Introducing the Stacks Treasury Committee (SIP-31)

[JoeVezzani]

Introducing the Stacks Treasury Committee: A Dedicated Set of Community Leaders Who Will Guide The Next Era of Stacks Growth

Hey Stackers, we’re excited to share the Appointments Committee’s decisions regarding Treasury Committee “TC” placements. In this post we’ll cover who the Appointments Committee picked, why we picked them, how we ran our process and data gathering exercises, what we expect from members, and some other recommendations we’re making as part of the overall goal to maintain community oversight and participation relative to the newly created Stacks Endowment.

The Appointments Committee was selected via an open set of workshops and discussions, it is made up of Algorithm.btc, Dan Trevino, Joe Vezzani, Diego Mey, Tycho Onnasch, Hero Gamer, and Jason Schrader. We are sincerely grateful to the community for entrusting us with this key responsibility and are excited to share our work with you.

Reminders about the TC:

• The Treasury Committee is a board-level body that approves the strategy and budgets, while day-to-day program design comes from the CIO of the Stacks Endowment, Stacks Labs, and community proposals. Most of the TC’s energy goes into reviewing, challenging, and approving those proposals, setting guardrails and KPIs, and monitoring results through quarterly and annual reporting. The TC can also originate strategic allocations when there is a gap or a priority the operating teams have not proposed, and it can commission sub-committees like Grants to run competitive processes. In short, primarily oversight and approval, with selective origination on ecosystem-wide priorities; execution remains with the operating teams.
• The Treasury Committee focuses on the highest-level budget, balancing growing the Stacks Endowment over time with spends against ecosystem needs. It works to allocate funding to large budgetary areas, leaving more specific designs, such as individual grants, to teams or groups purpose-built for it (more on this later). We expect the Treasury Committee will formally meet on a quarterly basis.
• The initial voting membership of the Treasury Committee will consist of nine members - 5 appointed directly by the Appointments Committee, 3 from the organizations providing seed funding to the Stacks Endowment, plus the Endowment’s Chief Investment Officer. All community appointed members serve 4-year terms, with four members appointed each 24 months to ensure continuity. Members may be re-appointed to successive terms.
• After the initial appointments, at each appointment period, the Stacks Endowment shall publish desired criteria for Treasury Committee members and, after consultation with and nominations from the Stacks community, prepare a final list of proposed Treasury Committee members for the open seats. This proposed set of members must then be approved by a community vote, with at least 2/3rds of votes in support.
• If a member steps down, or is removed, the remaining members of the Treasury Committee shall appoint a replacement to fill their seat for the remainder of their term by a 2/3rds vote. Additionally, any member may be removed for failing to fulfill their duties or violating their responsibilities to the Committee by a 2/3rds vote of the Committee.
• If any TC member is pseudonymous, they must be able to sign legal agreements and pass basic KYC where required.
• Keyholders are appointed by the TC but are distinct from it; they only execute committee-approved transfers.
• Ad hoc votes can occur asynchronously.
• TC may originate strategic allocations if gaps exist, but execution stays with the CIO and Ops Entity.

How we selected the Treasury Committee

First, we were given a great head start on this thanks to the framework by the open community group that chose the Appointments Committee in the first place, so huge shout out to them. Much of what they optimized for in establishing the AC were shared with how we thought of selecting great TC members. If you have not read their post, it’s worth a look.

From that basic framework, we derived our top considerations, sourced data from each of our nominations or other nominations we saw/were brought to us, applied multiple ranking schemas, discussed individual candidates and the various tradeoffs, and ultimately arrived at the recommendations via democratic discussions. Our biggest issue was that we felt we had 10-12 fantastic final options and we spent a lot of time trying to cut it down to 5. That said, our additional recommendations call for these folks to be leveraged in other key places (more below).

Here are the key factors we looked at:

Factor	Description
Strategic thinking and leadership, expertise, professionalism	We heavily valued those with experience having run their own business or project. Leading and growing ecosystems is difficult, the best analog is growing a business, particularly one your reputation and compensation depend on. We selected for people with a demonstrated ability to make strategic decisions, operate with a growth mindset, and make shrewd decisions about inevitable tradeoffs and more generally, a ‘founder mentality’.
Skin in the game	We also heavily valued people who clearly have a lot riding on the overall success of Stacks. To be clear, this was not ‘who has the biggest bag’, we looked at their risk relative to the person’s overall reputation and investment in the ecosystem and valued those who have a lot on the line.
Support of others	In our selections you will find some of the people who do the most to uplift others through what they are building, how they operate, how they amplify, or all of the above. It was important to us that we selected for people who clearly have enough perspective beyond what they are immediately doing to consider those around them; we believe this habit and mode of thinking will be key for the TC.

