Cabin Governance

[jon]

Cabin Governance

Cabin is a global community working together to build a network of neighborhoods. It’s run by its members, who collectively make decisions about how the organization operates and grows.

Cabin members earn ₡ABIN tokens by contributing to the community. These tokens give them the right to vote on important decisions. The more you contribute, the more influence you can have.

Here’s how governance at Cabin works:

1. People create proposals
2. We vote on them
3. Contributor pods are formed
4. Treasury money is distributed
5. We build our network city

1. People create proposals

Cabin members can propose, deliberate, and vote on initiatives that influence Cabin’s operations, finances, and future development. Any member holding or delegated at least 1000 ₡ABIN tokens can create a proposal. You can learn more about how proposals work here: How to Draft a Proposal

Proposals are shared through this forum (⚙️ DAO Proposals - Cabin), where they are discussed by the community before moving to a formal vote. Proposals must be live on the forum for at least 7 days before being moved to a vote. This deliberation period allows members to raise questions, suggest changes, or express support or concerns.

2. We vote on them

Once a proposal has been adequately discussed and refined, it is moved to Snapshot, our voting platform, where ₡ABIN token holders can cast their votes. Voting runs for 7 days, allowing all eligible participants time to vote.

Ownership of ₡ABIN tokens grants members voting rights, enabling them to have a say in proposals. You can learn more about the token here: ₡abin

Voting at Cabin is a bit different than most voting you’ve probably participated in:

1. Voting at Cabin is non-binary; voters can allocate their vote in any ratio they’d like to “Yes” or “No”. This allows more nuance than binary voting.
2. You can either vote with your tokens or delegate them to someone else who you trust to represent you in votes.
3. We vote using Quadratic Voting, a system designed to balance the influence of large and small token holders. In other words, the amount of votes you have is the square root of the number of tokens you have. DAO members can only vote from one wallet address on any single proposal. You can see your voting power on the top of your Cabin Census profile.

For example:

1 token = 1 vote
50 tokens = 7 votes
100 tokens = 10 votes
500 tokens = 22 votes
1,000 tokens = 32 votes
10,000 tokens = 100 votes

3. Contributor pods are formed

Most proposals result in distributing funds to a contributor pod—a working group that executes on a specific mission autonomously.

Stewards act as leaders of each pod, driving specific initiatives forward and reporting back to the broader community. They often work with token holders to craft proposals and ensure that key priorities are addressed.

Contributor pods are responsible for managing their budget, providing regular updates on the progress of their initiatives, and delivering results to Cabin. Generally, new contributor pods are funded for 3 months or less, while established pods are often renewed on 1 year cycles.

4. Treasury money is distributed

Cabin keeps its money in a treasury, held on a blockchain called Ethereum. This allows us to use the money in a transparent way. All proposals, proposal discussions, votes, and treasury distributions are transparent to the community. This fosters accountability, as token holders can track how funds are being spent and whether projects are delivering on their promises.

Anyone in the world can see the money in our treasury here: cabindao.eth. As you’ll see if you click the link, Cabin’s treasury contains ₡ABIN tokens, stablecoins, and other cryptocurrencies. It is used to support projects, pay contributors, and fund the development of Cabin’s network city.

Allocating money from the treasury to contributor pods requires a vote, as described above. When a vote passes, it is executed by Cabin’s multi-sig, a group of people who verify and execute transactions. The multi-sig is responsible for verifying that the DAO’s quadratic votes are legitimate and haven’t been subject to sybil attacks or other malicious attempts to take money from the treasury.

Because we collectively govern a treasury on a blockchain, we are known as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). Legally, we are a Wyoming Unincorporated Nonprofit Association. You can read our charter here.

5. We build our network city

Contributor pods funded by Cabin complete missions to grow our network city of neighborhoods and earn money, which goes back into the treasury so that we can reallocate it to new pods and projects. Cabin needs to be financially sustainable in order to accomplish our longer term mission of building a network city.

