Workshops: SIP-031 Appointments Committee

SIP Weekly SIP call
#1

Hey Stackers, as you may have been previewed on today’s Spaces with DeOrganized Media, we’re putting forward a process to establish the nominations for the Appointments Committee for SIP-031. In short, we plan to facilitate a short series of special sessions. The structure we’re outlining below will allow for wide-ranging input while also moving fast as the SIP progresses (see the latest version here). The goal of these sessions is to produce a list of members for the Treasury Appointments Committee to include in the SIP, which will then be voted on by the community.

As a reminder from the SIP, the Treasury Appointments Committee will be responsible for selecting the Treasury Committee for the Endowment, which is responsible for allocating funding to ecosystem contributors and builders.

To establish the Treasury Appointment Committee, we start by hosting a 2-part workshop, with possible additional sessions as needed. For those wishing to participate async, full notes will be posted on the forum below this, but please note that the real-time discussion will be the primary decision driver. There is more about why this approach is important below. :pray:

Sessions:

Session 1: June 10 from 10am ET to 11:30 ET

Ahead of the first session, the Stacks Foundation will provide a draft starting point for the qualifications the community may want to impose on nominees, as well as an initial list of possible nominees collected over the past couple weeks on Spaces and social media. This first session will seek to dial in these qualifications, driving rough consensus around what we, as a community, agree we want to see from anyone selected to serve in this capacity. The first session will also review possible parameters for the overall ‘mix’ of members, establishing how we will ensure accurate representation throughout the community.

Session 2: June 13 from 10am ET to 11:30 ET

During this session, we will debate specific nominations according to the previously established parameters with the ultimate goal of producing the list of members for the Treasury Appointment Committee. This list will be produced with the framework established in Session 1 as to what the makeup of the committee should be, at top of mind.

Session 2.x: June 12

Exact date and time to be determined, but I will host an additional session on opposite timezones on this same day for any of those not able to join the main discussion. We’ve optimized for the timezone that generally works best for the most, but understand that’s not ideal for all and would love to make this time convenient for those folks.

Session 3: TBD

This session will immediately follow the second if there is remaining debate about the list of members established through Sessions 1 and 2.

Process rationale:

We’ve seen time and again in the community that real-time conversation enables us to quickly work through complex issues and ensure people are heard. Through synchronous discussions, we can hear nuanced takes, quickly clarify misunderstandings, and most rapidly drive consensus. With that in mind, what I’ve outlined looks very much like an accelerated version of the process we ran for the Stacks Roadmap, which provided space for effective discussion, representation, and resulted in a roadmap that has been widely well-received. If you squint, you could even think of this like a special CAB of sorts, borrowing elements from the SIP model that has worked well over many years.

Other benefits of this design:

  • Reduces reactive commentary, making space for open, intellectually honest conversations and the kind of thoughtful discussion or debate that can genuinely shift perspectives.
  • Allows for nominees and others to speak to any critiques in real-time and make their own case in a human way
  • Forces a deeper level of engagement with the content and discussion than is typically possible on social media, which this deserves
  • Reduces surface-level input and ensures that those who take the time are leading the discussions (and we appreciate it, everyone’s time is stretched thin!).
  • Allows for wide-ranging input in a timely manner

Next steps

Register here to receive a calendar invite to the first session and prep materials. We will be using Zoom so that everyone can easily chat and to avoid the frequent ruggings Spaces seems to be doing to us lately. :joy:

All those who register will receive the aforementioned starting resources in advance of the sessions and will be expected to review the material before the session. We’re looking forward to seeing you there! Please be sure to spread the word to any potential nominee that they may want to join a session.

13 Likes
SIP 31.1 - A New Draft Arrives
#2

Excellent. Thanks @cuevasm

1 Like
#3

Thanks @cuevasm , this will be an important step to hash out the important governance pieces as we get to a final draft that is ready for a vote

1 Like
#4

Will the zoom session be recorded and made available for folks that want to review offline ?

1 Like
#5

I’ll share the notes later today!

#6

To help people visualize the Appointments Committee’s role to TC based on Alex’s proposal from last night.
It helped me to understand better. Hope it helps others.
Other details regarding how appointments are formed follow Mitchell.
Screenshot 2025-06-10 at 12.25.43

3 Likes
#7

Thanks everyone, our first session was very productive! I’ve recapped, cleaned up, and consolidated the conversation, which resulted in an initial set of guidelines for picking Treasury Committee members. This includes a handful of minimum hard requirements, indicators for great nominees and nominee differentiation, and a simple set of considerations for the overall ‘mix’ of the final Appointments Committee.

