Hi !! after seeing the latest developments I have been working with aengel by guiding him with a framework of topics to be covered, towards the completion of this high level initial plan for an effective transition from the foundation to the community, and then manually editing myself.
Any thoughts and feedback, and mostly messages stepping up for any of the works below, appreciated. First step and precondition of this plan is assessing whether or not there is a community to take the lead of æternity blockchain.
Transition Roadmap: From Aeternity Foundation to Community-Led Ecosystem
Preamble
This roadmap presents a highly detailed, multi-dimensional strategy to transition the Aeternity blockchain protocol from a Foundation-led structure to a fully decentralized, resilient, and self-sustaining DAO-led model. The process is built around the pillars of economic autonomy, legal adaptability, community empowerment, technological continuity, and participatory governance.
Informed by the experiences of ShapeShift DAO, MakerDAO’s Endgame Plan, and GnosisDAO’s community handover, this blueprint ensures that all core functions—development, funding, communication, and infrastructure—are transferred securely to the community. We outline phased operations over a 12-month horizon, with checkpoints and feedback loops every quarter.
This document also seeks to instill cultural values in the transition, aiming not merely for decentralization as an endpoint, but as an operating principle across technical and human layers of the network.
1. Governance & Legal Framework
1.1. DAO Formation (NucleusDAO)
Timeline: Month 1–3
- Launch “NucleusDAO” as an interim coordinating body with a publicly elected multi-sig committee and community proposal process.
- Define governance token utility (voting, delegation, staking), backed by on-chain execution where possible.
- Ratify DAO constitution, incorporating dispute resolution mechanisms and social covenants.
- Set up open governance interfaces
1.2. Legal Shell Entities
Timeline: Month 2–5
- Form a neutral legal wrapper to represent DAO interests in Web2 interactions.
- Delegate certain fiduciary powers to the entity’s board, all of whom are elected and removable by the DAO.
- Clearly define jurisdictional risk profiles, data custody responsibilities, and contributor protections.
2. Technical Continuity & Infrastructure
2.1. Core Protocol Development
Timeline: Ongoing
- Create Core Development Guild with a mandate to maintain the Aeternity node, compiler, Sophia language, and AEIP standards.
- Introduce rotating maintainers for increased redundancy, and promote public audits of each protocol release.
- Develop automated regression testing pipelines and a public bug bounty program.
2.2. Infrastructure Ownership
Timeline: Month 2–6
- Decentralize control of GitHub orgs, Docker registries, domain names, and middleware to DAO custody.
- Establish community incentives to run seed nodes and archive nodes across multiple cloud and bare-metal providers.
- Maintain uptime SLAs with quarterly performance reviews.
- Publish technical documentation of DNS, SSL, CI/CD, and deployment scripts for every piece of infra.
3. Economic & Treasury Strategy
3.1. Treasury Bootstrapping & Audit
Timeline: Month 1–2
- Perform full treasury audit: on-chain wallets, off-chain assets, locked/vested tokens, and staking yields.
- Publish publicly verifiable proof-of-reserves dashboard.
- Establish budget committees for Dev, Ops, Growth, and Reserves with capped discretionary limits.
- Create emergency rollback paths for treasury misallocation or malicious withdrawal attempts.
3.2. Contributor Compensation Model
Timeline: Month 3–6
- Onboard contributors into transparent “Guilds” based on domain (Core Dev, DevRel, DAO Ops, Ecosystem Growth).
- Introduce Contributor NFTs to denote reputation and grant voting power.
- Define salary tiers based on contribution scope, including retroactive rewards via Coordinape-style peer review.
