NEAR House of Stake Governance Transition Program

House of Stake
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NEAR House of Stake Governance Transition Program

1. Purpose & Context (Why this matters)

This post is intended to articulate a clear narrative for where we are headed as a community. It articulates a narrative of how we intend to get there by which the current House of Stake (HoS) team and service providers may move forward a set of agreements to progressively decentralize.

It provides the details of the program described by @lane here.

Introduction

The House of Stake team at the NEAR Foundation has been tasked with facilitating the governance transition of the NEAR ecosystem from foundation-led centralization to a community-owned, resilient, and politically decentralized governance system.

House of Stake is designed to be an iterative governance that adapts to environmental changes, purpose built for the pace and scale of an AI-forward future. Governance that shines as a beacon of integrity turning past doubts into lasting legitimacy. It will coordinate information and incentives into positive-sum collaboration between a diverse set of stakeholders in a way that best catalyzes its Vision.

We have seen poor planning in the launch of many DAOs lead to catastrophic failure, or sometimes slow burning futility.

The NEAR Governance Transition Program is a renewal and revamp for NEAR. It learns from best practices derived from the last 9 years of DAOs design and governance balancing the tradeoff between expertise and inclusivity that all governance systems must manage.

The NEAR Governance Transition Program is a success-gated and pragmatic approach to launching House of Stake.

The NEAR Governance Transition Program

The governance transition of the NEAR ecosystem will unfold across four distinct phases: Assembly, Alignment, Activation, and Autonomy - loosely based on Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development.

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Phase One: Assembly (Forming)

Target Completion: Q4 2025

Before on-chain mechanisms exist for stake-weighted voting, the House of Stake team at the NEAR Foundation will act with delegated authority to establish the system’s foundations. Execution will be prioritized over inclusivity to expedite launch.

The policies and charters, including the constitution, will begin through a cocreation process with the community. To expedite launch, interim policies & charters will incorporate as much feedback as possible before being “locked for voting”. This is required for House of Stake to hold its initial vote and ratify the basic framework needed to start legitimate onchain decision making. In parallel, the full Co-Creation Cycle process will continue for each policy and charter, leading up to the replacement of interim policies with community co-created and ratified versions.
This mechanism is inspired by Ethereum’s ice age.
The Interim Policy & Charter Expiry Date is May 31st, 2026, all policy created during the Assembly phase expires at that date.
This creates a NEED to update and replace them with higher legitimacy versions, this is a proactive measure to ensure community involvement in the establishment of founding documentation.

Success Gates for Advancement

  1. The V1 stake-weighted voting contracts are launched onchain.
  2. Sufficient veNEAR is in House of Stake to enable legitimate voting.
  3. Ratification of the interim constitution & supporting policy & charters.
  4. The interim screening committee is replaced using a community-led method.
Interim Policy & Charters

Phase Two: Alignment (Storming)

Target Completion Timing: Q1 2026

Alignment focuses on community-driven development of policies, goals, elections, and the selection of House of Stake’s first programs & initiatives. This ensures broad participation in shaping governance, embedding legitimacy and accountability through collective design replacing the centrally drafted interim policies & charters.

Success Gates for Advancement

  1. The V2 stake-weighted voting contracts are launched onchain.
  2. Co-Created policies & charters have been ratified with a vote to replace interim versions.
  3. MVV is operationalized to create a system of alignment and accountability.
  4. A public proposal and selection, and execution of programs & initiatives has accrued learning from three or more programs that further the MVV.
  5. Design and ratify a deliberating and decision-making framework for critical economic and technology parameter changes.

Phase Three: Activation (Norming)

Target Completion: Q4 2026

Funding mechanisms and service provider engagements transition into DAO-led processes. The House of Stake team facilitates a well-planned engagement schedule, oversight, and accountability to ensure programs and providers operate effectively.

Success Gates for Advancement

  1. The V3 stake-weighted voting contracts control an onchain treasury.
  2. Ritualized processes for reviewing program & initiative results, steward and other elected position performance, and continuous transparency reporting.
  3. House of Stake service providers are funded via House of Stake onchain treasury.
  4. Transition of viable economic and technical parameter controls to HoS.

Phase Four: Autonomy (Performing)

Ultimately, the system reaches self-sufficiency, operating purely through onchain governance, owned and directed by the community. At this stage, the House of Stake DAO is a beacon of excellence in decentralized governance providing both political decentralization and growth to the NEAR ecosystem.

This phase does not complete, it is the ongoing optimal state of strong legitimacy that is both adaptable and sustainable.

This phased journey ensures that NEAR not only launches a functioning DAO but evolves governance into a credible, future-proof system aligned with its Mission Vision and Values.

