RRC-XX: RARI DAO Security Council Elections

jarisjames · September 27, 2025, 5:28pm

Hi @bitblondy, hope your weekend’s starting off well

I’d like to share the facts pertaining to the Creator Fund Program and its Working Group proposal with you. I know proposals can be long reads, but here’s the tl;dr below:

When RRC-48: Rarible Creator Fund Program was executed on Aug 19, 2025, 110,010 RARI was transferred from the DAO’s mainnet treasury directly into a Foundation-administered multisig. That fully funded the Creator Fund upfront, including the 10K buffer.

Then RRC-51: Establishment of the Rarible Creator Fund Working Group (Sep 23, 2025) simply created the group to curate applications and provide reporting. We don’t disburse from the RARI Chain treasury, that treasury isn’t part of the Creator Fund mechanics at all.

Actually, reading proposals before commenting is DAO 101.

jarisjames · September 27, 2025, 5:45pm

Thanks @dzonson.eth, really appreciate your support. It means a lot, especially given your knowledge of NFT culture and the crypto industry in general.

Excited to continue working alongside great builders like @forexus!

forexus · September 27, 2025, 5:49pm

Thanks a lot for the great words @dzonson.eth , can’t believe we made it. Got lots of more amazing plans to work on for the DAO and Rarible, the upcoming years are going to become great!

coffee-crusher · September 27, 2025, 6:12pm

Thank you so much @dzonson.eth for your amazing support of the process and especially your comments for these two chosen candidates. I 100% agree with all your comments; both @jarisjames and @forexus were the best candidates and I feel that the DAO has chosen wisely.

Our next step, is for this proposal to go forth to Tally v2 on Monday, Sept 29th to validate the poll selection and this proposal. I’ll update this forum post with an announcement once the Tally vote goes live.

Thank you also to @bitblondy for your questions, I really appreciate your support of the new criteria for Security Council members, and for the solution for nominating and selecting candidates.

To address your specific questions:

Andrei Taraschuck was suggested to me as an appointed candidate by the Foundation, not selected. I had a conversation with @Anria to address the Foundation’s concern’s about ensuring that the safety of the protocol and with the importance of this role, that there should be three appointed candidates for the Security Council election. As I mentioned, the Foundation suggested Andrei as a trusted member of the current Security Council and a trusted member of the Foundation, as he works closely with Alex. I therefore agreed with the Foundation’s recommendation of both 3 appointed seats and @Anria 's suggestion of including Andrei, and as the proposal author, I added Andrei to the revised proposal edit. Also, you will note, the Foundation suggested that this 3 appointed & 2 elected seats could be adjusted in the next term elections, which I added this to the proposal.

Regarding the vote and on what chain, this was included in my revised (and original proposal version) that on-chain voting would be on Tally v2.
Per our Code of Conduct (RRC-35) , the CoC does allow for voting for oneself if these conditions are both met: 1) if there is multiple-choice voting AND 2) the candidate also votes for at least one other candidate.
I set up the Forum poll perimeter’s to the following: 1) Minimum number of votes: 2, and 2) Total number of votes: 2. Everyone who participated in the Forum poll could select only two candidates. Based upon the perimeter’s of the forum poll, any candidate who also voted in the poll would be unable to only vote for themselves, and therefore did not violate the CoC. This also holds true for any candidates who vote for the final proposal on Tally v2.

@jarisjames did an excellent job of highlighting that the RRC-48 for the Creator fund, the funds are held in a multi-sig that is controlled by the Foundation. Therefore, the three Creator fund leads - @jarisjames , @forexus and @sohobiit do not have access to any funds, and therefore, there are no CoI violations either past or possibly in the future, for any of these Creator Fund program leads to benefit financially or in a personal interest that may compromise their Security Council decisions. This is true for either the Creator Fund or being selected overwhelming by the delegates, for these two candidates to be voted on Tally v2 for the Security Council, or any other DAO role. Regarding your comments about delegates taking upon other DAO roles, an exclusion is not standard in any DAO. Candidates who are voted by the delegates and token holders for any roles or as execution leads on proposals indicates these are delegates who are highly-valued and performance delegates by the community. In other words, they are aligned with the DAOs best interests, do the work and have the PoW to validate it.

coffee-crusher · September 28, 2025, 10:32pm

Thank you to all the candidates, delegates, and token holders who provided feedback and voted in the Forum poll, which resulted in @jarisjames and @forexus being selected as the top two candidates for the two elected seats based on the community’s non-binding signal.

