Thank you @justmythoughts for your detailed feedback!
Regarding your points on ICP Community Conference: I fully agree with you that this is a great initiative and seems very useful for the whole ICP ecosystem (as I also mentioned in my initial reply). I do not have context on past conferences and DFINITY’s involvement and thus I cannot comment on that. Personally, I would happy to contribute to an upcoming ICPCC, if schedules allow it.
Hey guys, I’m a fan of ICPCC and I think this is really interesting but I have some concerns that you can hopefully address.
Blockchains coupled with DAO’s, give users and the community a chance to own a piece of their favourite dApp. The cool thing with the SNS, is that if the community wanted they could fork the repo → write code for a feature they want to see added → and create a proposal to add it. This to me is one of the most important use-cases of DAOs and huge selling point for participating in an SNS. The whole point of DAO’s (to me) is removing centralised corporate networks that make changes to their apps without “governance proposals” or consulting their users (which historically has meant entrepreneurs, users and creators have lost out).
I can be sure that if the founding team disappear I can create proposals and maintain a dApp (if it’s sufficiently decentralised). The power is in the users hands and that’s what Web3 is all about.
With an off-chain DAO ICPCC are trying to over-haul this whole paradigm and I can’t see how it will work and what the point is? If there is no dApp or code (I’m not sure airdrop canisters constitute a dApp) - what does the community and the user own by owning this token? What changes can they actually make apart from proposals to move funds around and “motion proposals”?
I think it’s interesting but I can’t see how it will work and what the point is - wouldn’t this be better as just a normal non-profit organisation with a fun ICRC-1 token for events?
Hey @dfxjesse, great questions!
First, “off-chain DAO” is a bit of a misnomer, since all these aspects are still on chain:
In the case of the ICPCC, the exact same thing could be done with the ICPCC Constitution. It’s a binding document empowered by the Corporate Personhood given to the DAO by the Marshall Islands DAO LLC. This type of legal entity REQUIRES the existence of an on-chain DAO, and it recognizes the on chain aspects of that DAO as legally binding. You can find out more here and here.
Exactly! The ICPCC DAO doesn’t delegate any power to the ICPCC Council to make decisions for it, they are just vendors hired to shape proposals for the DAO to vote on. All authority and decision-making power stays with the DAO members, and again those on-chain decisions are legally binding.
For example, the DAO is the only owner of the ICPCC brand and Intellectual Property, and if someone uses these without an explicit proposal from the DAO granting them that right, the DAO can hire a lawyer to sue them. The ICPCC DAO is a fully decentralized independent actor with no agents making decisions on its behalf.
There is no traditional “core team” with ICPCC, again the ICPCC Council is a completely different structure. The entire council is replaceable and everything can run without them. You can see my recent tweet about the council here, and read about it here.
They own:
They can hire and fire members of the ICPCC Council. I’d also argue that they would have just as much, if not more, power than the board of any major company (which is basically all the power).
In additions, there’s even a framework for adding power to motion proposals. For example, ignoring them would be grounds for a council member to be fired. This is called “Request Motions,” and it’s outlined in the constitution here.
No, for the reasons explained in the litepaper here.
Not only would that mean the community would lack true ownership and control, it would mean a single centralized party would:
Why “Off-Chain” Matters
Ultimately, most “real world” value is exactly that: It happens in the real world.
Web3 is wonderful, but only so far as it makes an impact to the physical users it creates value for. In that sense, all DAOs need to be “off-chain” to an extent, since a dapp that results in no ultimate real world impact is useless.
Some types of value can be more exclusively created on chain, like economic value. However, there are other types, like “ownership” or “legal authority” rely on real world legal structures like the Marshall Islands DAO LLC to be created.
However, this type of value can still only be controlled on chain, which makes it no different than economic value. What is “economic value” if not a representation of trust that someone else will be willing to trade this asset for another? Unless “value” is something physical like food, clothing, or shelter, it’s just an idea.
If Web3 doesn’t master off-chain DAOs, it’s going to have an extremely limited impact on the future. The innovation around “off-chain DAOs” is an area that can have real power, real decentralization, and real impact. To dismiss it because it doesn’t look like the defi dapps we’re used to would be shortsighted.
Hey @dfxjesse, thanks for joining the conversation!
You’re a Motoko Bootcamp graduate. Where did you go when I was raving about DAOs for hours? 
Let’s browse over your points:
It’s interesting that you see the main advantage of the SNS framework as letting users contribute to the source code of their favorite dApp. Yet, it’s been a year, and we haven’t seen anyone, to my current knowledge, actually do this. Right now, the real benefit we’re getting from SNSs is transparency.
Let’s be real, current teams can easily pass technical proposals in their SNS DAOs whenever they want. I’m not saying that’s bad; it makes sense considering how early we are in the process.
I believe that limiting the use-cases of DAOs and by extent tools such as the SNS framework to control the source code of dApps is a limited vision of the true potential of DAOs. DAOs are more than just technical tools; they represent a new way of organizing human interactions—how we work, collaborate, and live together. This has deep societal implications. We should be exploring full time and not limiting use cases.
