All right. Hello, everybody. Sandell podcast
number 63. Today, I have a very, very, very special
guest, Cyril Forte, who is the Sandbox DAO administrator.
And today we'll be talking, it's mostly a meet
and greet, as if you probably didn't know who
he was already. But if you've been in the DAO,
you know who Cyril is. And also a learning opportunity,
time for us to learn and just have a conversation.
with our DAO admin. Disclaimer is... Actually,
this one might change a little bit. I, Lancer,
do not represent the Sandbox game or the Sandbox
Foundation. Cyril, however, does represent the
Sandbox... Not the Sandbox Foundation, but the
DAO, right? Represent the DAO. Yeah, my company
works for the DAO. We can say that. Okay. And
we are... No matter what our association is,
neither of us are not your financial or legal
advisors, and nothing we say is... taken as either
financial or legal advice. True for me, Cyril.
True for you as well? Yeah. When we say the word
SIP, we mean Sandbox Improvement Proposal. When
we say the word DAO, we mean Decentralized Autonomous
Organization. And when we say the word SanFam,
we mean the Sandbox community, those who participate
in the people, product, and purpose of the Sandbox
ecosystem. That ecosystem looks a little bit
like this, where in the people you have everything
from the gamers to the Sandbox team. The product
is everything from the game client to the DAO.
And the purpose is what the white paper expound
upon originally, as discussed many times everywhere
by Sebastian, Bourget, Arthur Madrid. And that
ecosystem helps us go round and round each day.
And today's episode is squarely on the DAO. As
I said, my name is Lancer. I am the host. We're
63 episodes into this thing. And today we'll
be talking about... the TSB DAO with Cyril. Cyril,
if you wouldn't mind, please introduce yourself.
What's up, Lenzer? Thank you for having me. Thank
you. Yeah, I'm Cyril Forte. I'm the founder of
Arsaccio, which is the administrator of the Sandbox
DAO. And happy to be here today to, you know,
I've been with the Sandbox DAO since its inception
as an admin since the 29th of May last year.
So we're getting closer to... Anniversary, I
guess we should celebrate. Very close. Yeah,
we should celebrate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you
pronounce your name one more time? Cyril. If
you want to say it right. But you can say Cyril.
I'm used to it. So I haven't mispronounced it
this whole time. No, you and like 10 ,000 other
people. So don't feel bad about it. I'm used
to it. And you are... When I was younger, I used
to be called Cedric. So, you know, by French
people, I mean, so, you know. Gotcha. And your
last name is Forte? Forte. Yeah, it's Italian.
Gotcha. And you own the company Arsaccio or is
it Arsac? Arsaccio. Arsaccio, which is the company...
Arsac .io, but Arsaccio is the company name.
Which is the company that is like the DAO admin
team. Correct. All right. So the discussion.
Today's kind of like a lighthearted discussion.
A lot of the DAO has been, we've been DAOing
since May, and we've been DAOing hard, to say
the least. And as obvious, this episode, this
podcast just by itself is dedicated to Sandbox,
and we've done 63 of these things. So we've DAOed
a lot. This is really like, I would call it the
capstone, a discussion between Cyril and I just
to really talk it through and get an understanding.
Just the fact that we've been able to hear, Cyril,
the thought process that you went through and
digging in the sand, I think was like, for me,
it was a watershed moment. I absolutely loved
it and enjoyed that. And when you started giving
like little anecdotes in the story times, in
the forums, I loved every second of it because
it helped me see and I started to see what was
going on. Especially the term progressive decentralization.
I heard that when you did NFC Lisbon, was it,
in May? When we announced it, yeah. Right, when
you announced it and you were with Seb and you
explained it. And at the time, I got all offended.
I was like, progressive decentralization? This
is a DAO. It's already decentralized. And then
over time, started learning what the nuance of
that meant was, especially the way Sebastian
explained it. Like, you have a child, you raise
the child in the way they should go, and then
you take the training wheels off. And can you
help me understand? Prudent dowing is what we've
been trying to do. What's that? Prudent dowing.
Prudent dowing. Okay. All right. So how would
you say progressive decentralization is coming
along? I think we've come a long way since the
first day, to be honest. Like if I remember,
the idea was to have a strong SIP curation. And
initially, we were even thinking about only having
the sandbox making sips, believe it or not. We
were like, the first step of the progressive
decision could be only the sandboxes making sip
and the community get to vote. And then the community
gets also the chance to make sip. But we decided
it was a bad idea. So we are at a stage where,
from the first day, where it felt like it was
very much so, you know. the decisions around
the constitution, the decision around the council,
everything was like kind of decided in advance.
