Hi!
Thanks for this proposal, we believe that accountability is sometimes a hard debt that becomes notable when it’s too late and therefore tackling it with a proper Council makes 100% sense to us.
We want to contribute to the conversation with some thoughts on the role the EOC should play within the DAO in order for it to be impactful and a cornerstone for transparent operations. As we know at this point, the Councils structure allow for specialized execution on scopes relevant to the DAO, being the Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC), Community Council (CC), Governance Council (GC) the ones that are operational or down the pipeline.
Based on the progressive decentralization framework, liability uncertainty and the upcoming Timelock proposal, the execution of payments is rightfully held by Foundation on the correspondent multisigs dedicated for Councils and Programs, leaving for councils the decision-making process of what and how to fund, leaving the aftermath as an open question that the EOC is answering.
In that sense there is some logical nesting of proposals/initiatives within each of the Councils as per their area of expertise. For example:
- Local Nodes → CC
- Security Audits Program → EGC
- Better DAO Decisions & Aligned Incentives: Research on Carroll Mechanisms → GC
- Initiatives that may not fall in any existing Council (i.e Treasu Manager) → EOC
The broad questions regarding the EOC are then:
1. Should it operate at the initiative/proposal level or at the Council level (i.e is the EOC supposed to monitor Local Nodes performance or audit the CCs monitoring?)
2. Should payments be greenlighted or should it act ex post (pausing funds / clawback)
Given the current framework, it seems the EOC will provide operational support for Councils in order to track the milestones of the initiatives under their scopes, but leaving the success metrics of those initiatives up to the Councils themselves as well as approval for the milestone-based payments, something we adress in the next section.
Either way, it should be necessary for the EOC to develop a baseline framework for milestone-based payments that could serve upcoming proposals and become a resource for Councils in order to drive compliance.
Flow scenarios
Right now we envision 4 high level tasks that comprise operations up to this point
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Reporting
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Milestone control
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Coordination
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Approval of payments
The combination of this allows for different set of responsabilities which we think need to be clear in order to ensure a smooth flow and avoid falling into massive operational overhead. In that sense, there are two scenarios we envision for the EOC:
Scenario 1 - EOC tracking milestones and approving Council payments
In this case the EOC is naturally more empowered to determine the unfolding of the respective grant.
Scenario 2 - EOC monitoring milestones at the Council level
In this case the EOC operates at the Council level, tracking milestones through the Councils lens and not having direct impact in the approval of the disbursement but instead having the possibility of pause funds or perform clawbacks.
Enforcement
We think that some level of enforcement is unavoidable for the success of this Council. Therefore, from our perspective, the pause/clawback of funds is certainly something that should be present, therefore remarking the need for highly qualified contributors for the EOC. As being mentioned in the post, although submitting a proposal should be the final resolution for any given conflict, there should be room for more immediate actions that might not require to wait until the voting cycle.
That being said, the discussion can revolve around how the EOC exercises this power. As we see it, there are two approaches: the first is giving the EOC access to the multisig in charge of disbursing these payments, giving them the possibility to prevent the distribution of payments if the necessary conditions aren’t met. However, given that currently all the multisigs are under Foundation control, coupled with the legal implications of extending access to the EOC, the second approach is that the EOC provides binding resolutions as per a TBD framework to that end and with the majorities described.
Looking forward to your feedback to keep this conversation going!