S.1 Ep.18 Neural Quorum Governance and the Culture of Decentralization with Anke Liu
In this final episode of Governance Futures Season 1, hosts Jamilya and Eugene speak with Anke Liu, Governance Lead at the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), about Neural Quorum Governance — a novel mechanism co-developed with BlockScience to make community funding more equitable, modular, and participatory.As the Ecosystem Growth Lead at the Stellar Development Foundation, Anke Liu (X: anke_g_liu) oversees programs and initiatives catalyzing innovation and expansion of the Stellar Ecosystem, including the Stellar Community Fund and the Stellar Ambassador Program. Her collaboration with BlockScience on the creation of Neural Quorum Governance paves the way for a new standard for reputation-based governance. Anke is driven by a passion for decentralized coordination structures and impactful innovation in Web3.<br> <br>Anke shares how Stellar’s governance evolved from simple community voting into a complex but flexible model balancing reputation, delegation, and trust. The discussion covers privacy vs. transparency, the cultural foundations of decentralization, and what it takes to sustain engagement across bear markets. Anke also reflects on the future of DAO incentives, identity, and the importance of effort and culture in keeping governance systems alive.<br> <br>The episode closes with Anke’s one-word vision for governance: Plural.<br><br>Some of the materials we mention in the episode:<br>1. Stellar: https://stellar.org/2. Stellar Community Fund (SCF): https://communityfund.stellar.org/ 3. Stellar Community Fund Handbook: https://stellar.gitbook.io/scf-handbook/governance/neural-quorum-governance 4. Introducing Neural Quorum Governance: https://blog.block.science/introducing-neural-quorum-governance/ 5. The Story Behind Neural Quorum Governance: https://blog.block.science/the-story-behind-neural-quorum-governance/ 6. The Road Ahead — SCF’s Implementation of Neural Quorum Governance: https://medium.com/stellar-community/the-road-ahead-scfs-implementation-of-neural-quorum-governance-4f44d22fa370 7. NQG Voting Report- https://hackmd.io/@blockscience/ryujino3p 8. Metagov Seminar - On Neural Quorum Governance (Liu): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qVfZq8zJKg <br><br>Timestamps:<br>00:00 – Cold Start<br>00:49 – Introduction: Hosts Jamilya and Eugene open the season finale<br>02:49 – Reflections on Season 1 and setting the stage for Anke’s episode<br>04:40 – Anke’s story: from COVID community organizing to blockchain governance<br>06:42 – Spotting red flags and burnout in community building<br>08:51 – Why genuine communities survive beyond hype cycles<br>09:47 – Origins of Neural Quorum Governance (NQG)<br>10:50 – How neural weighting and quorum delegation work<br>13:11 – Designing NQG with BlockScience and Stellar’s trust-based ethos<br>15:11 – Comparing governance models across ecosystems<br>17:06 – Inside the Stellar Community Fund: panels, reviews, and voting cycles<br>18:48 – The Pathfinder, Navigator, and Pilot system of roles<br>20:35 – Delegate selection, quarterly nominations, and accountability<br>22:44 – Delegation cycles, abstaining votes, and participation rules<br>24:18 – Voting rounds, timing, and flexibility in the SCF process<br>26:45 – Iteration over two years: evolution and $30M in grants<br>28:27 – Adding “neurons” and metrics for voting quality<br>30:20 – Measuring fairness: decentralization and Theil index<br>32:02 – Improving equity and access for newcomers<br>34:23 – Reputation, learning, and how new contributors gain voting power<br>36:15 – Decentralization challenges and trade-offs<br>38:27 – Privacy vs. transparency: the hardest governance problem<br>41:17 – Institutional adoption, privacy demands, and zero-knowledge tech<br>44:35 – Balancing delegate protection and verifiability<br>47:51 – Enterprise privacy vs. open decision-making<br>49:43 – Identity, Proof of Humanity, and reputation layers<br>51:54 – Culture as the heart of governance systems<br>55:51 – Rethinking decentralization and the end of the foundation era<br>58:02 – Open infrastructure, transparency, and credible neutrality<br>59:52 – Dece
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Transcript
Like, without pizza or, like, a fancy venue, only the core community members really showed up. We've actually have still, like, core community members from, like, ten years ago. And I think, like, that really shows that, like, long term commitment.
Commitment. We also wanted, like, flexibility, like, for, like, limited time and domain expertise to really, prevent, like, voter advocacy. And I think it's important to keep them in mind so it doesn't lead to, like, burnout of people feeling like, oh my god. I thought this community was this genuine, but then I tried and it was just, like, a whole big covered rug pull scheme.
What is the role that culture plays when it comes to
actualizing these technical mechanisms? Culture is everything. I mean, obviously, blockchains are trustless systems, but really, like, they're they're tools that can allow us to trust each other more.
Hello. Hello. And this is governance futures. And this is a very special episode because we spent this season asking how governance can evolve from DAOs, institutions, and our everyday lives. And this is our final episode featuring uncle Leo. Eugene, how did you feel after our conversation, and what are your thoughts as this is the closing episode for our season one?
Yeah. First off, it's just bearing so much fun, you know, getting to do this one season and a variety of conversations that we've had ranging from more theoretical to folks who are much more focused on the industry side. And, you know, I feel like this conversation with Anka got to touch on both of those sides where, you know, some of the focus of the conversation was around this neural quorum governance model that they use within SDF or Stellar Development Fund. And, you know, that was developed in conjunction with the block science crew, so it definitely has some, you know, academic and research flavor to it. I remember the first time I read through it, it, it would definitely felt complex like a a proper research idea, in a positive sense. And, yeah, I'm just glad we got to talk to Anke about it and highlight some of their work because, you know, I do think what, she and the team over at SDF have done, has been tremendously impressive, in terms of how they structure the flow and journey for grantees, how they actually have this, you know, neural quorum governance system in place, and they continue to iterate on it. And I think it just shows a deep commitment to decentralization and community involvement. It's really encouraging to see also in, you know, given the specific trends of this year. So, yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation, and this felt like such a a good, and neat placeholder for the end of season one as we go off into brainstorming and kind of figuring out exactly what we're gonna do with season two. So, yeah, I guess, Jamila, how did you feel about the conversation? And, yeah, would, would be good to hear some of your thoughts as we start thinking about the future of GovFutures beyond our first season.
Yeah. I agree. It was great to hear about neural quorum governance. Governance framework, I haven't heard, or the motto, I didn't quite was familiar before. And it was, as you said, very interesting to also hear some of the updates from Stellar ecosystem. So if you're interested, I definitely suggest you to listen to this episode. And I think even just outside the Stellar ecosystem and some of the updates, it was great to hear Anki's point on decentralization or, you know, we even touched on, topics of privacy and how to make sure that how do we balance privacy and transparency in our space. I think this episode will be very interesting to everyone who cares about governance. And I also wanted to take a moment to say a huge thank you to everyone who's been listening, thinking with us. And, it's been so great to have all those people who have joined, as guests and all the people who have joined as listeners. And I'm very excited what's the second season, is gonna be like. So, yes, so so many ideas, that we have, and hopefully, we'll be able to, yeah, to realize them. So, yeah, I'm very happy, very grateful, excited as ever. And, before we announce any of the ideas regarding second season, here's to the episode with Anke. Hello, Anke. Thank you so much for joining us today. Let me just go straight with my first question. What is that initially drew you to the topic of community, and how did you end up in blockchain? That would be really cool to know.
Yeah. No. It's it's an interesting story, actually. I I kinda fell into it. So, like, when COVID hit in in 2020, I guess that's already, like, five, six years ago, which is kinda crazy. I started organizing virtual events so we could still engage, with our community and kinda get feedback. You know, and and what really, like, jumped out to me, was that, like, without pizza or, like, a fancy venue, like, only the core community members really showed up, and they become kinda, like, the ethos of of your ecosystem. And so, like, these really are the people who are in it for the long term, for the long ride, really, and that that really matters. And so they're not, like, grifters looking for like a quick grant, they're in it to the end. And seeing that really made me realize, and made me figure out, like, better ways to kind of support them and also give them a real say in how things are decided. And that's when I also realized I really like to enjoy, I really enjoy, designing systems. And so community communities really form everywhere, so they can form by circumstance or by location or by faith or mission. And it's really powerful to kinda see what a collective can do versus, like, any entity or any one individual, and the network effects are real. And so that's when I decided this is actually really interesting, direction to go into.
