Governance

THE CONI FOUNDATION

The Foundation is a delegated and decentralized organization that governs the CONI DAO. It is tasked with managing the decision-making process of the DAO and is responsible for day-to-day administration, project management, and other tasks that ensure the DAO community’s ideas have the support they need to become a reality.

The foundation's mission is to facilitate the mass adoption of $CONI, building a community that grows in size and diversity over time. The vision is to create an ecosystem where the holders can build together around $CONI through open and permissionless governance processes.

THE DAO

Blockchain-based networks cannot be managed by traditional centralized governance structures like corporations. They require a new type of community democracy that is transparent, fair, and inclusive to be scalable and sustainable. That's why CONI DAO exists and is critical to the success of the CONI ecosystem.

The CONI Proposal Process will allow DAO members to make decisions regarding Ecosystem Fund (Treasury) allocations, governance rules, current and upcoming utilities, partnerships, and beyond. CONI DAO membership is open to all Coniun Pass NFT collection holders. Coniun Pass NFT is the governance token of the CONI ecosystem.

THE PROPOSAL PROCESS

The DAO follows a proposal process to vote on how the Ecosystem Fund will be distributed, what major changes will be developed for the current utilities, the priority of the upcoming utilities, and delegating and deciding the new members for the foundation to promote a diverse and self-sustaining ecosystem.

PARTICIPATION

Participating in idea submission, commentary, and proposal submission is restricted to the $CONI token, Coniun Pass NFT collection, and ERA NFT collection holders.

Participating in voting is restricted to the DAO members (Coniun Pass NFT collection holders only).

COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

Discord: Discord is the first stop for all proposals. $CONI holders, ERA NFT collection holders, or Coniun Pass NFT collection holders must go through a wallet authentication process to submit ideas or give feedback. Ideas will be submitted on a ticket in Discord and must receive confirmation from a moderator before it appears to the community. After confirmation, a dedicated Discord channel will be created, and the idea will be shared by a moderator while declaring who submitted the idea. There is a 6-hour slowdown on those channels to make it easier to keep up with the feedback.

Snapshot: Snapshot is used for voting. Proposal drafts that have passed their respective approval processes become available for voting on Snapshot. DAO members must go through a wallet authentication process to vote.

PROPOSAL CATEGORIES

Ecosystem Funds (Treasury): Proposals for how DAO should utilize the treasury in order to make the best use of it.

Brand Decision: Proposals for any partnership the DAO will make on marketing or product development.

Structure: Proposals for improving the Tier & Utility Gems system, Buy-back & Burn mechanism, decision-making process, delegating new members for foundation and beyond.

Utilities: Proposals for improving the current utilities or suggesting new utilities to be built.

PROPOSAL TEMPLATE

A proposal should include the following:

• Abstract - Two or three sentences that summarize the proposal.

• Motivation - A statement on why the CONI Community should implement the proposal.

• Rationale - An explanation of how the proposal aligns with the CONI Community’s mission and guiding values.

• Key Terms (optional) - Definitions of any terms within the proposal that are unique to the proposal, new to the CONI Community, and/or industry-specific.

• Specifications (If any) - A detailed breakdown of the platforms and technologies that will be used.

• Steps to Implement - The steps to implement the proposal, including associated costs, manpower, and other resources for each step where applicable.

• Timeline - Relevant timing details, including but not limited to start date, milestones, and completion dates.

• Overall Cost - The total cost to implement the proposal.

PROPOSAL PHASES

PHASE 1: IDEA

An idea should be submitted in a ticket in Coniun's Discord server and receive moderator approval that it complies with DAO-approved guidelines. If the idea does not comply with the guidelines, the moderator will provide reasons, and the author can resubmit the idea in the future by making the necessary changes.

PHASE 2: FEEDBACK

After approval, a dedicated channel will be created, and the moderator will post the idea as the first message. The person or people submitting the idea will be referred to as the author or authors. For seven days, the community can share feedback about the idea. If the author wants to propose changes, they must do so via comments.