Here is the final version of the proposal that will be published on Tally v2 for a 5 day voting period. The proposal will be published on Tally v2 by @jarisjames per my request, who holds >5K RARI which meets the proposal threshold requirement.

RRC-52: RARI DAO Security Council Election Proposal

Author: coffee-crusher

Reviewer: @Anria , RARI Foundation

Summary

This is a revised forum proposal for the RARI DAO Security Council elections. The current Security Council’s term expires on September 30, 2025, and this proposal outlines the framework for a new council election that uses a progressive decentralized approach for a combination of council seats that are elected and appointed.

Based on valuable community feedback and co-creation, this proposal now shifts to a model of three appointed seats and two elected seats, ensuring a balance between decentralization and security.

Since our Tally v2 governance contract does not allow for multiple-choice voting, a forum poll was conducted as a non-binding signal for the DAO to select the top two candidates. The two elected candidates who received the highest non-binding signal from the Forum poll, Jaris James and Johan van Caem (forexus), are now included in this final proposal, alongside the three appointed members. This proposal votes in all five candidates.

Motivation

The decentralization of the RARI DAO is a core value. This revised proposal, building upon the principles of RRC-33, integrates community feedback to create a framework that balances continuity, technical expertise, and accountability. This model empowers delegates and token holders to directly influence the protocol’s most critical decisions while ensuring proven experts are in place to safeguard its security.

The two elected Security Council seats will ensure the Council is accountable to the DAO, and allows for the removal of elected Security Council members who are not acting in the best interests of the DAO. Every elected Security Council member will be required to complete KYC/KYB verification.

This framework draws inspiration from successful DAO-led governance models, such as the Arbitrum Security Council election process, and builds upon the foundational RARI proposal, RRC-33.

Security Council Details

Mandate and Scope of Work

A vital body to mitigate risks associated with decentralization of the Rarible Protocol and RARI chain is the Security Council. A functioning Security Council is a mechanism to prevent governance attacks in which an attacker acquires voting power through legitimate means but uses that to manipulate votes to their own benefit—i.e., exploiting the DAO’s treasury or the Protocol via skewing governance or introducing Protocol vulnerabilities. The Security Council has the ability to perform emergency and non-emergency actions such as urgent upgrades, minor, routine maintenance to the Rarible Protocol, and stopping DAO hack attempts.

The Safe multisig wallet addresses the Security Council uses to perform its functions are:

Veto function: eth 0xd35ec9F67Aa082Ae666be1716C79291f1f6e4E0a (majority threshold: 3/5)
Upgrade function: eth 0xa5e4514145463385aEF763Fc8161CB42b92c74f2 (majority threshold: 4/5)

Overall Cost

The total annual cost for the five Security Council seats is 60,000 RARI. The 60,000 RARI for this proposal will come from the Operational Budget, which will be additionally funded by the mainnet treasury.

Composition, Term, and Legal Requirements

The Security Council will consist of five (5) members and will serve a one-year term, with terms expiring on October 5th, 2026.

Based on feedback and to ensure security, the 5-member Security Council will comprise three (3) appointed seats and two (2) elected seats.

Each elected Security Council member will be required to complete a KYC/KYB with the Foundation and all five Security Council members will be required to sign a consent agreement with the Foundation.

Specifications

To ensure that the Security Council has members who have proven security, accountability, and alignment with the DAO’s strategic direction, this proposal includes five total candidates for the Security Council:

(A) Appointed Security Council members

Campbell Law, current Director of the Foundation; wallet address: 0xd9C3EeD65968443F8587Bb068e6530A48dB5d177
Andrei Taraschuck, RARI delegate, wallet address: 0x25Ad94C7768108666BfDB6742aB66b109CA82946
Eugene Nacu, previous RARI technical lead with deep knowledge of the RARI Chain infrastructure, security architecture, and smart contract environment; wallet address: 0x978EBcd18c5A0d829C061566AA84227e9618C1A4

