I want to start off by stating that running of community RPC nodes by the former validators are a necessary step toward true decentralization. They enhance Celo’s censorship resistance and reflect the values this ecosystem strives to uphold. The idea in general deserves strong backing, and I support the creation of a committee to progress this effort.
However, I have some concerning issues about how this initiative has been introduced and managed.
First and foremost, the way this committee was proposed is concerning from a governance perspective. The introduction of the committee was buried within an unrelated tokenomics proposal. It took me some time to find the relevant changes here: Martinvol/l2tokenomicsfixes2 by martinvol · Pull Request #589 · celo-org/governance · GitHub. A structural governance change like this must be transparent and clearly communicated; not hidden under the guise of unrelated tokenomics changes. Even more concerning is that the discussion around the committee only began long after the initial draft was posted, well after community attention had faded. Most participants had no reason to believe that such a significant addition had been made.
This reflects a serious lapse in the governance process. Guardians should have insisted on a new standalone proposal for the committee. Credit to @0xGoldo for raising the issue — but it should not fall on one person to enforce governance discipline. While I do not believe the proposer @martinvol acted with bad intent, inserting a committee into an unrelated proposal (See PR above) was inappropriate and has damaged the legitimacy of the process.
Also, there is no transparency around how the 3 original multisig signers were chosen (2 of the latest signers seem to have volunteered in the original draft proposal).
There’s no record of when or how these individuals were selected, and no forum attestations from them confirming that they even hold the multisig keys. Now we are in a situation where the multisig has 1 confirmed on-chain governance action and $36k sitting in it without any provable identity of the signers. Guardians should have pinged the multisig signers. The proposer should have tagged their forum identity.
Additionally, The committee is requesting $2,000 cUSD per member per month — totaling $10,000 cUSD monthly. While I support compensating contributors fairly, there must be a detailed breakdown justifying this amount. What exactly are the deliverables? Who are the software developers? What software is being built? What are the credentials and responsibilities of each member? The reference here Set The Great Celo Halvening Parameters - #3 by Thylacine is very vague in my opinion.
Lastly, community feedback appears to be ignored. Despite several community members providing thoughtful responses in the “Great Halvening” forum thread, the original proposal draft (Set The Great Celo Halvening Parameters - #3 by Thylacine) does not seem to have been updated at all.
To move forward responsibly, I recommend:
- Merging the original draft (Which has already been passed) into this one to give the community clear visibility.
- Actively incorporating feedback from validators and other ecosystem participants.
- Providing a detailed explanation of what exact problem this committee is solving, beyond uptime reporting (which, quite frankly, is a solvable problem that doesn’t require a high level of technical complexity).
- Disclosing the role and responsibility of each member along with their credentials.