It got pushed forward to the community in one
go. I think now we shifted to a realm where we've
got the community council, for example, that
you know and care about because we co -author
that SIP with you. When we're trying to open
up more and more to the community, what would
be assimilated as governance, even though I don't
really want to call them governance, but at least
we're giving a more role, more power to the community
with the community council, That didn't work
out, unfortunately, but you see that was the
effort to make it work with the domain allocators.
I know you are an applicant for a particular
domain yourself. With the delegates, so now people
can delegate their send or land to one of our
12 delegates. So there's also handing over more
power to the community and having more, solicitate
more community participation, I think is already,
a huge step towards more decentralization because
now all of a sudden we are electing people, we
are putting forward people for vote. You can
select and elect your domain allocators. The
delegate got chosen. That was a conscious choice,
but a community council, for example, could be
voted upon. So I would see all of that being
a step towards progressive decentralization.
And I would add to that the willingness for us
to go above and beyond the limitation of our
own bubble and our own ecosystem. If you look
at our community today, what we call the SanFam,
it's very much, you know, players, gamers, and
owners, creators, et cetera. But we've tried
with the CrossDAO SIP, if you remember, to reach
out to other community, which is to me part of
the path towards more decentralization. It's
like how you pierce your bubble. And also reach
out to other community members that are maybe
on the ApeCoin DAO, Star Atlas, why not? You
know, et cetera, et cetera. And trying to beat
these guys. Yeah, no, I'm saying this on purpose.
You know what I mean? So it's about, you know,
reaching out to other communities as well and
expanding and having more people pitching ideas
and the domain allocators. If you look at it
this particular way with the SIP25, which is
the Questbook SIP. We will be featured on a website
that will enable people that are outside our
usual community to go and pitch for ideas themselves
as well. So there's also a way for us to reach
outside of our own bubble. So I think we're well
engaged towards the path of more decentralization.
That's for sure. I don't know if there is a...
um a clear milestone or a clear threshold we
have passed to say we are fully decentralized
that's it i'm not even sure we'll be ever fully
decentralized and we can talk about that in a
minute with the way the foundation wrapper you
know that we've put it around the dow as a protection
measure what it means um so that's clearly like
the clear legal limit if you want to the definition
of being fully decentralized but i would say
for me We will be more decentralized once we
reach a certain critical mass in terms of engagement.
I think we can do a better job at engaging with
people outside of our community, get more sips
in, get more people voting, participating on
a forum, asking questions. To me, that participates
into being more and more decentralized. Once
we get more and more people interested, this
stuff will run by itself after a while. That's,
I believe, the goal here. I really like that
part. We'll be decentralized once we meet a critical
mass. I think that's probably what both you and
the community have been grappling with is what
does it mean to have successfully, progressively
decentralized? And now that we understand a little
bit more what the wrapper is, how it's probably
not possible to be fully decentralized like the
pure academic version of it. But in all practical
purposes, once we achieve that critical mass
of participation, I mean, we're electing our
own people. We're participating in elections.
We've got SIPs that we're able to push forward.
I mean, that is decentralization, in my opinion,
in all practicality. I agree. And looking at
it from the perspective of the admin team, right?
We still receive a lot of SIPs. We're still participating
in the accretion. We're reviewing milestones.
We're issuing payments. We still have issues.
um with milestones review with this this stuff
doesn't work smoothly or as smoothly as i would
like you know if i were to represent what is
my job is like idea on one hand work it out and
then you've got nicely packaged sip on the other
hand of the uh how do you say the the trail and
uh that's what we're trying to do and everything
else is at the service of producing sips and
then Once the SIP is live, reviewing milestone,
issuing payment, making sure it all works out.
We still have trouble. Like there's still milestones
review that don't really satisfy me. We've seen
SIPs that have paused midway. We don't really
know why. So there's still a lot of stuff that
require. manual input and human being behind
the scenes kind of checking and making sure it's
okay reaching out to the author being like hey
man you've missed your milestone what's up or
the data you've provided is not sufficient for
us to issue a payment can we have a discussion
all of that stuff still happens and to me being
in a position where all of that can be industrialized
and be like almost robotic i'm not trying to
remove people but being like really like processed
will be another step towards more decentralization.
