Cameron Dennis - Delegate Proposal

Ecosystem Governance
1

A. Delegation Address: cameron.near

B. Forum Username: Cameron

C. Twitter Username: x.com

D. Website (optional): near.ai

E. Target Voting Participation: 100% but I will abstain from specific votes if I’m conflicted.

F. History of Interactions with NEAR Protocol: Joined Near Inc. in November 2020, transferred to NF to work under Erick Trautman (prev. CEO), spun out of the NF to run Banyan in Aug '22 to seed the NEAR US ecosystem and contribute to strategic projects designed to solve key ecosystem gaps (Jutsu for BOS dev tools, BuildDAO for dev community, Potlock for public goods funding, Edge AGI for AI community in SF). Started contracting for NEAR AI in October 2024. I was also an elected member of the NEAR Digital Collective’s House of Merit (HoM) where I reviewed and voted on proposals that would then be sent to the Council of Advisors for potential veto. Please see my self-nomination and community attestations from October 2023 here:[ https://dev.near.org/nomination.ndctools.near/widget/NDC.Nomination.Candidate.Page?house=HouseOfMerit&accountId=cameron.near]

G. History of Governance Participation (in NEAR or other ecosystems):

  1. I was an elected member of the NEAR Digital Collective’s House of Merit (HoM) where I reviewed and voted on proposals that would then be sent to the Council of Advisors for potential veto. Here is a presentation where I explain my lessons learned from the NDC V1. Video:[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u0grwQ4LwQ&t=1663s]. Deck:(Learnings from the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) - Google Slides).

  2. I founded (and still run) a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation in 2018 that has 14 board members representing different university blockchain clubs, and a strong network of academic and industry advisors. - [x.com]

  3. I was a voting member of the Solace DAO that was working to create a decentralized insurance protocol to protect protocol and user funds - [x.com]

H. Top 3 Priorities for the NEAR Ecosystem:

  1. Ensure NEAR AI becomes the best way to monetize model training, fine-tuning, and inference.
  2. Make NEAR the settlement layer for all multichain transactions by driving integrations of Chain Signatures and Intents.
  3. Ensure it’s profitable and seamless to run various NEAR nodes to further decentralization and performance.

I. Reasoning for past votes in the NEAR Ecosystem:

J. Conflicts of Interest:

  • Contractor of NEAR AI through the Banyan Collective
  • President and Founder of the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation (BAF). Although I don’t run day-to-day operations, this nonprofit is currently working with the Stellar Foundation and have previously worked with incomplete: Ethereum Foundation, Arbritrum Foundation, Algorand Foundation, Ava Labs, Solana Foundation, and others.
  • Early holder of $ETH, $SOL, and $NEAR
  • Angel investor into Aurora and Jutsu

K. Answer Hypothetical Delegate Scenario:

  1. DeFi Incentives:

  2. Additional Information: I’d need detailed information on the project, team, incentive structures, and use of funds. Specifically, how they plan to use NEAR Intents for cross-chain DeFi and if they’d build an agent for the white-labeled NEAR AI assistant. I’m interested in their commitment to ecosystem collaboration through GitHub, events, and social channels. Most importantly, they need to show how similar incentive programs have performed historically and provide data to back their anticipated success.

1. Detailed information on the project, team, incentives structures, use of funds, historical performance, security measures, and community sentiment.
2. Get them to answer -"How do you plan to use NEAR Intents to enable seamless cross-chain DeFi?"
3. Get them to answer -"Would you be interested in building an agent that facilitates the same functions as your front-end and make it available to be used by the white-labeled NEAR AI assistant?"
4. Get them to answer - "How interested are you in collaborating and making contributions to each other’s Githubs, social media, hackathons, conferences, meetups, etc?"
5. Get them to answer - “how has similar incentive programs played out in the short term and long-term of the projects that attempted them? What evident lessons and historical data can you provide to back the anticipated success of your proposal?"

  1. Key Metrics: TVL/Total Value Secured via intents, unique wallet addresses, volume, APY, governance participation, vulnerability history, and I’d push for formal smart contract verification.

  2. Opinion / Result: I’ve seen how liquidity programs can bring in investors, but they’re often mercenary so I’m a bit skeptical about long-term sustainability. That said, if the community backs it, I’d support it as long as it clearly contributes to a sustainable growth trajectory for the agentic and chain abstracted ecosystem powered by NEAR.

