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· 7 min read
Alice und Bob

Good Morning!​

We are OpenGov.Watch.

We are here to help Polkadot Governance grow up and transform Polkadot into the most impactful Web3 ecosystem this beautiful planet has ever seen! We will do this by providing information, leading initiatives, and developing Polkadot governance structures.

We now could talk about the problems we see in this space and how we intend to (help) solve them, and we certainly will in the coming days. But right now we want to use the opportunity to talk about something bigger: Our vision for what Polkadot can become.

Before you read on, make sure to follow our socials:

You were born just right...​

"We are the middle children of history. Born too late to explore earth, born too early to explore space."

We were told that we can change the course of history. We watch in awe as AI is writing history. Our lives are enriched by constantly updating technology and watch in fear as the same technology is used in wars to end human lives. We have built a global information network and handed over control to big corporations and nation-states. We are participating in a global economy that is being weaponized without our consent.

And in the midst of all that, we decide to spend our time in the deep in blockchain technology. If you are reading this post, chances are that you think that crypto can be part of the solution to many of those problems. You were born just right for Web3.

Walking in the footsteps of Satoshi​

Crypto is not apolitical. Bitcoin was born out of the need to create money that is independent of central banks, nation-states, and institutions. A trustless peer-to-peer transaction system. It's a radical and subversive idea. This idea caught on in the minds of many people and created the industry we are confronted with today. Something that might be bigger than even Satoshi envisioned.

But crypto is not just an industry. Web3 is not just about the Internet. We are in the first act of a global revolution that will be transforming the society, economy, and politics.

How will the revolution turn out? Success is not a given. We already handed over Web2 to the institutions and if we are not careful, it could happen again. Our revolution is at risk of being taken off course by regulators and ponzinomists. We must not drop the ball on one of the most essential inventions of the modern age!

To find the right path forward, we need to channel our inner Satoshi and ask: "How can we make sure that we are not turning this into the next big dystopia? What do we have to do to make sure that crypto maintains its radical and subversive character long enough to finish this mission?"

The outcome of this revolution is up to you. Your decisions in the coming months and years will decide if crypto will decide the fate of the coming generations.

Web3 is a promise​

To stay on course in this time of uncertainty, we have to orient ourselves on a north star: Web3

Web3 is a promise. The promise of a free and open Internet. An Internet that belongs to the people who create it and is not monopolized by corporations that leverage network effects to accumulate all the good tech in their hands.

Web3 is the promise we can cooperate with others in a way that benefits the common good.

Web3 is the promise that we can finally get access to the tools to achieve freedom and sovereignty from the undue influence of others. Web3 is our secret hope that once we have built a global network of like-minded people who work together to establish new structures of sovereignty, this new freedom will create a spill-over effect into fields outside of the Internet. It is the hope of sparking new social movements, new economies, and new systems of doing politics and building (networked) states.

OpenGov is the way​

The problem with Web3 is that it is a feel-good umbrella term for our ambitions and dreams. It might be a set of technologies, or ideologies, or practices, but how do we get there? After all, we are seeking to replace structures that have been growing over a long time.

We essentially want to rewrite the social fabric of reality. We want to invent a better society. But all new societies are thrown in front of the same problems: "How do we live together?" It is the age-old question. The reason why we have politics. Because there are different individuals with different interests and very likely not everyone will get everything that they desire.

We build society through politics. But how do we do good politics? The truth is: We don't know. We have some good ideas. We have a few thousand years of experience. We have theories and empirical knowledge and experiments and studies. But we haven't found the silver bullet.

So let's not be cocky. We are inexperienced in politics and will make rookie mistakes. Our job is to learn this politics thing as fast as possible, develop structures and processes, stay open to learn and adapt, and yet be steadfast and firm to make sure actual things happen.

What we do also have is a few hundred million dollars in on-chain Treasury funds to make things happen. That is enough incentive to attract a few thousand people that would be willing to give this thing a try.

This is the context in which Polkadot OpenGov is born. The aggregate of all the people that were digging deep enough into crypto to discover Polkadot. A Web3 ecosystem that actually cares about the future. All of us who participate in this journey are called to ensure that Polkadot will make a strong positive impact on the world.

