LIP-0: Burn the keys to the Loot contract

[dom]

Summary

This is a proposal to burn the keys to the Loot contract, which removes the ability for any figure or organization (like a DAO or multi-sig) to ever act as its owner.

Because this decision preempts any other decision, I’ve decided to call it LIP-0.

Background

Before getting into specifics, it’s important to outline the powers and capabilities of the contract owner.

Hard Powers

These are the absolute powers of the contract owner. They can always be performed as long as their underlying mechanism (individual, multi-sig, DAO vote) choose to perform them.

1. Set and collect a royalty fee on supported exchanges
2. Mint unused owner bags
3. Manage funds associated with royalty fees or owner bags
4. Transfer contract ownership or burn the keys
5. Define its own governance structure

These are the only hard powers of the contract owner.

Soft Powers

These are the perceived powers of the contract owner. For better or for worse, as long as there is a contract owner, the perceived powers of the contract owner likely have some legitimacy. The owner’s primary soft power is the ability to signal what is or isn’t canonical or approved, and to require some degree of psychological buy-in:

1. By social means (“the DAO has repeatedly voted against integrating these types of projects… it’s not official”)
2. By financial means (“it’s the preferred way to do it because the DAO funded it”)

Motivation

This proposal comes after many conversations and some careful thinking about the ways the outcome of either decision can both benefit and harm the ecosystem.

Benefits of keeping the keys

• The contract owner can set royalties and mint bags to establish a treasury
• The treasury can be used to fund projects that are good for the ecosystem and require capital
• The contract owner can signal what is and isn’t canonical to help establish common threads and goals

Harm in keeping the keys

• Signaling establishes legitimacy around what is and isn’t worth working on
• Royalty structures can incentivize using existing exchanges (e.g. OpenSea) over others — or even prevent them from being built in the first place
• Drama, politics, vampire attacks, and the like are inevitable, but now have an additional vector where they take up space by attempting to be recognized as “official” projects, “official” funding, “official” marketplaces, “official” initiatives
• It becomes easy for the meta to shift from talking about Loot rather than building on Loot
• Builders feel suffocated by all of it and bounce, or never get started in the first place

Benefits of burning the keys

• Permanently neutral and truly decentralized, in the spirit of the project
• Every participant (organization, DAO, or individual) is required and incentivized to be creative and self organize
• All incentive structures begin with equal footing

Harm in burning the keys

• Funds are left on the table
• No central figure or organization
• Possibility for fragmentation

Proposal

Burn the keys to the Loot contract, removing the ability for any figure or organization to ever act as its owner.

Please note that there are currently 221 unminted “owner bags” that only the contract owner can mint. In either outcome, I would like to claim 21 of them personally and lock them behind a vest, leaving 200 bags remaining.

If we vote to burn the keys:

• Create a single followup proposal to determine the fate of the 200 owner bags and act on it
• Call renounceOwnership() on the contract, burning the keys and removing ownership permanently
• Done

If we vote to keep the keys:

• Create followup proposals to determine who should act as contract owner
• Call transferOwnership() on the contract, moving ownership over to the new figure or organization
• The new figure or organization comes up with governance rules and structure (likely similar to the LIP-1 proposal)

Voting structure

• Snapshot via the community-run “LootDAO” frontend (because it’s already setup)
• 1 Loot = 1 Vote
• Open until Sunday, September 12th 16:00 GMT
• Quorum of 1,555 votes (~20% of Loot currently in existence)
• At least 60% must vote in favor of burning, otherwise default to keeping

Final thoughts

It is my opinion that the benefits and tradeoffs of burning the keys greatly outweigh the benefits and tradeoffs of keeping the keys. For that reason, I am in favor of burning the keys. I worry that the contract owner is and always will be the de facto authority (“the church”) on Loot, and that this will ultimately harm the the project.

In many cases, I’ve found the cons of burning the keys are addressable:

• Creating a Loot-specific marketplace allows collection of royalties, likely provides a better experience, allows for more optionality around L2 and other chains, and is a lower “all-in” fee since the marketplace fee is equal to the royalty, rather than being added on top of it
• Allowing separate DAO or token initiatives to fund and incentivize projects creates multiple incentive structures, some of which can be narrowly focused or otherwise specialized
• Fragmentation is tough but also allows for innovation and optionality, especially in the early days of a project when things are being figured out on the fly. Other forms of consensus and curation can solve for it in the future

If you are a builder and any of this resonates you with you in either direction, please speak up. You are the most important part of the project and we need to hear from you.

Vote link

https://snapshot.org/#/loot-dao.eth/proposal/QmepVTBNmq48AT2KjAKWHq8cqQS7thxnB42Padi5Reh1dy

Apologies but in order to get a completely fresh start, this vote will be duplicative of the existing “Burn the Keys” proposal.

[giaki3003]

Lets get these keys burnt!

[threepwave]

Supportive of this. Thanks for raising.

[shabow]

I am in support of burning the keys. I appreciate the writeup and proposal, @dom!