Okay, yeah. I forgot to make the disclosure that
when Cyril was answering earlier about what was
the next stage, he answered that question and
he mentioned Star Atlas DAO. If you're watching,
the reason why he mentioned that is because I
was just elected to the Star Atlas DAO Council.
So that's full disclosure. That's why he said
that. I should have. Oh, damn. It's cool. It's
a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot because they
also are a foundation company. So I'm learning
a lot. Like I'm meeting with the director and
all that sort of stuff and just learning a lot
of what goes on behind the scenes. I'm really
looking forward to your inputs on how it is administered
on their end as well, if there are some learnings.
Well, it's administered by the council, mostly.
Okay, so you already see everything? It's Discord
based. So it's like forum moderation and you
change tags and then you submit it to the foundation
director and they do their sanity check just
like in Sandbox. But the DAO council is much
more involved in the day -to -day. And we're
also a big public face. We've already done two
public meetings and they're on YouTube. Imagine
the special council doing those. meetings on
twitch and inviting it that's what we're doing
so it's just a different approach different community
so i'm learning i'm learning a ton that's awesome
this whole dow thing is really an experiment
like there's no two dows that are the same or
with the same objective or with the same approach
and it's really you know we're trying to learn
as we go to be honest um where i mean Making
mistakes is a good thing as long as we're learning
from them, right? I think that was probably my
biggest mistake when I first started engaging
in this. And I was so intense toward you all
in the DAO admin team was, I thought the answer,
I thought we knew what the answer was from the
beginning. I thought you knew what the answer
was. I thought like there was this thing that
this is how you DAO. Come to find out we are
DAOing now just as we were DAOing then. And this
is like a DAOing, a continuum of DAOing that.
That none of us really knows exactly because
the biggest experiment. I didn't realize that
in the beginning. Yeah. I have to write my own,
you know, playbook. You should. You should. You
are the DAO maker after all. Right, right. Yeah.
All right. So let's delve into the relationship
between the foundation and the DAO. I have done,
I think I'm on part five of my mini series now.
So I've talked to American lawyers about. Now
at Case Law, I've talked to Cayman Island lawyers
about what foundation companies are. I've done
my own read through. I mean, I didn't expect
the read through of the sandbox documents to
be six hours long, but it was. So I have no I
don't take any offense if no one watches that.
That was mostly for myself. I could not believe
I learned so much reading through all that. Can
you talk to me? What is your perspective on that
relationship? Foundation of the doubt. So first
off, I'll invite everybody to refer to SIP 1
and 2. Because this is where you've got most
of the information about the constitution and
the ratification of the foundation with its director,
with the law firm and everybody that got involved
into forming that legal entity. So that legal
entity is really here to exist as a wrapper.
So it's twofold. It's a wrapper, but it doesn't
really own the DAO. It's also acting as a conduit
so we can have a footprint, so we can get contract
signed, for example. Every time we buy a software
or interact with a third party, for example,
to get a piece of work done, the contract is
with the foundation. So that's what the foundation
is here for. And this foundation has a director
and we're moving to a company. It's going to
be a company going forward. But there's a director
of which role is to represent the board of the
foundation. And back to what you were saying
before about being potentially one day fully
decentralized, this director is really the executive
man that has veto power over everything that
DAO does. The community is making a... recommendation
to the director. And the director is the one
signing off on the SIP. And it's my team's job
to make sure this goes without a hiccup. So every
time there's a new SIP, we reach out to the director
and be like, hey, man, there's these new discussions
going on. We've checked it. There's no particular
thing that requires legal input. I think it's
a good one. And he say, he asked his question
and sign off and say, it's good to go. And we
sometimes, we're still working out the best process,
but we're trying to have his sign off at the
same time as doing council review. So, you know,
when a SIP is live for discussion, before it
gets published for voting, there's a two -week
discussion period. This is where the special
counsel review the SIP because it's mature enough
to be presented to the special counsel. It's
not like a discussion with like all of stuff
still up in the air. It is mature enough for
them, but it's yet before the actual voting principle.