OpenGov is the way how we negotiate the future while we build it.

And you were born just right to be a part of it!

Watchers of the Gov​

Polkadot Governance is young and disorganized. But its potential is huge! Polkadot OpenGov could become the most impactful DAO of Web3.

And just as OpenGov gets introduced to the world, we enter the scene. OpenGov.Watch will be here to monitor day-to-day operations and provide reporting and analysis. But we are not going to be passive actors only. Because OpenGov just being traditional politics with factions fighting over who has their interests represented would be boring.

We see Polkadot OpenGov as a way for a blockchain ecosystem to become smart and intentional. OpenGov is the brain of Polkadot. We are going to lead discussions to identify problems, find suggestions for solutions, and synthesize them into Governance initiatives that will together form a holistic strategy that covers the full range of everything Polkadot needs to do as an ecosystem to become successful and impactful.

We will offer to take the lead on some initiatives, with the full understanding that Polkadot OpenGov emerges from the bottom-up and crypto in essence is all about decentralization. We will stay agile and flexible, seek cooperation and offer coordination.

Our watch has started.

Let's connect!​

We will publish more in the coming days. Let's connect so that you'll be there when it happens:

Govern Polkadot

· 2 min read
Alice und Bob

What we did this month:​

· One min read
Alice und Bob

· 3 min read
Alice und Bob

After delivering a first draft of the Polkadot 2.0 Strategy (a curated summary of many different voices in the ecosystem) in April, May was the first month where we started to put parts of the strategy into action. We focused on two key areas: User Experience and Accountability.

  1. UX: We started our first Governance Initiative around User Experience. We refer to “Governance Initiatives” as focused projects where we create more transparency around an ecosystem area and push for better solutions. For this first initiative, we gathered information on what is done to improve UX in the ecosystem. It turned out, that not much is happening yet. To change this, we helped the Braille team set up a bounty proposal. We consulted them through several calls and provided feedback for their process of grooming a UX backlog and regularly calling ecosystem agents to get solutions on the way. We supported them with public exposure by hosting a dedicated Twitter space and worked to raise awareness via several channels. There is lots to do in the UX space and we hope to be able to help the Braille team make the UX bounty a reality
  2. Accountability in OpenGov is a big topic and for many, but it is unclear if and how we can move this topic forward. As a first step, we developed the Basic Accountability Checklist. We intend to advertise it with the next cohort of DVs and see if we can establish a standard of what levels of transparency and accountability are being enforced through DV in big-ticket proposals. We are currently in talks with other agents in preparation for a potential audit bounty, that could be following up on big-ticket proposals after they get accepted and in general ensure that better accountability is created for proposers.

Looking forward, June will be a budget month for us and we will analyze the spending behavior of the treasury and for the first time create a balance sheet of the Polkadot Treasury. As a base, we will use our newly developed Polkadot Treasury Reporting Standards.

Our Deliverables​

· 2 min read
Jeeper

This month, we published the most ambitious Polkadot Treasury Report so far. It covers 2024-H1 and includes an income statement and balance sheet that starts to resemble traditional accounting best practices. It follows the Treasury Reporting Standards that have been previously established.

We achieved a great success on the Governance Initiatives front. Following our User Experience initiative last month, the UX bounty was approved after intensive community debate and negotiation. The Braille team is getting to work by opening up the backlog to the community to manage the bounty in an open manner.

For this month, work has started on the Developer Experience Governance Initiative and we will present results next month. This month was intense, as new DVs came into office and old ones left and we had quite a few bookable calls dedicated to the topic of learning from the past and sharing with the future DVs.

Next month, we are excited to share the Polkadot 2.0 Strategy we are curating at Polkadot Decoded.

What we did this month:​

· 3 min read
Alice und Bob

This month started intense, with our Polkadot Treasury Report making waves in crypto mass media and the socials. While the reception was mixed, it put Polkadot back on the radar of several people and entities that had forgotten about Polkadot.