Other factors we considered:

• Nominees should be active contributors to a project (no specific type required).
• Nominees should have on-chain history showing engagement in multiple applications and projects such as Stacking, DeFi, community/meme coins, NFTs, BNS, and essentially all forms of engaging with the network. Generally, more is better.
• Nominees should have a history of contributing to Stacks that includes unpaid or volunteer work (in addition to paid work).
• Nominees should be skilled communicators with an open mind and data-driven disposition.
• Nominees should have spoken publicly in a community space (beyond just tweeting) as a proxy for showing a demonstrated track record of trying to connect and understand others.
• Nominees who have run a node, miner, or signer (any form of network operations) are preferred.
• Nominees with experience with DAOs or Governance are preferred.

Other factors we considered in our final selection ‘mix’

• Diversity of skillsets and backgrounds
• Diversity of focus area and/or primary community association
• Diversity of geographic, cultural, and other representation
• Availability (based on survey, we didn’t select for folks unlikely to have the time)

The Selections:

Thank you to all the nominees who filled our lengthy survey, profiles from our selections are made available below!

Jackbinswitch

Summary of selection: Legendary community member who interfaces with every corner of the ecosystem, is vocal on community needs, and has a track record of bringing groups together.

Additional key reasons for selection:

• Jack is a highly respected voice across the Stacks community, with a broad ecosystem perspective through active involvement in grassroots initiatives and DeFi, including a deep connection with Stacks’ memecoin community.
• Jack is a strategic thinker who balances big-picture vision with treasury decisions that support long-term ecosystem health, while staying closely connected to community needs and priorities.
• Jack is a key contributor to Hermetica, giving him both a builder perspective and end-user mindset

A word from the selection: “If selected I will handle this role with the gravity it deserves. This is an immense responsibility and I consider this task a make or break moment for Stacks. I will do my best with the success of Stacks as my North Star, and maintaining the trust of the community and building trust with my partners as my guiding principles during my tenure on the TC.”

Approved Alternate(s): Binaya Tripathi or xyzero.btc

Andrea Ballesteros

Summary of selection: For the past several years, Andrea has worked tirelessly to support Stacks builders through her work on the Stacks Accelerator and Bitcoin Frontier Fund. Her hands-on experience with builders’ challenges, combined with her extensive investor network, positions her to make informed treasury allocation decisions that drive ecosystem growth.

Additional key reasons for selection:

• Strong growth experience, an area we feel is a need in the ecosystem
• Deep network across traditional finance, Bitcoin L1 ecosystem, and venture capital communities
• Represents a European geography and is a strong ambassador to women-focused community groups, something we believe will allow her to support the TC in best considering elements of diversity as the ecosystem grows.

**A word from the selection: *“*I think about funding the way I think about investing: every dollar should unlock as much growth as possible for the ecosystem. My philosophy would be to prioritize projects that create compounding value, meaning ones that not only succeed themselves but also enable more builders, users, and activity across the ecosystem.”

Approved Alternate(s): Kyle Ellicott, lead at Stacks Asia

Dylan Floyd

Summary of selection: Dylan is the leader of the top DEX on Stacks and a well-known builder who deeply understands DeFi and other key aspects of making Stacks successful as a product. He possesses key day-to-day visibility on critical trading dynamics, liquidity flows, and ecosystem health that the TC should know and understand.

Additional key reasons for selection:

• From early Stacks user to builder of Bitflow, the leading DEX aggregator on Stacks that raised pre-seed funds, Dylan has a 360° perspective across the ecosystem.
• Well-connected in the Bitcoin L1 ecosystem, with deep technical and business understanding of cross-chain infrastructure through Pontis bridge development and native BTC trading.
• Active leadership that balances the view of builders, users, and institutions, understanding the needs of each and how they connect through infrastructure, demonstrating sustained commitment to ecosystem governance.

**A word from the selection: “**I’m honored to be nominated. I started here on Stacks in Jan '21 as an outsider who stumbled upon a tweet about Smart Contracts for Bitcoin (class of '17). From community member to a leader in the DeFi Working Group, and… from an idea to the most popular app on Stacks based on users and transactions, my experience in this ecosystem has resulted in major growth for me personally and for Bitflow. We started Bitflow when CeFi was blowing up in 2022, interest rates spiked, and VC checks dried up, so I know how important it is to allocate funds intelligently across times of scarcity and abundance. I’d be happy to apply what I’ve learned and to continue supporting Stacks in this new capacity.”

Approved Alternate(s): Setzeus

Louise Ivan

Summary of selection: Builder with connections to other ecosystems and top-tier investors. His early community growth work accounts for a huge percentage of the current community joining Stacks and also runs FastPool with Friedger as part of Ryder.

Additional key reasons for selection:

• Louise is focused on growth and community, a marketing-based perspective that will be key for this era of growth fueled by SIP-031
• Unique perspective on the ecosystem as a hardware builder with top-tier investors. He manages a multi-chain product that has a strong focus on Stacks but which also allows him deep connections to other ecosystems we can learn from.
• Europe-based, with a background in Asia and operates with a community-first mindset and a keen understanding of incentives.
• Understands the needs of builders and is conveniently incentivized to see apps be successful given he works on a wallet.

