program to support decentralized projects.
Following the successful deployment in the BNB Smart Chain network and the initial stages of the bug bounty campaign, it’s time for the DAO and Protocol to expand onto new chains. A recent community proposal has been voted on, and the initial priorities for the Protocol’s scaling have been set. According to this proposal, it is proposed to start the deployment on Polygon, followed by Ethereum and Layer 2 chains.
A logical step to support this expansion is to partner with chains and develop a grant program that attracts decentralized projects into the ecosystem. However, drawing from the experience of numerous other projects, grants can sometimes inefficiently exhaust the Treasury for value that cannot be precisely measured or predicted. Many projects may apply for grants and simulate activity. Therefore, implementing the grant program alongside a token delegation program from the Treasury to an expert DAO could be more effective. Promising projects could become the DAO delegates, receiving delegations from the Treasury and users’ balances and rewards for active voting. The DAO decision should revoke such grants if a project becomes passive while still offering projects the chance to generate value proportionally to their involvement. In cases where the value is measurable, direct grants in DeXe tokens should naturally be utilized for development or marketing initiatives.
In conclusion
These transformative changes position DeXe at the forefront of decentralized governance models. By empowering experts, incentivizing participation, and ensuring a truly decentralized structure, the DAO has laid a strong foundation for sustainable growth and innovation.
The DeXe community has proven its dedication to building a robust, decentralized ecosystem where every member has a voice. This latest milestone is a testament to the power of community-driven development. DeXe’s future is undeniably bright as it continues to evolve and expand its reach in the decentralized world.
Have you joined the DeXe community yet? If not, don’t wait any longer, join us and let’s make a difference together! Participate in proposing, voting, and discussions and contribute to our exciting journey toward benchmark governance.
Stay tuned!