process so we can publish their recommendation
at the top you know say council thumbs up thumbs
down or neutral we do that and we as we push
it to the council at the same time we push it
to the director with all of our due diligence
being made and we say hey sometimes they require
legal review so it's our job which lengthen the
creation process. Unfortunately, it's our job
to say, hey, we've reached out to our lawyers,
our lawyers are TTA, reach out to them, talk
to them about the SIP, they ask questions, we
go back to the author, we make the modification,
we clarify this whole thing up. So when it lands
on the director's desk, we're making everything
we can to make sure the director has answers
to all of his questions and he can just sign
off on the SIP. Because what I'm trying to avoid
as much as I can is for everybody to work hard
and for the author to propose a SIP, for my team
to review and curate, for the delegates to ask
their questions, for the SIP to go to a vote
and the SIP gets vetoed. That's a catastrophe
because it means we messed up along the way and
we should have anticipated that. So we're doing
all of that due diligence work ahead. So when
it lands on the director's desk, the director's
like, yeah, cool, thumbs up. I'll follow what
the community has to say, basically. And what
is it that you've seen other than like the legal
aspect? What are some questions that you've anticipated
that we should be aware of? Mostly the director
will care about commercials and legal aspect.
It'd be like, I don't feel this SIP is really,
the value is not articulated well with regards
to the cost. will be mostly his questions. It's
a common sense stuff. You're asking for a ton
of money, but I don't see the benefit being clearly
articulated. So then we go back to the author
either to challenge it or to explain it in a
better way. And we go back to the director. But
it's mostly about legality. He doesn't want to
be rightfully so. He wants to make sure the DAO
does not get into trouble. So I just want to
make sure that the SIPs that pass, that gets
his approval. are squeaky clean. Got it. And
when you say commercial, you're talking about,
like for instance, Sanchez, if it wants to have
a partnership with an outside entity, like Thrive
Protocol or whatever it is we go with in the
end, is that the commerciality that you're discussing?
No, it's mostly for revenue sharing with the
DAO, for example. Oh, commerciality with the
DAO. Yeah, or the price of the SIP itself. I'd
be like, why are you asking like 2 million cents
for this? You know, it could be... One of the
conversation, I'm not saying that's what happens,
but I'm just giving you an example. Okay. So
commercial reality is more about the price of
the SIP itself, Nick, the impact on the DAO.
Yeah. And to your point about the stakeholders
that are part of a SIP, they will want to make
sure there's been KYC, KYB, everybody's legit,
that kind of stuff. Got it. Interesting. Okay.
Outside partners are KYC. and the author but
the author is always kyc now here's here's a
technical question i had when i was reading my
six hour podcast i still can't believe i did
the six hours that that's just nuts that makes
no sense to me but it but uh are we beneficiaries
members are we something else or or is that uh
should i leave that to again i'm i'm not i'm
not an expert lawyer So I'm inviting everybody
to do their own due diligence, but I would say
people are members of the DAO as long as they
own sand or land. Because being members of the
DAO means you can participate on the forum, vote,
and issue a proposal. Got it. So what I was,
and there's a big long list of questions I sent,
like 33, and you responded back that it's going
to take some time to get this. Yeah, last night
I finally got around to prioritizing them. And
that's the first thing I think that the community
should know from the lawyers or from the director.
Because beneficiaries and members are positions
within the DAO and designations. It's important,
at least to me, that I know which one we are.
I'm inviting everybody to do their own research
on this one. And that's also the official answers
from the lawyers, to be honest. They cannot.
We've been asking for the longest time to get
some sort of a blanket statement. They cannot.
We invite everybody to do their own research
is the answer, unfortunately, because everybody
lives in a different jurisdiction. That's the
beauty of a global community. Okay. All righty.
The next one is, you've seen the DAO even before
it launched. How have you seen it evolve from
when it was first? conceptualized to now? I would
say we went across several stages from overcoming
expectation, I would say, from the community.
Like you were saying at the beginning, you said
that you were very, not defensive, but... I was
intense. Intense is the word you use. I was aggressive
and I was intense. I demanded answers. Right.
So we went through those stages from a stage
where we're trying to do our best. We've got
this approach. Let's see if it works. The community's
mistrust, intensity, aggression, and now we've
moved to something that is a bit more mature
and grown up, I would say, where we... kind of
overcome expectation, I would believe, from the
community. I think the community started to understand
at least what the sandbox DAO looks like and
how is it about, or at least how it works. So
we're moving towards a maturation state, I would
say. And that is about, you know, let's get those
sips through the door. There's not so many questions
about how this whole thing works. It's a bit
more about... You know, let's get, let's get
sips through the door. How I can be involved
in governance. Can I be a delegate? Can I be
a DA? Can I be a community council? Can I be,
you know, but that's, that's, that's good conversation.