And what is to your trained eye, what are those red flags that you can just quickly identify when you see this community doesn't seem, like, very genuine or there's, like, potentially, like, so many grifters? What is those things that you're like, this is the checklist. This doesn't
feel like it's gonna actually form into an actual community that cares. Yeah. I mean, you see it with certain, like, incentive and grant programs. Right? If they're only, like, around for, like, that period of time or only around for, let's say, when the the token price is really active, but then leave right after, and you can actually see that also, like, on chain. And in, like, certain, like, products, if you see kind of their their usage basis and, like, their monthly active addresses, like, suddenly, like, significantly drops, you can see that this community is not very sticky, right, by the numbers. And but when when you see, like, communities that have, like, very steady kind of growth, even, like, throughout bear markets or throughout, any type of, like, situations that happen and people really stick around, that's when you know, like, these are, like, really, like, sticky community members. They're in it for the long term and not just for, I guess, like, not just grifters. Yeah.
That's great. Because it's, I think, equally important to community organizers, managers, or people who want to start a rego, but also people who just want to be participants and they're looking for that community. So I think it's very important to have some of those those things. Like, make sure that those are the obvious red flags, and I think it's important to keep them in mind so it doesn't lead to, like, a burnout of people feeling like, oh my god. I thought this community was this genuine, but then I tried, and it was just, like, a whole big, covered rug pull scheme. So that is that is very interesting. Is there any other things that you would maybe recommend to people who are trying to join governance systems or trying to join a particular community so that they should be aware of or have that in the back of their mind? I mean yeah. I mean, like you said, it can be really tricky. Right?
Like, you know, you think you're going into something that looks really promising and it ends up, you know, being very exploitative of its community. And sometimes you you just don't know. It's it's actually quite interesting to look at kind of, like, how long term, like, the community has been and and how, like, consistent kind of with the support, specifically during times when, you know, it doesn't go so great, maybe during bear markets or maybe during times of, like, where, you know, people are just less interested in a particular tech. And that that time, like, really shows if people stick through the end, it it most likely will actually stick to, through longer as well. And so it's been around since, I guess, like, for over ten years now. And so, like, we've actually have still, like, core community members from, like, ten years ago because, like, the Stellar Community Fund was there since 2019. And then we had the Build Challenge before that. And people from the Build Challenge are still in our ecosystem today. And I think, like, that really shows that, like, long term commitment of, and all and also not really riding the hype all the time. So kinda sticking to a vision and and really executing upon it. I think it's really, like, important that, like, communities, like, have a lot of, like, interesting stuff, like, fun stuff, like, the hype, they try out new things, as long as they do have, like, one, I guess, like, core mission or core alignment, that everyone can agree on and kinda stick to. Yeah.
Right. Thank you so much. I'm sure it's very useful to all of our listeners, and I'm also, thinking to myself. Yeah. I definitely should have maybe looked for some of the red flags that you were mentioning in the past when I was just, trying to discover some of the DAOs and participate in them. So that was very helpful. Thank you so much. I wanted to ask you about mural quorum governance. From what we know, it's a voting power attribution that was, designed jointly
by Stellar Foundation and Block Signs. Could you maybe, tell us a little bit of what it is, first of all, and what inspired it? Yeah. Yeah. No. I'll definitely like, I guess maybe we'll start with, what it is, and then maybe I'll I'll kinda lean into, like, what it also inspired by. So so neurocrom governance, it's a combination of neurogovernance and quorum delegation. And, kind of like this the neurogovernance part lets us moderately weigh different inputs, like discord tier, previous voting history, trust assigned by others, and quorum delegation lets you delegate your voting power to the consensus of a small group and not just a single person. So to put this into an example, so for instance, in a, seller community fund round with, let's say, we have 10 projects, I can either vote yes or no on the ones I have a strong view on, or I can delegate, on the ones I don't. And my voting rate is computed, through my Discord rules, voting history, and how many people can trust list me, and the way directly applies to my yes and no votes. And for the delegated ones, it follows the group outcome. So let's say, I've chosen seven delegates, five vote yes, two vote no. Let's say there's a 51%, threshold that's met, then my, weight would go to yes. And so what's different here is that you can buy your way in, like, it's not purely economic. And newcomers have a viable path, to influence. And it's not being, you know, being early isn't the only advantage or, you know, having a lot of tokens is also not an advantage. It could be actually if you wanted to put that as a neuron in the system, but right now we don't have that. So these are inputs as I kinda mentioned. They're really flexible, so communities can decide what really matters for them. And delegation is through a group consensus, so no single actor can run off with kind of lots of delegated power, which kinda avoids the plutocracies, that we see in many, many DAOs as well as kinda like the wrong wrong kind of delegate failure mode. Yeah. And so, like, I think to your second question. Right? What what led to NQG? So it's been around. So SCF, as I mentioned, has been around since, 2019. It evolved actually from earlier from the build challenge, before that. But this was different because it really supported community powered funding. And we tried several different voting approaches, like the recurring issues where, like, civil risk, popularity contest, like, neither worked. Gaining voting to proven individuals avoided some problems, but also required, like, a central authority to handpick them, which doesn't grow or decentralized a core community. And so, also, like, not every everyone knows everything. So some are, like, deep in protocols, other are more, like, product or user focused, and, you know, not everyone has time to vote all the time. So, you know, we collaborated with Block Science to, explain the issues, and then, like, we formulated we wanted to look for a mechanism that distributed access to voting and voting weight, across community members in a fair and transparent, also decentralized way, and also fostered, like, engagement, with the whole system, and by letting members grow their reputation. We also wanted, like, flexibility, like, for, like, limited time and domain expertise to really, prevent, like, voter apathy, which we have seen in pre well, in our voting system and then, our previous voting system and then also other systems, and keep an accessible path for newcomers. And then finally, we really wanted it to be somewhat novel and also, like, be very close to the Stellar ecosystem. So we wanted it to also take, some inspiration in one way or form from Stellar's trust based consensus as well, which worked out actually really nicely in the quorum delegation elements. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Have you seen I guess, like, this is a two way street. So maybe have you seen something, like, similar to it or, like, what inspires you? Yeah. Something that inspired you, when when I explained that.
Yeah. I mean, I'm excited to kinda dig into the, dig into the specifics of it, especially talking about what it was like actually getting rolled out and hearing a little more about that experience. You know, I think that there are maybe different aspects of it used, but I haven't heard of kind of the the exact model that y'all have, created with an SCF used elsewhere. You know, I think the delegating the decision making, I think we, you know, we see versions of that in a lot of ecosystems. Though, interestingly, I was chatting with one group the day before we're recording that's gonna be launching a DAO soon, and they explicitly said, like, we don't want delegated governance. It's gonna be, like, not only do you have to actually own the tokens, but you need to stake a subset of your tokens. So I think, like, that's one interesting design area is, you know, what does the specific of delegations or staking look like? And I think this ethos that you're getting out of this kind of larger community involvement, I mean, the only example that really comes to mind where I've heard it successfully done consistently over time is with Cardano and their review model within the catalyst program specifically. I know, Chris Baird and team there took a lot of time to, specifically design it in a way where, you know, the community wanted to be involved in the review and the keeping accountable and making sure milestones are being met, and, you know, they found a mechanism to enable that. But, yeah, I haven't heard of a group kind of putting all these pieces together. I guess before I follow-up with my next question, Jamila, I don't know. Any other reflections or reactions to that?
