Transition plan to more decentralized governance

House of Stake Governance
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Hi NEAR community,

I want to share a quick update, and to share some of the things we discussed and decided in Lisbon recently. As many of you are aware, NEAR Foundation recently held an offsite in Lisbon, and most of the House of Stake core team attended: Klaus, Max, and Jack, in addition to myself. We also met two of the final Head of Governance candidates, Angela and Paulo.

At the offsite, we had the opportunity to present to NEAR Foundation leadership on the progress on House of Stake thus far, and on our plans and goals for the coming months. We also had the opportunity to have a very candid conversation about the challenges and opportunities before us, both from the perspective of NEAR Foundation and from House of Stake, and about the role that House of Stake has to play in an evolving NEAR landscape. The biggest strategic shift on the part of the Foundation is in a more product-focused direction, which has led us to consider the right role for House of Stake vis-a-vis NEAR’s project strategy. One of the big questions on our mind is, what role, if any, does HoS have to play in NEAR product?

I want to touch upon two key pieces of information upfront: mandate and transition plan. Since I suspect many of you have unanswered questions about HoS, I’ll follow up shortly with a Q&A to preempt as many of these questions as possible. Feel free to follow up with other questions.

Mandate

Every successful project needs a clear mandate, which is very similar in nature to the North Star I’ve written about, including things like Mission, Vision, and Values. This is doubly true of a project like HoS that was created and endowed by a Foundation like NEAR Foundation, and that works on behalf of an ecosystem like NEAR. A clear mandate with limited scope will allow HoS to focus in the beginning and score some early wins, and to begin to have an impact and play a key role in NEAR protocol and ecosystem governance from the very beginning. I recently shared the agreed upon mandate here:

This will be the operating mandate for House of Stake for its first season, loosely defined. We expect that this mandate will evolve over time as HoS and NEAR both evolve together. We also feel that it will likely make sense for HoS to focus on different things in different “seasons,” but we’re not entirely sure yet. This is still an experiment.

While NEAR Foundation will have no control over which proposals the community decides to submit or pass, or how the community decides to allocate HoS treasury funding, we expect the Security Council to veto proposals that fall outside this core mandate.

OKRs

We’re also excited to share the Core Team’s OKRs for Q4 of this year, which we believe capture this mandate well:

  • Objective: Legitimacy; Key results: 10% NEAR supply locked, Installed initial, interim policy docs including Constitution, CoC, CoI, MVV, Screening Committee & Proposal charters, Interim screening committee replaced
  • Objective: Engagement; Key results: Net new contributors, Community co-creation cycles for major policies
  • Objective: Product; Key results: One MVP AI product in production

Transition Plan

One of the core principles we laid out for House of Stake is progressive decentralization. This is the idea is that HoS won’t start out maximally decentralized: indeed, the initial designs and project leadership have been spearheaded by NEAR Foundation, along with partners including Gauntlet, Agora, and Hack Humanity. Over time, as HoS matures and builds capacity, it’ll take on more responsibility and the community will be more and more in the driver’s seat. It’s not about decentralizing as soon as possible, which would be a recipe for disaster; it’s about showing steady forward progress.

To that end, and to add a little bit more detail on the plan to decentralize gradually, we’d like to lay out the following four project phases, loosely based on Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development.

What follows is a high-level summary. We’ll share much more detail on the plan shortly.

Phase One: Assembly (Forming)

In this early phase—the current phase—the focus is forward momentum rather than maximal decentralization. While every effort will be made to include the community in the decision-making process as much as possible, and to keep everyone informed about what’s going on, the reality is that we simply cannot orchestrate and execute all of the tasks required to successfully launch HoS in a maximally open, decentralized fashion. Expect to see NEAR Foundation and the Security Council coordinate the launch, along with our other partners, and expect to see us put in place critical policy documents prior to launch that are required for basic governance, such as a barebones Constitution.

Phase Two: Alignment (Storming)

We expect this phase to begin shortly after a successful launch. In this phase, we expect to see the screening committee transition to a community-led model. We expect to see the community step up and begin to produce policy and proposals, replacing some of the interim documents, with guidance. We expect to see the first successful funding proposals pass in this stage, and to see the HoS Foundation begin to disburse funds. We also expect to see HoS begin to experiment with AI tooling in this phase.

Phase Three: Activation (Norming)

In this phase, which will take place once HoS is up and running effectively and has proven itself capable of self-governance, we target a complete transition from NF stewardship to community stewardship. In this phase, we expect a full transition of any remaining governance functions, including ownership of key partner contracts, to transition into HoS.

Phase Four: Autonomy (Performing)

In this phase, which will begin once the transition is complete and HoS is entirely self-sufficient, we envisage HoS to be entirely governed and funded sustainably by the community and through on-chain governance. This is the desired, successful steady state for HoS once live.

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You should understand that as long as HoS remains this centralized, you will never accumulate enough veNEAR tokens in stake to achieve genuine legitimacy.

What’s the point of all these “House of Stake” efforts if NF controls every stage of the process anyway?

The real fault lies in the fact that Lane never allowed genuine decentralization activists (not to be confused with looters trying to drain the treasury) to take part in management teams or committees. This began right from the start, when members of the Screening Committee were chosen entirely from NF and its dependent teams. Later, nearly all endorsed delegates were selected from people with no real voting rights — silent figures fully reliant on NF.

Let’s also not forget that NF has been “launching” HoS for 558 days, spending more on it than the entire NDC ever did, and still hasn’t transferred the funds to the NDC Trust. Meanwhile, the trustees continue to pay themselves every month — from our community’s money — for doing nothing.

You must understand that this money belongs to the community, not to NF.

This was publicly committed by NF itself. From the very beginning, you should have built every process around that principle — accountable to the community, not to NF.

