Dear members of Permanence DAO,
We have announced our conflict of interest (CoI) policy following the receipt of our Decentralized Voices (DV) delegation on the 27th of March, 2025. The definition of the policy, published on the Permanence DAO Twitter account, is as follows:
As part of its conflict of interest policy, Permanence DAO will abstain from using the voting power granted through the DV delegation on any proposal that directly or indirectly benefits any of its members.
While direct benefit includes the cases where a member is the proponent of a proposal, indirect benefit occurs when a member has a financial affiliation with the proposing organization, has a partnership with a beneficiary, or holds a stakeholder position in a beneficiary.
The policy above was agreed upon by members in an internal poll held on the Permanence DAO private Telegram channel on the 16th of March, 2025, with 7 aye votes. This proposal aims to formalize the policy with the signed votes of the members and to define the complementary terms to the policy as follows:
Any member who has a direct or indirect financial or business interest, as defined by the policy text above, in any Polkadot or Kusama proposal to be voted on by Permanence DAO must disclose the conflict of interest prior to the on-chain submission of the proposal.
If a member enters business negotiations with the proposer during the on-chain decision or confirmation periods of a proposal, they must immediately inform the DAO, so that the DAO can activate its policy to protect itself and the DV delegation from conflicts of interest.
Any member with sufficient evidence of another member violating the conflict of interest policy or the additional terms listed above may initiate an internal referendum for the demotion of the violating member from voting member to general member, effectively removing their voting rights within Permanence DAO. A simple majority with 80% participation shall be required for the decision.
The rationale behind this proposal is twofold:
- To prevent the DV delegation granted by the Web3 Foundation from providing disproportionate business advantage to the members of Permanence DAO over the wider community of business actors in Polkadot and Kusama.
- To prevent DAO members from being lobbied by a potentially violating member toward a biased opinion on referenda and proposers.
This proposal does not define a policy for the critical case of a member entering into business negotiations with a proposer after the submission of the first on-chain AYE vote including the DV delegation voting power. This condition shall be discussed by the members during the first two weekly calls following the submission of this internal referendum. Another internal referendum for amendment may be initiated by members where necessary.
Please vote at your convenience. Members and the wider community are welcome to suggest additions or amendments.
Kind regards.