(B) Elected Security Council members

The following two candidates were selected by the community through the non-binding signal forum poll and are included in this Tally v2 proposal for the elected seats:

Jaris James, RARI delegate, wallet address: 0xB04E6891e584F2884Ad2ee90b6545ba44F843c4A
Johan van Caem (forexus), RARI delegate, wallet address: 0x169ad963598fb0d360C3Ef55DD70BcAB678348BB

(C) Removal and Scope Changes

The members of the Security Council must act upon the direction of the Director of the RARI Foundation as well as the RARI token-holders pursuant to the RRC. Failure to act in accordance with directions from either the Director of the RARI Foundation or the RRC Process constitutes a reason for an ad hoc removal of Security Council members. Such removal shall follow the RRC Process, and one member of the Security Council must remain in place.

(i) After the 12-month term of these Security Council members, the total number of elected members of the Security Council may increase by one to replace one of the appointed Security Council seats if the community decides to establish on-chain elections with a stand-alone proposal.
(ii) The number of members on the Security Council may also be expanded or reduced pursuant to the RRC Process, provided that (a) there must be at least 1 member on the Security Council and (b) at least 1 member of the Security Council must be a director of the RARI Foundation.

The community, through an on-chain vote, has the ability to remove council members purely from an administrative perspective, but only to the extent that the criteria below have been met:

failure to adhere to the Code of Conduct
failure to undertake security council duties and responsibilities
a conflict of interest arises
a member is responsible for a security breach
the member no longer possesses the technical or strategic knowledge that is needed for future security challenges
there is a wider community loss of confidence in a council member

Compensation and Budget

Each Security Council member will receive 1,000 RARI per month, which keeps costs aligned with responsibility and ensures the sustainability of the DAO’s treasury while still fairly compensating contributors.

Specific Instructions:

The 60,000 RARI to fund this proposal will be funded from the Operational budget that will come from the mainnet treasury.

Timeline

The proposed timeline for this election process is as follows:

5-Day Forum Poll & Discussion (Non-Binding Signal): The forum poll for your two elected Security Council candidates will be open for 5 days, from September 22nd to September 26th, closing at 00:00 PT on September 27th.
2-Day Tally Submission Delay: To allow for community review of the forum poll voters before the final on-chain vote, there will be a two-day delay, concluding on September 28th.
Tally v2 Vote: The final vote for the 3 appointed council seats and the top two elected candidates from the forum poll will begin on September 29th. The vote will be conducted on Tally v2 and will remain open for 5 days. The execution delay will be 2 days.

The current Security Council members, even though their term is expiring on September 30, 2025, will remain active Security Council members until the execution of the Tally vote of this proposal.

forexus · September 28, 2025, 10:54pm

Looks great, can’t wait for the proposal to go live!

coffee-crusher · September 28, 2025, 10:55pm

I can’t wait to vote! Congratulations to everyone who participated!

coffee-crusher · September 28, 2025, 11:56pm

This proposal for the Security Council elections is now live for voting on Tally v2.

coffee-crusher · September 30, 2025, 6:04pm

Urgent Clarification: Forum Poll Visibility & Tally Vote Validity

Thank you to delegates @bitblondy , @Jaf and @WinVerse for raising the critical concern regarding voter visibility on the Forum poll. Your concern about voter verification is valid and essential to our progressive decentralized process.

Addressing the Forum Poll Issue:

I acknowledge that the Forum poll tool did not display individual voter profiles upon closing, which unfortunately contradicts the stated intent of this proposal’s Dispute Process . This unexpected lack of visibility resulted from a specific setting in the poll configuration , which inadvertently prevented the public display of individual voters upon closure. I apologize for the resulting frustration, as my clear intent when drafting the proposal was to make all voter names public for community review.

The Integrity of the Tally v2 Vote:

It is crucial to re-emphasize the foundational structure of this election:

The Forum poll was explicitly a non-binding signal vote, used only to narrow the field of six candidates to two.
The two winning candidates, @jarisjames and @forexus (Johan van Caem), were selected based on their strong community support in that signal poll and are included in the final proposal.
The Tally v2 vote , which is currently live, is the only binding and final vote . Verification is guaranteed at this stage, as voting requires on-chain RARI token voting power.

