Jonas BouryFollowing some internal team discussion we would like to ask the Citizen Wallet community for its input and decision concerning the continuation of the project.
While we are all aligned and motivated to make the project a success, recent events have resulted in loss of trust, making it difficult to actively work together.
Topics of dispute
- Kevin and Jonas believe that the collective decision-making to incorporate the Citizen Wallet as a DAO set up in the Marshall Islands implies that this entity has become the “owner” of the brand and open-source products initially developed under the umbrella of Citizen Spring DAO
- For this transfer of ownership all past contributors also have been clearly rewarded through a CTZN token distributions Additional remuneration Xavier CTZN Token launch and debt transfer
- Xavier argues that he is the owner of Citizen Wallet and has the right to continue the project according to his vision and preferences
- For the governance of Citizen Wallet DAO as a core team, we agreed on working with Stewards who would have voting and decision power in the project. Kevin and Jonas consider that this steward model implies consensus on important decisions. In Contrast, Xaviers’ understanding of stewardship is that a steward can take complete ownership of a certain business topic. In this case, he considers himself the steward of vision and mission.
- Based on statements during core team meetings, blog posts and historic actions of Xavier within the scope of Open Collective, Kevin and Jonas currently feel distrust towards Xavier as he claims sole ownership of the vision and brand of Citizen Wallet. Kevin and Jonas struggle to continue contributing to the project under a framework where Xavier is solely responsible for the vision and direction of Citizen Wallet.
- Kevin and Jonas struggle with the low commitment of Xavier towards the project since he has decided to become the CEO of Open Collective again. His involvement and contributions to the Citizen Wallet project have been significantly reduced and in several cases, Xavier has been missing crucial discussions and updates which he subsequently asked to revert at a later stage.
- As it has always been stated since the start of the project the mission of Citizen Wallet is to empower citizens with a set of tools to build community currencies. At this stage, Xavier wants to redirect the focus to a wallet only. Kevin and Jonas feel like this decision is driven by a personal vision where he envisages the development of other tools through a for-profit entity Open Collective of which he is the majority shareholder.
Voting decision
Moving forward we therefore need to clarify ownership and decision-making of the Citizen Wallet DAO.
Preferred solutions
To restore trust, Kevin and Jonas feel that Xavier needs to acknowledge that the Citizen Wallet project is co-founded by both Kevin and Xavier. While Xavier can be considered the initiator of the project, it was co-founded by two people joining forces to build something new. The current vision and direction can not be declared by a single individual and if a majority of stewards want to pivot or change the direction of the project, Xavier does not have a veto on that.
It should also be clear that the brand name, domains and all accounts registered as Citizen Wallet are owned and managed by Citizen Wallet DAO.
If we can not align on that, the best way forward will be to “pull the plug” and continue development as two separate teams. In that case, we however need to agree on which stewards can continue the current Citizen Wallet DAO.
Option 1: Jonas and Kevin's proposal
- The Citizen Wallet project continues under the Citizen Wallet DAO with Jonas and Kevin as main stewards.
- Decisions on the vision and direction of Citizen Wallet are taken in a collaborative process and there is no steward that can claim sole ownership on that.
- As operations, development and fundraising have in practice already been ed by Jonas and Kevin in the past 5 months operations and projects continue as they used to .
- For now, the vision remains; Citizen wallet: the community currencies ecosystem developing a set of tools for community currencies.
- As Xavier is already actively leading the Open Collective company he can issue a citizen wallet fork under the Open Collective brand. Citizen Wallet DAO would be happy to continue to support Open Collective and its project with a wallet that can be branded by Open Collective.
- The team will actively focus on supporting the following communities
- Brussels Pay
- Breadchain
- Commons Hub Brussels
- OAK
- Jonas and Kevin also incorporate a local non-profit in Belgium (Citizen Wallet VZW) as a project development entity to support local currency projects in Belgium/Europe. This entity is needed to gain trust for developing projects as European businesses and governments would have issues partnering with a Marshall Island entity.
and will also focus on commercial business development for cashless events.
Option 2: Xaviers proposal
- Jonas and Kevin stop contributing to the Citizen Wallet project going forward and will fork the project under a new brand.
- Xavier becomes the main steward of the Citizen Wallet project and its mission and will have to recruit a new team for development.
- The vision of Citizen Wallet going forward will focus on an end-user wallet application. Other Community currency tools will likely be developed and managed by Open Collective
- Open questions?
- What happens with Citizen Wallet DAO?
- What happens with token sale?
- Xavier will actively focus on supporting the following communities:
- …
Going forward we want to state clearly:
- All current funds on crypto wallets in the treasury of Citizen Wallet are owned by Citizen Wallet DAO.
- The brand name, domains and all accounts registered as Citizen Wallet are owned and managed by Citizen Wallet DAO.
- Brussels Pay is currently led by Jonas and Kevin as stewards and will continue to use the subsidy of Innoviris to fund the project. The Brussels Pay project ownership is currently already being transferred to a separate entity. independent whether option 1 or 2 would become effective, Brussels Pay will be managed by Kevin and Jonas and they will continue to support the Brussels Pay vzw with technical implementation.
-…
Attachments and reference
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Voting stewards
To make a decision we agree to appoint the following Stewards to represent all stakeholders of the Citizen Wallet project.
| Member name | Description | Voting steward | Role | Project teams | Discord username |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Community member supporting the development of community currencies across the world | |||||
Community member supporting the development of community currencies across the world | Governance setupWorkshop facilitation | @thetokenjedi | |||
Community member supporting the development of community currencies across the world | |||||
Core team member | Sofware developmentFinanceProject implementationGovernance setup | Brussels PayCitizen Wallet core | kevtechi | ||
Core team member | Sofware developmentCommunity buildingCommunication | Brussels PayCitizen Wallet core | xdamman | ||
Core team member | FinanceGovernance setupProject implementationLegalOperationsCommunication | Brussels PayCitizen Wallet core | _jeebee | ||
Lead of Breadchain project and user of Citizen Wallet app. | |||||
Community member supporting the development of community currencies across the world |