Our monthly OpenGov report for July highlights some of the consequences: A more critical evaluation of the Treasury's spending behavior. The Marketing Bounty 500k refill was rejected as more whales woke up and we hope that more accountability and a better alignment along a shred strategy will be the consequence.

Speaking of strategy, we were honored to share our mental model for how OpenGov can develop a bottom-up strategy at Polkadot Decoded in this “State of the Union” talk. Folks at Parity liked the presentation and mentioned it in their “Emerging Web3 Trends” blog post.

Our main objective for this month was to propose a budget for OpenGov. This put us in front of a fundamental problem that we have been confronted with for over a year now, typically summarized as “Budgets in OpenGov are not enforceable”. Sure, we could come up with some budget and hit send, but that is not what we are here for. We had to find a way. We had to break this belief of unenforceability first and to do it, we had to completely deconstruct current Theories of Treasury Management. We listened to a lot of community discussions and in the absence of coming up with a budget, we came up with the second-best thing: A credible path to a real budget. We call our approach “BASED Budgeting - A Bottom-up Approach to Strategic, Effective & Decentralized Budgeting”. You can find a 10-minute exposition + 15 minutes of discussion here on AAG. Or get the 67-minute BASED Budgeting - Introduction and Q&A in our YouTube Live.

Our Governance Initiative focus for this month we have picked the Ambassador Program. The original OpenGov referendum was very crude and as such, there was a lot of follow-up debate about all the missing pieces and details and unfinished discussions. We summarized the relevant talking points with specific suggestions for the current situation and lessons learned for future on-chain collectives. Read the article here and listen to the Twitter OpenGov Office Hours special episode here.

Public sentiment around OpenGov (and by extension Polkadot) is in a critical zone right now with the Treasury main account having broken below 100m USD in available cash and many questioning if OpenGov can turn around. As OpenGov.Watch, we intend to stay on top of the situation by creating a new shared sense of agency in the community through the application of our newly developed BASED Budgeting approach. It will require the participation of smart brains, dedicated hands, and responsible whales to get it done.

What we did this month:​

· 2 min read
Alice und Bob

This month, we were happy to see many things come together that have been many months in the making. Our highlight was to give a Web3 Summit Talk titled “Do we need Network Constitutions?”, which sparked many discussions around the topic.

The bring Polkadot a bit closer to it, we upgraded our Notion to become a complete OpenGov Portal. The idea is to give people actively participating in OpenGov a portal where they can find relevant links and points of contact. It is accompanied by a list of ecosystem issues and a summary of existing Polkadot Legislation.

From here on out, we will start to implement the theory laid out in past months in BASED Budgeting. Our approach is to push legislation through WFCs, and we start by testing the waters with establishing Bounty Standards through a WFC. If this is successful, OpenGov can in the future delegate certain decisions away from the general tracks towards those bounties, reducing the noise and establishing more structure for on-chain executive bodies.

What we did this month​

· 3 min read
Alice und Bob

Mid September through Mid October we focused on two initiatives:

This Treasury report had the first shades of routine to it. While it is still a lot of manual work, we at least have one year of experience now in getting it done. To potentially decentralize the process in the future, we also created a playlist of the most essential processes to allow others to replicate the process.

Budgeting is still a big topic, and we are finally making tangible progress in translating theory into practice. As a first stepping stone, we brought the Bounty Compliance Standards to an on-chain WFC vote. The idea is to create a foundational standard upon which we can build a budgeting process in the future. This month, we published the first draft called “Budgeting via subDAOs”. The idea here is to establish the actual process by which quarterly budgeting may be introduced as a process to the DAO. We think the process is still going to take time. It is dependent on the support of major stakeholders and our ability to follow along with the progress of subDAOs.

For the next few weeks, we plan to work on helping bounties coordinate better. We were very involved in reforming the marketing bounty and the Ambassador Program and will report on that next. We have also identified a need in the DAO to improve workforce recruitment, so HR is becoming a more relevant topic. In addition, BD and DevRel are the next big pieces missing in the decentralized organization puzzle.

What we did this month​