No. I haven't heard of anything quite just like this, honestly. Obviously, some of the issues that I think, this, governance mechanism is trying to solve. And just based on previous conversations we had with our guests, there's different approaches to solve, like, it seems like the same issues. So,
very curious, and it seems like so much effort has been put into that. So I'm curious to learn more. But, no, that's definitely not something that I've experienced or come across before. And so to dive a little deeper into into NQG and specifically how what it actually looks like so that, you know, we keep it less theoretical and more actualized and practical in that sense. So day one when you launched the program, right, I guess the governance surface relates to the funding decisions of SCF. Right, is it the selection of projects to get funded, or is it something post funding? So I guess just to help clarify, what was the initial governance surface?
Yeah. I mean, mostly, actually, like, the I mean, like, it's it's actually changed. We have a whole, like, history section on the the Stellar Community Fund, handbook, that you can kind of read through. I'm actually well, I will update it after this podcast as well because I'm in process of updating a lot of documentation. So, by the time this comes out, it will be fully up to date. So you can kinda see, like, what things we have tried and kinda, like, how how panel and how community vote, has run to date. But, specifically, like, the community has been, like, involved in every single part of the decision kind of making. So, like, in panel review, we usually we have definitely different ways. So it's not community vote all the way because community vote can be a bit inefficient sometimes and doesn't usually kind of tell, you know, the the specifics or, you know, the reasoning why they vote, sometimes. Right? So, like, it's really important that you kinda separate that, and we have different, like, filtering mechanisms. So we have, like, initial eligibility review. That's usually done by, just, like, to, like, double check, make sure that there's nothing, like, I don't know, empty submissions or things like that that are very obviously, not meeting the eligibility criteria.
Then And the community is already involved in that initial review?
No. That's, like, the pre the pre panel review. So, like, that's kinda taken care of things that, like, aren't fully filled out or, like, they're, you know, like, empty submissions, things like that. And then, like, mo but most of the submissions, like, they go through, our panel review, which is, there are several community reviewers that we kind of, like, appoint, and they're they they sign up for that. And then, the also, it's different per per category because these are usually, like, also the delegates that will be delegated to in, the community vote section. And so they review all the submissions, pretty thoroughly. And, actually, in SDF, we have a two step process. So they come in through an abstract review where we kind of review the project itself. Mhmm. And if it looks good, it goes it's asked to submit, like, a more deeper submission on technical architecture, which has avoided some of the, I guess, extra work, you know, needed to be done by projects that just don't meet the eligibility criteria. And those submissions are also reviewed by that same, panel, before they go to community votes so that they can kinda add, some comments to the submission. And then when they come in community vote, that's when that process that I just described comes in, where you can either well, there's different tiers in SCF, so you can become a pathfinder or a navigator or a pilot. And and so it's actually like, and and there's no, like, central authority that, like, like, decides that. It's it's based upon if you meet the criteria, which can be met automatically, which is pretty exciting kind of, like, feature that we put in. And the navigators, kind of the top two levels can actually actively vote, and then, like, the top level can actually choose to delegate if they want to or choose to be a delegate if they want to. But all levels can kind of delegate. Yes. And so, like, that's when that kind of system that I just described, goes into play. And then we have our final kind of tally. And then usually, like, where we can very clearly see him. And this is all public, by the way, on the handbook. The top, kind of the top yeses that people felt really strongly about, and kind of was emphasized by that delegation process. And then obviously, like, the the ones that people didn't feel, very strong about. And then there's usually, like, a little middle section that we have, that are kinda, like, a bit more to be discussed because there might be mixed votes. And then usually, like, we bring those back to the delegates and say, hey. Like, these seem like they're they're yeses. These seem like the noes. These seem like to be discussed, proposals. What do you think you want to give any kind of clarity on why, you know, like, voted this way or that way? And then we usually, like, figure out, like, where projects should go. Yeah. Because, like, you know, what it's really meant this is not, like, meant for to be, you know, selecting favorites. What it's really meant for is to approve great builders that can move the ecosystem forward so we have this, like, semi deterministic,
yeah, way of of of voting currently. That's really cool. So one thing to clarify, when you say panel, is that selected by yourself or your team? Is that just random selection from the community? Kind of how does the the panel actually come together?
Yeah. The panel that initially kind of, like, selects the abstracts and and reviews the submissions. Right? Yes. So they are actually the delegates. So they so delegates, actually, they can be, that's, like, the highest kind of tier in SCF that you can get. So they're they're part of the pilots, but, because, obviously, this requires a bit of time. They are being, like, compensated, of course. But, like, people need to have the time to be able to do that. So they usually, what what will happen is that every quarter, we have kind of a delegate selection vote. And so, like, people nominate themselves to be a delegate, and then we actually, like, run just one round for people to actually delegate to people. And then depending also, like, on, like, the needs that we usually have. So for applications, we have a bit more because we have more more applications, so we need a bit more support. But we usually, like, either select kind of the top, like, six or, like, if we need more, like, we decide to, like, top eight. And recent rounds, we needed so many many more people. Like, we've just let them all in because, like, sense, for us. Yeah. So that it it's a that's that in of itself is also a community,
voted process. Yeah. Interesting. And so it sounds like for those delegates, it's a quarterly commitment if you get kind of brought into that. Right? And so how does, undelegating work? I know one of the challenges in a lot of delegated systems is that if a bunch of people delegate it to me and then I just kind of, you know, go just just hang out and do nothing, for the next year, like, unless the voters come and take the votes away from me, they're kinda stuck with me still, kind of having that dead power now in the system.
Yeah. I mean and that's really dangerous. Right? Because Yes. Like like, that's when that's when you you don't have full community sentiment, and so we wanna make sure that, like, every delegate who nominates themselves for the quarter actually actively votes and actively free reviews and actively is involved in the process. And that's very important because they carry well, obviously, in, quorum delegation, you don't actually have carry other people's voting weight, but the consensus from the group that you are a part of, does carry that. And so, like, if people don't vote, like, the consensus can be made, and so their their delegated vote will result in abstain. And so that's when you have, like, not a, you know, full community sentiment. So we wanna make sure always that we can get as much consensus as possible by getting you know, every delegate does need to vote. And that's also why we made it quarterly so that it's also flexible for the delegates. You know, some quarters, they feel like, hey. Like, I I definitely want to be a re a delegate this quarter. But some quarters, they're like, hey. I have a lot of work. Like, I am actually really focused on my project right now. I'm not going to delegate. And so that's why we have that nomination process every quarter. And every quarter does, there's, like, right now, we have rounds every six weeks, which means there are, like, two rounds or two voting and kind of panel rounds in, in a quarter.
And so just to be explicit, so then at the beginning of the quarter, does everything technically delegate and then everyone now has to go vote, or is it more through the social design of the system that, you're kind of encouraging people to,
effectively keep that voting active? So we actually have, like, a separate, like, quarterly delegate, like, a voting round, basically, where people kind of actively select their delegates before a certain date.
And each kind of so and just vote to vote those are two. So, like, if no matter how I performed in last quarter's vote, I'm starting at zero in this new
quarter.
Or does the reputation
matter? The delegation, like, it's not like you're so for instance, like, if you have a it it's not increasing your voting power because that's done by neurogovernance. So, like, your voting power increased by other, like, types of neurons. The delegation really happens. Like, I'm delegating, let's say, to Eugene, to Emilia, let's say, like, three other people in the room. Right? And so then you all decide on what the vote should be. If if you have an odd number, you will always get consensus. So, and that's also how we kinda measure it. So we kind of, like, narrow it down to, like, the nearest odd number. And so, like, you always have three people, at least, like like, three people that kinda, like, vote the same way. And so, like, that's when you kinda, like, get a consensus if you have a 51% threshold there. So then my vote, my delegated vote will go to yes. So if I have a voting weight as a as a delegateee of two, then, like, through your decision, that kind of, like, weight will get two as well. Yeah. Got it. So it's actually, like, each individual still, like, votes. Yeah. It's just, it's just, like, how the vote is decided is different.
Interesting. And so what's the because if these kind of votes are happening on a quarterly basis and you walked us through the cycle of, you know, the the breakdown of the clear majority yeses and the ones that need more discussion and the noes. What is the typical timing of those cycles? Is that the six week cycle that you mentioned?
