EVMavericks

The EVMavericks multisig currently owns 56 EVM NFTs (35 of them - OGs). These EVMs were left over after the two rounds of the initial distribution to r/ethfinance members. They are not currently allocated for any specific purpose, though as holdings of the DAO they should be used in service to our mission statement. In discussions concerning them, it has frequently been suggested to use these to grow the DAO and stimulate activity, leading to gains in the strength of our community. This produces a compounding return, in which we will be be better able to achieve our goal to “advance the decentralized Ethereum Web3 ecosystem by aligning shared member incentives with funding, developing, and promoting public goods and education.”

In the preliminary emoji vote that we ran on Discord, most votes coalesced around us attempting to tie in EVMavericks NFT giveaways to bigger events, such as EVM anniversary, Permissionless, ETHDenver, etc.

The current vote is to decide on how we’ll approach voting for the distribution channels in order to minimize bias and chance of it being “played”.

In our Discord discussions, the following options have been proposed:

1. The Flexible Approach

For our first vote, we choose 5 ideas that have so far emerged in our discussions, and vote for 2 best. This lets us focus on implementing our second idea right after the first (or do them simultaneously like Ethereum development itself) without having to return to the same discussions. In the meanwhile, we gather new ideas in Discord to present for the next occasion that comes up. To take Shanghai update as an example, we could gather 5 ideas that tie in well with the update — for example, do a raffle for people that show on-chain proof of their switching from centralized staking (which they’ve been a part of for X months to eliminate the chance of it being “played”) to decentralized staking, to promote decentralization; then vote on it, and execute. And in case a great opportunity/event/idea comes up, we may run another proposal for some additional EVM to be given away. The beauty of this approach is that we stay flexible while also not having to waste too much time on back-and-forth, and minimize potential bias & gameability.

With this approach, the votes of the year 2023 would look like this:

Vote 1: 5 proposals, 2 ideas to implement. Vote 2: 5 proposals, 1 idea to implement. Vote 3: 5 proposals, 1 idea to implement. And so on, until we distribute all the EVMs that we have agreed on in EVM Distribution Phase 2, Vote 2.

2. The Thorough Approach

In this option, any idea that is proposed about how we want to give away an EVM should be voted on on a case-by-case basis via a snapshot vote as the year goes on. The purpose of using this approach is to vet out each idea being proposed with descriptive reasoning, much more so than a single vote with multiple choices would allow. With lots of ideas flowing around, this approach allows every EVM member to vote with “informed consent” on what is happening with every EVM in the treasury that is being given away. To be clear, this would require a snapshot vote for every type of EVM giveaway we plan on doing in the future. The reason for this is that EVMs are worth a lot, and we should make sure that anything that comes out of our Treasury is decided on a mutual consensus every single time. This option might relieve worries that ideas weren’t voted on fairly because each giveaway idea will be voted on separately. The con of this approach is that a simple “for” and “against” vote for a proposal can lead people to accepting a sub-par option based solely on the fact that a person would rather see an EVM distributed through a sub-par channel than not distributed at all. Additionally, it will limit the amount of discussions and potential ideas due to the fact that we will not be forced to gather 5 ideas for each snapshot vote and — as it happens in the DAO — are likely to go choose the path of least resistance.

With this approach, the votes of the year 2023 would look like this:

Vote 1: 1 proposal, yes/no Vote 2: 1 proposal, yes/no Vote 3: 1 proposal, yes/no And so on, until we distribute all the EVMs that we have agreed on in EVM Distribution Phase 2, Vote 2.

3. The Idea List Approach

In this option, we come together with all of our ideas (~10) and assemble a list for potential EVM giveaways at the beginning of each year. Then we put every idea from the list in a single snapshot vote, each with a description of what it’s about and why we should do it. We then have the snapshot vote constructed similar to how the vote was for the Stewards election, where we had a list of names and people voted for their favorite person or whoever they thought was best for the Steward role, but in this case they would vote for their favorite ideas. Then whatever those top 5 ideas are will be the ones that are selected and used for the EVM giveaways throughout the year. The con of voting for for all distribution channels well in advance is that the distribution could be gamed. As a rough example, if we all agree that r/ethfinance should receive an EVM via raffle, or the “best” contributor is to be rewarded, somebody could create a new account and have enough time to “establish” their second account to boost their chances.

With this approach, the votes of the year 2023 would look like this:

Vote 1: 10 proposals, 5 ideas to implement. (or however many we decide on in EVM Distribution Phase 2, Vote 2) And that would be the only vote for the year.

Please vote on the approach you feel would suit us best, and if you have something better in your mind, make sure to share it in #ideas.