The Otonomist - August 2022 OtoCo Governance Introspective

SPECIAL

§ 2OtoCo’s Governance Introspective: The Road To Decentralization and Community Governance

Beyond coin voting:* Non-transferable NFTs to award governance participation could be made equippable, adding *legal powers to your avatar instead of skins and parts. (Courtesy: Chunkies).

We first posted about OtoCo’s proposed governance stack in May 2021, announcing the project as more than a tool for Web3 builders but also an experiment in governance of the “open company of the future” which we are engineering for ourselves as much as for our users.

A second post followed in October 2021, previewing how the OtoCo Foundation was to become the decentralized coordination mechanism for all OTOCO token holders.

In this issue, with OtoCO now a robust toddler, we detail how we see governance work in practice as the project grows.

In Part I, we list our design principles, which depart from the prevailing governance paradigm in a number of significant ways, mainly via the introduction of a non-transferable, meritocratic voting NFT to address what we perceive are key shortcomings of the token-holder-centric governance model.

Part II then measures these principles against OtoCo’s current governance setup to see how far we still have to go.

Finally, in Part III we outline how we plan to get there over the medium term (2 years out).

*Read Part I

PRODUCT UPDATE

§ 3OtoCo’s Soon-To-Launch Tokenized LLC: A Teaser

Shares as tokens:* To anybody who asks what blockchains can actually do, the use case to turn private company stock into tokens held in shareholders’ individual wallets is easily explained (but not so trivial to build…!).

Users of OtoCo have been asking for a long time how to effectively mirror the ownership of their LLCs on blockchain, especially at the stage where they add more Members.

The use case for “shares as tokens” held in shareholders’ individual wallets and trackable on blockchain is easily understood, even by mainstream.

However it is not so trivial to build, since issuing “mirror tokens” has to map the governance logic of a company and the rights and privileges of its Members and Managers in order to maintain legal validity.

In September, OtoCo is set to launch what we call Tokenized LLCs which do exactly that. Read the full post to learn more.

*Read full post

BONUS PIC

§ 4This is How Wall Street Mutants Die

In our June newsletter, we posted about CeFi vs. DeFi or the arrival of “Wall Street mutants” in the digital asset space.

Since, Three Arrows Capital is in liquidation, dragging a number of crypto lending outfits with it, and its principals are in hiding - whilst claiming from their own company as creditors.

Despite its length, the 1,157-page Affidavit by the liquidator holds little news value: a story of greed and deception that could have been authored by Wall Street itself, including a yacht on order and various trophy property purchases allegedly made by money diverted from Three Arrows Capital’s fund.

What is less known is how Three Arrows typically managed the digital asset treasury of the portfolio companies they made VC-type investments in - a new twist on circular capital!

Soon, there’ll probably be the book and then the film, but the Three Arrows Capital saga ultimately teaches us more about human nature than about crypto.

Doing a Houdini:* The deserted and sealed offices of Three Arrows Capital in Suntec Tower One on Temasek Boulevard in Singapore, which its liquidators still have not been able to access after its principals went in hiding.

ANNOUNCEMENT

§ 5¡Nos vemos en Bogotá!

Meet our LatAm devs and Han at DevConVI in Bogotá between 10 and 15 October.

Quoted from the entry

“Just DM @Otonomos on Telegram or join the official Road to OtoCo Telegram channel to connect and meet.”

— Otonomos, 25 August 2022

We’ll swap ideas and swag!

> Next month inThe Otonomist: A closer look at crypto cities and network states, an update on OtoCo’s development and a preview of new functionalities in Otonomos’ client login. As always on the last Thursday of the month.