While Cabin’s governance structure is robust, it is not without challenges. Like other DAOs and governments, it must balance efficiency with decentralization. Cabin is continuously evolving its governance model to address these tensions.

If we can reach financial sustainability and continue to self-govern effectively, we will have a robust, long-term base on which to grow our network city.

[Matai]

Hey @jon, I read through the DAO Charter linked above for the first time, is that the latest version?

I noticed that it didn’t include any language which limits a DAO Member to only voting with one wallet.

Theoretically, someone could use a bot to distribute their Cabin tokens to multiple wallets, with each wallet voting on snapshot, creating a cumulative voting power that would be greater than having all of the tokens in one voting wallet.

Would it make sense to add language in the charter or other enforceable governance docs that aims to proactively address this risk?

While the multi-sig step to have any funds be manually distributed would provide a chance to catch this, a sophisticated attack on the proposal process could make this hard to detect.

Below is some draft potential language from claude that could address this, but i think a few more things to think through are:

• Do DAO members need to be doxxed to vote? as a person or entity?
• Is there any other step to qualify someone as a legit DAO member who holds cabin?
• What would stop someone from giving Cabin to friends and having them vote on their behalf? Wouldn’t delegation of tokens enable this and make it hard to tell who is voting earnestly, vs under the influence of another member?
• How can we tell if a wallet is a real person / entity / DAO member? I think requiring a census page could be cool… but this requires some level of doxxing…

I think the Gitcoin sybil resistance team has done lots of work around preventing quadratic voting attacks… hopefully other DAOs have precedence to address this… I don’t think the risk is high for this… just putting my DAO compliance hat on

Draft Addition to Section III. DAO SHARES & MEMBERSHIP

Add new subsection (f):

(f) Voting Rights and Restrictions

(i) Each DAO Member, being a natural person or entity meeting the eligibility requirements of Section III(b), shall designate one primary wallet address for participation in DAO governance (“Primary Voting Address”).

(ii) DAO Members shall not:

• Vote using multiple wallet addresses in any single proposal or election;
• Distribute tokens across multiple wallets for the purpose of increasing voting power;
• Use automated systems or bots to distribute tokens or submit votes from multiple addresses; or
• Otherwise attempt to circumvent the principle of “one member, one voting power” based on their total token holdings.

(iii) Any votes cast in violation of these restrictions shall be deemed void. Such violations may also result in:

• Cancellation of the violating Member’s DAO Membership Rights;
• Nullification of all votes cast by the violating Member in the affected proposal(s); and/or
• Other remedies as determined by DAO governance.

(iv) Members must attest to compliance with these voting restrictions when participating in governance. The DAO may implement technical measures, including but not limited to identity verification or wallet registration systems, to enforce these restrictions.

(v) Nothing in this section shall prevent a DAO Member from:

• Transferring tokens between wallets for non-voting purposes;
• Updating their Primary Voting Address through proper governance procedures; or
• Maintaining multiple wallets for security or operational purposes, provided only the Primary Voting Address is used for governance participation.

[jon]

hey, @Matai, yes, that is the current and only version of the charter. The charter is designed to create an entity that can provide liability protection for members, file paperwork with the government, enter into contracts, etc. It doesn’t and isn’t intended to cover the detailed implementation of our governance structure.

Programmatically identifying sybil attacks at scale is a very hard (and constantly evolving) problem, but we are still small enough that they are much easier to identify. We have no reason to believe there have been any issues with sybil attacks on the DAO, and vote transparency + the multi-sig are protection layers that can help prevent sybil attacks from being successful.

Thanks for the suggested language. I’ve incorporated some of it into this post to make it clear beyond doubt that sybil attacks are not allowed and members can only vote from one address. @grin has been working on an update to make it easier for people to vote through the app (especially for those who don’t have a self-custodied wallet). Because we have our own identity / passport stamp system, we could theoretically use that for sybil protection in the future if needed.