Conclusion

We need to execute on launching the DAO first and foremost. The NEAR Governance Transition Program provides a phased approach which balances that reality with the desire to cocreate with the broader NEAR community.

To expedite the launch, centrally drafted interim policies will ensure that the DAO can begin operating. At the same time, the co-creation cycles demonstrate our commitment to replacing the interim structures with community-driven governance.

These early steps are critical scaffolding for the DAO’s legitimacy, and your participation will help ensure the founding documents are credible, inclusive & representative of NEAR stakeholders.

We know that this plan to progressively decentralize does not fit everyone’s expectations for this launch, however, this document is intended to reset any assumptions and replace them with explicit agreements driving House of Stake to develop alignment in its purpose over time.

Call to Action

It’s important to highlight that the work of governance has already started. The co-creation cycles are now well underway for the Mission Vision and Values (MVV), the Code of Conduct (CoC), and the Constitution (and supporting policy & charters).

We encourage everyone to:

  • Engage with the forum posts for Co-Creation cycles of the Mission Vision Values, Code of Conduct, and Constitution with supporting policy & charters [to be posted shortly].
  • Share feedback, recommendations, and edits quickly so that we can incorporate as much feedback as is possible into the interim policies.
  • Suggest stakeholders or contributors we should be talking to, to make sure important perspectives are considered.
  • Stay open and engaged - your participation sets the tone for the DAO’s legitimacy and future autonomy.

Authorship & Acknowledgements

Authored by: @HackHumanity
Authorised by: @HouseOfStakeCore team
Review and Feedback from: Gauntlet, Agora, NEAR Foundation

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How to Give Feedback

1. Context & Intent Opener

State your relationship to NEAR and why you are participating in giving feedback

Prompts:

  • What type of stakeholder are you (validator/community/early team/etc.)?

  • What outcome do you hope to see from this discussion?

2. List of Issues

Number each issue and include:

  • ISSUE - Highlight (copy/paste) the specific sentence or paragraph in question.

  • RISK - Be specific about what problems it may cause.

    • Describe effects — on trust, participation, fairness, or efficiency.

    • Avoid speculating potential outcomes without examples to compare.

  • ALTERNATIVE - Offer suggestions for improvement or replacement.

    • Cosider framing suggestions as “How might we…” questions to encourage collaboration.

After all of your Issues have been listed with Risks, and Alternatives, its time for a closing note.

3. Closing Note

Consider Tone & Reflection*: Reaffirm goodwill and shared purpose.*

Examples:

“I’m raising this in the spirit of improving our collective process.”
“I trust everyone’s shared intent to make governance more transparent.”

Using this template can help us to better communicate critisisms in a constructive way.

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Thank you for putting together this plan — it’s a solid framework on paper and a necessary step to bring some order to the chaos we’ve seen so far.

However, it’s also important to acknowledge where we’re coming from. For the past cycle, more than 75% of all key governance and financial levers within NEAR have remained under NF’s direct control — through affiliated contractors, endorsed delegates, and closed decision-making groups. This concentration of power has led to systemic conflicts of interest, questionable spending, and even attempts to appropriate community-owned funds held in the NDC Treasury. @lane still hold two seats in the key HoS bodies.

These were not just minor oversights — they were fundamental governance failures that undermined the idea of decentralization. What should have been a community-driven governance experiment turned into a tightly managed ecosystem, where dissent was silenced and “alignment” often meant obedience.

If the House of Stake Governance Transition Program is to mean anything, it must confront these mistakes head-on. Real decentralization starts with transparency, accountability, and independence — not just new frameworks or committees. NF should step back and allow the community to step forward, with proper oversight and a clean separation from those who still hold conflicting loyalties.

Actually, I hope the new Head of Governance will finally take full control of all processes — establish proper project management, sort out the expenses of all those inefficient service providers, terminate contracts with some of them, tighten deadlines, remove unnecessary censorship, and finally connect the community to the real implementation of HoS. From that moment, I’ll personally read Lane’s articles with genuine pleasure and enjoy watching real governance return to NEAR.

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Is this only until launch? At which point does inclusivity take priority?

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yes. The intention is that prior to the launch of the onchain stake-weighted voting system, there is no way for the community to make a collective decision that is agreed upon by all participants. The launch of the smart contracts plus the ratification of an interim constitution will allow for the community to begin making collective decisions.

This will allow the community to replace interim policy such as the constitution or screening committee charter, with co-created versions. The screeening committee members appointed by NEAR Foundation can be replaced by ones chosen through a community elected process.

Think of the phases not as recurring cadence like “seasons” but more like developmental stages.

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Great piece that i’d like to canonize in this thread from @Othman

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