For over 2,500 years, humanity has grappled with the concept of democracy as a governing principle for cities, nations, and organizations. Since its inception in 500 BC, Athens, when the ancient Greeks first harnessed its power, democracy’s effectiveness has been as diverse as the communities it has served.

The elegance of democracy lies in its simplicity — the notion that decision-making authority should be dispersed among those whose lives will be impacted by those decisions. However, the practical application of this principle raises profound questions about how often to consult people about decisions and how well they understand the consequences of each outcome.

Whether one considers the monumental U.S. Presidential election or the tumultuous U.K. Brexit referendum, a defining characteristic of democracy is its inability to represent every individual’s wishes within the final verdict. This fact is most acutely grasped by senior executives in the corporate world who are familiar with the impossibility of making choices that please everyone.

Businesses often adopt a model akin to a benevolent dictatorship, featuring a central team wielding considerable decision-making authority. However, when these firms go public and list on stock exchanges, they introduce an element of democracy, permitting shareholders to cast votes on critical matters.

Yet, benevolent dictatorships, like all centralized systems, possess inherent vulnerabilities, with the actions of a misguided CEO capable of inflicting catastrophic harm on a company’s long-term health. Decentralization aims to mitigate these risks by spreading decision-making across as many people as possible.

Crypto is a unique environment with its ethos rooted heavily in the principles of decentralization, thanks mainly to Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper for Bitcoin. As such, many projects in the space seek to move towards becoming a DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization.

The transformation into a DAO demands prudence, time, and the organic maturation of a community empowered to shape the project’s future. We’ve spent a lot of time researching it from day one and are close to beginning to implement it.

As Deniz, our CEO, explains, “The coding side of governance is pretty much done, so now it’s time to go into audit soon… we’re close to governance, and the U.I. is complete. That’s the next roadmap item that is close to release at the moment.”

A dedicated forum for discussion becomes indispensable to usher in decentralization’s governance or decision-making aspect. Community members can experiment with concepts in this setting and progressively deepen their understanding of protocol governance.

Deniz further notes, “Because the forum is just a discussion, we do hope to release it before the governance goes live. We’ll release the forum to help people to familiarize themselves with the U.I. and the flow. To get some discussions going, and then once the whole voting system goes online, it will just be moving across from the forum to the voting system.”

Decentralized governance, beyond being a fundamental principle within crypto, also presents commercial and legal advantages, as highlighted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In several SEC cases against crypto projects, decentralization has emerged as a beneficial attribute.

Regarding listing on exchanges, Deniz observes, “Governance is actually a key requirement for listing on some of the more regulated exchanges. Once governance comes online, we have more freedom from a legal perspective to engage with different exchanges and hopefully take it forward.”

The actual implementation of governance requires meticulous planning and vigilant oversight. Just as one wouldn’t entrust a novice with a scalpel for surgery, the way decisions are executed will evolve progressively as the process matures.

Wilson, our COO, underscores this point, “Initially, the whitelisting will have to be done by the central team here just because the NFT collections that are whitelisted need to fit certain requirements. Having liquidity and the ability to make liquidations, things like that will be a requirement. We can’t just select any NFT collection.

As the platform matures and we have more governance, we’ll put things to the community. Essentially, they can select their own NFT collections. But we want to be careful because NFT collections could be manipulated to take advantage of the protocol, and we want to avoid that at all costs.”