Decent operates as a digital cooperative ("the cooperative") of creators, developers, entrepreneurs and organisations ("the partners") with a primary focus on the development of a Web3 media ecosystem that is delivered via sustainable, scalable, interoperable and composable protocols that are publicly owned, operated and accessible.
Decent's mission is to empower a gobal network of creators to deliver high-quality, innovative and alternative storytelling that challenges the status quo. ("the mission"). Partners are funded directly via commissions ("the commissions") from the cooperative's Web3 Media Fund ("the fund"). The fund is initially drawn from public goods focused chain treasuries such as Edgeware to ensure ownership remains globally distributed from the start. Partners return value to the fund in the form of attributed NFTs - assets, licenses, rights, contracts and resources ("contributions").
Contributions form the foundation of the fund's underlying value ("the reserve").
The present document contains a comprehensive set of requirements prioritised via the MoSCoW approach. The idea is to keep the requirements in the present form on Github, so that every change is historically traceable.
Where conflicts arise VALUES will take precedence.
MUST
- be operated as a publicly owned and accessible entity.
- be sustainably, transparently and independently funded.
- make all code open source and auditable.
- develop and iterate a binding constitution ("the constitution") that partners operate under.
- ensure that new partners can join and also leave easily.
SHOULD prioritise long term thinking over short-term opportunities.
MUST
- be operated as a publicly owned and operated entity.
- commission partners to develop projects that advance the mission.
- be capable of holding a wide range of cross-chain crypto-assets including currencies and tokens.
- be operated in a secure, auditable and regulatory compliant manner.
- be managed via an transparent, intuitive and scalable governance system ("Mother DAO").
SHOULD
- prioritise initial investment from on-chain treasuries to ensure transparent public ownership.
- build long term value through the continued contributions of partners.
- be capable of holding traditional assets including equity and property titles.
COULD
- utilise its reserves as collateral for the launch of a community token that would be distributed to partners.
- utilise this community token as the primary distribution mechanism for the launch of a dedicated Web3 media Substrate chain.
- receive support from a range of sources such as foundations (crypto/traditional), aligned funds and public markets.
MUST
- align with the mission and constitution.
- be open to anyone, anywhere.
- be approved by the cooperative.
- be in return for contributions.
Partners MUST assign assets, rights, licenses, contracts or resources ("contributions") in return for commissions.
Partners SHOULD
- ensure that the contributions are liquid assets.
- ensure that where the contributions are not liquid, that there is provision for this.
Contributions SHOULD be pooled into the fund's reserves.
MUST
- consist of contributions from partners.
- be managed so as to ensure long term sustainability, transparency and viability of the ecosystem.
COULD be used as backing for the launch of a token distributed to partners in line with contributions.
MUST
- be governed by nominated partners who together represent the contributing workers of the cooperative.
- develop governance systems that can be operated by technically competent and novice users alike.
- develop secure, transparent and auditable mechanisms for the discussion, proposing, funding, tracking and reporting of grants.
- utilise NFTs to assign on-chain achievements, memberships and reputation of partners.
- be able to delegate funds, governance oversight and reporting into sub-DAOs established by partners ("Daughter DAOs")
COULD
- operate initially via an implementation of Commonwealth
- develop her own governance, forum and proposal systems.
MUST enable
- funded partners to receive, manage and track grants in a simple, secure and intuitive UI
- partners to hold cross-chain crypto-assets, including currencies and NFTs.
- partners to connect with the existing financial system via fiat gateways.
SHOULD enable partners to connect with:
- defi protocols to manage their finances.
- the existing legal system via legal contract bridges.
COULD enable partners to display their memberships, achievements and reputation easily.
Partners MUST
- support directly the funding of creative assets ("creative assets") on creator-owned marketplaces (for example, those enabled by Zora's smart contracts ("Zora")
- define advantages of Substrate's technology with regard to the creation and management of creative assets.
- experiment with Substrate's technology to advance the entire NFT space.
Partners SHOULD
- aim to produce a sustainable revenue model from the creative assets it subsidises.
- develop additional use case innovations related to creator-owned marketplaces.
- experiment with creative assets within the emerging aeas of AR and VR.
- connect creative assets into the operations of the DAO to signal membership, achievements and reputation.
- aggregate the creative assets to display the creative assets of partners.
- develop projects that foster collaboration among artists.
Partners COULD
- take an active role in the artistic development process by organising events and experiences.
- seek to fundrise via third party collectors and investors.
- open up to parallel third party curatorial committees that wish to also support creative projects.
- support directly the funding of creative assets linked to legal titles ("creative asset securities").
Partners MUST
- develop a network of specialist creative asset curators ("curators") lead by MoCDA's curators' example.
- form a committee of curators who participate in the selection of creative assets to fund.
- produce a manifesto of principles the curators vow to adhere to, in order to remain impartial in its influence ("the manifesto").
- produce a series of measurable metrics to objectively verify divergence from the principles.
- produce a series of measurable metrics to verify the influence the curatorial actions had on the market.
- implement a scoring mechanism based on market metrics, every participant starts with a score that then fluctuates.
- drive collectively the periodic review of the principles and metrics via a DAO democratic process based on score.
Partners COULD
- accept external input from a selected number of social and market sources.
- drive collectively the periodic whitelisting and weight of the external sources.
Partners SHOULD implement defi solutions for:
- loans, backed by creative assets ("creative collateral") to enable additional sales.
- speculation over a creative asset.
- indexes of creative assets.
- implement a risk management solution to provision for mitigations.
Partners COULD
- support preferential trading with Edgeware and any chain within the partners sphere of influence.
- trade its tokens on third party exchanges.
- engage in promotional distribution strategies to drive adoption of its tokens.
