DLT360/CC: Building Compliant DAOs

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Offer clear guidance on how to incorporate and operate as a compliant DAO in the United States and other jurisdictions. We will create a comprehensive report & map challenges, risks & opportunities from a legal & implementation perspective in our interactive implementation compass (provided by DLT360).

We will push for community contribution and collaboration to build this framework by gathering data through surveys sent to DAO members in both the Cardano ecosystem and broader blockchain ecosystem.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

This proposal will enable DAO creators to understand the challenges, risks and opportunities when wanting to operate their organization/community as a DAO, both from a legal perspective, as well as from a practical implementation perspective.

DLT360 and ClearContracts aim to establish this partnership because of the complementary nature of our strengths and expertise. DLT360’s legal segment includes both senior lawyers with many years of experience in leading international law firms, as well as junior analysts providing in-depth research capabilities. ClearContracts, through building up it’s DAO Management Infrastructure aims to provide practical implementation solutions to organizations and groups that want to create and operate DAOs. Thus, together we aim to provide a full-stack blueprint for DAO management, both from a legal as well as from a practical implementation perspective.

This project will be the beginning of a longer term partnership between ClearContracts and DLT360 to provide legal certainty and practical implementation solutions to the Cardano Community and the broader blockchain world.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Lack of legal certainty:

In many jurisdictions, the main challenge to operating a DAO in a compliant manner is that there is a lack of legal certainty, which means that legislation and case law on this topic has not progressed sufficiently to provide clear answers to legal questions. Some jurisdictions however (such as the United States) have made significant progress in the quest for legal certainty. Where clear answers can be ascertained, we will lay these out in our implementation compass. In cases where we find there is not enough legal certainty to provide clear answers to the questions posed, we will lay out the general considerations and possible framework answers for these jurisdictions. We will also continuously update legislative developments to provide up to date information in our implementation compass.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Week 1: 

Legal: Research United States Jurisdiction

Practical: Data collection survey given to DAO creators to gain insight into how individuals/orgs go about creating DAOs right now

Week 3: 

Legal: Research Hotspot* Jurisdictions (Singapore, Brazil, Cayman islands, etc..)

Practical: Analyze Data collected to recognize trends and common concerns from DAO creators.

Week 7: 

Legal: Research France Jurisdiction

Practical: Summarize the Data in a readable format to communicate findings to community

Week 8: 

Legal: Research Germany Jurisdiction

Practical: Initiate development of an interactive environment that will synthesize the research findings.

Week 10: 

Legal: Research Switzerland Jurisdiction

Practical: Development of interactive environment

Week 12: 

Legal: Synthesize research to find commonalities and differences across jurisdictions

Practical: Beta testers to test the interactive environment to give feedback

Week 14: 

Legal/Practical: Meet with blockchain Lawyers in different jurisdictions to further validate and complement research

The plan is to meet with as many lawyers as possible to validate our research and get further insight into how different jurisdictions are handling regulations of DAOs.

Meet with French lawyer: TBD, we are discussing with Cardashift about the best person to get in contact with here.

Meet with American lawyer: We work with Cogent Law out of Washington D.C.

Meet with Swiss lawyer: As part of the F10 incubation program we have access to many lawyers in Switzerland and will organize a meeting with the correct party.

If anyone know who else we can get in contact with let me know and happy to collaborate.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Research Hours: 

100 (50 /hr)

$5,000

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Development & Implementation hours:  

100 (50 /hr)

$5,000

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Budget for meetings with Lawyers

$2,500

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

DLT360 Legal Segment:

Maury Shenk (Senior Advisor)

Maury Shenk is a senior lawyer and investor, as well as senior advisor at DLT360. Formerly Managing Partner at an International Law Firm in London. Maury holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Stanford University.

Michiel Van Roey (Senior Advisor)

Michiel van Roey is a senior lawyer, co-founder & general counsel of Profila as well as senior advisor at DLT360. Michiel holds a Master of Law from University of Antwerp, University of Bern, and University of Virginia School of Law.

Jonas Weinberger (Team Lead, Legal Analyst)

Jonas Weinberger is team lead and legal analyst at DLT360, as well as research assistant at the Brussels School of Governance.

Further members of the DLT360 team. See: dlt360consulting.com/about

Clear Contracts Practical Segment:

Logan Panchot: Logan is a recent graduate at Stanford University and has been part of the Catalyst community since fund4. Logan is a deep believer in the potential of decentralized organizations to create a better world. At Clarity, Logan is responsible for business operations, community growth, and client adoption.

Justin Schreiner: Justin has a background in Computer Science and is a Plutus Pioneer. At Clarity, Justin is responsible for business operations, talking with users, and implementing improvements to the platform.

Shannon Wu: Shannon is an investor and entrepreneur in the blockchain space. I love working with and investing in transformative technologies in Defi, Big Data, Blockchain, Automation and AI. She was an early team member of MakerDAO and part of the founding team for Bloom Protocol. For Clarity, Shannon advises on go to market strategy, fundraising, and strategic decision making.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Potentially, there might be features we want to add to this proposal that could be funded by catalyst :)

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

• Jurisdictions researched
• Interactions on interactive educational environment we build
• # of Lawyers talked to
• # of DAOs that utilize the research

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

• Jurisdictions researched
• Goal: 6
• Interactions on interactive educational environment we build
• Month 1: 10
• Month 2: 30
• Month 3: 100
• # of Lawyers talked to
• Goal: 5
• # of DAOs that utilize the research
• Month 1: 10
• Month 2: 30
• Month 3: 100

Success for this project means that communities and organizations that want to operate as DAOs have a reputable source to understand the path to operating as a compliant DAO.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is a new proposal, hoping to enable the budding DAO ecosystem on Cardano to prosper further and create real world impact.