Session 2 will get into conversations about specific nominees with the goal of producing the Appointments Committee list for the SIP. To account for nominees not being available or bowing out for other reasons, we will include a robust alternatives section that would slot in those with more similar backgrounds to ensure the overall representation is maintained.

Please see Session 2 prep at the end of this document and fill in the survey provided.

Recapping Current Progress

But first, let’s see where we’re at in terms of the Appointments Committee parameters:

Nominee Requirements

Ala hard requirements. These must be met for a nominee to be considered. We actively sought to keep these fairly minimal to allow for a broad diversity of voices and to leave wiggle room for deliberation over specific candidates and how they stack up on some of the other indicators listed in the next section.

  • 1 year minimum provably active in the Stacks community. This isn’t to diminish new folks, but understanding the full ecosystem takes time, and we want as much depth of perspective as possible. The group would plan to be flexible about what the activity is, but we were in agreement that a year in the ecosystem is a baseline.
  • Nomination must be willing to complete KYC (or some form of real-world person validation that proves they are not someone else or someone we think they are not). This information will remain private, KYC will be done through a vendor that automates the process. (This does not mean they need to be doxxed to the full community, but the group agreed it is very likely doxxed individuals will have an advantage in being selected because it builds trust.)
  • Baseline understanding of certain key Stacks technology and ecosystem. The idea here would be to provide a simple quiz on key Stacks differentiators like PoX to nominees The group felt it was important, like with a job interview, that the person really knows what ‘the product does’ and understands its place in the market.
  • Members of the Appointment Committee cannot be selected for the Treasury Committee itself. This one was fairly obvious, you can’t be in a position to select yourself, so those who wish to be considered by the Appointments Committee for the Treasury Committee should bow out.
  • Have done one of the following (lifetime):
    • Must have voted on at least one previous SIP.
    • Have recorded participation in key ecosystem repos on Github, participated in a Working Group, or used the Stacks Forum

Nominee Indicators and Differentiators

As a group, we agreed that there can be a wide range of activities by a nominee that would indicate they are a good selection for the Appointments Committee. While not hard requirements, nominees that exhibit more of these markers would be favored over those that do not. Further, we have a survey setup to get signal on which of these activity types is most important to us so that those weightings can be used in future deliberations.

Survey: Ranking Appointments Committee Differentiators and Guidelines for Nominees

Nominee has:

  • 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.
  • Baseline STX exposure (no minimum, activity is seen as more important than bag size)
  • BNS address
  • Run a community chapter/Meetup/workshops etc.
  • Spoken publicly in a community space (beyond just tweeting) as a proxy for showing a demonstrated track record of trying to connect and understand
  • History of contributing to Stacks that includes unpaid or volunteer work

Other things that can set nominees apart:

  • Doxxed to entire community (face, name)
  • More transactions and participation is generally viewed as preferable to less
  • An active contributor to a project (no specific type required) in the Stacks ecosystem. And, project must be openly accessible and serving/shared with the community in some way (pre-launch or stealth projects less preferred).
  • Builders (of all kinds) should be leading the ecosystem as they put the most on the line. Building also affords an important perspective on how the ecosystem can grow and how it should function — this is germane to the role they are being nominated for. The term “project” is loosely defined and inclusive; it does not require that it is a funded project, only that there has been obvious work put in to bring value to the community.
    • ‘Created a community’
    • Started an NFT project
    • Stacks focus (not multi-chain stuff, should be Stacks dedicated)
    • Active before these requirements were put out (back date to May 1 or something)
  • Holds BTC
  • They are a subject matter expert – might have experience having run their own business, project, done fundraising, or similar, deeper business background or experience. Previous or current founders are good examples as they inherently understand the process of making tradeoffs
  • Experience with DAOs or Governance
  • Skilled communicator with an open mind and data-driven disposition.
  • Run a node, miner, signer (any form of network operations)

Ideal ‘mix’ of the Appointments Committee

Here again, the group felt it appropriate to room for contextual deliberation vs. making too many hard line requirements. What remains is a basic framework we can layer over our list of nominees to ensure wide-ranging representation.