I really like where we are now when it's less
about proving the exercise of a DAO to the community
and actually using the product. If the DAO could
be called a product. Yeah, I believe, I believe
Kunta said quite a bit how that first, when he
first got there was about kind of, rebuilding
trust and and kind of on the tail end of proving
that the dow should be there i guess you put
in quotes but now you move to growing like now
we are we are dowing together we're participating
we're building and so where you would say we're
we're moving toward the maturation stage i think
the next thing you uh when the question i asked
last was where will we be next or what would
be next? And you said cross -DAO, cross -DAOing.
The SIP that just went up with Animoca Brands,
the Animoca tokenomics team, they wanted to buy
more into A -Point. What's your perspective of
how that plays into the maturation stage? Okay.
So you're asking for my opinion, even though
my opinion really doesn't matter because that's
what the community decides, right? So I'm going
to just answer personally because I don't get
to see any of that stuff. Okay, maybe I'm asking
the wrong question then. The question I'm asking
is, when you're talking about, do you believe
we're moving toward a maturation stage? Right.
And in some cases, we are more mature than when
you originally started. Yeah. Do you feel like
we are in a maturation stage? Relative to other
DAOs. Maybe that's the question I'm trying to
ask. Okay. I think we're still young, to be honest.
If I look at ApeCoin DAO, for example, they have
like 460 something AIPs. Yep. We've got a handful,
27, if my memory is correct. So we're far from
being as prolific as they are. And they've been
DAOing for longer. When I say maturing is like
definitely, I don't think like we are in the
stage of, I know you like planets and, you know,
sci -fi and stuff. I think we've passed the Big
Bang stage and now the planets are kind of forming.
So it's less chaotic. And now, you know, there's
the gravity is taking place and we see like,
okay, there's the council, there's the admin
team, there's the community, there's like everybody's
like trying to understand what their different
roles is. So that's what I mean, maybe by maturation.
That doesn't mean there's oxygen on every planet,
potentially, but you know what I mean? I get
it. We're falling into our roles. Right, right.
Okay, we're determining who we want to be and
how we want to participate. Right. If we do a
draw parallel with, you know, basic project management,
there's like storming, norming, and you've got
stages you go through when you assemble a team.
And I think we're like in the norming stage.
maybe not as performing as much, but at least
we're on a norming stage where we're like, it's
not as stormy as it used to be, but now it's
like, okay, we've got more processes in place.
We're trying to be super lean with the way we
administer this whole thing up. We kind of have
like a whale old machine. We're still tweaking
it, but at least it's working. And now it's about
getting into performing and performing with me.
It's like sip, sip, sip, sip, sip, you know,
do, do, do, do, do. proposal, vote, proposal,
vote. We need to increase our SIP cadence would
be a good metric for us to observe. But to answer
your question about cross -doubling, it is for
me a way to, from my perspective, right, as a
human being, as a SanFam, like everybody else.
I see some benefit to reaching out to people
that are outside your bubble. And it's the same
when you have a kid. The kid's universe is his
bed. Then it's his house. Then it's school. You
know what I mean? As you mature, it pushes your
boundary and your universe becomes bigger and
bigger. So I think that was the idea behind this
SIP. I think as I've expanded into the other
DAOs, first it was voting in other DAOs, like
Squiggle DAO or Whale DAO or ApeCoin. There's
some others. And now I'm getting into governance
of other DAOs as well. I'm learning that no two
DAOs are the same, even if they both are foundation
companies and they're both gaming DAOs. which
in this case is Star Atlas, the way they operate
is vastly different. Even internally, the rules
aren't the same. It's really interesting. And
I'm learning so much that as soon as I see this
over in Star Atlas, I'm like, wait a minute,
we could be doing that in sandbox style and vice
versa and vice versa. So I'm really seeing that
play out. It's really fascinating. I'm having
the time of my life. Yeah, I'm glad. Right. And
that's the spirit, right? It's just looking at
what your neighbors do and then steal their ideas.
Yeah. What's your involvement in the foundation's
day -to -day business? Or is there any for you?
Well, I'm reaching out to the director, like
I said. And the admin team in general is collaborating
with the director for SIP Review. That's pretty
much it. I'm liaising with the lawyers. The lawyers,
yeah, like everybody else is employed by the
foundation, but it is about, you know, reviewing
SIPs and making sure our contracts are good and
making sure that that was protected. But I don't
have a role per se. The only person that has
a role at the foundation is the director, really.
