We, the people, in order to create a more transparent, innovative, and decentralized world, do ordain and establish this Constitution for gno.land.
This Constitution of gno.land, hereinafter “Constitution”, hereby establishes the foundations of the rights, responsibilities, and governance structure of those involved with gno.land.
All subsequent governance proposals shall align with the provisions of this Constitution, and proponents of each proposal, along with all active governance voters, are required to ensure consistency between such proposals and this Constitution and cannot violate any explicit restriction.
Amendments are permitted to innovate and adapt this Constitution, but they must respect and adhere to the fundamental principles of this Constitution and are subject to specific procedures as described in Article 5: Amendments.
The mission of gno.land is to establish a platform focused on transparent governance, user agency and authentic content.
The objectives of gno.land are:
- Develop a governance model for contributors by contributors.
- Encourage forking as a tool for decentralization and innovation.
- Reward authentic content and content moderation through transparent self-governance.
- Build sustainable censorship and manipulation resilience.
The GovDAO exists to protect the long-term value of the chain by creating a secure, decentralized, and subversion-resistant blockchain governance model. It is the governing body and the ultimate authority for decisions made about gno.land.
GovDAO membership is public information. All GovDAO members will have to have their identity verified. All Members of the GovDAO must have known identities as defined in the charter, bylaws, and mandates of the GovDAO.
Constraints to the powers of the GovDAO must be explicitly defined in Article 3: Citizen Rights, Responsibilities, and GNOTDAO or through the constitutional amendment process outlined in Article 5: Amendments.
GovDAO has the power to create and dissolve Sub-DAOs. The creation process of any Sub-DAO must adhere to the rules outlined in Article 2: DAOs and Sub-DAOs.
The govDAO operates on a three tier membership system based on expertise, contributions, and value alignment to the long-term welfare of gno.land. The three tiers shall be known as T1, T2, and T3.
- T1 is the highest tier with the most voting power and the highest standards for membership. Admission to T1 requires a super majority vote from members of T1.
- T2 is the mid-level tier. Admission to T2 requires a simple majority vote from T1 and T2.
- T3 is the introductory tier. Admission requires a permissionless invitation from a T1 or T2 member.
T1 shall target a minimum of 70 members after 7 years.
If the minimum is not reached, 2 members SHOULD be added every quarter, but 1 new member is tolerated.
If the minimum is not reached, AND 2 years has passed, AND no members are added for the quarter, AND there are Qualified Candidates, 1 Qualified Candidate may be elected by T2 and T3 of the GovDAO, but with T1 abstaining.
If the minimum is not reached, AND 2 years has passed, AND no members are added for the quarter STILL, AND there are Qualified Candidates, AND GNOT-DAO exists and is approved by GovDAO, 1 Qualified Candidate may be elected from GNOTDao.
T1 membership can only be withdrawn by supermajority vote WITH CAUSE.
The T2 membership maximum target is two times greater than the size of T1.
If the size of T2 exceeds two times greater than the size of T1, no more members can be added to T2 until the size of T2 is less than that of T1.
There is no minimum size of T2, but the desired minimum size is one-forth of the size of T1.
T2 membership can be withdrawn by supermajority vote for any reason.
The size of T3 is limited only by the number of available invitations from T1 and T2.
- T1 members get three invitation points.
- T2 members get two invitation points.
- T3 members get one invitation point.
A T3 member must be invited by two members of the GovDAO, and each inviting member must delegate one invitation point for a T3 member to become active.
T3 membership can be withdrawn by supermajority vote for any reason or the delegation/invitation can be withdrawn by both inviting members at any time.
Voting power in the GovDAO uses a weighted voting system with capped relative voting power for T2 and T3.
- A T1 member shall have 3 votes.
- A T2 member shall have a maximum of 2 votes.
- A T3 member shall have a maximum 1 vote.
Voting power shall be calculated based on the number of members in T1 multiplied by their number of votes. The voting power of T2 must not exceed two-thirds of the voting power of T1. The voting power of T3 must not exceed one-third of the voting power of T1. For example, if T1 has 100 members, and T2 has 200 members, and T2 has 1000 members, T2 shall have a capped voting power of 1 vote per member and T3 shall have a capped voting power of 0.1 votes per member.
The GovDAO shall have the power to define a compensation plan for T1 and T2 members who are actively working on gno.land.
The GovDAO has the power to create a fork of gno.land with greater than one-third of the voting power.
All deployed contracts have a right to exist on both forks.
GovDAO members at all levels (T1, T2, and T3) must agree to be exclusive to one fork.
A Supermajority vote from T1 determines which fork keeps "gno.land", OR, a simple majority of GovDAO keeps "gno.land", OR, both forks must change name, GIVEN THAT all names must be acceptable to NT,LLC if name includes "gno".
gno.land supports GovDAO, the principal governing DAO, and any number of DAOs and sub-DAOs for governance and operations. Each DAO operates under the principles of transparency and collective decision-making.
