Neon DAO Organization

Neon is Governed by the Community, For the Community

The goal of the Neon DAO is to allow the community of token holders to have a say in how the protocol evolves. The Neon DAO includes core developers, application developers, operators, users, and other contributors in order to come to a consensus on solving issues and developing rules for the functioning of governance. The rules can be changed by contractual amendments as decided by the stakeholders.

Since the results depend on Neon's stability, a high level of coordination must be ensured when making changes to the management and technical processes. This ensure that any changes to Neon are secure and approved by the community. It is also necessary to make the process of resolving issues related to Neon management transparent.

The Neon DAO Model

The Neon DAO model is based on the interplay and synergy of several decentralized Assemblies, organized into three Focus Areas. In a nutshell, Assemblies are member-owned communities that serve as safe and effective venues for like-minded individuals to constructively work together and engage in collective decision-making. While each Assembly has different criteria for submitting proposals, eligibility for voting, and the scope of influence its decisions can have, they all follow the same basic formula as described in the Voting Process Overview.

• An idea for potential implementation is brought to an Assembly within a Focus Area.
• Assembly participants discuss, review, and revise the proposed idea off-chain.
• If a preliminary consensus has been reached, the idea is fleshed out and finalized into a proposal, which includes instructions to automatically implement the desired changes.
• The proposal is taken to a simple "Accept"/"Reject" vote, and eligible voters cast votes (in the form of NEON tokens) for their preferred option, with 1 NEON being equivalent to one vote.

Focus Areas Overview

The Neon DAO consists of three (3) Focus Areas, each of which carries out functions in one area of focus:

• Ecosystem
• Development
• Security

The following is a diagram visualizing the relationships between the Neon DAO's Focus Areas and their constituent Assemblies:

The parameters pertaining to the Neon DAO governance framework may be adjusted and voted on by the community. These parameters can be found on the Governance UI.

Ecosystem

The Ecosystem Focus Area is charged with the promotion of sustainable, long-term growth of the Neon ecosystem. As the collective owner of the Neon Treasury, its duties and responsibilities consist of distribution of funds for grants, security audits, bug bounties, and other ecosystem initiatives.

Within the Ecosystem Focus Area, the Ecosystem Assembly and Foundation work in collaboration to provide a frictionless experience for Ecosystem developers. The Ecosystem Assembly provides custodial services to the Foundation, informs the Foundation on decisions taken, and lets the Foundation distribute funds based on its own legal assessment of potential grantees.

Ecosystem Assembly

The Ecosystem Assembly is the most active Assembly in the Neon DAO. Most Ecosystem Assembly proposals deal with the matter of distributing tokens from one treasury account to another. The following are some examples:

• Evaluating and voting on proposals for distribution of funds
• Informing the Foundation on decisions taken, and letting the Foundation distribute funds based on its own legal assessment of potential grantees

Usage Scenarios

A typical scenario, funding an ecosystem initiative, would proceed as follows:

1. During the off-chain stage, the Assembly discusses and evaluates the proper incentives to provide for the initiative in question.
2. The proponent of the idea then creates a proposal to
   • Transfer the agreed-upon funds from the Neon Treasury to one of the Budget accounts
   • Delegate an allocation of part of the Budget account to be used by the Foundation
3. The proposal is voted on and, if approved, leads to the transfer of funds to the Budget account.

Neon Foundation

The Neon Foundation is an organization that is responsible for implementing Ecosystem Assembly proposals. These responsibilities include:

• Performing necessary Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes for contractors and grantees
• Signing agreements with contractors
• Processing signed agreements with regards to acceptance and payments

Development

As the owner of the Neon EVM program, the Development Assembly is the only component of the Development Focus Area. This Assembly is the group that deals with the technical aspects of the Neon EVM, and can upgrade the Neon EVM version. In break-glass emergency scenarios, Emergency Engineers, appointed by the Development Assembly, may elect to stop the Neon EVM without the Assembly's approval.

Development Assembly

The Development Assembly is responsible for overseeing upgrades to the Neon EVM, identifying and prioritizing relevant feature upgrades, appointing Emergency Engineers, as well as for preventing funds from being maliciously withdrawn from dApps on Neon.

When upgrading the Neon EVM, the Development Assembly can add and remove precompiled Neon EVM versions from its approved version list. The Development Assembly also appoints Emergency Engineers that have the power to upgrade the EVM to an approved version without the Assembly's approval. These Engineers can also stop and restart the Neon EVM in case of an emergency.

Usage Scenarios

The Development Assembly allows for proposals dealing with the following:

• Approval of new EVM versions. This allows the Assembly to later upgrade the EVM using these versions.
• Upgrading the EVM for approved EVM versions.
• Adding or removing Emergency Engineer multisig private keys, allowing them to upgrade the EVM (to already approved EVM versions) without the Assembly's approval, as well as to start or stop the EVM in an emergency.

A typical scenario, updating the EVM version, would have the proponent proceed as follows:

1. Load the new EVM version byte code to the Solana buffer.
2. Create a proposal to approve this version of the EVM and switch to it.
3. The proposal is voted on and, if approved, leads to
   • Addition of the new EVM version to the list of approved versions
   • Upgrade of the EVM to the new version.

Like all Neon DAO Assemblies, the Development Assembly also allows for changing the voting parameters and permits users to monitor existing proposals by opting to receive notifications for new proposals and voting results.

Security

The Security Focus Area's primary focus, as its name implies, is to monitor and prevent attacks on Treasury accounts and the Neon EVM program.

Within the Security Focus Area, the Treasury Watchdog and EVM Emergency Assembly provide additional assurances that attacks and other malicious actions may be monitored, detected, and rectified.

Treasury Watchdog

The Treasury Watchdog is meant as a check on the Ecosystem Assembly, to make sure no malicious actors attempt to withdraw funds from any treasury wallets/accounts by taking advantage of the Ecosystem Assembly's decentralized nature. The Treasury Watchdog's main function is to identify malicious proposals that have been approved in rare cases and may target treasury accounts normally controlled by the Ecosystem Assembly. A Treasury Watchdog proposal to prevent such a withdrawal must be undertaken before or during the hold up period of the malicious Ecosystem Assembly proposal.

EVM Emergency Assembly

The EVM Emergency Assembly is meant as a check on the Development Assembly, to make sure no malicious actors attempt to submit a malicious upgrade to the Neon EVM by taking advantage of the Development Assembly's decentralized nature. The EVM Emergency Assembly's main function is to prevent the Neon EVM being upgraded with malicious code. An EVM Emergency Assembly proposal to prevent such an upgrade must be undertaken before or during the hold up period of the malicious Development Assembly proposal.