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Broad Goals

Shift Control to Yam Token Holders​

The Yam Re-Org eliminates the ‘core team’ and shifts control over funding and major decision making to the exclusive domain of Yam token holders. Token holders decide what to fund by voting to approve work via grants. Grant recipients manage the details and deliver their projects to spec in order to receive payment.

If we want to be honest about YAM being a “real” DAO, we need to start operating it like one. That means that token holders need to embrace the responsibility of making the DAO successful. To do this effectively, the YAM reorg defines what kind of decision making power token holders will have.

Empower Token Holders to Decide What to Fund​

Token holders exercise their decision making power to determine what Yam will fund within a new grants based system. This new system is open to any builder or creator who wishes to apply for a grant to perform some kind of work. Since there is no longer a ‘core team’ to do work, all work for the DAO will be controlled within the grants system. Only the Yam token holders can decide what Yam DAO does, how it does it, and how much it will pay for the project or services.

With great power comes great responsibility. It will be up to the YAM token holders to determine whether grants proposals are worth funding. They are ultimately responsible for stewarding the treasury and determining the direction the DAO should go. In the following sections of this document we will lay out a model in which some tasks can be delegated to elected councils of token holders to help govern the system, but token holders will always have a final say.

Give Grant Recipients the Power to Manage Projects​

An approved grant establishes an agreement between the grant proposer and Yam DAO for a certain kind of work to be performed as stipulated in a grants proposal. This is similar to real world company that establishes a contract with an independent vendor and the vendor is responsible for managing the project and delivery the goods. Yam token holders decide what grants to fund but they don’t directly manage the project itself. Instead management is outsourced to the grants project team, streamlining the management overhead of the DAO.

In the past, when token holders wanted something done, they proposed a vote and expected someone on the ‘core team’ to fulfill the task. This lead to situations where certain elements of the community expected things from others without any agreement. Contributors were put into working situations they didn’t expect and hadn’t signed up for. The grants system changes this. Grant recipients can work the way they want with the team they want, as long as it is agreed upon in the grant contract. They are their own boss, but with a contractual responsibility to YAM token holders.

Assure Token Holders Have Control of Project Payments​

Token holders must approve payment to grant recipients when they successfully fulfill the scope of work and deliverables as defined in the grants originating proposal. In this way token holders control not only what the DAO does, but they also assure work is performed appropriately before the release of treasury funds. Grant recipients control their own projects but must be accountable for delivering on the terms of their commitments for payment.

Specific Parameters to focus on​

With the above broad goals defined, we can focus on specific parameters of the DAO and explore how to develop each to better achieve our aims:

  • Participation: Define the different parties building and operating the DAO and make their roles clear.
  • Accountability: Assure accountability for all parties interacting with the DAO.
  • Efficiency: Build a system that allows for effective delegation of work.
  • Transparency: Design the processes and repositories of information needed for anyone to participate in the DAO.
  • Security: Create a set of rules that allow contribution while limiting the risk of bad actors exploiting the open system.

We will discuss each individually in the following sections.