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Validator DAO Charter

V 1.0 - Revised Aug 30, 2021

Contents

Introduction        2

General Principles        3

Governance & Public HIP Voting        3

Constitution Ratification process        3

Constitutional Amendment process        3

Validator DAO Business process        4

HIP Decision Making process        5

Governor Elections:        6

Initial Term         6

Quarterly Validator Elections        6

Term Limits        6

No Confidence Vote        6

Compensation:        7

Option 1: All Compensation.        7

Annexes

**Annexes are a separate fungible document to be modified by each elected DAO and attached separately**

Introduction

VDAO is Harmony One’s validator DAO. Just like bitcoin has many many miners, Harmony has hundreds of thousands of delegators and hundreds of validators in the community.

The ValidatorDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization whose purpose is to enable further decentralization, ensure network security, and provide for the enfranchisement and self governance of the validator community.

General Principles

  • The Harmony VDAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization owned by the $ONE holders.

  • The Harmony VDAO is built on principles of open participation and accessibility.

  • The Harmony VDAO promotes the consolidation and development of the $ONE holders staking ecosystem, of its decentralised consciousness, and culture, and also the development of the autonomous identity of all Validators and Delegators.

  • The $ONE holders are the bearers and the only source of power in the Harmony Validator DAO.

  • The $ONE holders are Validators and Delegators.

  • The $ONE holders exercise power directly or through the Validators by virtue of staking.

  • The right to determine and change the Charter of the VDAO belongs exclusively to the $ONE Holders.

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Governance

  • Governance is designed to serve the free expression of the $ONE holders will.

  • Validators represent their delegators

  • Every $ONE holder can choose to participate in Governance directly or through their Validator/s.


1. Charter Ratification process

Ratifying the Validator DAO constitution requires 5/5 members of the Validator DAO to agree to the final charter prior to submitting the ratification proposal to a vote. The ratification will be posted on talk.harmony.one as a HIP proposal. The HIP proposals will be broadcast on all channels for no less than 7 days prior to submitting the proposal to a vote on https://gov.harmony.one/#/dao-mainnet.

The ratification proposal requires 51 percent of the stake weight participating and 67% in agreement.

2. Charter Amendment process

All amendments to the charter require all members of the Validator DAO to agree to an amendment prior to submitting the amendment proposal to a vote. The charter amendment will be posted on talk.harmony.one as a HIP proposal. The HIP proposals will be broadcast on all channels for no less than 7 days prior to submitting the proposal to a vote on https://gov.harmony.one/#/dao-mainnet.

To ratify an amendment requires 51 percent of the stake weight participating and 67% in agreement.

3. Validator DAO Business processes

a. Major DAO initiatives

Major Initiatives that require coding changes require a majority of the Validator DAO to agree to the proposal prior to submitting it to talk.harmony.one for a Harmony Improvement Proposal (HIP). The HIP proposals will be broadcast on all channels for no less than 7 days prior to submitting the proposal to a vote on https://gov.harmony.one/#/dao-mainnet . To pass the HIP proposals requiring a coding change it will require a 51 percent of the stake weight participating and 67% in agreement.

b. Simple Initiatives without Coding  

Simple initiatives not requiring a coding change but requiring a use of Validator DAO funds requires majority of the Validator DAO to agree and a thread on https://talk.harmony.one which will be broadcast on all channels for no less than 7 days to gauge community support. If it requires a use of greater than 10 percent of the funds, it will be submitted as a HIP proposal on https://talk.harmony.one and broadcast on all channels for no less than 7 days prior to submitting the proposal to a vote on https://gov.harmony.one/#/dao-mainnet . To pass the HIP

proposals requiring the use of greater than 10 percent of Validator DAO funds will require a 51 percent of the stake weight participating and 67% in agreement.

c. Simple Initiatives without Coding or Funding 

Simple initiatives not requiring a coding change or use of Validator DAO funds requires 6/9 members of the Validator DAO to agree and a thread on https://talk.harmony.one which will be broadcast on all channels for no less than 7 days to gauge community support. Defining the scope of these initiatives will be at the discretion of the Validator DAO.

 d. Day to Day Operations

Day to day operations including but not limited to paying for services already approved through other measures, making marketing decisions or simple community impacts through official channels will require a simple majority to approve in text through official communications channels whereby all members of the Validator DAO can view other member decisions.