3.3. DAO Revenue Streams
| Source | Mechanism |
|---|---|
| AE Treasury | Pre-funded pool via vesting and multisig control |
| DEX Fees | DAO earns LP share and routing commissions |
| Oracle Usage | Fee-per-call mechanism routed to treasury |
| AENS Auctions | % of bids flows back to DAO |
| Grants | Apply to Gitcoin, TECommons, L2 public goods |
| Node Hosting | Subsidies for operating validators |
| DAO Tools as a Service | Deploy DAO infra on AE for other chains |
3.4. Example 12-Month Budget (Expanded)
| Area | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Core Development | $40,000 | $480,000 |
| Infrastructure & Hosting | $10,000 | $120,000 |
| Ecosystem Grants & Hackathons | $18,000 | $216,000 |
| DAO Operations | $15,000 | $180,000 |
| Legal & Compliance | $8,000 | $96,000 |
| DEX Liquidity Incentives | $12,000 | $144,000 |
| Security Audits | - | $150,000 |
| Total | $103,000 | $1,386,000 |
4. Ecosystem Growth & Onboarding
4.1. Developer Onboarding
Timeline: Month 2–8
- Curate and publish “AE Academy” onboarding track with Sophia tutorials, testnet walkthroughs, and tooling primers.
- Maintain dev grants program with milestone-based disbursements.
- Host hackathons in partnership with LayerZero, Gitcoin, and ETHGlobal.
4.2. Community Activation
Timeline: Month 1–8
- Hold monthly governance town halls livestreamed on YouTube and Twitter.
- Launch “Æmbassador” rewards for content creators, moderators, and translators.
- Incentivize proposal authorship via AE-denominated author stipends.
- Launch LayerZero AE bridge campaign to encourage cross-chain participation.
5. Liquidity & DEX Activation
5.1. Superhero DEX Management
Timeline: Month 1–4
- Full migration of Superhero DEX backend, frontend, and liquidity smart contracts to DAO custody.
- Implement LP rewards and auto-compounding options.
- Publish weekly DEX analytics dashboards showing TVL, slippage, volume.
- Create on-chain governance hooks for trading fee management.
6. Transparency, Auditing & Monitoring
6.1. Dashboards & Reporting
Timeline: Month 2–6
- Build DAO operations dashboard (treasury health, multisig actions, budget adherence).
- Publish performance reports on dev guilds, proposal success, and AE ecosystem KPIs.
- Integrate real-time proposal status and participation metrics into governance UI.
6.2. Security & Risk Management
Timeline: Ongoing
- Partner with Immunefi for continuous bounty coverage.
- Require audits from firms (e.g., Trail of Bits, Least Authority) for every new feature.
- Fund a DAO Emergency Security Task Force with defined scope and escalation rights.
7. Milestone Review & DAO Evolution
- Evaluate roadmap adherence quarterly using scorecard and voting dashboards.
- Survey contributors and token holders to assess confidence, sentiment, and churn.
- Publish post-mortem reports on failures or funding misuse.
- Revisit DAO structure yearly to implement upgrades (e.g., subDAOs, quadratic funding).
8. Foundation Handover: Resource Transfer to the DAO
Timeline: Month 1–6
8.1. Asset & Account Transfers
-
Publicly hand over AE Foundation wallets with on-chain multisig reassignment.
-
Transfer domains (aeternity.com, docs.aeternity.com) and DNS registrar credentials.
-
Hand over full access to:
- GitHub organizations
- Google Workspace, Slack, Notion
- Socials (Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, Reddit, Telegram)
8.2. Human Resources & Knowledge Transfer
- Foundation team records handoff screencasts and wikis on protocol operations.
- Two-month live shadowing period where new guild members co-work with exiting leads.
- Publish “transition kits” with infrastructure maps, CI/CD flows, and team retrospectives.
8.3. Audit, Finalization & Transparency
-
DAO Verification Guild tracks progress using public checklist.
-
Final foundation report is published with:
- Expense log and liabilities
- Handed-over assets
- Non-renewed items and legacy risks
This plan is not just about decentralization—it’s about resilience. Æternity’s evolution into a DAO must guarantee the preservation and expansion of its unique technologies, ideas, and communities. With diligence, alignment, and proper economic tooling, æternity can become a flagship network stewarded by its builders, users, and believers.
æternity must be great again. Let’s build the æfuture ∞ together.