House of Stake — Weekly Recap (week 27)
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Hello everyone!
Here’s a detailed recap of this week’s House of Stake unfiltered updates.
1. Kick-off in Cannes
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.
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2. Cannes Expense Report Yet
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.
3. Telegram Bot Development
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
4. Treasury Survey Open
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
5. Community Squad Next Steps
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:
- Develop a clear roadmap and budget for implementing AI frameworks to manage NEAR’s social channels.
- Clarify role management on the governance forum, including responsibilities and team leads.
- Create a roadmap for launching a unified (Ai) ticketing system for community support.
- Ensure daily, consistent moderation and management of NEAR’s main community spaces.
- Provide an activity and expense report for the last month.
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
6. Social Media & Governance Charter
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:
- Social Media Lead — runs daily operations, coordinates posts, moderates channels, collects feedback, and tracks KPIs.
- Content Manager & AMA Host — drafts governance updates, organizes AMAs, hosts Spaces, and produces recaps.
- Designer — creates visual assets for posts, infographics, event banners, and maintains the brand kit.
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
7. Due Diligence Team at Security Council
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):
- 60% — Delegates and veNEAR token holders are able to filter spam proposals by themselves, without the SC.
- 46% — SC is a bureaucratic body to empower Gauntlet, NF, and Near One to manage proposals and remove delegates.
- 46% — Initial HoS setup, then the body should be removed from the governance process.
- 40% — Initial HoS setup, then the body will help to filter spam proposals.
- 6% — Screening Committee is in charge of removing endorsed delegates, so their role is important.
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.