Do you interact much with the lawyers at all,
TTA? Oh, yeah. Really? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Very often we've got a huge backlog, like
I've told you. So, you know, I don't know when
I will be able to answer your question. If ever
I'll do my best, but we've got a backlog that
we track with them on notion of stuff to do.
They've been very responsive. So they're also
learning how to work with us. Right. Because
it's a, it's a law firm and the admin team is
very much a project team. So there's like. that
we have that, you know, they don't necessarily
have and vice versa. So we're learning how to
work together, but they've been providing good
advice and we're trying to have them at least
giving a quick sniff test to every sip. And sometimes
it requires more than a sniff test. Contract
review, you know, is one of them. What else?
Yeah. Sometimes we, they review podcast episode.
They might review this one. Yeah. That's no problem.
Right on. What's your involvement in the DAO's
day -to -day business? Well, as the founder of
Arasakyo being the admin team, the official admin
team of the DAO, I would say my involvement is
the sum of the team's involvement. So everybody
has a dedicated role. So, you know, for example,
Bobby, that is in charge of communication and
being our community manager, you know, liaising
with the community on the day -to -day, also
doing for moderation, et cetera. We've got, yeah,
it's been Dox, Juan P, who is our treasurer.
And we've got Paul and Geraldine, which are in
charge of SIP curation. So, you know, handling
payment reporting, maintaining relationship with
partners, upgrade and maintain the DAO stack
is one of our missions as well. So making sure
the website stays up, making improvement to the
website. I don't know if you realize we've been
doing some language updates recently. I have
noticed that. All right. Yep. So we do that.
Very good. I know Seb gets happy with that one.
Oh, really? Yeah. He talks about that a lot in
the forums. Really? Okay, cool. For example,
following the publish at SIP23, which was the
new budget structure, we have to re -upload new
budget category on the dashboard page and link
them up to the new wallets that will support
these new budget categories. Oh, yeah. I tried
to access the budget the other day or yesterday
and it's under construction. Yeah, it's under
construction because of that. So reaching out
to a backend dev and frontend dev to make sure,
you know, we've got, you know, basically backend
talking to the frontend and this whole thing
being linked up correctly and being updated on
a daily basis, not necessarily real time, because
that would mean too many blockchain calls that
are too expensive. So, you know, thinking about
all of that stuff. And what about your involvement
with the Sandbox team? okay there's a lot about
um awareness i would say um that some you know
i get invited i go to the office sometimes i
just talk to the people on the ground and i'd
be like hey um I think I'm carrying the flag
of decentralization there, if you want. Sometimes,
like, hey, you know you can do a SIP, right?
How about discussing with the community on this
one? Can we do Game Jam with the community? We've
tried. I think that was SIP 7 or 8. It didn't
pass quorum, but was one of our ideas. Like we
walk the floor and talk to the game jam manager
and be like, hey, that'd be cool to have a game
jam because at the end of the day, it's people
voting and selecting a game. So why not just,
you know, asking the community to do so? The
UGC SIP, remember for the website? Was also an
idea we've got talking on the floor with the
sandbox people. So we're trying to, you know,
be like, hey, what can we do collaborating with
the staff there that will, you know... that the
community would love to do because we want to
decentralize more and more. I think the purpose
of the DAO and the sandbox DAO is to eventually
have more decision -making powers in the end
of the community, right? But somebody has to
try to push this forward with the sandbox teammates.
I think one of the biggest things that I didn't
realize and I was slow to understand was the
separation between the Dow and the sandbox company.
I always knew that there was, you know, the Dow
was its own legal entity. Once I understood the
rapper part, but what I didn't understand was
that it's not just that there's a legal separation
there. Like you, you are your own entity separate
from the sandbox. So when you walk in, it's not
like, Hey, uh, we're in the same team meetings.
And like, when, when I talk that the team's going
to listen, like there's. There's like a convincing
collaboration that you have to do. Absolutely.
And that's at the core of, remember the roadmap
stuff? Yep. Yes. And how it was difficult to
pass a SIP that is about a feature request for
one of the sandbox product, being the game maker,
the game client, or the voxel editors. These
guys, they have their own roadmap. So imagine...