Yes. But usually, like, the six weeks. So there's a six week schedule. Submission is typically, like, always open, but it just, like, closes every six weeks. And now we kind of initiate this cycle of abstract review, then submission review, then we have the community vote. And then after that, we have, like, a small kind of, like, usually, like, a few days where we're kind of deciding upon, alright. Well, what are the kind of, like, to be like, yes votes? What are the to be discussed votes? What are the, what are the no votes? It's just because with I mean, that we have, like, some mechanisms now. We've over time, we've really evolved. Like, well, usually, if, like, x percentage, like, let's say, above, like, 75%, looks really good, and then we have about maybe, like, maybe below 50% that might not, like, you know, have too much community sentiment. But sometimes because we do actively change, like, parameters and things shift, between rounds, we definitely still, like, want to keep a little bit of flexibility there just because we don't want to miss an any specific, great builders, just because they didn't, like, I guess, like, kind of directly kinda miss that, miss that cutoff. Because, like, you know, they're in in a in Nankoji, you do have a lot of parameters that that interact, with one another as well. And on different rounds, there's always going to be different projects, so your variables always change. Yeah. And so that's the one thing about NQG. Right? So you definitely wanna be aware of that. But over time, we do, like I mean, this well, it's been around for two years now, and it's, you know, we implemented it in October 23 and have iterated, this on this for two years, based on community feedback. Today, like, it has, helped award over, $30,000,000 in XLM, to nearly, like, 450, like, in tools, like infrastructure, protocols, applications. I think, like, in the the entire, like, store bought ecosystem that kicked off, like, the Stellar smart contracts ecosystem kicked off in early twenty twenty four and has largely, like, rooted their development in SCF. So, you know, not all project made it, but we do fund, like, key builders that are now the cornerstones and are also are part of SCS governance. Yeah. And so, like, and that are now also even, like, like, submitting new proposals to change a core tech or, like, run learn validators. So, like, it's really important that we do keep doing that Mhmm. While kinda keeping an eye on, how the tech evolves. But it has evolved a lot, actually.
Yeah. Recently, actually, it was interesting. I guess I'll just ramble. Please. Yeah. I was gonna ask. Like, tell us about that and those evolutions. Yeah. Please.
Yeah. It's changed a lot. I mean, we've added more, like, neurons. We've added, like, things like like voting quality. So seeing, like, hey. If you voted for a project that actually didn't, complete their final tranche, in within six months and six months has passed, like, you know, should that impact a little bit negatively? Right? Or should, like, if projects did pass, like, should that impact positively? So having more of that. So that's a recent, like, neuron that we've implemented. And and, obviously, like, when we add new neurons, we wanna make sure that we keep the the emphasis and the weight on that rather light and kind of see what happens, because we really need to see that over several rounds in order to kinda really get a get a gauge of, hey. This is, like, this is, like, impacting this is making the the voting weight more distributed, or this is allowing newcomers to, like, you know, come like, that are obviously showing really good behavior to kind of, like, really gain, voting rate, which is really important for us because we want to continuously grow the community and not rely on people that were here for, like, you know, a really long time. And just because they were here for a long time, they should have more voting weight. Right? Yeah. Actually, recently, we had an interesting example. So our delegation actually, like, tripled in a in a past few rounds, which is interesting. So we now have about 30 active voters per proposal, which are mostly the delegates as I mentioned, and about a 100 delegators. So, some results actually looked a little off, and I mentioned this to you earlier. So, like, we dug in, and we actually found a small bug that only surfaced with, like, more emphasis on delegation, and so we fixed it. And so it's really interesting to kinda see, different kinda changes that the mechanism like this is being exposed to, can but it can actually, like, move it further. The mechanism is complex, but because it's modular, we can really evolve it with the with the growing community, and that's been that adaptability has been the most important thing for us.
Got it. It's interesting because, in 2023, as you said, when, Nkiji was deployed as SCF was presented with the community, like, wish list for, Stellar Community Fund, voting mechanism wish list and some of the things that were mentioned there, for that to be scalable, effective, fair, transparent, and private, flexible, innovative, all those things. So I was just curious, how do you think now, two years later, where are those areas where you feel like you succeeded? And maybe the fact that you mentioned that, recently, you had this, like, spike and increase of delegates or maybe some of the areas that you think still needs a little bit of work or something that you're actively working. So I'm curious, to hear your insights on that.
Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. I mean, those and, ironically, like, we came up with those, like, years ago, but they still really hold true. I think, like, that one that one really worked because, like, it has been really effective, and, obviously, it's been impactful because it like, we've we've, we've awarded nearly, like, $30,000,000 in XLM to, like, 450, like, projects to it. I think, like, fair and equitable is really interesting, because I've I've recently actually dug into that because it it it does it does really touch upon, like, the like, how decentralized the mechanism is or how, like, kind of it it touches on two things, really. It touches upon, like, how, like, voting weight is distributed, and then it also touches upon, how, like, for instance, like, if it's, like, the accessibility piece. So it's, like, newcomers can join. So for the first one, it's actually quite interesting because I've been digging into this a little bit. And there's something like, I guess, there's a few measurements that you can actually, like, like, measure, like, what the the difference the the kind of relative differences between different voters and, like, voting weight. And, actually, like, there's the different, like, indexes. The one that I I recently used is the seal index, and you can then see, like, over different rounds, is that, like, you know, going lower, and is it also going higher? And then even with Google Sheets AI, you can kinda check, like, kinda, like, have, like, an AI kind of summary based upon that. And is it actually going into the direction of more being more bit more equal or a bit more disparate? Right? And so, like, when when we when we look at some other dials, like, there might be, like, a really large, I guess, like like, the most voting weight might just be in the top five individuals. And that's not really what we want to see. We wanna see a bit more obviously, we want to see, like, a nice, like, curve, like, of people, like, actually being able to kind of, like, you know, over time gain voting power, but we don't want to see, a lot of voting power very concentrated in the top five, top five voters. And so that's exactly kind of what we've achieved now with SCF, especially now that there have been more, like, the more, like, people who delegate also, really helps distributing that voting weight and kinda lower the field index. So that is something that we've, we've we've, definitely achieved. In terms of the, the other part, for newcomers to join, I think that's, like, generally quite within most governance systems. Because, like, in my ideal view, we have this semi, pertinent I think that that's the right word. Semi pertinent kinda system where people can you know, if they show good behavior, if they show good contributions, they can actually gain voting power automatically without a central authority, like, kind of, like, unlocking that for them. And so I think this is where we've made, like, really good strides towards. So right now, you can become verified. It's pretty easy. You kind of, like, log in with Discord and kinda it's like, hey. Like, are you GitHub? We might add some kind of, like, proof of human, just to present prevent any kind of potential Sybil attacks happening, though though thus far, that hasn't really happened, because there's not too much incentive for. But, and then they can kinda go to a Pathfinder, and they can actually, like, learn about Stellar and prove that they learned about Stellar. And there's this, like, thing called Stellar Quest where people can do that, automatically kind of complete the challenges, or become kind of a project. So it kind of checks the Discord roles. And then the navigator and the pilot roles really depend on, like, your voting history, like, how many times, like, have you been part of this? Like, you know, have you shown contribution, which is also kind of, like, approved by other navigators and other pilots. So a lot of these systems, they happen very automatically, and this allows, like, people to you know, with good intentions, with good contributions that really wanna be part of this, to automatically become a part of it. And then in terms of voting power, which is very important, is that we've, implemented different curves. So, like, our most neurons that we have, like, the data inputs that go into the voting weight, they're not linear. So they're either, like, they're either kind of, like, logistic curves, which means that, you know, it it prioritizes recent voting over kind of, like, old voting. So let's say if you've, you know, just voted, like, 10 times, like, in the first 10 rounds, but let's say we're at round 40 and, you know, ideally, like, the first 10 rounds should, like, weigh a lot less than the latest 10 rounds, because, like, that's, you know, when when when you've, become more novel to the ecosystem. So, like, the logistic curves actually, like, allows us to weigh that heavier, and to also kinda weigh consistency and other types of things, which makes it possible for someone who is new and coming in, to, gain voting power, relatively quickly, and not have, like, the the old members kinda have that persistent kind of, like, advantage over newer members. So, yeah, I think you. Some moments.
