Thesis:

The first version of the whitepaper.

Description:

See below.

ChicagoDAO White Paper v0.0.1

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1: Vision

Mission Statement

Bring together members of the University of Chicago interested in Web3 and digital assets to:

1. (Hub) Develop and attract educational, academic, research, and professional opportunities;
2. (Sandbox) Promote and support innovation and experimentation;
3. (Bridge) Create the connective tissue between the UChicago community and Web3;
4. (Catalyst) Put the University of Chicago on the map as a pioneer by collectively advancing and shaping the future of Web3;

Values

1. Community: Bring together different perspectives and backgrounds from all schools to build a strong UChicago web3 ecosystem.
2. Web3 Exploration: Utilize web3 technologies to encourage transparent collaboration that embodies honesty, openness, and fairness.
3. Education: Make knowledge accessible to all and promote an ethos of creating-in-order-to-learn and learning-in-order-to-build.
4. Innovation: Create and explore new products and ideas.

About

ChicagoDAO is a Decentralized Organization created in the Spring of 2022 that unites the University of Chicago’s Blockchain Organizations across its various schools.

2: Community

Onboarding

Please see Notion Proposal found at the bottom of the page for graphic.

The Proposal Period is the time in which students from the schools at the University of Chicago can argue for their membership into Chicago DAO. This process will take place via Notion in which students can complete a one-page analysis detailing why they should become members.

Time: Begins after the last proposal period ends. See figure 1.

Education Period

The Education Period is the time in which the Internal Operations Team educates the cohort on the fundamentals of the DAO. Prospective members should be allowed into the discord where they can learn the synergies of the DAO. At the end of the Education Period, cohort members select working groups that they would like to join for the Testing Period.

Time: 2 Weeks. Begins after Proposal Period. See figure 1.

Training Period

After the Education Period, a two-week test period will begin in which a member begins contributing to each working group of their choice. Which group they contribute to and what they contribute should be documented by the Internal Operations Team via Notion.

Time: Two weeks. Begins after the Education Period. See figure 1.

Revision Period

There should be one dead week before the process begins again. During this week, changes to the process, documentation, and general improvements should be made.

Time: 1 Week. Begins after the Training Period. See figure 1.

Full Onboarding Proposal

On Boarding

Community management

The members of ChicagoDAO use the following platforms for managing communtiy

1. Discord: communication and community building
2. Notion: Information management and storage
3. Populus (under construction): Governance and managing project

3: Structure

Working groups

1. Working groups are a classifier for projects. There is no set hierarchy within a working group, but there may unique prerequisites for joining a project in each working group. New working groups can be created with a proposal.
2. List of current working groups
   1. Internal Ops
   2. Outreach
   3. External Gov
   4. Trading/Quant
   5. Research
   6. Development

Projects

1. Projects are the building blocks of the DAO. Anyone can propose a project through the standard proposal process. Each project needs to have 1 - 5 people responsible for the execution of the project. Each Project’s leads can add or remove people as they see fit as long as they fit the requirements of the working group. Leads are selected in the initial proposal and can be added or removed via proposal. Compensation for project completion is to be figured out later.

4: Governance

Proposal process

Internal governance is built around the proposal process. Currently, only core team members can participate in the proposal process and each member has a 1:1 vote to the other members on the team.

The governance process is broken up into four parts

1. Proposal Period - This is the time which Proposals can be created and submitted. Once submitted, a proposal will be evaluated by the community during the Temperature Check period. The Proposal Period starts Monday and ends on on Friday night. If a proposal is created after Friday night, then it is sent to proposals for the following week. No proposals that are created after Friday can be implemented the same week.

2. Temperature Check - The purpose of the Temperature Check Period is provide feedback on proposals that have been created in the proposal thread. This is in order to maximize probability that a proposals will pass as well as garner complete understanding of proposals. Any minor suggestions to proposals should be made in the thread created, NOT during the Core Team Vote.

3. Core Team Vote - Before the meeting on Sunday, Snapshot proposals will be created for each proposal that gathered the required votes during Temperature Check. These proposals will include a link to the discussion thread, the proposal in notion, as well as an ipfs that will allow for better documentation of the proposal.

   Core Team Votes are simple, yes or no votes on entire proposals. Because of the Temperature Check Period, proposals no longer need to be broken into smaller sections. Any specific concerns should be voiced during the Temperature Check.

   A 2/3 quorum is required to pass a proposal.

Governance Goals

• Allow everyone in the DAO to participate in governance - complete decentralization.
• Introduce variable governance levels.

5: Treasury / Legal

501c3 and other entity

Currently we are pursing a nonprofit foundation format. Liability, banking, and other topics related to legal are still under progress.

On-chain Treasury

Gnosis Safe is used to manage our on-chain assets. Three core-team members currently hold access to the multisig, each representing a different school on campus (Booth, Law, The College).

Risks:

None.

Timeline:

Today.

Notion Proposal: https://www.notion.so/chicagodao/White-Paper-v0-0-1-49170f4d36574333956bc3a3a6a3408f