This site contains the complete documentation required for the internal and external operations of Permanence DAO.

Code of Conduct

Dos and Donts

This section provides a brief overview of the expectation and guidelines for the core members of Permanence DAO. Core members include the ten initial members and those who were voted into the DAO. Core members are “the face and the brand” of Permanence DAO.

Dos:

1. Actively Participate: Core members should engage proactively in the Telegram/Discord group. There are no specific benchmarks or rules for participation, but if you choose not to engage without justification, other core members may propose your removal from the DAO.

2. Represent Professionally: Always represent Permanence DAO positively and professionally online, at events, and in all forms of communication.

3. Follow Telegram/Discord Chat Rules: Always follow both the private and public rules of behavior outlined below.

4. Stay Active: Maintain continuous involvement in the program. Inactivity for over a month may result in demotion or removal. Members who need or want to take a break can do so without being removed, with the conditions of the break evaluated by DAO members.

5. Adhere to the Code of Conduct: Follow the Code of Conduct and consistently demonstrate respectful and inclusive behavior.

6. Delegation of Core Members: All core members must have a minimum delegation to Permanence DAO. See the approved internal referendum for details.

Don'ts:

1. Do Not Violate the Code of Conduct: Avoid any behavior that goes against the program's Code of Conduct, including disrespectful or discriminatory actions.

2. Do Not Spread Misinformation: Ensure all information shared about Permanence DAO is accurate and aligned with the latest official updates.

3. Do Not Represent Without Authorization: Avoid entering into partnerships on behalf of Permanence DAO without proper authorization or approval from a majority of core members.

4. Do Not Engage in Conflicts of Interest: Maintain transparency in all actions and avoid activities that could present a conflict of interest.

Private Telegram/Discord Chat Rules

Core members have a private Telegram/Discord group for communication. All core members must read and adhere to the following rules to keep the group friendly, welcoming, professional, and on-topic.

1. Trolling and personal attacks will not be tolerated. This includes provoking individuals, threats of violence, or vulgar remarks towards individuals. Depending on the nature of the offense, this may result in a warning or ban. A majority (>50%) of core members must vote to ban a member from the chat(s).

2. Remain on-topic; our topics have a specific context and the conversations should remain relevant. Channels should not be used to draw attention to alternative groups.

3. Baseless/fake representations of groups or individuals are not tolerated in any circumstance within the chatroom and, once identified, might result in a ban.

4. This is a place for informal and inclusive conversation. It is not an opportunity to ask a specific individual to answer arbitrary questions. No one is under investigation.

5. No (concern-)trolling or otherwise incendiary and/or negative comments and narratives. Keep it constructive and positive.

6. No market, price, or “investor” talk. Members can discuss ICOs, investors, or related topics, as long as the goal isn’t to sponsor investment schemes.

7. No constant ranting/complaining. Members may express themselves and vent their frustrations about a topic. However, the frequency of ranting/complaining should not annoy members.

8. No advertising.

9. A private group means that all correspondence remains private. It is NOT allowed to take screenshots and spread information from private groups. Leaking private conversations may result in a warning or a ban, as described in the first rule under this heading.

Consequences for not following the Private Telegram/Discord Chat Rules

The rules are few, simple, and are generally recognizable as common decency. All participants are expected to uphold them. A majority vote from the core members can ban participants who engage in behavior that violates these rules.

Reporting of offenses

If you believe someone in the channel is breaking these rules, you can propose a vote for their removal. However, there must be proof of the offense. No member can be forcibly removed without approval by the majority of the core members.

Public Telegram/Discord Chat Rules

Moderators for the public channels will be selected from the core DAO members. All items except No. 8 of the Private Telegram/Discord Chat Rules apply to the public channels of the DAO.

Consequences for not following the Public Telegram/Discord Chat Rules

The rules are few, simple, and are generally recognizable as common decency. All participants are expected to uphold them. The moderators of this group will ban participants engaging in behavior that violates these rules. At the moderators’ discretion, a lesser action (such as warning the individual in question) may be taken. Participants, however, should not count on the good grace of the moderators. In particular, where moderators deem it likely that a single individual is using multiple chat monikers to break the CoC repeatedly, bans without warning may be given.

Amendments to the Code of Conduct

Any core member can propose changes to the code of conduct by putting a proposition up for a vote in the team Telegram/Discord group. The amendment must be approved by a majority vote (≥50%) with at least 80% voter turnout (participation).

Membership Mandate

1. KYB/KYC Mandate

Any member or organization involved in Permanence DAO will be required to KYC/ KYB for accountability.

2. Engage-to-Retain Mandate

Every member or organization must explain their voting decision within a 'reasonable amount of time', which can be defined as within a timeframe that members have a chance to provide feedback before a voting period ends. Failure to adhere to this rule will result in a strike against the member, and after three strikes, the member will be removed from the DAO with an option to reapply only after 12 months.