No. That is that is incredible. Thank you so much. Just because you mentioned decentralization, I I feel like I I have to ask you, what is decentralization, from Stellar Foundation point of view? How do you define it? If you do, whether it has any value and,
maybe how you measure it? Yeah. I think I think this is also interesting because I I know that there's, like, a particular question and maybe wanna frame it this way. I guess, like, maybe before we go to that, I mean, the system hasn't, like, isn't isn't perfect. Like, there's still, like, issues with it. And and I do want to be kind of candid, specifically, like, on the privacy and, like, the the kind of visibility concerns that we still have. And maybe I can explain that quickly because, like, I I definitely don't want to, like, be just, like, selling this. Like, it's it's it's been a journey, but it's also, like, a good learning a good learning mechanism for us. Because, like, we wanted something that protected voters, but also, you know, like, was transparent. So it kind of showed showed that. And that's actually really difficult. And not just with, like, the NQG, but just in general, being able to kind of have that anonymity, while being kinda transparent and verifiable. Like, we're actively working to kinda make the make the kind of results, like, more verifiable. I'm assuming we'll also have a by the time this comes out, we'll have, like, a page, where, where where automatically it kind of derives from the contract results, so you can actually verify that these are the exact result that the contract, keeps out. But a lot of the neurons, like the data inputs themselves, we have to keep them off chain in order to protect that user privacy. And, and we're, like, looking into, like, z k very soon because I think there's a lot of exciting developments happening there. But there's a lot of trade offs between privacy versus transparency and then also, the the level of compute that the system takes. Like, if you do it off chain, you know, you pay a lot less than, for instance, like, putting things on chain. So you wanna be pretty careful with, you know, what you, like, how you present the data and how you interact with people. So that's been that's still a challenge to until today, but hopefully something that we can address in twenty twenty six. Six. And then maybe on the decentralization piece, I guess, I mean, maybe, like, it will be good for this to be also, like, a question towards you. Have you seen that, like, privacy, maybe, like, transparency dilemma with other ecosystems or other DAOs as well?
In short, very much so. Yeah. I mean, I both in terms of DAOs, and I just feel like it's, it's a tension around web three. Right? It feels like one of the big, trends this year is just more institutional adoption. Like, everyone, their grandmother, as far as institutions are concerned, is launching a stable coin at the moment, right, with, like, Tempo being launched and, like, all these other, like, huge initiatives from players that even a year or two ago seemed unlikely to be stepping into Web three. So, yeah, I think from that perspective I mean, when I first got into when I went down the blockchain rabbit hole, it was kinda late twenty fifteen, early twenty sixteen, and that felt like peak, you know, banks and those kind of financial institutions debating whether or not they should use a blockchain, not really getting what it is, in my opinion. And it kind of you know, that was when r three came up, and that was when there was this big push within Hyperledger to have a private blockchain and all these things that I I feel like the general consensus got of, like, if if you just want a different type of private database, just blockchains are not your best database structure for that. Yep. And, you know, we've just had, like, loops and iterations of that over time. So some of it still feels like it comes back to that. And I guess some of the advances in z k are seem to be making more of those institutional players more comfortable. I know your question was specifically around Dows. So there, I feel like it really comes down to the culture, that, like, if you just have super privacy minded culture, you might be willing to make those trade offs on the transparency side because you get the importance of privacy. But I don't I would not label most communities as privacy first. I I do think at this day and age, I I if I just had to, like, broad strokes guesstimate, I would assume that the vast majority are transparency first over privacy first of taking that kind of dichotomy, and that they will always lean towards, like, no. I want every penny and every mind like, minor thought around the thing as opposed to I want you preserving my identity in any kind of way in terms of, like, unintentionally leaking information. I guess maybe Maker is an exception because they have they are, to my knowledge, the only large DAO or Sky now. Excuse me. But they are the only large DAO with, like, private delegates where, like, the delegates, the gov facilitators, they are intentionally their identities are not disclosed because they don't want backroom deals. And if I don't know that either one of you two is the top delegate and maker Skye, you know, like, how can I possibly come bother you in a in a private TG group or catch you at that conference or whatever whatever? So, yeah, I don't know. Jamila, have you seen any other kind of examples or anything else come to mind for you there? It's very interesting because,
I think it's a very hard topic with the privacy, transparency, and especially in our space. The first thought that I had in my mind, I remember back in the day, I was, I don't know, just organizing student club about blockchain and telling everybody how cool it is. And one of those things is that it's peer to peer networks. You don't have to know the opposing party, trustless system, which is it really trustless? Anyways Mhmm. And I remember a friend of mine who, was working in the economic investigation of economic crimes, he told me it's like, you blockchain people are so funny because to me, investigating blockchain related, crypto related crimes is so much easier. So I don't know, what, privacy he's talking about, but, he was talking to some of the group of the researchers saying that you guys are so much more exposed than you actually think you are. And, obviously, everything being on chain doesn't help in that regard. But now I feel like nowadays, crypto Twitter is just booming. Everybody out of nowhere shifted their focus on privacy or maybe it's just my feed and algorithm suggesting me this content. And I think that is incredibly important. And, obviously, we all know, you know, there's so many examples of people who actually, got arrested, for things that are just beyond their control, or for mere fact that they are being associated with certain projects. And I think, my background is coming as a political dissident. For me, privacy and surveillance and surveillance capitalism is something that is the reality for many of the people who live, in the country I come from. And it bothers me greatly. And I'm thinking, thank god I was growing up during the times when there weren't Internet or smartphones. And I cannot imagine, for example, filming my kid and putting, their image online, but it's just so normalized. So, I think privacy is definitely the topic that bothers me personally, and also in relation to our work. And sometimes when I do see people who try to, and successfully actually combine both privacy and transparency because we love to talk about transparency in our space. But are are we actually transparent? Because there's so many most of the decisions are actually being done behind the closed doors of, like, a group of people in the chats and Telegram chats or in the off-site or whatnot. And, there is a big discrepancy between what we publicly put of, I don't know, what we do often and then what is actually happening. So as a researcher, for me, it's very hard sometimes to actually analyze publicly available data because, if I personally know people from particular projects and, sometimes I'm there is a mismatch between things I'm reading and things I can actually use as a public source in my research towards, some of the things that I know, but I can't use that in my research. Sorry if it was a bit of a rant. But Absolutely. Absolutely. And, please, Ankit, do tell us, how do you successfully combine both privacy and transparency? Because I feel like this is definitely a challenge that I see so many projects are struggling with.
