LIP-20 Governance, Structure and Branding

Authors: Lu, Ani

Date Created: 23rd January, 2024

RECOGNITION

We have spoken with numerous advisors and other projects about governance, structure and legal entities/ Special thanks to Vic, Edu, Lawyr.eth, and others that have pointed us to key resources. For branding, a lot of credit goes to Andrew and his team at Not Corrupt Media that worked with us each step of the way to develop the new branding, as well as Gabriel, Michael and Justin from the lizard creative team for the actual logo design works.

ABSTRACT

This document proposes to update the sub-DAO and governance structures for Partnerships and Community sub-DAOs into a combined "Gaming Sub-DAO"; In addition it proposes to update the project branding to Lizard Labs as the overarching entity with Ethlizards brand remaining as a sub-brand.

MAIN CHANGES

Partnerships and Community sub-DAOs are merged into a single entity called the Gaming sub-DAO.

The Gaming sub-DAO would use Lizcoin ($LIZ) as the sole governance token and would use a quadratic voting mechanism. (Elemental Lizards would no longer have governance utility).

Change the overarching project branding to Lizard Labs; Ethlizards branding will remain for the Portfolio sub-DAO and collections.

RATIONALE

Sub-DAO Structure and Governance

After much discussions with potential partners, it does not appear separate sub-DAOs for partnership and community activities makes sense and would create unnecessary complexity. The currently planned product vision means partnerships and community activities will always be linked. The original intent for a separate Partnership sub-DAO was for more active participation of partners with Ethlizards. However, experience has shown this will work better in a 1:1 relationship with Lizard Labs rather than as a group in a sub-DAO with other partners. At some point in the future, a broader strategic partnership/joint venture structure is envisioned but the framework should be more fully developed first.

Merging the Partnership and Community sub-DAOs into a single Gaming sub-DAO with Lizcoin as the governance token also allows gamers to be able to use Elemental Lizards as the identity, upgradable characters, and battle pass NFTs they are interested in and not worry about governance voting. No additional councils will then need to be created. The community retains direct voting on governance issues related to the Gaming sub-DAO governance. Quadratic voting is an accepted industry standard that would support further democratized voting.

Branding

The Portfolio Sub-DAO along with the Genesis, Venture, and eventually Champion Ethlizards will all retain Ethlizards branding in honor of the project’s origins.

As a project, everyone involved loves the Ethlizards brand. The brand logos, name and holders are well-known across the industry, particularly as GameFi investors and as builders and OGs in the sector.

However, Ethlizards is the most misspelled brand in the space, often being written incorrectly as ETHlizards, ETH Lizards, EthLizards or some other funky way. The logo (with the Eth symbol) is not commonly known outside of very knowledge Web3 natives. The Eth naming convention (inspired by Ethereum) for the branding made a lot more sense when the project was a small ETH NFT only degen and meme project. Now it has grown well beyond that scope and a fresh branding would serve the DAO to better reach the mainstream. Additionally, while many of our partners are on Ethereum, the majority are on L2s, and some are even on different L1s and we need to remain chain agnostic as a project to ensure we can find the best games in Web3.

Lizard Labs would become the name of the overarching entity.

Marketing and branding specialists have assisted to create the Lizard Labs branding, brand script, logos and more. There is a consistent tie in with the lore, other ecosystem naming conventions, and overall cohesion to relate to the larger public of gamers and business partners as Lizard Labs. In addition an updated logo and branding allows for high quality motion branding and will help to elevate Lizard Labs as a premium brand in the industry.