**A word from the selection: “I would approach funding allocation with operational transparency as the guiding principle. Too often in organizations, everything happens
in a black box where only a few know the real picture. Before starting Ryder, I made a commitment to change that. Every key decision, its trade-offs, and even costs like travel are documented and visible so everyone understands the “why.” Transparency isn’t just about keeping people informed; it builds alignment, sets expectations, and creates accountability. With full visibility, better choices are made, and the ecosystem can trust that capital is being used to maximize impact.”

Approved Alternate(s): Joe Vezzani

Jonathan Sadlowe

Summary of selection: There are very few individuals with less skin in the game for Stacks, both in terms of capital investment, time investment, and current focus. Via Gossamer he has invested in most key teams, giving him a tight relationship with builders and as a founder of Signal21 has a deep data-driven understanding of the network.

Additional key reasons for selection:

• Very experienced with running companies as both a founder and investor
• Opinionated and product-minded, while maintaining open-mindedness and a collaborative nature while effectively working with a wide range of ecosystem players
• Established, experienced professional and successful founder, a perspective Stacks will leverage as we hope to see more founders break out.
• Ability to make nuanced, strategic decisions. Is a phenomenal listener, partner, and supporter that can help us stay rooted in metrics/on-chain impact

**A word from the selection: *“*I would approach treasury funding with a builder-first and distribution-first mindset, prioritizing high-impact initiatives that grow the Stacks ecosystem across both retail users and institutional capital. While supporting proven builders and bold experiments remains critical, I believe the future of Stacks depends on becoming enterprise-grade—trusted by institutions, usable by corporations, and embraced by consumers. This requires investing in infrastructure, apps, and growth strategies that bridge Web3 usability with Bitcoin security. I’d allocate capital like a VC—milestone-driven, transparent, and results-oriented—backing teams that not only ship, but know how to scale and distribute what they build to the world.”

Approved Alternate(s): Freddy Flaxman

With these selections placed, the Treasury Committee is nearly complete with only the CIO of the Stacks Endowment slot still to be determined.

Why we picked alternates:

As the Appointments Committee worked to place the initial members, we were aware that given this is a new endeavor with much still to be learned about the role, there may be a case where one of the nominations needs to bow out relatively early in their 4-year term. To ensure the Treasury Committee can continue to move fast if this were to happen, we included more candidates in our deliberations and data gathering exercises than we needed so we could offer pre-vetted alternates. Alternates can be selected if needed by a 2/3 Treasury Committee vote. To be clear, it is up to the TC to select its replacements, but we hope that in this scenario they will leverage our suggestions — we’ve even provided alternates that are most fitting based on who may step down.

Additional Recommendations

Advisory Group for TC:

In addition to the selected TC members and alternates, the Appointments Committee suggests that the Treasury Committee work to establish its own Advisory Group in some form. We will provide some initial suggested names for this group below. We believe the TC should use this Advisory function as a mechanism to bring in new perspective to the ecosystem to supplement their own knowledge of Stacks, including some ‘big names’. We strongly considered including an ‘outsider’ as an initial member of the TC, but ultimately landed on making sure these were all filled by community members. However, we strongly believe that the TC will benefit from additional outside perspective and recommend they establish this Advisory Group, much as other entities in the ecosystem have boards.

Future Grant Committee:

It is worth noting that we expect the Stacks Endowment to set up a grants program. We are calling for the Stacks Endowment to work with this Appointments Committee and leverage our data when it comes time to establish the community input function for the grants program. Through this process, we have identified a number of individuals that would be well-suited to review grant level decisions while the Treasury Committee remains focused on the high-level budget allocation exercises. These community members will have the critical role of helping to make the much more specific decisions about things like grants downstream of the TC’s higher level allocation exercises. We’re happy to hear from anyone that would be interested in a position like this, for now you can simply email [email protected] noting your interest.

Treasury Committee Advisory Group and Grant Committee Suggestions/Nominees:

As an Appointments Committee, we recommend the following people to be considered for future grant committees of the Stacks Endowment and/or the Advisory group when and if formed. This is far from an exhaustive list of who we think would be a good fit, it is simply a list of the folks we learned a lot about during the TC process and believe have a lot to offer these other positions. For example, Joe Vezzani and Dan Trevino were AC members and not TC eligible, while Marvin couldn’t be selected once his teammate Louise was selected, etc. We’d encourage an open process to source more possible selections for these roles when the time is right and are open to reconvening the AC group as needed to support the Endowment or TC as desired.

Initial Advisory/Grant Nominees:

• Freddy Flaxman
• Alon Goren
• Joe Vezzani
• Kevin Williams
• Setzeus
• Dan Trevino
• Marvin Janssen

Note this advisory group would be non-voting, has no custody, and follows conflict of interest rules.

Congratulations

The Treasury Committee has a key role to play and we are confident these selections will deliver with aplomb. In the coming weeks, the Stacks Foundation has volunteered to host various members for meet-and-greets with TC members. Even though it is highly likely you know them already, we would like to ensure the community feels it has sufficient access to these individuals (in a way that’s reasonable for them) to hear from you as they prepare for their role. We’re confident our choices are reasonable, sharp, and open-minded and will do everything in their power to help Stacks be successful.