Well well, it's we're also on the journey. Right? Like, we haven't solved it yet. I mean, it's very important for I mean, similar to kinda MakerDAO's concern. I guess, Skye, you mentioned, concerns. Like, we want to protect, the delegates, especially those who, like, you know, like, really want to be involved in the process and are, like, really experts. But they just don't want to be, like, I guess, like, you know, reached out by a project, like, telling them to vote. And we you know, as much as possible as we try, like, that corruption happens. Right? If, like, things are too public, if you know someone has a lot of voting power, you know, you're going to try to scoot their mind. And so that's why we try to, as much as possible, aggregate, I guess, like, data, and, kinda like so there is a group of people that's delegates, and you know who they are. But you don't know, you know, exactly because the way decisions are made in quorum delegation, there's not one, you know, that's all powerful. So it's, like, really, like, the the the most the power is in the group. And so, like, you can convince you know, you would need to convince mostly all of them in order to actually make a real change, which is a lot more difficult than convincing one. So, like, that is one mitigation, but then certain things like individual votes and kind of, we currently have. Votes are public, but they're by public key. And and we don't want to, like, combine people's public key with, like, the actual identity, like, so the Discord ID, for instance, because then they can reach out to them. So there is a little bit of, like, a discrepancy, which sometimes make it a bit difficult for newcomers to kinda know how to, how to, like, delegate because they they might not exactly know how someone's voting behavior has been to date. So that's something that, like, is still a challenge because I would love to for make it a lot easier for newcomers coming into this space to, like, you know, not having to read through or be in the Discord for, like, you know, a a while to kinda understand how these people kinda operate and how they kinda review and etcetera, and kinda to to see the data of how people have voted, and then kinda delegate for them. But that's that that to date has not been possible yet because people have, you know, clearly, like, told us, like, hey. We we don't we don't want that, like, level of transparency. And then there's obviously the fire verifiability of data, which will improve, which are is currently being improved. But so far also because it's non non deterministic, so, like, the it's not a DAO. Right? So the funds don't, like, automatically flow, and it's still there's still, like, a human kinda, like, decision process on, hey. We use these results to signal community sentiment, and then, you know, with the delegates, we make the final decision. That's kinda, like, so so that kinda, like, the the that might also let limit a bit more of that transparency there for funding, but we do publish everything. And I think that's the most important part. Right? I think, because, like, private spaces and kinda, like, off sites and kinda, like, smaller groups and kinda, like, really allowing someone to say what they they think that they they want to say is really important. And sometimes, like, you do that out out there. Like, there's things that I don't want to say even with my own company or even with my own team. Right? This because there there might be consequences, related to that. And so, like, sometimes, like, if you are, like, within a smaller group or if you can say something anonymously, it can still help you, you know, give your give your say, but definitely still kinda protect your privacy. And then privacy is now is, like, to your point, it's it's a lot more important now for everyone. I think also primarily because of institutional adoption, because banks and larger institutions, they require, privacy. Sometimes, which is a little bit, like, can can be seen as against the ethos, but if it's verifiable, that's what the most important part. So that's why I think a lot of people, including kind of the Stellar ecosystem, is actively looking into enterprise grade, privacy solutions, to make that possible. So we don't have purely, like, closed door and kinda, like, you know, like, opaque decision making, but there is kind of protection for, I guess, like, individuals and kinda individual transactions and entities making those transactions in one way or form. Very quickly. I I was wondering if you have, what are your views on, basically, like, blockchain based identification systems? And, obviously,
some of the solutions like, I don't know, proof humanity, which, basically an on chain registry where people confirm that they're human may add to that, like, additional trust layer, making sure that there is just that person is that person. And, obviously, the research has gone so far from, the launch of the proof humanity registry. And, obviously, we're not gonna mention portal coin, but I've, I was curious whether you have any tools in mind that, that actually combines both privacy and, ability to verify certain credentials. Or maybe it's not a tool, but maybe a concept that, you just feel like it's the most appropriate privacy
preserving? Yeah. I mean, this is this is the million dollar question. Right? Like, having something that can that can do this, like, in a in a very large scale. I like Provo for Humanity a lot, and we're actually looking to kind of, like, add a layer, something like that. And I'd also know their self, but some some layer like that into, like, a Norcom governance just because as the system grows, like the, you know, like, Sybil, attack or or kinda, like, malicious attack, like, the vulnerabilities become large, especially once we start to, like, you know, like, change some of the incentive layers. So, like, that that kind of piece, that identity piece will become really important. Right now, we have an identity piece that's built built on reputation. So, like, obviously, it's it's built on effort. So, like, if you can't really become part of it, you can kinda gain more reputation, and that works for the level of, kind of, like, work that we have now. But, yeah, especially if you start to have systems that have, like, direct incentives and where you have kind of direct layers of, like, impacting certain funding decisions, like, in the in an individual state where you can actually pull off an attack. That's really important. I would say, though and this is something maybe, like I don't know if that's, like, worth for the podcast, but I I I think, like, having kind of that layer of individuality is really important. But then I think with the World Coin, I guess, example as well, they kinda literally have, like, people signing up and kinda, like, do the work for them. So, you know, that layer of identity and kinda just proving that you're a unique person, isn't enough anymore. I think adding kind of that layer of, like, reputation or contribution or kind of, like, prove that you're kind of I've been in something for longer is really important. And, I honestly would love to, like, really, like, find a great solution that can do both. Or, I guess, like, we need to, like, collectively build it together. Yeah. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I think so. And, you know, I I know we're talking about kind of some of the technical elements and getting into the privacy, which I feel like is its own rabbit hole we could spend hours in. I did kind of connect it back to where the conversation started and a few things that we've touched on. You know, we're we're talking a lot of the technical and some mechanistic components. And, you know, you mentioned, some of the specific, like, reputational elements of, you know, like, integrate with Discord and GitHub and, be able to see their previous activity and add the neurons so that it's weighted in an appropriate way that, for recency bias as opposed to just anything over time. And, the other side of the conversation that we're not touching on that relates to all that feels like culture that plays a really important part. And I I guess I'd love to have your view whether you wanna talk about it specifically in the context of Stellar and NQG rolling out in a way, things have developed the Stellar Development Fund or just more broadly when we're thinking of these kind of governance systems. Right? Whether they're funding focused, whether it's a broad, more open ended governance system, what is the role that culture plays when it comes to actualizing these technical mechanisms, that it comes to figuring out that balance of privacy versus transparency, that it comes to kind of, letting all of these things actually kinda click into place and feel alive in a system? Yeah. I would love to just hear kind of how you think about that. That. Oh, culture is everything.
Right? Like, it's that like, you have to have that existing kind of level of of I mean, obviously, blockchains are trustless systems, but, really, like, they're they're tools that can allow us to trust each other more. Right? And and and that's what the mechanisms are. That's what kinda governance mechanisms are. They're they're tools that help us kinda make verifiable and and trusted decisions. But it does come, like, the it does come from a a strong culture of trust. And and that's kind of been really important when developing your quorum governance, also because, you know, it's an experimental mechanism. It's it's it can be a bit complex. It takes a lot of explanation and kinda, like, people understanding, oh, but if I do this, how will it impact, you know, my voting weight? Or if I cannot, like, you know, like, delegate to to less people, how will that make a change if I delegate to more people? You know? So it it's, like, really, like, working with an and making yeah, creating kind of, like, a mechanism that works and adapting it with the community. And that requires a strong culture, of trust, of, trusting one another, of trusting kinda, like, the system. And that's, like, been, like, been really important as we've, as we've evolved within SCF, and also, just generally with the mechanism. Yeah. Because I really need people who really believe in the ecosystem and who really want to want to move forward, and and and believe in also that ethos. And specifically with Stellar, we have I mean, SDF has a mission to create actual access to a global financial system. And so that allows us to, fund, kind of projects from all over the world who are just, like, looking exactly to do that, to create more access. And creating access, you know, it's, it's not necessarily, like, lucrative from the start. Like, it's a lot of hard work. It's a lot of kinda figuring out, like, what the actual issues are, kind of what the root issues are, kinda how to solve that, working with the governments, working with regulation. You know, sometimes, I guess, like, you have to taking a few steps back to, like, take a step forward. And and that takes a lot of effort, and I think a lot of the community, itself within Stellar, has really, like, weathered through that. And it's also very understanding and very kind to one another and is very collaborative in that sense because they know how difficult it is to, like, launch these solutions. But once they're launched and kinda like that's where and I think, like, a lot of the reviewers also got kind of a lot of energy from, is to kinda see those projects that come alive and, like, solve issues and actually, like, do things that help real people. And so that ethos and that culture of, like, you know, hard work, contribution, trust, effort, but then seeing that access happening in the world, has been pivotal to creating this mechanism that's, based on reputation and and trust, essentially.
Yeah. And I also wanted to come back to what, Jamila brought back earlier in terms of decentralization and how y'all kind of view it and, whether y'all have, you know, concrete metrics and it's down to that point or it's more, you know, abstracted layer and just more conceptually how you think of it. And, you know, I do think there's also the as you decentralize and grow, how do you maintain culture? But, I guess to start just broadly, how do you think about the decentralization piece?