Partners MUST be in the position to recommend which data should or should not be exposed externally.
Partners SHOULD
- support a transparent record while retaining sensitive information in highly secured and tamper proof vaults.
- encourage collectors from the crypto or the traditional art market to support AML best practices.
- produce a per-metadata-entry risk profile taxonomy, and ensure the automation applies constraints where it can.
- engage in periodic assessment of the categories of risk and update any related automation.
Partners COULD support privacy and opacity, although it should discourage these practices as when the market gets traction it is likely to come under the scrutiny of governmental regulatory bodies.
Partners MUST
- ensure that every supported marketplace collects artist royalties, co-owner shares and other beneficiaries fees automatically (e.g. a curator) and redistributes them accordingly.
- implement automations to enforce the fees collection not only for the primary sale but also in the secondary market.
Partners SHOULD
- implement configurable and flexible smart contract to embrace a variety of use cases.
- refer to acquired know how in this scope, to test the adaptability of the contracts.
- educate artists and collectors about the possibilities available to them. Ideally this should be decided either at the time of an art drop or even better at creation time.
MUST
- produce a comprehensive collection of UI widgets and components to be customised by customers to enable their market place.
- include a series of telemetry information derived from the customer use to feed in the business intelligence analytics
- support integration with the backend API
MUST support a simple creation of:
- NFT and Semi-Fungible smart contracts
- smart contracts on EVM compatible substrate chains and on WASM Substrate chains &
- support the definition of token types for the submitted smart contracts
- support the minting of token types for the submitted smart contracts
SHOULD
- support the integration with existing popular marketplaces
- evangelise and influence popular marketplaces to embrace our API
- act as a consultancy to onboard organisation on our API
- offer a line of support to organisation integrated with our API
MUST expose a simple REST/GraphQL api MUST support:
- a simple creation of NFT and Semi-Fungible smart contracts
- a simple creation of smart contracts both on EVM compatible as on WASM substrate chains.
- the preparation of a state change transaction to allow the integration external signing tools
- the submission of a transaction with a specified number of confirmations
- the non state change querying for smart contract data
- the subscription for smart contracts events (e.g. via websocket)
SHOULD
- support the simple definition of functions and parameters to be entered when calling a smart contract function
- support the simple definition of topics subscribing to smart contract events
- implement a number of external APIs for compatibility with web3js
- support a number of substrate chains
Partners SHOULD demonstrate and document (via official documentation and blogposts) the simple integration and composability of the API with the UI components on representative use cases (e.g. softspot, zora etc..) COULD support a number of non substrate chains
Partners MUST
- produce a tool to support cross chain provenance for substrate chains
- introduce a series of automated questionnaires to acquire feedback from interoperability focus groups
- engage the collective with a fast prototype trial of novel approaches for interoperability
Partners SHOULD
- produce a tool to support cross chain provenance for popular chains that support NFTs
- produce a tool to support cross chain identity profiling for substrate chains
- extend a graph indexing facility to operate cross chain for substrate chains
- engage with R&D and collectively explore and experiment via targeted POCs novel forms of interoperability
- derive additional requirements by engaging an inclusive collective (not developers only) interpreting their response and reactions
Partners COULD
- produce a tool to support cross chain identity profiling for poular chains (DIDs could inspire this work)
- extend a graph indexing facility to operate cross chain for popular chains
Partners MUST
- research, define and document the key components of full stack Web3 media (e.g. NFTs, storage, streaming, identity, reputation)
- enable full stack Web3 media entities ("creative networks").
Partners SHOULD define the full-stack of Web3 Media for 3rd parties via educational materials, research and communications.
Partners SHOULD
- develop creative networks with entities such as MoCDA, FTTF, New-Futures, Auto Fabrica, Weapons of Reason.
- prioritise development of emerging talent and ideas over more established or 'mainstream' talent.
Creative Networks SHOULD
- enable artists, creators and organisations to easily fund, govern and manage their own entities.
- enable creative assets to be packaged into higher order entities ("community IP").
SHOULD
- be researched, defined and documented as a new form of collective rights management that empowers digital creators.
- interoperate with existing legal entities and contracts.
- enable the efficient, transparent and cost-effective re-distribution of profits to rightholders in the underlying creative assets.
COULD be profitably licensed by 3rd party media entities, services or organisations.
Partners MUST develop bespoke apps, interfaces and experiences for creative networks that utilise the Web3 media stack.
Partners COULD
- create a service that aggregates the output of all creative networks through a globally accessible service.
- develop a publicly owned, operated and accessible Web3 media streaming service.
Partners MUST
- develop partnerships and relationships to further the mission.
- define KPIs to track the success of any partnerships and relationships.
- develop a suistainable cycle to sustain the content creation, art curation and NFT market ecosystem based on the outlined model in this proposal.
- review the business model every three months.
Partners SHOULD
- develop and share media content across multiple social channels, networks, press & media to promote our activities globally.
- address any opportunities and/or challenges on a monthly base with the wider collective.
The BI team MUST
- define a series of metrics to collect from the various APIs and services
- collect information from social media
- define a series of heuristics to activate on top of the collected data to infer business metrics
The BI team SHOULD
- shape the analytics backend traversals over graph indices
- produce a series of reports and graphical representation of the acquired data and business metrics
- activate a series of clustering techniques to identify unexpected patterns in data
The BI team COULD produce a risk management tool for the partners and affiliates organisations
Partners MUST collectively agree on a series of valuable business metrics that can be derived from the collected data
Partners SHOULD
- produce a risk profile associated to NFTs
- produce a risk profile associated to collectors and investors
- Async composability model
- Customisable Smart Contracts
- Foreign Technology (Haskell, C)
- Identity and metadata access
- Content Streaming
- Scalability and parallelism