The decentralized governance platform for organizations, Aragon has introduced its transparency framework - a core addition to Aragon’s transparency model. Following a $25 million USD token sale raise in May 2017, the project aims to encourage other crowdfunded projects to adopt a similar model of transparency and set a standard within the industry.
Co-founder and Project Lead of Aragon, Luis Cuende remarked: “Token sales in the blockchain space have raised over $1.5 billion USD for innovative organizations; while many have detailed minimum viable products they have largely failed to highlight how funds are being used to further their project,”
Also in May, Aragon released a pre-sale transparency report as a first step towards establishing a project-wide transparency model. Building upon this, Aragon recently announced its decision to report its token buybacks – a move aimed at incentivising external contributions to the development of the project and the Aragon Network. The new transparency framework shows a readable description of all transactions that the project makes, detailing the value, destination, and justification for each spend, and marks the completion of Aragon’s transparency model.
Cuende added: “We believe that accountability is extremely important for all organizations, especially blockchain projects. Increased transparency of spending will allow token holders to assure them that funds raised are being used productively and responsibly. This will instil confidence among them in the long-term vision and trajectory of the project. Our system was inspired by and is an adaptation of the MakerDao transparency model and is open source for anyone to use. We’re trying to boost the adoption of transparency models by other organizations and a make it an indispensable requirement for token sales. The evolution of industry transparency will mean greater accountability and efficiency for projects, and increased security and involvement for participants, ensuring that the ecosystem filters away non-legit projects and enlightens the transparent ones,”
Aspects of the transparency model also include quarterly financial reports, public meetings, and the use of open source to allow participants’ inclusion in decisions relating to project fund management. Each of these measures aims to consolidate an industry transparency standard and serve as a standard for others to follow.
Since the token sale earlier this year, Aragon has added to its team, hiring an additional five members, including a Head of Strategy and Operations, Community Lead, and Smart Contract engineer. In addition, Mihai Alisie, one of the original four founders of Ethereum, was welcomed onto the Aragon advisory board. Alisie joined Aragon advisors Kenny Rowe, Chief Operations Officer of the Dai Foundation, and Jake Brukhman, Co-Founder of CoinFund.