Yeah. It's really interesting because, historically, the Stellar ecosystem has been more centralized with kinda SDF, being, like, the core core entity, that's, like, supporting the ecosystem. And we're actually, like, I think, actively, now that we have such experience with the style community fund, actively want to, like, move that in more of a decentralized direction. Like, specifically, like, I think, today's, like, may mainly, like, SCF SDF awards. Right? And they could expand on themselves, so that's something that we're working on. But we're also looking to, like, increase, like, decentralizing kind of organization of the hackathons and workshops through our ambassador program and actually the things that are being done in the ecosystem not being done by SDF, by our ecosystem. Much of it is still centrally run. Obviously, not everything can go through, like, a public vote that can be super inefficient, but there's lots of room for transparency and for spinning out specific functions that could be community run. And so when you think about it, in terms of, like, seller's focus, is on open financial infrastructure. These are, like, permissionless access, low fees, neutral rails. And Danelle's, Danelle Dixon, which is our CEO, recently published also a piece on open highways and not not railroads, so which actually refers to, proprietary change now. So, proprietary companies now launching their own change and basically, like, owning, like, that railroad of infrastructure. Ideally, like, no single actor, and we believe that no single actor should really control the access, pricing, or policy. Because whoever controls that infrastructure also com controls the commerce. Right? We need credible governance over such shared resources and decision rights. So that's kind of the motivation towards, like, more decentralization within the ecosystem. And also, you know, that kinda ethos of open infrastructure, but also the possibility of ecosystem growth and how, getting more people with skin in the game can really allow, us to grow as an ecosystem in our opinion. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. And I guess especially
recognizing the time that we're in. Right? As a sixteen z's article put it, we're at the end of the foundation era. You know, we see on the one hand multiple ecosystems. You know, I think Eigen was the first to, like, make a big splash into our doing governance, and then, this year kind of, aggressively pull that back. And but, you know, like, we are seeing certain, projects coming up that are still very committed to, decentralization, whether it's a new project or or ones that have existed for a while. And so I guess, you know, how does this year change your thinking, on the importance and reality of decentralization? Right? Because I do think, as we talked about with maybe, taking transparency as an example, you know, I I think that there should be a very clear and publicly acknowledged distinction between transparency, broad strokes, and functional transparency. Right? Like, I can give you all the information in the world, but if you can't make sense of it, timelines that help you interact with the governance system, is that actually better than giving you less information, but in a way that you could functionally incorporate it into the governance system and your decisions and being part of it? So, yeah, I would love to just think, to hear on how you're thinking about these kind of macro trends and either how that changes your thinking about decentralization or why certain elements of it now are more important than ever. Yeah. I mean, I I think decentralization
just because also, like, our smart contracts ecosystem is growing and and that like, the the needs that our ecosystem have, like, exceed what, you know, any central entity can really, like, contribute. Right? And, specifically, like, if you're building towards, for a global audience, like, I guess, a single entity, especially one that's, like, located in US might not have all the perspectives, like, to fully, like, cater to all the audience that it's supposed to, cater to. And so that's, like, why it's really important that, like, the growth of such a network is done decentralized, and that's kind of exactly the motivation behind it. Also the foundation, like, we have finite capacity. We have nonprofit constraints. From the community side, there's a lot of interest. They're very eager. I get new ideas almost daily, which is really exciting. And, you know, like, for this open infrastructure to really thrive, you know, decisions can't live within one entity. So we're actually running kind of a research projects, through the year end, to align on kind of principles, also study, like, DAOs, like governance mechanism, incentive mechanisms, and kind of also wanting to propose a more decentralized and more, like, determinative allocation of, of treasury and funds and kind of, like, governance within the ecosystem and really start from those first principles of openness. So, yeah, I'm I'm that's what I'm, I'm pretty excited for for the next year to kinda go in that direction and actually choose. And in terms of, you know, some of the things that you mentioned, I actually want to learn a bit more about what you meant by, the transparency piece. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, thinking of one concrete example, there have been some communities that have said, hey. You know, like, why don't we know how much person x is making versus person y is making versus person z is making on or like, give us a level of information that as has played out in some ecosystems has increased noise, but has not actually helped make better decisions, increased culture, increased quality of, like, feeling of enjoyment of the system, and it it doesn't seem to be leading to any positive elements. So, you know, I think if we jump ahead five, ten years when AI and agentic systems will be better, you know, we can start kind of positing what a world looks like where I can just bombard you with information at all times, and that's fine because you have an active filtration system that you're tweaking, but we're not there yet. And so I feel like one of the biggest complaints from people when getting into Dallas is just like, I'm sorry. How many things do I have to read to catch up on what's going on? Like, I can't just, like, listen to a podcast with the CEO for last quarter and just get, like, a rough gist. You need me to, like, work through your forums, read your white paper, get on, like, 12 chats, and, like, all these things where it's like, I have a job. Like, I this is meant to be a hobby. I can't just, like, do all these things. So I think also from that perspective on how we balance this important principle of transparency, right, of the the community should be able to hold those in power accountable for decisions getting made with the fact that if I just bombard you, right, what we're seeing in many political systems internationally is just clog the system, clogs people attention, clog like, just bombard, bombard, bombard, and then make people question what the truth is, and then no one actually moves anywhere because everyone's just, like, paralyzed by indecision and cognitive overload. And, yeah, just like how do we intentionally improve on this? That's where my thinking around this term of, like, functional transparency. Right? The goal is to give you, the community members, power over those with centralized power and holding them accountable. And there needs to be a certain level of trust and leeway in both directions that in the short run, while we don't have agentic systems to navigate massive volumes of information effectively for on the individual basis, there might need to be some trade offs. And so that that's where, like, opening the door to that discussion is where that distinction is meant to go.
Yeah. No. I mean and that's why I mean, kind of how you highlighted it, like, more transparency in a way. Like, transparency of everything is is, you know, this transparency of nothing in in a sense. Because, like, if no one actually understands what's going on or can make a quick assessment, like, you have a also a complete epic system that no one understands. And if if I learned one thing also through Neurocrone governance and creating it is that simplicity and kind of being quick to understand something is is key to actually getting kinda engagement. Like, you know, it's kind of crazy. Like, people don't really read, you know, like, at all. Like like, they don't. Like, we see that in in the submissions also. Like and I recently actually posted
a a thread on I saw your tweet on please stop giving us AI slob.
I know. I know. Which is, like, really interesting because I I didn't mean, like, a yeah. Because I actually I use AI every day, and I I think it's amazing technology. And and and and it, but it it shouldn't take over the creative process, and you should have, like, still some good sense of, like, what you think is true. And I found it most useful, when you actually, kinda, like, have your own kinda, like, have a really good sense of what you want to say, and then, you know, AI can actually help you say it in many different ways. Anyway but many people don't use it that way, and that's and that's fine. I just I just, like, my precious eyes get really, really tired from reading, like, the hundreds AI kinda slough submission, and I was just, like, I was a little bit frustrated when I wrote that. And I I got a lot of comments, but it it's good. You know? It's good for people to think about this stuff. Yeah. That deeply resonated with, lately,
and over the summer, we were hiring and interned and got, like, 200 plus applications of which it felt like a 150 were AI slop. And it was just so rough slogging through those. But, anyway, sorry to
interrupt. No. Exactly. Because you know what? Like, the it's it's it's difficult because, like, you don't you cannot immediately identify this is bad. So it takes you a longer time to identify that something's bad. You have a hunch, but you're not sure. And so you're looking for what kinda, like, is the issue, and so that actually causes extra effort. And, like, before, like, you kinda, like, knew. Like, it's like, oh, they didn't look into it. Great. You know? And now it's, like, sort of right, but not really. Anyway and people, like, for these grant programs, they really should put in some effort because it sets the foundation for what they're going to do. And they're having an AI do that. Like, when they actually start the work, they're like, hey. We can't actually do this. And then anyway. You know? You have this whole, like, kinda inefficiency happening. But, yeah, on your point towards, like, transparency, I mean, I think this is really important. And it will be a continuous continuous struggle. I mean, I think it's really important to kinda keep documentation and to have, like, these onboarding kind of methods and actively, like, onboard people. I guess something that we really found, helpful is our ambassador program and actually, like, have that, like, in person kinda, like, hands on kinda onboarding, like, through persons as well and getting people in that way. And that's also how we've seen a lot of growth within the, within the ecosystem by having kind of local communities, like, actively, like, work with people and kinda onboard them. Again, this is a lot of work, but, like, when you kind of, like, see this on, like, a network scale effect, you get people who are, like, really interested and kind of, like, want to kinda get more involved, versus, versus, like, trying. But, again, like, we need I think as a space, and also, like, us themselves us ourselves, we really need to improve on, making kind of what we you know, actually, what's transparent and kinda what's out there in a bite sized format that people can understand. So yeah.