Every DAO, upon creation, must have a Charter (which is composed of Purpose and Description), an initial set of Council members (which may be empty) and may also have Bylaws and Mandates, The Purpose and Description must be plaintext files. The Bylaws and Mandates must be named plaintext files or folders of plaintext files, or folders of folders.
A DAO’s Charter, Bylaws, and Mandates may be changed by a Simple Majority vote from any of the DAO’s ancestors, except from GovDAO which shall require a Supermajority vote.
A DAO’s Bylaws, Mandates, and the Bylaws and Mandates of its ancestor DAOs, the relevant Laws, and this Constitution, altogether are called the Governing Documents of the DAO.
A DAO has a Council composed of zero or more members, with no maximum number of members unless otherwise specified in its Governing Documents.
The Council of a DAO may change the Bylaws of the DAO, and otherwise make Decisions on behalf of the DAO by passing Proposals.
A DAO may establish any number of sub-DAOs through the DAO Council’s Simple Majority vote, with their own defined Charters and specific bylaws and mandates, as necessity may arise and in accordance with the parent DAO Charter and bylaws. Sub-DAOs are owned by and can be controlled by the parent DAO, and members are also subject to the ancestor DAOs’ bylaws and mandates.
A Simple Majority in DAO governance is defined to be exactly “more than half.” A Supermajority in DAO governance is defined to be exactly "two-thirds or more." This is distinct from a Supermajority in Hub Governance.
By default, unless specified otherwise in its Governing Documents, the following rules shall apply for Council voting:
- Each member shall have equal voting power (no member may occupy multiple seats).
- A Council member may resign and thereby remove themselves from the Council.
- The tally denominator is the number of voters minus ABSTAINs (no quorum requirement)
- Proposals are open until they are decided by sufficient majority, or dismissed, or expired.
- Proposals are immediately dismissed by a Simple Majority vote of NO.
By default, unless specified otherwise in its Governing Documents, the following rules shall apply for Council membership election:
- The Council may elect one or more new members, and/or remove one or more members, by Super Majority vote. (self-mutating).
- The DAO’s Ancestors may modify the Council membership with a Super Majority vote.
Each DAO shall have an associated crypto address which can hold any number of tokens.
DAOs may operate with logic on core shards, or, represented as a m-of-n multisig account on the AtomOne hub where the signers are each members of the DAO’s council, where m is more than ½ n and also m is 3 or more. In all cases financial transactions from the DAO’s treasury must follow the passage of governance proposals on the DAO.
In the event that a DAO cannot resolve a dispute internally, it may appeal to its immediate parent DAO for arbitration. If either party remains dissatisfied, the decision may be further appealed recursively through each ancestor DAO. The GovDAO shall serve as the final arbiter, and its ruling shall be binding on all parties.
The Liberty and Property of all citizens of gno.land, hereinafter known as "gnomes", engaging in the gno.land is hereby guaranteed. Any restriction to the Liberty and Property of gnomes on gno.land shall be done only through the GovDAO and requires a Constitutional Majority to pass an amendment to the constitution and optionally a set of laws specifying its enforcement.
Every gnome is entitled to participation rights from their engagement in gno.land, including rights derived from held GNOT tokens in line with the provisions of this Constitution.
The only criteria for participation in gno.land is to hold $GNOT tokens. gno.land is a sovereign and participation is permissionless.
- The freedom to fork and innovate
- The freedom to participate in transparent governance
- The right to access the decentralized, censorship resistant platform
- To contribute to the community development and moderation
- To uphold transparency and integrity
All GNOT holders are members of the GNOTDAO.
The GovDAO must include GNOTDAO on any proposal that involves a change to GNOT inflation. A proposal for a change to inflation that has GovDAO supermajority approval may only pass if it also has a supermajority approval from GNOT holders.
The GovDAO, at its discretion, may also use binding proposals engaging the GNOTDAO when internal governance structures reach an impasse. Such proposals to engage the GNOTDAO must be approved by the GovDAO with a supermajority approval.
Article 4 defines the governance framework for gno.land, focusing on transparent decision-making, accountability, and alignment with the platform’s mission. It establishes clear procedures and thresholds to ensure equitable, decentralized, and collaborative participation in shaping the community’s future.
The working language of gno.lang Governance is International English.
The governance process shall be defined through law, but will strictly adhere to all restrictions and provisions of this Constitution.
The vote types are YES, NO, and ABSTAIN.
To prevent spam and to ensure the quality of proposals, proposals must have a sufficient amount of burn deposit before voting can begin. The minimum amount of burn deposit needed shall self-adjust to target on average 1 proposal per 2 week period.