Instead, you’ve done the opposite, acting as if your duty is to report upward to NF rather than outward to the people you claim to represent.

Their fear of decentralization and independent voices is so strong that, in response to the community’s desperate calls for genuine self-governance, they built a triple shield against it:

  1. Silencing the community with their bot.

  2. Appointing NF representatives and their dependents everywhere.

  3. Conducting all operations behind closed doors.

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You should have gone not to Lisbon, but to gather the community whose money HoS is supposed to manage — and discuss with them how this system should actually work.
Instead, you chose to meet with NF clerks many times, people who are completely indifferent to the community and its principles.

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And now you want to establish incentives for veNEAR using funds from our community treasury — without even asking the community about it.

This increasingly looks like misappropriation, unless you intend to hold a vote among veNEAR token holders to approve such a decision?

Am I wrong?

According to the trust documentation, only the community can authorize the transfer of these funds to another trust, since that would require their consent.

Or is NF now able to simply withdraw its “donations” at will?

NEAR Digital Collective Legal Framework

Cc @eaglelex @Blaze0x1

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@Dacha it would be helpful if you could begin by defining the term “community” for me, since without a concrete, workable definition here your feedback isn’t terribly helpful.

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@Lane The community refers to the broad network of independent contributors, builders, and stakeholders who have been actively engaged in NEAR’s decentralized processes — including community experiments, governance discussions, elections, and open consultations. These are people and groups who have shaped the direction of the ecosystem through transparent participation, not through centralized appointments or funding.

In essence, the community consists of individuals and collectives who are not under the NF payroll, influence, or control, but who contribute voluntarily to NEAR’s development, governance, and public dialogue.

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To be clear, my duty is both, and both things are happening.

The “clerks” you refer to are the very people who are responsible for setting up and funding House of Stake. It exists at their blessing.

This will be an ordinary proposal that will be voted on. To be clear, there is no plan to deploy any funds from the HoS treasury without a proposal and a binding vote.

I see no reason why NF folks aren’t also part of the community, nor why all community members need to be “volunteers.” Community is broader than this.

L

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Any transfer of funds from the NDC Treasury must have explicit NEAR Consent, as defined in the NDC legal governance framework. HoS is a Near Foundation initiative, created and managed under NF’s supervision, and therefore should be financed directly by NF — not by community funds until community consent is formally granted on-chain.

In your view, the “community” seems to consist primarily of NF-affiliated individuals. And you are acting and reporting like that.

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Thanks for raising these concerns, @Dacha I appreciate the passion and scrutiny; we need voices like yours in the mix. I come from a background where the minority voice was the decentralization maximalists and I used to work for a medium sized validator that would advocate for other smaller validators in ecosystems that usually catered to larger validators and institutions. These stakeholders tend to get overlooked so I understand your concern.

Let me clarify a few points, and also suggest how we can incorporate these critical perspectives more explicitly, governance is stronger when skepticism is built in, not pushed out.

1. Who is “community”?
The community is not a mono-category. It includes independent contributors, builders, token holders, DAOs, validators, even those currently supported by NF (so long as they’re acting transparently). I agree the line is blurry, and we must continuously refine it. That’s why feedback from people like you is essential for evolving that definition.

2. Why the phased decentralization approach?
Maximal decentralization from day one carries massive risk: decision paralysis, coordination failure, no accountability, fragmented power. The transition plan is designed to balance forward execution and decentralization. I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum when things start of too decentralized initiatives tend to lose steam (Cosmos blockchain) and there’s no unified vision. When things are too centralized the community sees through it and if the number doesn’t go up people leave (EOS blockchain) . Right now Near needs to focus 1) focus on a unified vision & 2)Make sure the vision is feasible and serves the community members.

That said, the plan must come with guardrails so it doesn’t become “centralization by default forever.” That’s where accountability and oversight come in.

3. On treasury, funds, and authority
@lane Already explained that. All I would add is that there can potentially be another subphase added to phase 3 or 4. We could potentially mimic A Chainsaw Arc similar to AAVE. This should ensue once there’s enough data to back up these cuts and frivolous spending you’re concerned about. I know you’ve mentioned a lot of spending on this initiative with nothing to show for it and I think this can also be assessed in the future. A wise man once told me governance was like a fire extinguisher, no one thinks about it until there’s a fire so try to appreciate the focus on it even if it’s taking a little longer than expected to get right :sweat_smile: I do think with the previous lessons learned and properly documented we can avoid repeating the same mistakes.

4. Accountability, review loops, and governance memory
The gap you’re pointing out of “who watches the watchers” is why I care so much about the Accountability Layer / GMS(Governance memory system concept.)
What I want to propose is that major proposals or decisions made by HoS is accompanied by:

  • explicit, public statements of intended outcomes

  • scheduled review checkpoints (e.g. 30/60/90 days) to see actual vs intended

  • public “scorecards” or dashboards on results

That makes us accountable forward, not just retrospectively. If a delegated authority fails to deliver, the community sees it and can course-correct.

5. Help shape governance design
Your criticism about the screening committee, NF’s role, and process legitimacy is valid. I’d suggest a public working group (with open calls) to help define the screening committee, charters, and checks & balances, ONCE initial documents are ready for feedback.

What often happens in early meta-governance discussions is too many people nitpicking line items before there’s a coherent structure. We’ll all have input, but there needs to be a core drafting phase before the broad review.

One approach could be for HoS to host focused calls for each stakeholder group developers, validators, delegates, investors, and DAOs so everyone feels heard and represented.

I share your concern that HoS should not be “control in NF’s clothes.” That is precisely what I’m trying to guard against with the accountability layer and decentralized transition phases. I hope we can use this moment as a constructive turning point where skepticism forces us to build stronger governance rather than fracturing the path forward.

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