Ensuring transparency at district0x

Introducing the district0x Network Transparency Policy

Let’s start with a definition - what is transparency? Merriam-Webster defines “transparent” as characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices. In the context of district0x, transparency can be seen specifically as the core team of contributors disclosing actions made to the community at large.

With our initial contribution period closing in less than 24 hours we would like to highlight the reasons we think transparency is so essential to the success of the district0x Network and the steps we are taking to ensure that we are adhering to this principle.

Why is transparency important?

When Joe Urgo asked me to join the district0x team, I was admittedly hesitant. I already had a comfortable job in the industry with relative autonomy. I had access to new challenges, new opportunities, and potential for growth. On the flipside, though we had many deep conversations leading up to the publishing of the district0x Network white paper, at the time I had a ton of looming questions on the project and its future.

That all changed when Joe told me his vision for the transparency policy. I realized right then and there that we were building something “for the community, by the community”. The financial disclosures we’d be making would go above and beyond what any team has promised before, and we would be pulling back a veil that exists in the traditional venture capital and tech space.

All too often during my time at Coinbase, I had to swallow the harsh reality that proactively informing customers of decisions or changes made internally was neither pragmatic nor possible. While it may have put users at ease or even bought more leeway for an issue we were tackling, it opened up a host of new legal and operational risks. In a word, I hated making these compromises and frequently found myself leaning in a different direction than my coworkers. Complete transparency and responsible disclosure are not always easy to accomplish, but it’s certainly a simpler approach than analyzing the competing benefits of keeping secrets. This, in essence, is how transparency became important to me.

However, transparency is not just an ethical ideal. It’s more than a personal self-imposed obligation. In open-source and community-driven projects, transparency serves as the arbiter of informed decision making. Without it, participants are left with an incomplete picture of reality, and aren’t able to most effectively vote to steer future course of action. We see the negative effects of this all too often in the world of politics.

Everyone at district0x believes in the unstoppable power of democratic systems. We live and breathe for a future where decision making power can be drawn from participants and users of networks rather than central authorities. Building user governed marketplaces means that transparency provides an essential utility to token holders making those decisions. That’s why transparency is a core value of the district0x project.

How are we guaranteeing transparency?

Two weeks ago we deployed https://district0x.io/transparency/ as promised in the Transparency Policy section our white paper. This page contains (or will contain) disclosures on the use of all raised funds as well as disclosures of the project’s progress. Let’s take a more in-depth look at each component we’ve placed here.

Multisig wallet - This address contains all of the funds raised in contribution period V0.1. As promised in our whitepaper, all wages and any operational expenses possible will be paid directly in ETH. We will hedge two years of runway into USD, and will disclose these and any larger fund movements once complete.

Wages Paid - This spreadsheet will contain a full breakdown of wages paid to core team members. Wages will be paid in ETH/USD equivalent every first and third Friday per month according to the agreed upon salary. Transactions will be sent directly from the multisig wallet above to the address provided, and will have their transaction hashes as well as the exchange rate used to calculate the final ETH payout included in the publicly viewable spreadsheet.

Project Roadmap - For now, this link contains reference to the minimum viable roadmap included in the whitepaper. A more detailed development roadmap will be published in the coming weeks. As a project manager, it’s my job to make sure that no matter what circumstances we encounter, these key roadmap items are hit. For a quick taste on what we’ll be focusing on in the medium-term:

Hire at least 2 Clojure developers

Add additional features into Ethlance, such as payments in ERC20, Swarm utilization and more

Further develop d0xINFRA and migrate Ethlance to it

Launch Name Bazaar, accommodating d0xINFRA

Github Repository - We commit to having our github repo stay open and freely accessible forever.

In addition to all of the above, which will remain available in perpetuity, we will also be publishing regular transparency reports to our blog, which will be made available on the transparency page. These reports will be published on a quarterly basis and will contain a complete breakdown of expenses and project progress for that quarter. We’ll include several one-off reports in this category as well (for instance, the contribution period recap coming in the next week or two).

Help us Improve

Providing transparency to our community is not an exact science. Much like crowdsale structures, there is no perfect formula. What we’ve detailed above are the first and most important steps on a long journey we’ve committed to at district0x. We cherish all feedback, and if there’s ever a place where you personally feel we could be providing more clarity or information, we encourage you to reach out to the team directly so we might consider an adjustment.