4. HIP Public Voting - Decision Making process

The Harmony Improvement Proposal (HIP) Decision Making Process includes 3 main phases:

  • talk.harmony.one: Proposal Notification 
  • AMA Presentation and Debate (goal - to specify with the team if they’re going to implement that)
  • Voting

a. Talk.harmony.one: Proposal Notification

The proponent must create a talk thread in the Governance section. Proposals should be in standardized HIP format with a title but should not include a HIP number until it meets the gate requirements to move to a vote. 

b.  AMA Presentation and Debate

This phase has the purpose of receiving prominent feedback from the Validators and Delegators in order to formulate improvements on the proposal and generate support. This phase requires a feasibility review by the Harmony core developer team in order to provide feedback on whether it should be a protocol level change, bounty, layer 2 add-on or if it is feasible at all. It is incumbent on the proponent to coordinate for the feasibility review either directly to the Harmony team or request facilitation by the Validator DAO.

The proponent is highly encouraged to use every available medium to reach the broadest audience to garner engagement. If possible the feedback from the community should be captured and posted in the original proposal thread.

Final decision requires it pass the Feasibility Review and the proponent makes the decision to move it to a vote. If the proponent refines the proposal based on feedback, it must receive a new Feasibility Review.

Once it passes this stage it is assigned a formal HIP number and status.

Timeline 14 days.

c. Voting

The proponent of the proposal shall post it on the mainnet seed of gov.harmony.one. Each proposal shall have a 7 day waiting period where the proponent can continue to advocate for the proposal and generate support. During this time the proponent should coordinate with the Validator DAO to assist with generating participation. The voting period shall last 14 days whereby the proposal must reach 51% of the total stake weight and 2/3rds in favor of the proposal to pass.

5. Governor Elections:

  • All Governors must be formally elected.
  • There will be 9 Governors elected per DAO term.

  1. Initial Term

  • Elections completed May 2021, Initial Term through completion and certification of elections September 2021

  1. Quarterly Validator Elections

  • Governor Election via Validator DAO Governance every fiscal quarter.
  • Nominations & information campaigns start three weeks prior to the next election.
  • Voting to be posted in the Validator Dao Governance section during the 1st week of the new fiscal quarter
  • Multiple choice vote
  • Validators can choose up to 9 candidates for the DAO (Markings or note)
  • 3 month terms

  1. Term Limits

  • No Governor may serve more than 12 months unless no candidate runs to fill the position.
  • The initial DAO Governors may run for 12 full months. A partial term for the initial DAO will not disqualify them from serving 12 full months.

  1. No Confidence Vote

  • In the unfortunate event that a Governor is deemed unfit the other Governors may hold a vote to remove a current member.
  • 100% of remaining Governors must vote yes to remove an active member.
  • The no confidence vote must be moved to a governance vote using the same process as a Charter Amendment listed in paragraph 2 of this document.
  • The open role will be filled by the validator who finished in the next unelected position during the election for this term.
  1. If no validators remain, a special election may be held using the annual validator elections rules selecting the number of spots required to be replaced.

      e. Election Dates and Intervals

  • It is required that the Validator DAO vote to confirm all proposed election dates.
  • Election term changes to include the initial term will be voted on by the community through a VDAO proposal.

6. Compensation

All current and future compensation packages during each term are to be decided upon by the Governors of the currently serving term. The compensation package should be agreed upon and ratified within the first week of being elected.

  • Compensation is to not exceed the budget of the treasury.

  • It is incumbent upon the DAO to maintain the treasury funds in perpetuity