The Tally v2 vote, therefore, remains valid and is the ultimate deciding factor for the Security Council seats.

Upholding Public Governance Standards

The DAO relies on a transparent and defined governance process, where all disputes are handled publicly on this Forum to ensure full token-holder visibility.

I must address the fact that this critical concern was raised after the 2-day dispute window closed and was confined to a private, limited-access delegate Telegram channel . This approach does not comply with the spirit or the letter of the established RARI DAO governance process, which demands that all challenges to a public election be transparent and visible to all token holders.

I call on any delegate who wishes to pursue a formal dispute to immediately post their concerns publicly on this Forum thread, where the entire community can review and participate in the discussion.

Next Steps & Transparency:

To uphold the high standards of transparency intended by the Dispute Process, I have completed the review with the Foundation.

The Foundation has confirmed that the poll was configured as fully anonymous upon creation. Due to this setting, the backend system does not record individual voter profiles , making administrative verification of voter uniqueness technically impossible.

Based on this technical finding, the matter of the non-binding signal poll is now considered closed .

It is paramount to reiterate that the validity of the binding Tally v2 vote is not conditional upon this technical limitation. The community must now rely solely on the on-chain verification of the live Tally v2 vote to select the Security Council.

I urge all delegates and token holders to exercise their full governance rights by participating in the live Tally v2 vote, which concludes in the next few days.

Jaf · September 30, 2025, 6:24pm

Thanks @coffee-crusher

I’m not disputing this. Luckily, the winners of the poll are strong candidates who match the DAO’s goals and values.

My main point was about disclosing voters for transparency. For me, it’s a lesson learned, and I don’t think we need to re-run the poll or take further action.

Appreciate your effort. I’ll go ahead and cast my vote.

bitblondy · October 1, 2025, 7:12am

Thanks @jarisjames for sharing the details.

From my perspective, it doesn’t change the principle very much. The Security council is an extremely sensitive role, and having delegates is multiple roles is a concentration of power.

bitblondy · October 1, 2025, 7:23am

So the poll was set up closed accidentally, but there’s nothing we can do about it, but repeat the whole process?

I don’t have a strong preference on this. But since the Discourse poll is not valid, I will vote against the proposal.

For further reference, I do believe that it should have been made clear during the dispute period, that the vote was not set up as announced. And I’ll keep in mind that the Telegram group is not the right channel for discussions.

bitblondy · October 1, 2025, 7:29am

Also, I might be pedantic, but I’m seeing @jarisjames posted the proposal on-chain himself and both candidates voted for themselves (having > 50% voting power), while it’s a clear abstain.

Why are we even voting? It’s pointless

jengajojo · October 1, 2025, 12:16pm

The code of conduct which members have accepted to adhere to provides the following guidance:

Avoid conflicts of interest wherever possible and reduce the impact of these when it’s not possible to avoid them.
Do not vote for their own candidacy in an election. In cases such as multiple-choice voting, delegates may vote for themselves as long as they also vote for at least one other candidate.

It’s difficult to verify if candidates have adhered to the voting policies in the forum poll and have clearly not followed it on the onchain vote as @bitblondy points out. @DAOplomats has already voted to abstain on this proposal citing improper election practices.

jarisjames · October 1, 2025, 1:34pm

A few things need to be made clear here, @bitblondy & @jengajojo

The forum poll required voters to select two candidates to cast a vote which aligns with the Code of Conduct since you may vote for yourself in a multi option election as long as you also vote for another candidate. The onchain proposal itself wasn’t an election, so suggesting that the onchain vote violated policy is misleading and inaccurate, jengajojo. Also, the onchain proposal was drafted by @coffee-crusher, I simply published it onchain at her request since she did not have the required voting power.

It is also worth noting that last year @Jaf served on both the Grants Council and the Security Council without any objections being raised. That precedent makes it clear that holding multiple roles has never been treated as a problem.

bitblondy, it’s obvious that your criticism is personal. Ever since I critiqued RRC-40 back in April, the original Delegate Incentive Program you co authored, I have become public enemy number one in your eyes. That context cannot be ignored in how you are framing your “Concentration of Power” narrative.