Badgeholder Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Retro Funding Missions 🔴
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All badgeholders are subject to the Code of Conduct. This code of conduct includes a no self-dealing section that stipulates:

  • Mandatory (Violation 2): Optimists must avoid conflicts of interest where possible and mitigate their impact when not possible. We recommend over-communicating and disclosing potential conflicts of interest even when they do not warrant abstaining from a vote.
  • 2a. Any actual or reasonably anticipated conflicts of interest must be disclosed in writing and prominently displayed ahead of any voting. (see 10d for the definition of affiliated projects for badgeholders)
  • 2d. Badgeholders should not vote for organizations where they expect any portion of funds to flow to them or any projects from which they derive income
  • Mandatory (Violation 11): Badgeholders must not use private voting to obscure self-dealing.
    • After RetroPGF Rounds end, the Foundation or Code of Conduct Council may randomly sample 55 ballots to check for conflicts of interest.
    • If a suspected self-dealing violation is filed, the Foundation may also review the ballot of the reported badgeholder to check for conflicts of interest.

The thread below is where badgeholders should disclose any conflicts of interest prior to voting in Round 2 & Round 3.

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I will NOT be voting for:

  • L2Beat (investor)
  • Polynya (obviously)

PS, Nov 2023: Same applies for RPGF#3

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For the RPGF2, I currently have some degree of involvement for the following projects nominated:

  • Smock: built by Wonderland, currently occupying as researcher for the company.

  • SEED LATAM: being part of the core team and delegate for this governance in behalf of the whole community.

  • Optimism en Español: as an external contributor.

Therefore, I will not vote for these projects.

For retroPGF3, I will not vote for:

  • Wonderland

  • SEED LATAM

  • Optimism en Español

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Originally posted in Discord This posts includes minor edits

I nominated TE Academy for RPGF2 as a former study group lead and student I have completed the Token Engineering Fundamentals Program

During the first cohort (October 22) NFT certification was free, for myself and other students. Since 1 Mar 2023, the online course remains free to study but certification NFTs are now paid for (~ $249 per module OR $929 for full course 5 modules) as a path to sustainable course development.

If funded under RPGF2 I understand from the submitted application that OP would be used to provide current and future scholarships for students to reduce or cover the cost of NFT certification

I currently have a three-month contract totalling $3000 USD (Jan Feb Mar) to help establish a writers guild within the academy, as a potential path for students to contribute as copywriters to reduce/cover the cost of certification.

It is unlikely that the current contract is extended due to the extent of time further volunteered, currently bandwidth is limited and I still need to cover living costs. I do however hope to continue to support TE Academy. This is not yet up for discussion as establishing the writer Guild infrastructure, policy and process is still WIP

As a former student, I would not benefit directly from RFPG2 scholarships. However, supporting public goods, and especially education is a primary focus for me. I recognise this makes me biased towards education however I am committed to the code of conduct and will make a professional and unbiased review of each proposal prior to voting.

Does this amount to a COI that would prevent me from voting in support of TEAcademy? Accept the need to abstain if necessary in this case. This is the only possible COI that I am currently aware of.

The only response to date here indicates this is not a conflict of interest that would prevent me from voting, and in my experience with COI where disclosure is provided, I believed so too…

Additional advice is that

Under this terminology, I clearly should not vote for TE Academy. As per the 2023 Roadmap the certification NFTs are intentionally tied to reputation as a means of building industry credentials.

Extending the common meaning of COI to encompass web3 reputation - when web3 is just beginning to quantify and account for the value of reputation - and as a basis to NOT vote seems imo a step too far.

For another example, I would say that as Citizen House badge holders we all now have a reputational stake in Optimism which all nominees are working to advance. Under this definition of COI, it could be argued that a reputational stake in Optimism is grounds to question many more votes that would typically be legitimate, provided disclosure.

Unless further discussed and clarified I will abstain from voting although with some disappointment because during the period being funded (~ Nov 22 - Jan 22) I was simply one of the many students that benefited from the free online TE Fundamentals course

Would greatly appreciate some additional perspectives on this…

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I will NOT be voting for:

  • EthernautDAO (founder)
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I will not vote for diligit (myself)

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I will not vote on projects that I am directly associated with:

  • L2BEAT
  • dEth / TypeChain
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I will not vote for:

  • rotki (am the founder)
  • safe (am an investor)
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I will not vote for:

  • Account Abstraction / ERC-4337 / Infinitism (I’m a co-author/builder)
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I don’t know if my opinion counts anything here, but I believe your interpretation is a bit too strict here. I personally think you voting for TE Academy would be all right here.

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Thank you for taking the time to respond to my request for input /discussion. I value both your perspective and the time taken to share and the opportunity to respond w where I’ve landed on this since original disclosure. I would love to vote for TEAcademy hence the nomination and under a typical COI I would confidently vote, having disclosed the situation.