That would have been me or one of my teammates
knocking at the door of the product manager in
charge of this roadmap and be like, hey, the
community is asking for this. And they're like,
yeah, we're busy. Rightfully so. Because they
have a whole roadmap of stuff they're trying
to do and they're pushing and they get their
own vision for the sandbox and their own ambition
and they are... This is their job. They've got
product manager that are pushing for a vision
for the particular product and they manage the
roadmap and the community requesting stuff. They're
like, oh, we thought about it. It's not on the
roadmap for this year. Actually, it is, but we
can't publish the roadmap as it is because it's
changing so much that we don't feel comfortable
putting it forward. These are all, from the Sandbox
point of view, it makes perfect sense. Having
been a product manager myself, I totally understand.
So when you say... I don't work on water when
I'm in the sandbox. It's all about convincing
people to play the game of decentralization.
It's not a done deal. But because it's a transformation
and every transformation is difficult, right?
And you're moving from a model where people were
employees and they get to do what their boss
tell them to do, basically. To now, they have
to interact with the community and deal with
communities' opinions and feedback more than
they used to. I'm not saying they ignore the
community. Of course, they don't. They get communities'
feedback and bug report and bug bounties and
all of that stuff. But now you see it's managed
in a different way. It's organized via DAO. So
this is more impactful. So, you know, you have
to deal with that. So I've been SamFam since
2021. So I saw what SanFam was before the DAO.
And as an experienced publisher, I got to see
the back end of studio to sandbox relationship
being an experienced publisher. So when you say
that more than they're used to, like they have
to interact with the community now more than
they're used to, I completely understand what
you mean. And what wasn't obvious to me was that,
That situation, free DAO, is the same situation
you're in, where you have to convince, collaborate.
I think if I had known that, I would have been
far less demanding and intense. Yeah. Because
you mentioned that roadmap SIP that I published
before the October version 2 SIP process. I remember
being really... aggressive with you all about
that because I'm like, we need a roadmap. We
need it right now. And like just the back and
forth and poor Geraldine. I apologize to her
all the time. Just I was aggressive and relentless
about it. And now I understand. Now I get why
it wasn't just a sure. Here it is right now.
Exactly. I have no authority over the Sandbox
employee at all, but they've been great. I mean,
working with them is awesome. They collaborate
with me. They try their best to play the game.
No pun intended. But they also have their own
bosses and they have their own vision and they
have their own constraint. Right? So they have
to deal with that. And sometimes you feel like
they are, you know... how do you say stuck between
the hammer and the hot place you know it's it's
difficult for them to manage everything and i
totally understand but they they've been they've
been awesome frankly and the roadmap being published
was a was a huge win for for everybody for for
the dow for the sandbox for for for everybody
um yeah i have it up right now where people can
see it right right right there you can see the
roadmap and and i love this thing we just did
a dated life So it's not like a one -off thing.
They are willing to maintain that piece. Not
only for the DAO, but for everybody that is interested,
because we've got players that don't necessarily
vote or pay attention to the DAO, but they still
pay attention to the Sandbox product. They can
use that as well. Yeah, I can see when they added
stuff last, their activity. This is cool. This
is very close to what I was... looking for in
the rest of the community so i pre and if i didn't
say it thank you thank you for working through
that and all the convincing you had to do to
make that happen merci beaucoup cool that that's
the majority of what i want to talk about just
kind of discuss through the particulars of of
what's going through your mind what's your perspective
on these sorts of things because now that now
that you've done those podcast episodes where
you revealed like the battle plan where you,
you know, NFC Lisbon, the website turns on, this
sips, it's going to be great. And then the disappointment
that you said you felt at our reaction, I get
it. I, I, so I get it. I get why you, why that
was like a good battle plan from a product manager
and, and wanting to, you know, impact and momentum.
Like I, I completely understand it. So, yeah
i'm glad we're a team i'm glad that that you
too yeah so thank you for thank you for being
a teammate and thank you for i guess you could
say patience but more of like your your perseverance
because as intense as i was and as intense as
the wrestling community was you kind of persevered
through that and and um now we're on the other
side of it and i get it And I want to be building
with you. That's awesome, man. Thank you. I really
feel like we are on the other side of the sandstorm.
That's a perfect analogy. It is. We just keep
on hitting it one after another. Wow. Play the
game, the sandstorm. Amazing. Right on. Is there
anything that you would like to say? Any plugs?
