The battle for Rome's treasury, part 2

Houses of Rome is a project with all of the excitement and intensity of EVE Online, a game rife with political intrigue, backstabbing, unexpected turns, and all sorts of roguish shenanigans. Except there's no actual game, and battles take place in a much smaller universe, made up of a handful of Discord servers.

The night of June 20th proved to be a very eventful one at Houses of Rome's official Discord, in the properly named Hazmat channel. None other than Donnie Big Bags, head of House of Moonsama, was summoned by concerned community members to participate in the #DefendRome campaign. After getting up to speed with the RFVers plans for dissolving Bank of Rome's treasury, Donnie was taken over by righteous indignation. What ensued was over five hours of bloody gladiatorial massacre involving Donnie, Varro of House Sempronia, RFVers, treasury defenders, and other members of the community and core team. The tone ranged from passive-aggressive to outright aggressive, and moments of levity were extremely rare. Names were called, accusations of fund mismanagement and lack of transparency were raised, the words "slow rug" uttered, and conspiracy theories put forth.

What emerged from the Discord battle, beyond the issue of treasury takeover, was a litany of comments highlighting systemic problems related to governance, communication, community and project management, and an overall feeling that Rome could do better on several fronts. Amidst all this chaos, Senator Panopticus from House of Moonsama made a very insightful contribution:

We'll get back to the issue of the hard pivot to GameFi without a governance vote later, because it's particularly relevant. First, however let's address the issue of transparency, or rather, selective transparency.

The project is not entirely opaque, but it does have issues of accountability, an anon team, and sometimes perplexing positions put forward by members of the core group, such as House Sempronia's counterproposal to the RFVers of reserving 4 million USD for development and dissolving the treasury, which was added to the forum in a matter of fact way, and assumes that takeover is almost an inevitable outcome — if not now, in the near future. The proposal does raise valid points, such as a concern that governance might turn the treasury into a hedge fund, but the tone of preemptive capitulation is at odds with the support the project has maintained from the community even after the tribulations it has been through.

It certainly does not help that a couple of prominent, public facing members of the project have posed as hand washooooooors, much like that renowned governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilate: We're fine either way, since 1)we get 4 million for development runaway, and the treasury gets dissolved and we don't have to deal with takeover or2) treasury remains intact and we move on anyways. Let the DAO decide, a vote's a vote! If it turns out the whales who have accumulated $ROME at the bottom choose to liquidate the treasury, that's perfectly fine. Ecce treasury!

Beyond the terrible idea of just giving away the treasury, this sort of nonchalant approach to a very serious, fundamental issue, when taken alongside the selective transparency of the project, can give room to all sorts of conspiracy thinking and questions from the community of supporters that want to see Rome thrive.

Case in point, here is a colorful noir story written by Blinkin:

I don't think Blinkin actually means that (edit: or maybe he does), nor do I think there is malicious intent from anyone at the team. But hey, can you blame people if they start filling in the blanks in the absence of better, clearer communication, and skillful community management? Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

And here we return to the issue of the hard pivot to GameFi raised by Panopticus. It took place without a DAO vote, and reveals an inclination, by the team, at least early on, to do away with explicit DAO consensus when convenient, and just move on with a more ambitious proposal, ditching the OHM fork DNA that was, at the time, a death certificate for Rome. This decision was a correct one, and was welcomed by the community…but let's not pretend it directly involved a Snapshot vote (lowering dilution and token inflation was actually voted on, but not the shift to a pure GameFi project). It was a correct decision, but not one that the team justified through DAO rhetoric. It was also a legitimate decision, insofar as the community remained with the team, actively participating and believing that the game will be shipped.

The treasury takeover debacle has now stirred the community to react and make sure that the project does not go astray. A RIP (Rome Improvement Proposal) draft was posted for discussion on June 21st by House of Chaos council member Bacchist, seeking to establish procedural safeguards against DAO votes on liquidation:

Proposals seeking to liquidate or distribute treasury funds, either wholly or partially, will be required to achieve a 3/4 supermajority with a quorum of 1/3 the total ROME supply (to include ROME and sROME).

After this proposal passes, changes to the threshold for passage of liquidation proposals will also require a 3/4 supermajority and 1/3 quorum.

Upon the failure of a liquidation vote, no additional liquidation proposals will be accepted for a minimum of 120 days.

The RFVers are not satisfied, and have come up with a draft proposal of their own, claiming that a supermajority and quorum threshold would "break governance”.

I think exactly the opposite, and I'll repeat my endorsement of Bacchist's original draft RIP:

This proposal has my full support. It is important to rethink how governance works in Rome, and establish checks and balances against opportunistic plays that could severely impact the project’s future and the interests of token holders — particularly those who have stuck around since the beginning and compose this DAOs organic community. Procedure is a legitimizing force, and when rules of procedure are uncertain, poorly designed, or non-existent, DAOs are at a constant risk of capture or disrupture, and DAO governance is mere decentralization/democracy theater.

These new voting rules are a step in the right direction, in what will be a tumultuous but necessary process.

Let's think of this, borrowing (and bastardizing) a concept from legal scholar Bruce Ackerman, as a “constitutional moment” in Rome's history. Constitutional moments come from extraordinary episodes of participation and deliberation by the people, going beyond what is usually understood as the Constitution's text and its interpretation, that ultimately result in actual constitutional change.

The battle for the treasury has highlighted serious flaws in Rome's model for governance. The DAO should be given an opportunity to decide what it wants to be before its treasury gets dissolved, and this is what is at stake now.

Otherwise, it's both tragedy and farce at the same time.

[read part 1 of this series here]

[read part 3 here]