PHASE 3: DRAFT

Once the feedback period is done, the moderator will send the Proposal Template to the author. The author will have 30 days to make the necessary changes according to the feedback they got and finalize the template. After 30 days without any response, the process will be canceled.

PHASE 4: FOUNDATION REPORT & APPROVAL

When the Foundation gets the finalized proposal template, it will start preparing a report considering the following; the project's costs and requirements, roadmap, deadline, and legal conflicts. It will also consider other proposals in the voting period and proposals that have been approved in the past 90 days.

If the Foundation believes the proposal doesn't require any improvement or correction, it will be marked as Ready for Voting.

Otherwise, the Foundation may reject the proposal considering the following;

• Cost to implement is unclear or not able to be calculated

• Would use more than 5% of the DAO treasury

• Conflicts with another proposal

• Proposal conflicts with the mission/values of the DAO

• Proposal conflicts with the well-being of the DAO

• Violations of law, or against the advice of counsel for the Foundation

• Reasonable suspicion of fraud or other misleading information

Rejected Proposals need to be started the process from the beginning.

PHASE 5: LIVE

Drafts that have passed their respective approval processes will become Live Proposals on Snapshot during the next Weekly Release, which is when new proposals are released in batches Mondays at 1PM UTC. Once live on Snapshot, Live Proposals are open to voting until Weekly Voting Close, which is at 1PM UTC on the Sunday following their release. Moderators are the only ones that can post proposals to Snapshot because they must confirm that each one has gone through the correct approvals process.

PHASE 6: Final Decision

If a Live Proposal has more in favor votes than against votes, it will move to Implementation. In all other cases, it won't be approved and will be eligible for resubmission.

PHASE 7: Implementation

For Accepted Final Proposals, implementation will begin based on the steps outlined in the proposal template. The Foundation is responsible for ensuring this happens but is not necessarily responsible for doing it themselves.

VOTING

Voting Mechanism

Snapshot was chosen as a voting tool that:

• doesn’t require gas payment

• ensures transparency

• expands governance participation to all DAO members

Voting Process

• Moderators post proposals to Snapshot after ensuring that each one has gone through the correct approvals process. New proposals are posted every week on Mondays at 1 PM UTC. This is when the six-day voting window opens as well.

• DAO members vote on Snapshot. One Coniun Pass NFT is equal to one vote. The voting options for a live proposal are “In favor” and “Against.” Voting “In favor” means the voter is in favor of implementing the proposal exactly as-is. Voting “Against” means the vote is against implementing the proposal exactly as-is.

• The voting for each proposal in each weekly batch will be open for voting for six days, closing at 1PM UTC on the following Sunday.

• Proposals that receive a majority “In favor” vote are moved into implementation. In any other case, proposals will be rejected, and the author should start the process from the beginning if they'd like to resubmit after making changes.

Voting Delegation

DAO members have the ability to delegate their vote. DAO members can delegate their vote to another DAO member that they consider to be a trusted subject matter expert.

GENERAL GUIDELINE

• Every year, there is a DAO-wide vote to determine which DAO members will serve on a special council of the CONI Foundation. The purpose of the Council is to administer DAO proposals and serve the vision of the community. This initial council will only serve one year.

• A Council member may be removed and replaced prior to the term’s end pursuant to a majority vote of token holders.

• The total cost of implementation must be clear in order for a proposal to go to vote.

• DAO members must search past proposals to ensure any idea they intend to write a proposal for has not already been submitted.

• If a suggested proposal directly conflicts with a proposal that is currently up for vote, the second proposal should not go for a vote until a decision is made on the first proposal to avoid approval of opposing requirements.

• A suggested proposal that directly conflicts with another approved proposal cannot go to vote for three months after the original proposal has been implemented to avoid wasting community assets.

• Proposals will not be put up for a vote if they involve illegal activity, hate speech, pornographic material, or are at odds with the mission or values of the CONI Foundation.