Representation Framework:

  • The Appointments Committee must not contain more than one person (with a full-time role) from any one company or project

  • The Appointments Committee should represent as wide a range of community groups as possible, with the group surfacing these key areas:

    • NFTs
    • DeFi
    • BNS
    • Content creators, including Spaces curators, artists, etc.
    • Community coins
    • Developers/Technical
    • In other words, the final Appointments Committee should not be heavily weighted toward one area of the ecosystem

  • Generally, more diversity on any number of vectors is better, including but not limited to:

    • Size of holdings
    • Geography
    • Gender
    • Tenure (as measured by entry point in years (aka, we don’t want too many individuals who joined the community at the same time)
    • Skillsets and backgrounds (i.e. Marketing vs. Tech vs. BD, etc.)

Initial Treasury Appointment nominations (collected from community discussions in the wild)

THIS IS NOT A FINAL LIST. I repeat, this is not a final list! These are names I’ve seen suggested or have been suggested directly to me or my team. Please keep in mind that these individuals have not had the opportunity to even confirm if they are interested. We will add/remove/and discuss at length, I collected them to save time and to have some potential concrete examples to think about during our discussions.

Please feel free to nominate additional folks here: Appointments Committee Nominations

  • Hero Gamer (Long-standing representative of the community and intimately familiar with SIPs and overall Governance)
  • Leeor Shimron (StackingDao contributor with a strong background in the market and BD)
  • Tripnmonkey (Community leader who has provided critical input on the SIP thus far and recently became an author.)
  • Sean Longstreet (Has run one of the most popular shows in the space for over a year and is a proven conduit for community ‘vibes’)
  • JackbinSwitch (long-time community member, with Deorganized Media & Hermetica)
  • Reubs (Creator of memetoken Leo and Founder of STX Tools)
  • Setzeus (major contributor, deep technical expertise and exposure to needs via Orange Hats security program)
  • Dylan (Founder of Bitflow and major contributor to the Stacks Roadmap process)
  • Friedger (Legendary contributor and Clarity wizard, his contributions range from PoX to FastPool)
  • Jonathan Sadlowe (Early investor in Stacks projects, heads Gossamer, the most active investor in Bitcoin layers, all while providing the ecosystem data via Signal21)
  • Kyle Ellicott (Formerly Stacks Accelerator, a conduit to VC and investors and now focused on supporting Stacks in Asia at the Stacks Asia Foundation)
  • Diego Mey (Co-Founder of Bitflow and lead for the Marketing Working Group.
  • Ken (Founder and CEO of Xverse)
  • Trevor Owens (Founder of Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Previously Stacks Accelerator, Ninjalert, and Pizza Ninjas)
  • Joe Vezzani (Founder of LunarCrush)
  • Tycho (Zest Founder, StackingDAO Core Contributor, DeFi Leader, and co-author of the SIP)
  • Brett (Head of Growth at Gamma, Curator and supporter of all artists on Stacks)
  • Goodkitty / Mel.btc (Writer Bitcoin Weekly, Weekly panelist Let’s Go Morning Show & DeOrg Media)
  • Stacksy (Bitflow Ambassador, Previously StackingDAO Content Creator, Stacks Community Member)
  • Vlad (Creator and Founder of Asigna and Pontis Bridge).
  • Jake Blockchain (former General Partner at Bitcoin Frontier Fund)
  • Rozar (Founder of Charisma, Community Leader for Welsh, Stacks Developer Advocate)
  • Jakob (Founder of Hermetica)
  • Algorithm.btc (Stacks Content Guild ambassador, StackingDAO Content Support, Core Community leader)
  • Zero.btc (Founder of Zero Authority DAO)
  • Jason/Whoabuddy - Long-standing Stacks community member, Governance CAB chairperson, Co-founder of AI BTC)
  • Haddy (BrendynHadfield) - Team member of ZeroAuthority DAO, part of SIP project team acting as SIP Deputy, has been in Stacks since 2024.
  • Dan Trevino (Founder of Boom Wallet)
  • PeaceLoveMusic (Founder of DeOrganized Media, Governance CAB member)
  • Mr. Wagmi (Long-standing Stacks community member, Founder of Block9App)
  • CryptoLandy (Hermetica Ambassador, Investor, and Knowledgeable Community Contributor).
  • Chris Perceptions (CEO of NoCodeClarity)
  • Kenny Rogers (DevRel Lead)
  • HODLSTX (Co-Founder ZeroAuthority)
  • Publius.btc (Co-Founder AIBTC)
  • Chadstx.btc (Stacks Veteran Community Member)
  • Jude Nelson (Stacks Foundation)
  • GPSC (Kevin Baker) - (Founder of Giga Pepe Spaceship Club NFT project, Leather Ambassador, Host, Producer, and Product Manager at DeOrganzied, Community Manager Zest and StackingDAO)
  • Xenitron (Founder / CEO Skullcoin, 3-times hackathon winner, OG since Blockstack)