However, for me, reputation is another matter entirely to simple interest. It’s much more than NFTs and a current contract. Reputation is me. My sense of reputation is intrinsic to who I am, it’s not determined by an NFT, nor how I am portrayed or sometimes perceived.

Reputation = Me = Values

Now I recently learned my values present an open attack vector. But attacks do not change who I am nor the values on which I operate - integrity, service, collaboration, excellence, gratitude, solutions, transparency, accountability, faith…values I consistently try to live by and upon which my reputation stands.

I always invest my reputation where I work because my values are the basis with which I choose where to invest my time and talent. I volunteer and contract w TEAcademy I can’t subtract reputation without removing myself. Maybe this is naive &/or ego, hence the attack vector idk it is what it is…

I abstain also because I trust others might also recognise some value in TEAcademy teaching the ethical responsibilities, rigour and discipline of token engineering via free education and OP scholarships. Happy to trust the wisdom of other optimistic citizens on this. Que cera cera

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GM

My Disclosures:

I founded:
Giveth
Commons Stack
Praise
Pairwise

So I won’t be voting for any of the above projects.

I hold tokens in
BanklessDAO
Gitcoin

So I will give them both a smaller allocation than I other wise would because of my bias

I am good friends with people on the teams of:
Rotki
TE Academy
Trueblocks
Goerli
Gashawk
Kernal
Optimism DAppNode Package
Week in Ethereum News
Erigon
dm3
Lodestar
Nimbus
Blobscan

I have no direct financial stake in the orgs mention above in this section, but I also have insight into the value they provide, so I will be careful to check my bias and only give these projects the rewards they deserve.

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UPDATE: I have completed my three-month contract with TE Academy, and on request for the final invoice, I was reminded that I also agreed to retroactive funding for work on fundraising equivalent to 5% remuneration of funds raised with the maximum capped at the 50k (= 2500). On review of the delegate code of conduct, I note the clause on no self-deal

Retroactive funding for fundraising is not related to the Token House delegation.
I am reminded now that my own retroactive funding would stem directly from the RFPG2 allocation and seek to disclose this in advance of sending an invoice.

As per agreement with TE Academy founder, in addition to my paid contract, retroactive funding was available for work in regard to fundraising. I have worked on multiple draft proposals but specific to Optimism, the work included

  • Provision of consultancy framework for Brand Identity
  • Collation & copywriting of key messages
  • Assessment of 22 potential funding opportunities
  • Identified & prioritised Optimism RPGF2
  • RFPG2 nomination
  • Draft RFPG2 application
  • Retroactive Public Goods Funding = 57.5k OP :heart:

As stated above, I abstained from voting due to a conflict of interest. I was cognizant of only the paid contract and reputational investment at the time of initial disclosure. I now recognise that I have the opportunity to benefit directly from the RFPG2 funding allocation.

I intend to request 2500 OP for use as an active governance participant. I trust this Conflict of Interest was fairly mitigated by my decision to abstain but keen to hear from anyone that feels that could constitute a breach of the code of conduct - as I would prefer the efforts to be pro-bono than jeopardise the opportunity to participate here.

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I serve as a mentor for the Grateful public goods project through the EthernautDAO. Although I’m not an investor, I’ve chosen to abstain from voting on it.

Still, I’d encourage other badgeholders to consider it when casting their votes.
Grateful Project

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I will not be voting for the the following projects:

  1. Hats Protocol — I am a cofounder
  2. Seneschal — built with Hats Protocol and I want to avoid all possibility of conflict of interest
  3. Public HAUS — I am a Champion (aka delegate) and was a core contributor to DAOhaus for multiple years

I will update this post if I learn of additional submissions about which I may have conflicts of interest.

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I will not be voting for:

  • Cryptoversidad (founder)
  • Ethereum Mexico (part of the core team)

I will update this post if I learn of additional submissions about which I may have conflicts of interest.

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I will not vote for:

  • Defi-lab.xyz (contributor)
  • Projects that received a grant from the Uniswap Foundation (as I am part of the Uniswap Foundation Grants team)
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I will not vote for:

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I will not vote for:

  • NumbaNERDs (Contributor)
  • Messari (Former Employer)
  • Raho/Tnorm (Myself)
  • Rabbithole (Current Employer (as of 12/04/2023))

Edit 12/06/2023:
Disclosed Rabbithole as a CoI. I will not be voting for Rabbithole in RPGF3 as I’ve recently joined the Rabbithole team.

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I will not vote for the Lyra Research Collective as I am one of the authors, and I will not vote for the Synthetix Proposals since I am an elected Synthetix Ambassador.

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