3. Delegation Mandate

Core members of Permanence DAO are required delegate the DAO for at least the W3F Decentralized Voices OpenGov delegation tracks, which are all Spender tracks (32, 33, 34), Tipper tracks (30, 31), as well as the Treasurer track (11) and Wish-for-change track (2). A lower limit of 50 DOT total with a minimum conviction of 3x is required at the time of the writing of this mandate. The delegation should be made from an identity-verified account that belongs to the member, or a child account of an identity-verified account.

A grace period of one week will apply to any member who removes their delegation, and the member gets removed at the end of the grace period should they fail to restore their delegation within the grace period.

Mandate for Open-Source Development

Introduction

This mandate was voted on by members in the internal referendum PDAO #2 - Mandate for Open-Source Development, which received 9 aye votes and 1 abstain vote from 10 members, and is effective from the 21st of April, 2025.

Description

It is mandatory for the complete suite of community- and user-facing software produced by Permanence DAO to be developed and maintained as open-source throughout both the development and release cycles. This is to ensure:

1. The protection of the community and users through open and auditable codebases.
2. Alignment with the ethos of free software, Web3, and cypherpunk values.
3. Open access to the knowledge embedded in the code for any interested developer.

This mandate applies to, but is not limited to:

1. Chat bots
2. Voting automation infrastructure
3. Websites
4. User-facing software products

Current set of tools developed by the DAO members and used by the DAO are fully open-source:

1. Opensquare (Link, GitHub)
2. Telegram bot and supporting services (GitHub)
3. Website (Link, GitHub)
4. Documentation site Link, (GitHub)

All future software development is to be carried out in a repository under the DAO’s official GitHub organisation, currently at https://github.com/permanence-dao.

A separate proposal will be submitted to determine the specific licence types (e.g. MIT, Apache 2.0, or GPLv3) to be applied to different use cases.

Voting Philosophy

Permanence DAO evaluates treasury proposals on a per-case basis. By leveraging the diverse expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives of its professional members from fields such as business development, infrastructure, software development, and the creative industries, the DAO aims to arrive at solid and fair evaluations of proposals.

Each core member holds equal voting power, and has full autonomy in governance decisions while adhering to the DAO’s core values for guidance:

1. Integrity: We preserve our integrity through a strong commitment to our values, cultivating stability and reliability.

2. Transparency: We promote accountability and trust by focusing on transparency in our direction, decision-making, and resource management.

3. Neutrality: We are unbiased in our decision-making, evaluating opportunities primarily concerning the network’s well-being and long-term interests.

4. Merit: We seek merit and a proven track record in the teams and individuals we support or work with, incentivizing competence.

5. Sustainability: We acknowledge the unique value offered by the networks we operate in, and we work to sustain and enhance this value for the long term.

6. Creativity: We promote an environment where a multidisciplinary creative energy of arts, crafts, and technology flows freely and comes to fruition.

7. Openness: We remain flexible and open-minded, aiming for exploration through experimentation. We embrace criticism and challenge our assumptions.

Conflict of Interest

Any member with a direct or indirect connection to a proposal must abstain from voting on the related referendum.

Voting Policy

Below are the updates to Permanence DAO's voting policy:

• v0.1
• v0.2

Voting Policy v0.1

Permanence DAO's voting system is powered by the OpenGov Bot, developed as part of the DAO services code base.

All internal referenda are recorded in the OpenSquare Space, ensuring full transparency of members' votes and feedback on each referendum, openly accessible through the OpenSquare API for historical analysis.

Operation Details

A basic explanation of the DAO's voting process and timeline is as follows:

0. A new relay chain referendum is created.
1. The bot fetches the referendum details and creates a matching internal referendum in our OpenSquare space.
2. The bot creates a discussion topic in our Telegram group.
3. Members discuss the referendum details. For some referenda, we also reach out to proposers for a call.
4. Members submit their signed votes on the internal referendum alongside their feedback.
5. A voting admin triggers the bot to submit the on-chain vote.
6. The bot evaluates the outcome of the referendum against the voting policy for the specific track.
7. The bot submits the on-chain vote accordingly.
8. The bot collects all member feedback and generates a summary using the OpenAI API.
9. The bot submits the final outcome and collective feedback through the Subsquare API.

Per-Track Voting Policy

Permanence DAO utilizes a per-track voting policy, allowing us to enforce stricter requirements for critical tracks such as Root, Whitelisted Caller, Referendum Canceller, and Big Spender.

Our voting system is defined by three key parameters, encouraging high participation and in-depth internal discussion before any vote is cast. These parameters are:

• Participation: The vote defaults to abstain until the participation requirement is met. If no participation requirement is defined, the vote defaults to nay.
• Quorum: The percentage of aye votes relative to the total number of DAO members. For example, a 60% quorum requirement means that the vote remains nay unless at least 60% of all members vote aye.
• Majority: The percentage of aye votes relative to the total number of votes cast.

Based on these parameters, our voting policy is defined for various OpenGov tracks as follows:

All other tracks (Root, Whitelisted Caller, Staking Admin, General Admin, etc.) follow the same ≥60% quorum policy as the Big Spender, Treasurer, and Wish for Change tracks.

