The purpose of this blog is to provide an alternative and uncensored stream of information around the House of Stake governance process — until the House of Stake becomes truly independent from the NF identity and influence.
Play the mini game and check how much time & money have vanished — and governance still isn’t live
If you wish to share concerns anonymously, feel free to use this inbox:
hostip@proton.me
Hello everyone,
This past week has been unexpectedly eventful—yet, for reasons unknown, much of it remained unreported or unaddressed.
Few months ago, Ilia reported that a representative from House of Stake would be presented in the NEAR Foundation’s Council (NF Board).
During the week, Near Community launched a poll —a temperature check aimed at identifying preferred candidates for this seat.
The poll attracted strong participation, with three primary candidates emerging:
Among them, James received the highest number of votes. James brings over five years of active experience in NEAR governance and community-building, having played critical roles in several DAOs and past Community experiments.
That same week, Bianca, a member of the NEAR Foundation Legal Team, joined the House of Stake chat and affirmed that the long-term intention is for the community to govern and manage proposal flows. This encouraging development reminds us that the funds in the House of Stake treasury genuinely belong to the Community.
Another notable event was the AMA with @lane. While roadmap talks and vague language often dominate these sessions, one significant point stood out: the community is now invited to start submitting proposals via the governance forum. Though the final form is not yet approved, a working draft was shared by Agora team. This form may definitely evolve.
The chat also saw heated discussions around reducing inflation in the NEAR ecosystem. While final figures remain unclear, a majority appear to support a reduction. Some dissenters expressed caution. Ultimately, this issue lies within the authority of Near validators.
Near Maxi (c)
Aside from James—who continues active contribution in the Governance Squad working group—we saw little public activity from other delegates this week. James is currently working on automating governance voting and introducing more transparent, bot-supported vote progression models.
Calls to reorganize the Screening Committee have resurfaced. Community members feel it either failed in its duty during the delegate selection process or no longer serves a significant role—such as pre-screening proposals, identifying spam, or security concerns—which could instead be handled by delegates and veNEAR holders themselves.
Its full composition remains opaque, though it is said to include Lane, a member from NearOne, one from Gauntlet, and two unnamed individuals linked to the NEAR Foundation. So far, the NEAR Foundation has chosen not to disclose their identities.
@Uhthred_B, a dedicated contributor to House of Stake, has made significant progress on the Conflict of Interest Policy. I encourage everyone to review and comment:
Conflict of Interest Policy Draft
Let’s be clear: these policies and processes are not the exclusive domain of the Foundation. The House of Stake treasury is community-owned, and it is the community that must shape and enforce governance norms.
Recently, Lane introduced several new roles under his direction, supported by the NEAR Foundation:
While some of these roles make structural sense—Head of Product, for instance, can help coordinate contractors—others raise serious concerns. The Community Lead role should not be appointed by the Foundation. Instead, it should emerge from within the House of Stake, potentially elected or rotated among delegates.
A proposal has also been made to create a Social Media Team under House of Stake management. The NEAR Foundation’s Legal Team is expecting a draft version by mid-next week.
It is essential to clarify that House of Stake is not a traditional “community”. What it truly needs is structured, independent marketing and communication infrastructure, not a return to legacy-style Foundation-managed “community management.”
Let’s also remember that Ilia previously disbanded the NEAR Community Team for valid reasons. Reinstating that model would represent a step backward.
All responsibilities mentioned by Lane—such as AMAs, communication, social media, and announcements— must be handled by a dedicated House of Stake media team, directly accountable to House of Stake governance. That is the only structure that ensures independence, neutrality, and transparency.
Community communication must remain autonomous from the Foundation.
There have also been questions and concerns surrounding university-led governance research initiatives funded by the NEAR Foundation. Community strongly encourage the Foundation to ensure open competitions for research grants, so that universities worldwide can participate transparently and fairly.
In addition to the proposed House of Stake Media Team (intended to replace the need for a centralized Community/Comms Lead role within NF), several other initiatives have emerged—many of them led by NEAR’s founding contributors and long-term stakeholders.
As Ilia previously explained, following the dismissal of the NEAR Community Team, the moderator team was also disbanded, and—in a second step—the responsibility for managing NEAR’s broader social media presence (excluding X/Twitter) was transferred to the community via Service DAO.
However, for unclear reasons, a NEAR Foundation staff member later reversed Ilia’s decision, reclaiming control over these channels back under NF authority.
So, the proposal will focused on saving the team, but transition Near Squad team to the House of Stake.
Another major initiative underway is the revival of community-driven marketing, in various experimental forms. One such example is the FAST Marketing proposal, which aims to support ecosystem influencers and grassroots visibility campaigns across NEAR.
Play the mini game and check how much time & money have vanished — and governance still isn’t live
If you wish to share concerns anonymously, feel free to use this inbox:
hostip@proton.me
It was revealed today that Klaus Brave @KlausBrave, an contractor hired by @lane (without competition) to assist with governance, received a staggering $15,600 USDC in just one month — with no public report provided to justify the payment?
This feels deeply inconsistent with Lane’s own statement here:
“There should be an accountability <…> for every dollar that gets spent.”
Where is that accountability now?