[jason]

Harm in keeping the keys

• Signaling establishes legitimacy around what is and isn’t worth working on
• Royalty structures can incentivize using existing exchanges (e.g. OpenSea) over others — or even prevent them from being built in the first place
• Drama, politics, vampire attacks, and the like are inevitable, but now have an additional vector where they take up space by attempting to be recognized as “official” projects, “official” funding, “official” marketplaces, “official” initiatives
• It becomes easy for the meta to shift from talking about Loot rather than building on Loot

Based on what discussions have been happening over the past week in terms of AGLD, governance, DAOs, I think these are real threats to the community. We’ve already seen weak examples of each and that’s without clear direction from “above.” Imagine what would happen with a defacto group with hard and soft powers.

A best, it would be a distraction at worst…well, we can all probably imagine.

[Veltoss]

Originally I was all for creating a treasury and using royalties for that. But the way the discussion has changed and the way some of the people talk these last several days, I’m now for burning the keys. Let’s get back to focusing on building and nip this in the bud.

[heygareth.eth]

Adventure Gold supports this move, whatever has happened, the project being an open build space is beneficial for all and favours none.

[Nate]

If we vote to burn the keys:

• Create a single followup proposal to determine the fate of the 200 owner bags and act on it
• Call renounceOwnership() on the contract, burning the keys and removing ownership permanently

If the outcome is burning the keys, I suggest we raffle/airdrop the remaining 200 owner bags to current loot holders with each loot bag serving as 1 entry for the raffle.

[dom]

Quick thought about the bags. Just to keep the focus narrow, let’s focus on discussing the proposal at hand in this thread. In either outcome, discussion around what happens with the bags can happen in subsequent proposals.

[matto-matto]

I could not be more excited about this proposal for burning the keys. This is such a pure, strong statement about what this project and community is about: a game universe owned by the community building it where anyone can make a difference.

I can’t vote via Loot token as I don’t have any but as someone building on Loot can only say that this is absolutely the direction I want the project to go in. Huge support for this.

[guven07]

Legit.Burn it all. Im supporting %100

[0x3cdc]

Will vote yes with my 6 bags. Well thought out and well structured.

Let’s ship it

[dropnerd]

I’m voting yes.

Let’s not give the opportunity for a group to officially bless initiatives. We need more building and experimentation.

[nicholas]

@dom Thank you for writing this clear and eloquent proposal that I believe comprehensively frames the issue.

I appreciate that through this proposal, we will decide whether to burn the keys before any subsequent decision. I also appreciate very much that LIP-0 includes plans for a follow-up proposal regarding the fate of the remaining loot, regardless of the outcome of this vote. I am fully in favor of Dom taking 21 loot regardless of the outcome.

I agree that we should burn the keys. I am very encouraged to see @heygareth.eth as representative of AGLD supports burning the keys. Loot is stronger as an ecosystem without any government whatsoever.

Loot has a very bright future as a genuinely permissionless cc0 ecosystem. I hope AGLD and many other derivatives find their unique and permissionless path to flourishing success, self-sufficiency, and the suitable governance for their community of stakeholders. I love this project.

[ZKTruth.eth]

It’s a good proposal because it puts everyone on the same playing field and it prevents changes being made to something that the community already feels is immutable.
If we really wanted a treasury to kick-start development, we can either use AGLD, or we can authorize you to sell those remaining 200 bags with funds going directly into said treasury before you burn the keys.

[jpalmz]

I support burning the keys. Having an official treasury that funds ecosystem grants feels extremely lame to me, and would optimize for people who are good at applying for smart grant ideas instead of creative hackers and builders. For me, the existence of a treasury funding Loot grants would make me less interested in building on Loot at all, and I’ve talked to several devs who feel the same.

Personally, I think the privileges of the owner have been clear since the moment of deployment. The creator bags are Dom’s. I know the details here are out of scope for this proposal, but to me the cleanest outcome is that Dom personally claims all of the owner bags, then renounces ownership. What happens to those bags after he claims them is his personal decision. This is the pure solution.

Loot can prosper on rough consensus and running code. Many DAOs and treasuries will form, but they should do so out of organic self-organization by people with a shared purpose, not through coopting the owner’s rights to form an “official” entity.

[andrewg]

fully support burning the keys

[scotato]

I really feel like burning the keys is most inline with the spirit of the project.

@dom

Creating a Loot-specific marketplace allows collection of royalties, likely provides a better experience, allows for more optionality around L2 and other chains, and is a lower “all-in” fee since the marketplace fee is equal to the royalty, rather than being added on top of it

This is amazing and I’m so excited to see this market come into existence.

[maximiliannorz]

awesome, @dom first creates loot, now saves it from endless “control discussions” which drain so much energy that we may soon be able to channel toward building tools and infrastructure for the lootverse (if we vote to burn the keys).

I vote: burn the keys!

[codyb]

what about the keys for More Loot? Is anyone in favor of a proposal to burn those as well?