Decentralized Beginnings: the ndau Collective and the BPC
“Blockchain governance” refers to the process of making decisions that apply to all participants within a cryptocurrency protocol. Rules are created, voted on, ratified, and implemented through various governance procedures. Historically, weak governance in cryptocurrencies has led to uncertainty and stagnation which, in turn, has resulted in deteriorating confidence and increased price volatility as confusion begets panic.
Since good governance is a key factor in the healthy growth of any blockchain, the ndau Collective designed and deployed a decentralized ecosystem for ndau’s self-governance called the Blockchain Policy Council (BPC). The BPC provided decentralized governance and updates to ndau’s operating policies via delegates elected by all holders of ndau and public votes on referendums. At the core of the BPC’s design was the concept of weighted voting via different classes of ndau stakeholders designed to maximize decentralization for the benefit of all ndau holders (see page 6 of the ndau whitepaper for details).
Decentralized Evolution: the BPC DAO
The BPC has provided decentralized decision making since the beginning of ndau, and part of the BPC’s efforts has always been to look for new opportunities to make ndau’s decentralized decision making as efficient as possible. In 2022, the BPC investigated new technologies that allow the creation of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), enabling internet-native decentralized organizations to be fully owned and managed by their members with all decisions made via public proposals and online voting without the need for any elected delegates. As a result of the referendum vote on March 31, 2022, the BPC evolved into the BPC DAO.
As a DAO, the BPC DAO is an entity led by the community of all ndau holders. All BPC DAO decisions are made from the bottom-up, using an automated and weighted voting system based on the principles outlined in the ndau whitepaper, and thereby governed by a distributed community organized around a specific set of rules enforced on a decentralized and open source blockchain.
Oneiro, as directed by the Axiom Foundation, began work on April 1, 2022 to develop and deploy an automated voting system for the BPC DAO. This involved a major update to the ndau wallet app to integrate WalletConnect (an Open Source web3 communications protocol) and as well as building a new Web3-based voting portal that all ndau holders could securely connect to using their ndau wallet app in order to submit new proposals and vote on existing proposals using a weighted voting system based on how much ndau they hold and their currency seat status as described in the ndau whitepaper. Both the WalletConnect-enabled ndau wallet app and the BPC DAO Voting portal were completed in November 2022. A BPC DAO Discord is also available for all ndau holders and the general public.
Decentralized Future: web3 and DeFi
The integration of WalletConnect in the ndau wallet app positions ndau as a fully web3-app compatible wallet, enabling future integration with decentralized web3 projects and protocols. In addition to ndau holders voting on and submitting BPC DAO proposals, WalletConnect also provides the ability to securely prove ownership of any ndau address and cryptographically sign messages for any authentication purpose. This gives all ndau holders the ability to securely interact with future ndau platforms such as wrapped ndau, DeFi bridges and Ethereum-based smart contracts.
As the global field of cryptocurrencies continues to advance technologically, so too will the BPC DAO continue to leverage new innovations and decentralized governance for the benefit of all ndau holders.