Play the mini game and check how much time & money have vanished — and governance still isn’t live
If you wish to share concerns anonymously, feel free to use this inbox:
hostip@proton.me
Thanks for the update. Dacha.
House of Stake — Weekly Recap (week 27)Here’s a detailed recap of this week’s House of Stake unfiltered updates.
This week, the House of Stake–endorsed delegates held their kick-off offsite in Cannes. However, there is still no concrete update on when the House of Stake will launch its operations. You can listen to the latest AMA here: AMA Recording
Key points: the open roles for HoS are still under discussion. Also, @KlausBrave highlighted the importance of pioneering AI governance — NEAR has a chance to lead in this area. I’m personally glad to be involved and to see some progress here.
It also seems that @bearmans was hired as another contractor, but his role and remuneration is still unclear.
Picture generated by chatGPT
One of NEAR’s founding fathers and top validators, Vadim, publicly asked for this information — “Looks like a great event! Where can I see a transparent report of the expenses for this governance offsite in Cannes?” — but no answer has been provided so far.
This question was directed at @lane . There is still no published, transparent report providing a breakdown of expenses for this governance offsite in Cannes.
We are expecting the same level of transparency from @KlausBrave regarding the payment.
In the House of Stake chat, Prakharr is developing a Telegram bot that can automatically generate chat summaries and other features. Anyone who wants to contribute to this practical tool is welcome to join the discussion here: Join the work
The Treasury Management Working Group has launched a short survey to gather community input on treasury priorities, funding strategy, and risk management. Your input will help shape how funds are allocated, converted, and managed. If you have 10–15 minutes, please complete it this weekend or early next week: HoS Treasury Survey
The NEAR Foundation agreed to transfer responsibility for managing NEAR’s social media channels (excluding X/Twitter) to the Community and the House of Stake. This actually happened in Q2 2024 when the NF Community and moderators team were disbanded, and the Community was empowered to manage these channels. The Community also supported this move — see the poll results in the screenshot.
The NEAR Community Squad leadership is now expected to:
Community chats are the primary touchpoint that users interact with daily, so it’s essential for a leading blockchain to have effective AI agents in place for moderation and real-time support.
The great target deadline for delivering this by July 31st. If the current team is unable or prefers not to take this on, I’m happy to help find someone suitable or support anyone who would like to lead this effort.
Since one of the team members I respect in the Squad asked me not to publish this as a formal proposal on the forum yet, I’ll keep it as a draft for now.
Everyone is encouraged to review the working draft and share ideas here: Working Document
The House of Stake — Social Media & Governance Operations Charter has now been published, replacing the idea to hire Comm/Media lead at NF initially proposed by @lane.
This Charter outlines the mission, team structure, roles, and responsibilities for managing NEAR’s core community channels under the House of Stake. It defines clear workflows for content creation, moderation, design, KPIs, budget, and reporting lines to ensure operations are transparent and community-led.
Key roles include:
Everyone is encouraged to read it, leave comments, suggest improvements — and if you’d like to take on any of these roles, please don’t hesitate to post your CV or a short intro directly under the forum thread: Submit your interest here
According to the framework, the role of the Screening Committee is to initiate delegate selection processes, pre-screen grant proposals, and ensure continuous evaluation of governance efficacy.
There have been ongoing discussions about the practical scope of this committee, including concerns about potential conflicts of interest within the SC. As a result, the idea to establish a Due Diligence Team (DDT) under the House of Stake Security Council was proposed.
The DDT would strengthen this framework by conducting independent reviews — including conflict-of-interest checks — verifying proposals and payments in detail, and providing clear reports to the Security Council.
Poll: What is the main goal of the Screening Committee (SC)?
Results (ordered by support, high to low):
Takeaway:
Most voters trust delegates and veNEAR holders to handle proposal filtering on their own and see the SC as unnecessary or bureaucratic once the initial setup is done. Only a small share see it as vital for removing delegates.
The current plan is to build a proper Council structure to handle conflict-of-interest checks and other reviews.
This document has already been sent to the NEAR Foundation and @lane to integrate into the HoS framework, which is not yet finalized according to the latest AMA session.
Similar due diligence teams exist in other ecosystems — so creating one here is both logical and necessary.
Please review the doc and share your input: Proposal — Creation of a Due Diligence Team (DDT)
Check how much time & money have vanished — and governance still isn’t live
If you wish to share concerns anonymously, feel free to use this inbox:
hostip@proton.me
PS: Speaking of news filtering and why truly independent media is so important — just look at how the NF is actively promoting the proposal about lowering inflation across all social media channels, yet not once has there been any information shared about this proposal: https://vote.intea.rs. Personally, I also support the first proposal, but such important proposals should never be subject to censorship.
Amazing. Numbers speak louder than words.
Imagine if these funds were directed towards builders releasing active NEAR dapps (with real users) instead of insiders.
For what ?
Building a Community ?
Where they can build? help each other ? Govern the chain ?
No need, we have AI !
Woah.
I think you’re getting ahead of yourself here. There’s no need to actually use AI for the things you mentioned. Instead I suggest that we eat funds to talk about maybe using AI in the future for these things.
Besides, what’s another 463 days and 522K ?
We can always pivot to something else later.