Session 2 Prep

In Session 2, we’ll start to deliberate nominations using the guidance and frameworks established in the first session. To set this session up for success, I have done the following:

  • Opened a public form for nominations, please share this as you see fit: Appointments Committee Nominations
  • Created and shared a form based on Session 1, surfacing the indicators and frameworks that this working group will stack rank in importance. You will need to complete this form to receive the Zoom link for Session 2: Ranking Appointments Committee Differentiators and Guidelines for Nominees :warning:
  • Scheduled Session 2 for Friday morning (REGISTER) to provide this group and the community longer to surface nominations and fill in forms.
  • I am in the process of reaching out to the current list of nominees with a simple form to confirm if they are interested and confirm they meet the minimum hard requirements above, as well as a confirmation they’d be willing to provide more info to the group as needed to assess their nomination: Nominee Confirmation | SIP-031

See you Friday!

4 Likes
#8

Everyone on this list deserves to be on it, they have always been there and are super experienced

3 Likes
#9

Thanks Mitchell, whilst my answers for the “Ranking Differentiators and Guidelines” is a rough ranking, it will be very very interesting to see where everybody land, and know the “heat map” of the results. Interesting more “data-driven” exercise. Thanks for arranging.

I can see this methodology of arranging social consensus will be useful for other areas in the future.

1 Like
#10

Thanks again everybody, Session 2 was super productive and we’re on track here for a great Appointments Committee. Full notes are here, and below I’ve clipped some of the data the group has sourced in terms of how we’re generally evaluating nominees and optimizing for the best representation on the committee level (not a perfect science intentionally!).

Survey Data

Requirements and differentiators: Relative importance to group
Nomination is an active contributor to a project (no specific type required) in the Stacks ecosystem. And, the project must be openly accessible and serving/shared with the community in some way (pre-launch or stealth projects less preferred). + Nomination was active before these requirements were put out - 7%. 16.8% (9.8% + 7%)
Nomination has 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 9.1%
Nomination has a history of contributing to Stacks that includes unpaid or volunteer work 7.8%
Nomination is a subject matter expert – might have experience having run their own business, project, done fundraising, or similar, deeper business background or experience. 7.5%
Nomination has spoken publicly in a community space (beyond just tweeting) as a proxy for showing a demonstrated track record of trying to connect and understand 7.5%
Nomination is a skilled communicator with an open mind and data-driven disposition. 7.3%
Nomination has baseline STX exposure (no minimum, activity is seen as more important than bag size) 7.2%
Nomination has: ‘Created a community’ 6.5%
Nomination is doxxed to entire community (face, name) 5.4%
Nomination has run a node, miner, signer (any form of network operations) 5.3%
Nomination has experience with DAOs or Governance 4.8%
Nomination has run a community chapter/Meetup/workshops etc. 4.4%
Nomination has a BNS address 4.3%
Nomination holds BTC 3.1%
Nomination has started an NFT project 2.9%

Overall mix/representation considerations:

Contain a diversity of skillsets and backgrounds (i.e. Marketing vs. Tech vs. BD, etc.) 25.2%
Contain a diversity of tenure in the ecosystem (as measured by entry point in years 20.4%
Contain a diversity of community groups (NFT, DeFi, BNS, etc.) as possible 20.0%
Contain a diversity of geographic representation 15.0%
Contain a diversity of size of holdings (potentially as a % of net worth vs. a raw number) 10.5%
Contain a diversity of gender representation 8.9%

and, the Appointments Committee must not contain more than one person (with a full-time role) from any one company or project

Generally, the group agrees to primarily establish the nominations according to the profile of the nominee, seeking the best ones, and to use the diversity/representation table as a general guide for the final group.

Next steps are covered in the Notion doc and are underway!

3 Likes