Any shout outs? Now I would say if people are
interested in what we do at the Sandbox DAO,
you know, just go over to the website, go over
on the forum. So it's www .sandboxdao .com. And
from there, you can get access to our forum,
to our snapshot for voting. If everybody want
to reach out to me to understand how DAOing works
or is interesting into opening their own DAO,
they can always visit www .arasak .io. A -R -A
-S -A -K dot I -O. And I'll be happy to oblige.
The DAO maker. Yeah, the DAO maker. And I have
the website pulled up right now. It kind of looks
a little bit like this, everybody. Just look
down, right down there. Cheers. Yeah, DAO design,
DAO administration, DAO tooling, which is the
exact same thing you're doing right now for the
Sandbox DAO. Yep. Last thing I wanted to ask.
I'm trying to professionalize DAO as a service.
Yeah. D -A -A -S? Yeah. I think what pops in
my head just as you're speaking about that, what
are some key metrics that we should look out
for or that I should pay attention to to ensure
that you're looked after just like you look after
us? I think form registrations, some of the things
you put in your biweekly updates. Ah, you mean
in terms of DAO performance? Yes. All right.
We've been working with Paul, our new teammates,
about KPIs for quite some time. And it's really
hard to define. And it's a whole can of worms
and probably another podcast episode, but just
in two seconds. How do you know you've succeeded
at building a DAO? How do you know your DAO is
successful? What are you looking at? First off,
what's the mission of this DAO? Is it about,
we believe that for 2025, that's why we've pushed
in SIP 23, the mission for the DAO for 2025 is
more community engagement and create more send
utility. What was that? More community engagement
in what? Send utility for the token. Okay. So
we're going to look at every SIP through that
lens. But how you measure send utility, how you
measure community engagement is what I mean by
the KPI stuff. It's hard to pull off. So we've
been battling with this for quite some time.
We went from something that is super complex
to something that is simple. For example, do
you measure send utility by just measuring the
amount of transaction? And if so, this has nothing
to do with, that could be swayed by intraday
trading, for example, or arbitrage. And this
has nothing to do with the initiative that you
do at the sandbox level or the DAO level. So
all of a sudden your data is polluted. So, you
know, trying to be able to extract KPIs that
are meaningful and for which we have the right
levers to influence them will be, so then we
can, we know that when we're doing something,
we're moving the needle in the right direction.
Right. It's what we're working on right now.
Okay. But yeah, I think. Beyond the usual vanity
metric of number of followers and presence on
the forum and stuff like that, it's very important
to get more voters, more people who delegate,
and more sips. That's how you measure engagement
at the end of the day, right? Okay. As I DAO
horizontal, I take in things from other DAOs,
I am... And I know I'm not the only one. I can't
be the only one. Where as soon as you nail down
those KPIs, I think it would be really helpful
to post it so that I can see it as well and others.
Because as I'm DAOing across DAOs, there are
constant opportunities and different little nuggets
that I take from them. And I'm at all times looking
out for how can I bring the DAO to improve it.
What can I do to help? And if I know what those
KPIs look like, then maybe I can focus my efforts
on some things that will give you a much higher
increase than if I were to just form apply. Yeah,
I appreciate it. Yeah, at the end of the day,
the KPI, I think, are made public because it
is a way to track the admin team performance.
to a lesser degree. It is a way to track the
DAO performance as well because everything we
do as an admin team should participate towards
this KPI. Everything the author do when they
advance a SIP should participate into the betterment
of these metrics supported by those KPIs. So
they should be made public because then every
time there's a new SIP that is being proposed,
we're going to be like, hey, to which KPIs this
is attached to and what are you trying to improve?
Are you going to improve sensitivity, community
engagement? Nothing at all. You know, what is
it? So we're going to use that as a way to assess
proposal as well going forward. When we'll be
mature with them, which is a working process
of progress. Well, that's everything I wanted
to go over, Cyril. Thank you so much for your
time. Pleasure. Thank you for having me. Yeah.
Everyone, this was Sandow podcast number 63 with
Cyril Forte, even though I'm butchering his first
name. All right. And he's the DAO administrator
for the Sandbox DAO, has been since the beginning.
And we have gone through many stages together,
forming, storming. And I think now we are getting
to the norming where he's on the podcast now.
There you go. Me, who used to be an intense critic
in some cases. And I appreciated the grace, the
patience and the perseverance, Cyril, to you
and your team. Merci beaucoup. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir. Au revoir. Peace. Ciao.