Decentralized governance in cryptocurrency communities: The PascalCoin model.

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Decentralized and Open source are arguably the most popular words in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, but unfortunately, they are in fact an illusion in many blockchain and cryptocurrency projects, not only in the technology itself but also in every aspect of management of the community of supporters and users of the cryptocurrencies and as well in the community of contributors to the technology. Unarguably, one of the major goals of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency is to create an ‘embezzlement’ free economy and a decentralized community free from third party influences and manipulations by the ‘higher-class’ individuals.

Most cryptocurrency community have struggled to accomplish this vision, majority of blockchain and cryptocurrency projects have been labeled ‘scam’ primarily due to obscure moves by the development and promotion team. While most of these projects have defeated this negative tag and have stood up as ‘genuine’, the scar still remains and the cause of the initial ‘scam’ name tag is still left untreated however people have only come to believe in these projects because the development and promotion team have successfully proved beyond doubts that they are ‘here to stay’ and not actually because they have satisfied the people’s crave for transparency in financial transactions and decision making. Many blames this misunderstanding on the claim that ‘the people wants more’.

Probably the people wants more, but, yes, they deserve even more, while the tirelessly working cryptocurrency project team members have achieved tremendous success over the years, the community behind these projects also shares a huge part of the struggle and their persistence and determination to see to the success of the projects have earned them the ‘army’ name. While the core team can be seen as the War leaders, the rest of the squad also deserves sufficient information about the pros and cons of the exercise.

Amongst the issues surrounding governance in cryptocurrency communities are…

Obscurity in funds management

Once members of a cryptocurrency community learns about a transfer of a substantial amount of the coins they support to another wallet, probably from tweets by whalealert, many questions arises as regards the reason for such transfer and what effect if will have on the project. Regardless of how genuine the project have proved to be, the question of ‘an exit scam’ will always rise at the wake of an unexplained huge fund transfer. This have caused some level of volatility in crypto prices as the coin holders panic-sell in response to these transfer. This have affected the cryptosphere so much and have the questionable stability of crypto prices continues.

Centralized decision on employment, staff remuneration and work time

Decentralized? If yes, then the community should also have a say about who works for them and should also be part of the decision about how much these staff are paid for their services and how much work they also do for the community. This is an ideal example of decentralization and open source decision making. While many crypto projects core teams have earnestly worked towards achieving this, they still fall short at times. Hopefully more effort is made to improve on this aspect and to get the people more involved in all-round decisions making of cryptocurrency projects, this is the only way it will truly attain its tag of decentralized and The people’s currency, devoid of censorship, third party influences and centralized governance.

Limited space for contributions

Just a quick follow up to the aforementioned point, cryptocurrency projects also sets limits of the number of contributions they get from the community members, either in form of financial advice or technical advice, this have raised issues of negligence in cryptocurrency communities and more questions arise as regards the level of decentralization and how open source the blockchain technology and cryptocurrency really is, while some neglected contributions would have really been disastrous to the project, many neglected contributions would have also been greatly beneficial to the project. Rejection/negligence of advice or contributions from the community should be diplomatic and shouldn’t raise concerns about hierarchy and stratification in the community.

’Closed channels’ and stratification in Crypto communities

While closed channels enables the team to make closed door decisions and also helps to ensure organized contributions, it still doesn’t go well with the decentralized term. True decentralization comes with complete transparency especially when the decision to made concerns the whole community, this gives everyone the opportunity to decide what happens in the community as it truly concerns everyone. Though decentralization is quite different from democracy, they do share a similarity in involving the whole community members in almost every aspect of management and governance.

Lack of support for community members

Cryptocurrency projects can really be so tasking that most times the community leaders are so engrossed with issues concerning the project and hence only have a little time to attend to issues from the members of the community. However, a decentralized system of government always makes space for the people, because the people are the government, complaints and enquiries by any member of the community should be taken as a matter of importance, this gives a suitable definition of leadership by the people, just another decentralization shares a similarity with democracy.

The PascalCoin model

I’ve been a part of several cryptocurrency projects, mainly as a mere supporter and a member of the project team in only few of them, having been on both sides of a cryptocurrency community, the leaders-followers relationship is a common concept. The struggles from the side of the leaders to ensure that the supporters are maintained and also the image of the project is kept intact and to prevent the project from being destroyed by FUD could be really tasking.

However, one community have stood out in achieving a decentralized and transparent leadership scheme, it’s transparency at its peak, this can bee seen in many areas of the organization and every procedures such as…

Decision making: All plans and proposals are subject to community polls. They core team takes the task of giving an explicit explanation of what they intend to do, this includes the schedules (for time bound proposals) and the financial requirements. Every proposal is open to scrutiny by all members of the community and the highest vote option wins, this process is open and unrestricted.

Contributions and proposals by community members: The PascalCoin blockchain is an open source blockchain, hence everyone is welcome to build on the blockchain, but it doesn’t end here! The community is also decentralized and open source. Members of the community who comes up with an idea(s) which they wish to execute in the community or on the blockchain itself presents these ideas to the community in the normal form of proposal, hence he includes every relevant details of his idea and how he hopes to actualize this. The community votes for or against this. And just as every other proposals, the highest vote wins. Voting is carefully watched to check manipulation and censorship.

Transparency in management of funds: Every penny is and open to scrutiny by the community members, all expenditures and available funds are carefully recorded on a spreadsheet which is accessible by every member of the community and even the crowd outside the community, the team is always available to answer questions as regards this, the community members are also enlightened about all expenditure and as a matter of fact, these expenditures are/were approved by the community!

Plausible responsiveness: At PascalCoin, your concerns and questions are of high importance and are promptly attended to, the team members ensures that every complaint from other members of the community is well handled, just another way to ensure you that the people leads and no one is the big boss

Just to reiterate, THE TEAM IS ANSWERABLE TO ALL QUERIES about the management processes
Decentralization in its real sense, a model for every cryptocurrency communities.
And here’s a little challenge!

Your opinion counts in a decentralized system, your contributions are also considered and the people makes the decisions.
Join the PascalCoin discord channel and be part of the decisions!

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