Our voting policy remains a work in progress, to be iterated and improved through continuous observation.

Voting Policy v0.2

Introduction

This version of the voting policy was voted on by members in the internal referendum PDAO #5 - Voting Policy, which received 7 aye votes and 1 nay vote from 10 members, and is effective from the 26th of April, 2025.

Policy

In tandem with our recently refined CoI Policy, following our participation in the Decentralized Voices (DV) delegation on the 27th of March, 2025. we've been working on the formalization of our voting policy which has been adopted by the core membership as the guiding framework for all internal votes, treasury proposal evaluations, and on-chain voting activity. The policy aims to establish a transparent, consistent, and principled approach to voting and proposal evaluation in alignment with our responsibilities within the Polkadot ecosystem.

This proposal outlines the fundamental mechanisms of our voting system and defines its key operational rules as follows:

DOTs delegated to Permanence DAO through the Web3 Foundation’s Decentralized Voices program are governed by our recently updated CoI Policy:

• The DAO abstains from voting on any proposal that directly or indirectly benefits any core member.
• Only core members present at the time of DV election may vote using these delegated funds.
• For votes using DAO-owned funds, only the member with a conflict is required to abstain; others may vote freely.

After our decision to separate the voting power of the DAO's own funds from the DOTs delegated by the DV program, voting power of the DAO's own funds will be distributed with a final 54% to 46% split between the core members and the community members respectively. The core members always retain a 54% majority at the least, and the split process is dynamic as more community members join to prevent any single community member of wielding too much voting power.

Proposals are categorized into five priority levels. Each level determines how urgently the DAO must act:

• Priority 1–2 (High urgency): Structural or large treasury proposals. Require action within 1–2 weeks, with feedback and reminders sent throughout.
• Priority 3 (Medium spenders): Make up one-third of all proposals. Require a 2-week deadline with minimal reminders.
• Priority 4–5 (Low spenders/tippers): Require fast but minimal effort decisions.

The following outlines the quorum and majority requirements for each proposal track to be voted as Aye, in cases where the majority of votes are Abstain, the final vote is cast as Abstain:​

• Priority 1 (e.g., Root, Fellowship Admin): ≥60% quorum.​
• Priority 2 (e.g., Big Spender, Treasurer): ≥60% quorum.​
• Priority 3 (Medium Spender): ≥50% quorum, >50% majority.​
• Priority 4 (Small Spender, Big Tipper): ≥35% quorum, >50% majority of non-abstain votes.​
• Priority 5 (Small Tipper): ≥30% quorum, >50% majority of non-abstain votes.​

The detailed voting policy will be posted in its entirety on our public document hub for new members and the Polkadot community to familiarize themselves. The policy will be in effect after the internal vote is concluded until further voting by the core members to change parts, or the whole if it. Failure to comply with the voting policy outlined above may result in demotion from the core membership and may, for repeat offenders and after taking an internal vote, result in removal from the DAO.

Please vote at your convenience. Members and the wider community are welcome to suggest additions or amendments.

Kind regards.

Voting Statistics

April 2025

Polkadot

✅ 34 referenda voted on
🤖 7 referenda auto-voted (Tip Bot, whitelisted, malicious, default nay)
🛠 27 referenda voted on by members
🗳 242 off-chain member votes
📝 229 feedback submissions
📈 Avg. member participation: 90% (+7% vs. March)
💬 Avg. member feedback rate: 85% (+14% vs. March)

Kusama

✅ 9 referenda voted on
🤖 1 referenda auto-voted (Tip Bot, whitelisted, malicious, default nay)
🛠 8 referenda voted on by members
🗳 76 off-chain member votes
📝 68 feedback submissions
📈 Avg. member participation: 95%
💬 Avg. member feedback rate: 85%

March 2025

✅ 45 referenda voted on
🤖 9 referenda auto-voted (Tip Bot, whitelisted, malicious, default nay)
🛠 36 referenda voted on by members
🗳 299 off-chain member votes
📝 256 feedback submissions
📈 Avg. member participation: 83% (-7% vs. February)
💬 Avg. member feedback rate: 71% (-8% vs. February)

February 2025

✅ 36 referenda voted on
🤖 15 referenda auto-voted (Tip Bot, whitelisted, malicious, default nay)
🛠 21 referenda voted on by members
🗳 190 off-chain member votes
📝 166 feedback submissions
📈 Avg. member participation: 90% (+7% vs. January)
💬 Avg. member feedback rate: 79% (+10% vs. January)

January 2025

✅ 37 referenda voted on
🤖 11 referenda auto-voted (Tip Bot, whitelisted, malicious, default nay)
🛠 26 referenda voted on by members
🗳 217 off-chain member votes
📝 181 feedback submissions
📈 Avg. member participation: 83% (+19% vs. pre-January)
💬 Avg. member feedback rate: 69% (+23% vs. pre-January)

Nov-Dec '24

✅ 65 referenda voted on
🗳 414 off-chain member votes
📝 299 feedback submissions
📈 Avg. member participation: 64% 💬 Avg. member feedback rate: 46%