Yeah. And I just have one last question before we start turning over to the quiz because as as fun as this conversation is, time is flowing on by. Yeah. I'm I'm the talk for me to to answer sometimes in a short way. Oh, no. No. No. This is great. If you want me to reword certain things after this, I it's totally possible. No. No. No. That that that was not where that comment was directed at all. This has been a lovely conversation. So the the last question I have is just, you know, as you generally think and this is not specific to to Stellar at all. As you're generally looking at this space of decentralized governance in web three, you know, from your vantage point, what are the the research projects you wanna see done, the experiments you wanna see run? They can be specific to you, but they absolutely don't have to be. Just where what do you think needs to be happening in the next six to twelve months for decentralized governance in Web three to truly be making the kind of advances that, you know, some of us has been touting for arguably going on a decade already? Yeah. It's a good question.
Especially when there's so much that I can improve like myself. Right? Like, I mean, I think we touched upon this earlier a little bit in terms of, identity and and kind of, you know, the next step in identity and what that looks like. There are some really interesting kind of projects already kind of, like, thinking towards this. I think there was, like, community graphs. There's, like, I think some work trustless work is is doing on this. But, specifically, it's around adding that, like, reputation layer to, like, an identity and being able to, use that cross community. So something like that would be really powerful because then we can actually have, something like identity and reputation, not just in, like, one community, but can kinda, like, bridge that over to other communities. And I've seen I've seen some, like, initial kind of examples, like, working towards this, but it hasn't been adopted, I guess, like, industry wide. And so something like this will be really interesting to kinda have, like, a universal reputation layer that works, still in context with, like, local communities. And especially, I think in, like, the the, like, EVM spaces will be really interesting because you have a lot of, like, similar, well, you have delegates that are kinda, like, from from multi in in multiple kind of ecosystems. And, and being able to, like, bridge over some of that, reputation, but also really build up, verifiable reputation in one ecosystem can be really helpful to verify and showcase and then, eventually use in in in kind of, like, more systems that can, that can use that. For instance, like, like, you know, like, access to certain communities or certain products or certain things like that. So, yeah, having that would be really, really interesting.
Great. Before we move to our quiz, is there anything that, maybe we did mention that you wanna make sure that, we mentioned?
Oh, and this is also, like, regarding to the open questions. Right? Like, our experiments? Yeah. I mean, I think another part I mean, and this is sort of, like, an open question in in governance in general is how to design incentives that really support governance work while preserving kind of intrinsic motivation and and kind of prosocial or pro kind of, like, community behavior. I think that's I mean, to Eugene's point of actually, some of the I was like or, like, the transparency, like, publishing people's, like, salaries and things like that. And, I mean, these are, like, incentives that that we use to kind of promote, governance behavior, but not, or, like, work or effort, but might not actually, preserve that intrinsic motivation that's needed to actually forward the community in in in, like, a healthy way. So, like, I think, like, figuring out, like, the incentive structure around around, like, governance, efforts is really important because some people might put in a lot of effort, but they don't get paid enough or they don't get, you know, like, actually paid anything for their work. And then there are some people that put in barely any effort, and they have a lot of voting power, a lot of tokens or things like that. So figuring that out would be would be really great. Yeah. And then how to get kinda the right people involved as the ecosystem grows. Like, for instance, like, Neurocrone governance helps, but we also like, we ourselves are looking for more ways to engage, like, non developer stakeholders who don't who may not have time to read every proposal. So making sure that, like, we have a very, good distributed way of engaging, like, the right people for the right decisions is something that, I mean, we've been working towards, but also I would love to see in the ecosystem, in in kinda other ecosystems. And then finally, I guess, how to balance that privacy and verifiability or transparency for, I mean, this type of reputation input specifically.
That's great. And yeah. I'm very curious, to see, who would be the one to come up with answers to all of those questions. But, realistically, I think it's just the collective work and exchange of information and learnings and, the continuous experimentation. Thank you so much, Anke. Now we're gonna move to our quiz part where I'll ask you a question and, give us just one worded answer. We know that it's hard actually because we tried it ourselves. Eugene and I, we had one episode where we're just, like, interviewing each other. It's very hard. So take all the time you needed. Absolutely no rush. The first question is, what is one value Stellar will never move away from?
I will have to go with, I think, access.
Access is Can you elaborate in that as well? Access
Yeah. Access and openness. Like, our openness, we can also choose that. Yeah. Access is, like, the most important value, for the Stellar ecosystem. And it's literally in our mission, right, for of the foundation to create, like, equitable access to the global financial system. It's very important for us to have accessible infrastructure, so that anyone in the world can can set up systems and and and not, not gatekeep that. So access is the most important, value, I think, I would say.
What can't be tokenized? Just one thing. If you had to choose I guess, many things, but, you know, maybe the most important thing in your opinion that shouldn't be. Maybe even if it can be, but it shouldn't be tokenized.
Culture? That's difficult. I mean, we're sort of like, you can sort of tokenize trust. Well, not really, but there's ways to kind of, like, like, trust list and things like that. There there's ways to kinda, like, mimic it. But culture, it's this is so intricately connected to a community that that of itself won't be able to be tokenized, I think.
I think the next question is very similar, but, what turns participation into alignment in your view?
Effort. Yeah. You have to put in a lot of effort in order to, kind of, like, verifiable effort, in order to, make sure that everyone's aligned. Yeah. This one's hard. I mean, I think there's many answers to it, but I'll I'll go with effort. Yeah. Great.
And our last question that we ask, every guest, what is the future of governance in one word? I had some time to think about this, because you mentioned it during our prep session.
And, and I would go with, plural. Because as in, like, decision making, like, I think, like, a plural in the sense of, decision making being distributed in many centers or many ways to contribute or, you know, multiple, like, safeguards as well. So it's easier to adapt individual pieces to evolving needs rather than change the whole thing. And this is really important because there's no such thing as a perfect system, but there's always a better solution as the time goes on. So, as needs change, as people change more, governance at large really needs to adapt quicker as dev world is moving fast. But, like, the larger, like, dials or, like, systems, like like, the larger any system really gets, like, the more difficult it is to change the structure as so much, like, relies on it. And as these sys and as such, like, these systems, like, tend to really be in a constant state of inefficiency and and efficacy to a certain extent. And it's often not because, like, people are incompetent, but they often try to make you know, they they try to really make it work. It's just that the system really inhibits, like, their work to become more efficient and effective, if it's just all one big thing. And so having kind of, like, these plural and, like, really modular systems will make it easier to evolve. They make it easier to try new things and assess regularly, like, whether something needs to be adjusted. And this will set the stage for a more adaptive, governance future.
Great. Thank you so much. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming and being a wonderful guest and sharing so much. And just we still have to process it, I think. I'm gonna speak for myself, but I'm super excited to to see any research updates coming from Stellar. I'm wishing you best of luck, and thank you again.
Yeah. Thanks again. Thanks for tuning in. The Governance Futures podcast is sponsored by the Skrull Foundation and produced by the governance team at the foundation, Jamila Kamalova and Eugene Leventhal. Any music and photos are attested in the episode description. Feel free to subscribe, leave a review, or share with a friend. Until next time.