The quorum necessary for a proposal to be valid is 40%. The denominator shall be the number of bonded GNOT tokens.
A Simple Majority in gno.land Governance is defined to be exactly “more than half”. No proposal is considered to have passed in gno.land with a Simple Majority; a Supermajority or Constitutional Majority is required. A Supermajority in gno.land Governance is defined to be exactly "more than two thirds". This is distinct from a Supermajority in DAO council governance which is defined to be exactly “two thirds or more”. For clarity, 3 out of 4 votes is necessary for a Supermajority in gno.land Governance, but 2 out of 3 is sufficient for a Supermajority in DAO council voting. The Constitutional Majority threshold is defined to be exactly “more than 90%”. These definitions of majority cannot change even by a Constitutional Majority.
The minimum voting period for a proposal is 3 weeks. To ensure adequate representation and participation, the governance process must extend the voting deadline to guarantee a minimum of 2 weeks of voting after the minimum quorum has been met.
This Constitution allows the creation and enactment of laws as means to complement and enhance its content, restrictions, provisions, and established processes.
Laws shall be enacted to address specific governance, economic, and operational aspects, and must align with the principles and framework established by this Constitution. In cases where laws conflict with this Constitution, this Constitution shall always prevail. The gno.land Governance structure will include the GovDAO and its sub-DAOs. Each DAO may create its own bylaws to govern its operations, provided they do not conflict with this Constitution, overarching laws or any mandates issued by GovDAO. Mandates issued by an ancestor of a DAO are binding and cannot be amended or repealed by those DAOs or their sub-DAOs and remain in effect unless modified or repealed. Any DAO bylaws that conflict with its Governing Documents shall be deemed invalid and abrogated.
Laws may be proposed by any member of the GovDAO through the established governance process. The approval of new laws or amendment of existing laws require a Supermajority Majority vote.
Once a law is approved by the required majority, it is implemented according to the specified procedures. The implementation process includes adding the law to the system of record, communicating the changes to the community, and ensuring compliance with the new provisions.
Laws must be named plaintext files or folders of plaintext files, or folders of folders.
The gno.land chain is the foundational infrastructure enabling transparent governance. It establishes the framework for Proof of Contribution, validator selection, and DAO governance. This section defines the unique characteristics of the gno.land chain and its core principles:
Proof of Contribution is the criterion by which gno.land community members are selected for GovDAO. It is driven by meaningful contributions rather than financial influence. Contributions include creating content, moderating platforms, developing software, and maintaining the chain's security.
Some contributions are more valuable than others, and it is ultimately upon GovDAO to determine the value of each contribution and whether the contributor should be invited into GovDAO.
gno.land operates a limited, permissioned validator set. Candidates require a GovDAO vote before becoming a validator.
Validators are chosen based on technical capability and alignment with gno.land’s vision, not purely on capital stake. Validators must uphold the principles of decentralization, transparency, and security.
Validator's capital stake is not related to their voting power. Instead, their voting power is determined solely by the level of their gno.land contributions, as determined by Proof of Contribution.
All DAOs proposals and individual votes are stored on-chain, as publicly accessible information.
All updates to gno.land must be proposed as distinct, independent components. Each component must be discussed and voted on separately to ensure thorough deliberation and transparency. Proposals shall not bundle different changes into a single submission. Each proposal must address a single, clearly defined update or change. The only exception is changes made for regular code maintenance and bug fixes, and critical security updates.
Adequate time must be provided between the consideration of each proposal to allow for comprehensive review and community input. The minimum duration for discussion and voting on each proposal shall be two weeks.
The passing of Software Update Proposals shall require the passage of law.
[TODO: name stakeholders from governance structure] are responsible and may be held accountable for voting YES only on software update proposals that make correct changes toward the living constitution and laws (any substantial changes to the software must first be reflected in the constitution and laws). This responsibility exists independently of the Oversight DAOs’ regulatory function.
This Constitution allows the creation and enactment of amendments to the constitution as means to complement and enhance its content, restrictions, provisions, and established processes.
Amendments are meant to modify the text of the Constitution. A proposal will show the proposed modifications to the text of the constitution, including all proposed additions and removals to the text. The most recent version of the Constitution must be maintained for the public to see as well as the revision history and each change must include the corresponding proposal authorizing the change.
In the case that the amendment ambiguously contradicts another part of the constitution, the GovDAO shall form a special purpose ArbitrationDAO that will reach a binding resolution to the contradiction.
Amendments may be proposed by any member of the GovDAO through the established governance process. The approval of the new amendment requires a Constitutional Majority vote.
Once the amendment is approved by the Constitutional Majority, it is implemented according to the specified procedures. The implementation process includes updating this Constitution, communicating the changes to the community, and ensuring compliance with the new provisions.