LexDAO proposes to leverage our existing body of thought leaders to collaborate with the Cardano community to identify, focus, and ideate solutions to existing policy problems facing crypto adoption. We are a DAO of crypto-lawyers, advocates, and ex-regulatory experts who on a daily basis help promote the creation of favorable solutions that comply with laws and regulations throughout the world. To lobby for favorable legislation, we propose to:
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SENSE: Cardano community to nominate public submissions opportunities (legislative, regulatory, industry), LexDAO then selects a legal engineer to coordinate a formal proposal (eg co-regulation or factual-briefs) within that country. That coordinator will draw in necessary tax, jurisprudence, regulatory, etc expertise as needed whilst polling affected Cardano subDAOs as to priorities/preferences. By fostering internal consensus first, we can then draw in industry partners or infuencers based on grounded principles (eg property rights or ESG goals) rather than arbitrary wish-list.
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ANALYSE: We frame the debate (freedom of association, privity of contract, differential privacy) to identify the public policy mechanisms (protective, preventative, punitive) and triage legislative rules that are detrimental to the success of Cardano ecosystem. Building from repo of comparative law (what works in other countries) we will analyse options ranging from factual findings to accounting clarity (definition of tax events) to specific legislative language.
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RESPOND: Conduct a hackathon of business interests, regulatory observers, and legal engineering professionals to aggregate and condense the analysis into specific policies, proposals or provisions. Partner with networks such as LexPunK army, Proof of Stake Alliance, or PAC DAO to widely publicise and promote grass-root support for outreach initiatives.
This implements the 3 phases (above) of coordinate -> considerate -> collaborate. The impact of collaboration is to spread the good policy ideas (from other jurisdictions) to the grass-root level of the new country, allowing to learn from the lobbying experience elsewhere. Translation of prior policies results in a massive saving of hundreds of expert hours compared with crafting policies from scratch. The repo from each hackathon will be open-policy so available for any Cardano community to spread public awareness based on rational policy (eg UK digital assets definitions).
To illustrate our impact, we have attached 3 examples of our lobbying in helping community members, state governments, and federal committees to understand the amazing opportunities in the blockchain space. LexDAO has a proven record spanning the last three years of thought leadership within the crypto space, and with this grant we can expand and align our work with the needs of the Cardano community.
We believe in a rational discourse to emphasise positive aspects of crypto-assets and illustrate novel features of proof-of-stake (eg social capital in functional electoral colleges). Directly lobbying is a zero-sum game that incumbent TradFi has the advantage. Instead of a shot-gun approach, we attempt a sniper rifle by focusing on 3 broad principles:
- Freedom of Association - acceptance of new organisational forms such as DAOs;
- Privity of Contract - members should be able to negotiate and exchange obligations of own volition; (provided not criminal in nature)
- Differential Privacy - quiet enjoyment of crypto-assets free from unnecessary intrusion so long as all applicable laws are followed.
This combination translates to voting with your wallet, with netizens migrating to DAOs which best suit their purpose and has favorable tokenomics. Differential privacy means data collection no more intrusive than a census (down to post-code level but not individual household) which support public policy for aggregate data but without compromising individual privacy.
We believe our breadth of network (100+ members around world) combined with depth of experience (tax, securities, entity formation) along with the existing track record of submitting to regulatory bodies should give Cardano and other major crypto-currencies confidence that we can scale your initiatives to the global stage.
Incoherent coalition - lack of internal consensus
Inconsistent policy - different countries treatment
Incomprensible pitch - technical gobbygook deters grass-root advocation
The concern we have is that legislatures will pass Red-Flag laws, akin to burdensome conformance with TradFi (eg custodial accounts) without realizing the advantages of staking (behaviour economics), smart contracts (risk-free trust in code) and distributed ledger (auditable history).
By coordinating with stakeholders, we build concensus in the wider ecosystem as to desirable legislation. By running multiple hackathons, we will build up knowledge and factual basis for public policy. And coordinate a single response which communicates with policy-makers in plain language and where possible, factual evidence of the benefits of ecosystems such as Cardano.