Why use the SNS Framework?
Transparency: All decisions related to fund usage, roadmap, and strategic decisions are completely transparent.
Complete On-chain History: There’s a full record of all decisions, votes, previous constitutions, and documents.
Control Over Treasury: We know this system is secure since it has been securing millions of $ for over a year. That’s a strong selling point.
Software Control: Even if this DAO isn’t currently focused on software development, let’s just pause and imagine what an ICP event will look like in 5 years. Think about having an ICP conference—live-streamed on an ICP-native platform, tickets as NFTs that grant access to exclusive groups on OpenChat, DSCVR portals, Catalyze groups, events in the Yuku metaverse, and much more. We are moving into the metaverse and this DAO is highly likely to extend the number of software it controls and communicates with.
Access to SNS Tools: Numerous #ICP dApps (OpenChat, ICDex…) are building tools and integration with the SNS framework. Having an SNS DAO enables a native connection with those apps.
The SNS framework is currently the best way to launch a DAO on ICP (and actually in the entire crypto-space) due to its reputation, security, and integration in the #ICP ecosystem. I hope in the next few years we will be able to design and explore other frameworks but currently all of us are limited by time, expertise, and funds.
ICPCC or not, one day someone is going to use the Internet Computer and the SNS framework to set up a DAO that is about a shared mission. And it won’t be about making software. The ICP ecosystem hasn’t broken out yet because there’s a mix-up between on-chain dApps and what building a DAO means. Software is just a tool. The ICPCC DAO, by its nature of being a collective event with a strong community involvement, has a unique position and an actual chance of evolving as a DAO.
I think many aspects of a conference could be run from an open source repo, for example let’s say they want to budget 500 ICP for live entertainment, this could be in a repo titled “Entertainment Budget”. If you disagree, you could fork the Entertainment Budget repo, and update to 400 ICP, submit a PR, then submit a proposal with your reasoning why you think it should be lower. This could be true for agendas, speakers, accommodations, merch, etc…
At this point, treasury proposals could be created to pay the listed parties in the repo and you’d have public accountability that the intended parties were paid the proposed amounts.
It seems the intent from the constitution is to use dfinity forums for comms, but Imo nothing clashes with the SNS model here, they are just not utilizing some aspects, which I think is fine too.
The constitution is very well thought out, other SNSs should take notes, very cool. Best of luck to the team!
A first of it’s kind SNS DAO. Will be a trailblazer for a new bread and potentially larger class of DAOs.
Using a github repo is actually a brilliant idea!
I also think Catalyze might be building some custom tools for events, probably with parameters that could be given over the DAO’s control.
Hey everyone!
I had a great call with @bjoernek & Lomesh earlier today.
They graciously provided clarity regarding DFINITY’s position regarding the launch of “Off-Chain” DAOs on the SNS. In short, they view these a bit similar to how they view other community-based projects such as meme tokens.
Specifically, DFINITY has agreed to abstain from voting on the ICPCC SNS Launch proposal that’ll be submitted on May 4th, so long as the SNS will not be participating in the neuron fund.
We understand their reasoning and are very happy DFINITY will be leaving this vote up to the community’s decision! They truly have the good of the ICP community at heart, and for this type of SNS DAO direct commitment SNS participation really is the best fit, so this SNS will not be participating in the Neuron Fund.
To further give this DAO over to the will of the ICP community, the minimum direct contribution amount to this SNS launch is being reduced to 1 ICP.
This solidifies the fact that the primary purpose of this SNS launch is to decentralize the established ICPCC IP and brand under the complete control of an SNS DAO, rather than to raise funds. Whatever amount is raised during the SNS launch, the DAO can always collect sponsorships to fund events just like all other conference brands (this was already part of the design of the DAO).
Conference brands are usually profitable starting on their 3rd year, and the new SNS DAO will be hosting the 3rd ICPCC event in 2025, so the intention was always for the DAO to start hosting profitable events from day #1.
What matters most is that the community is 100% in control. The ICP community decides what is contributed to help kick-start the next few ICP conferences. Once the DAO is launched, the community is in control of deciding how big these events will be!
The reduced minimum direct commit still doesn’t change the early-bird incentive. 4% of the CONF token supply will still be airdropped to SNS principals that contribute any of the first 80,000 ICP during this SNS launch! You can read more about this here.
For those who are curious:
Updated YAML Init File
This is an awesome development! Glad to see things moving forward. This will be a really interesting experiment and I’m hopeful to be where ever the conference ends up being to share a conversation, a drink, a meal, a laugh, and whatever group therapy we need 
.
Thanks for all your feedback everyone!!!
The ICPCC SNS Launch Proposal is now live, please go ahead and case your vote:
is this available to invest in?
Maybe a bug, also maybe not the thread for this but i just spotted a discrepancy in the SNS sale.
So it says the SNS has succeeded even though the minimum amount of participants hasn’t been reached. I am missing something?
I would bet on a UI quirk. I’ve forwarded your message to the team.
Just a heads up that the ICPCC DAO SNS Swap sale is now live:
Thank you very much for reporting. This is the UI issue indeed. The fix should be available within the next release.