  3. Developer & User Marketing Committee:

  4. Additional Information: I would need to see a comprehensive breakdown of the organizational structure, including clear definitions of roles, responsibilities, and a transparent process for member selection. The proposal should include a detailed marketing plan that outlines target audiences, specific channels to be used, planned campaigns, and concrete delivery dates for each milestone. We’d need a thorough budget breakdown showing exactly how funds would be allocated across various initiatives, from content creation to community engagement. The team’s expertise is crucial - I want to see their track record, particularly in running similar marketing initiatives at scale. They should outline specific KPIs and reporting processes to measure performance and demonstrate impact. I’m also looking for a clear strategy on how they’ll coordinate with other ecosystem players to maintain content accuracy and relevance. Finally, they need to show how their marketing efforts align with and support NEAR’s broader business objectives. Without these elements clearly defined, it would be difficult to justify allocating resources to this initiative.

  5. Key Metrics: Beyond standard marketing metrics like conversion rates and acquisition costs, I’m looking at developer-specific metrics: active monthly developers, PR quality and quantity, number of PR’s merged, user retention, and community sentiment.

  6. Opinion: Marketing is a loaded function that needs a serious budget to do right. I’d back it if the subcommittee is well-structured, adequately funded, and has a data-driven strategy. The team has to be world-class with proven marketing experience. Without dedicated recruiting and vetting functions, it’s a no-go. We need “A” players.

  7. Protocol Owned Liquidity

  8. Additional Information: I would need to see a comprehensive list of target protocols with clear explanations for their selection, detailed justification for specific liquidity pairs based on volume, stability, and strategic unlocks. The proposal should outline expected liquidity metrics including depth, slippage, and yield stability. It would also need a thorough risk management strategy that includes how we’d respond to various scenarios, clear rebalancing strategies, and governance frameworks for making those rebalancing decisions. I’d also want to understand how this initiative would impact both the greater treasury and new ecosystem participants.

  9. Key Metrics: Success would be measured through TVL and liquidity depth, trading volume (with emphasis on real volume), average slippage rates on executed transactions, impermanent loss monitoring, protocol revenue, and how our yields stack up against other ecosystems.

  10. Opinion: This is something we should absolutely do, and I’m ready to support it if it demonstrably improves trading conditions, enhances price stability, and helps build a more vibrant ecosystem. That said, we need to be extremely careful about impermanent loss, smart contract vulnerabilities, and market volatility. For me to back this, I’d need to see a rock-solid risk management strategy, transparent governance processes, and robust metric monitoring. The proposal needs to nail the rationale for protocol selection and pair choices, lay out a detailed implementation plan, and show clear frameworks for managing POL positions over time.

L. What is your motivation for becoming a NEAR delegate? - I want to leverage my deep historical context of the ecosystem and NDC to drive reasonable and strategic decision making. After investing years of my life into this ecosystem, I’m committed to ensuring its smooth and successful operation. I also have a degree in Political Science and enjoy governance experiments.

M. Anticipated delegation support (if applicable) - I hold a significant amount of NEAR that I plan to self-delegate. Additionally, having run Investor Relations at the NEAR Foundation from 2021 to 2023, I expect support from early NEAR investors who know my track record.

  1. Self-Assessment Criteria

A. Experience (2/2) - My blockchain journey started with Bitcoin in 2013, followed by Ethereum in 2017. Since then, I’ve founded a tax-exempt nonprofit launching university-accredited blockchain courses, profited during DeFi summer and the NFT boom, joined NEAR Inc in late 2020, and run my own incubator. I was deeply involved in NDC V1 as an elected member of the House of Merit and have extensive knowledge of the industry’s major governance challenges.

B. Diversity of Perspective (2/2) - My unique position combines deep NEAR ecosystem experience with broad knowledge of how other major crypto foundations operate, gained through my nonprofit work. This dual perspective gives me valuable insights into both NEAR’s specific challenges and broader industry best practices.

C. Alignment with NEAR Ecosystem (2/2) - My alignment with NEAR runs deep - from my early involvement to my current roles and investments. I’m almost too aligned…

D. Governance Engagement (2/2) - I was an elected member of the House of Merit in NDC V1 where I actively participated in voting and ecosystem initiatives. I also run annual board meetings for the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation (BAF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has over 2,000 members and operates across the United States and 8+ other countries across Latin America and Europe.

E. Conflicts of Interest (1/2) - While I acknowledge potential conflicts through my roles with NEAR AI, BAF, and various investments, these won’t compromise my ability to make ethical, beneficial, and rational decisions for the ecosystem’s improvement. I’m committed to recusing myself from any votes where conflicts exist.

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I fully support Cameron !