Hey there! The NDC elections are just around the corner, and I've dipped my toes into this arena. Let me break it down for you and give you the scoop on what's happening. So, the NDC is all about decentralized governance within the NEAR ecosystem, and it's already got quite a few folks working on it. Their budget for the third quarter of this year [exceeds $500,000](https://gov.near.org/t/gwg-ndc-q3-budget-proposal/35414) — quite substantial, right? If NDC proves itself, it might get even more significant sums under its management, potentially up to [15 million NEAR](https://pages.near.org/blog/an-update-on-the-ndc-funding-and-support-for-grassroots-projects/). To make this happen, they're holding elections to choose 29 individuals who will make key decisions. They're organizing into three different divisions, each with slightly different functions, and they'll oversee one another. All 29 of these folks will likely receive a monthly salary of $2,500 for a few hours of work each week. It's a well-paid job that lets them handle substantial amounts of funds and influence the direction of NEAR's development. No wonder there's a lot of interest in these elections! Right now, before the elections take place, the Governance Working Group (GWG) is in charge of everything. Interestingly, many members of GWG are also running in the elections. Currently, GWG is busy setting up the election procedures, creating contracts, establishing vote verification processes, and later on, they'll be tallying the votes and announcing the winners. Personally, in the past I was an observer at parliamentary and presidential votes, where things were completely rigged. So, I tend to be somewhat skeptical of the folks running the show when it comes to elections. But for now, it's not about specific individuals, especially since I hardly know anyone involved personally—it's all about the formal procedures they're engaged in. Alright, so here's the scoop: GWG has been busy for the past week verifying voters who have passed the "i-am-human" verification process. It's not a KYC process; it simply captures facial biometrics to prevent the same person from registering twice. In total, 4,000 people have gone through this verification and have become the voter base. After the verification, earlier this week, GWG blocked 912 participants while adding 1,307 people to the whitelist. The rest are in a gray area, and they'll need to make a 300 NEAR deposit to participate in the voting. This deposit won't be refunded if any violations are detected. Participants on the whitelist will need to deposit 3 NEAR. Now, when it came to blocking accounts, there were [two main criteria](https://twitter.com/neardc/status/1698842836735545828/photo/1): accounts that had interacted with the privacy tool Opact Tickets (formerly HideYourCash) and accounts associated with suspicious activity during the RC DAO elections. I didn't see much discussion about the second criterion, so it's likely that the suspicious accounts have since become inactive.  As for the first criterion, HideYourCash allowed users to keep the source of their funds private. The idea behind blocking these accounts was probably to safeguard against accounts that might have been created solely for participating in the elections without revealing their true identity. However, there was an unfortunate mishap, and ALL accounts that had ever interacted with this tool got blocked. This happened even though many of these accounts were created before the NDC elections were announced and even before NDC came into existence. For instance, a [sizeable group of users from the very active NEAR UA Guild](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cjWWNyRxE3V27cUUTQDC_mWnpCu4kMnnpDr3bVve030/edit#gid=0) had their accounts blocked, despite their protests and providing evidence that they had carried out these transactions as part of a marketing campaign on Zealy. I witnessed this firsthand in the NDC chat, where affected users discovered their accounts on the blacklist in the DAO proposal and tried to rectify the situation promptly. Sadly, it didn't pan out, likely due to prior strained relations with some NDC members. I understand the desire to prevent accounts created solely for election participation, but there are already several tools and methods available for this purpose, such as linkdrops, keypom, and simple CEX transactions. I agree that it's essential to keep an eye on this. I, myself, came across a couple of suspicious users—one paid for the registration and i-am-human verification for 51 users via keypom, while another paid for 22 users to attend the elections. Strangely, both of them made it to the whitelist despite their activity. I even see one on the list of candidates. However, some older accounts that had used the HideYourCash contract in 2021 are now on the hook for video identity verification to get off the blacklist. As far as I know, nobody has successfully gone through the restoration process yet. But I hope they do eventually, even though it's clear that NDC doesn't currently have the necessary licenses for video KYC, and the recovery procedure is probably still being prepared. It's unfortunate to see this incident unfold, especially now when crypto Twitter is regularly discussing privacy-preserving tools. The general consensus there is that the tools themselves are not illegal, and sanctions should be applied only to specific instances of misuse. Okay, let's break this down. The blacklisting process is pretty clear. However, the gray list requires a 300 NEAR deposit to vote. It's the largest group, and I must admit I'm quite skeptical that people on the gray list will actually vote. You have to give up those 300 NEAR with no guarantee of getting them back. If, for some reason, a commission later decides that rules were violated, you could potentially lose that amount. How this commission operates and how willing they'll be to investigate—we don't know. Considering the recent incident with the HideYourCash block, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I hope I'm wrong, and we see votes from the gray list. It'll be doubly interesting to see where the votes from these risk-takers go. Now, let's talk about the white list. Essentially, there are only black and white lists. The simplest way to get on the white list is if you've: - Conducted 50 or more transactions. - Registered your account before April 1, 2023. OR - Received an Soulbound token (SBT) linked to your account, which is given to candidates and communities associated with NDC. You could also apply for community or OG SBT tokens (more on OG later).  It's important to note that these criteria were only announced this Monday; they weren't publicly known before. I'm sure if the broader community had known that having this token would put you on the white list, we'd have seen more applications for it. Unfortunately, there were no prior announcements (though if you look at the NDC MarCom budget, an astonishing $127,500 was allocated to it in Q3), so I hope NDC will communicate such news to the community more effectively in the future. However, I'm open to the possibility that such a channel of information could have existed. Consider this: 1. NDC is currently governed by GWG. 2. GWG/NDC members distribute SBT tokens. 3. GWG members have put themselves forward as candidates in the elections. 4. GWG members, without prior announcements or public voting, make decisions and admit people to whom they themselves have granted community and OG tokens. 5. GWG members have put themselves forward as candidates in the elections. This isn't a duplication error by ChatGPT; it's a crucial point. If we assume that someone might have known in advance that SBT tokens would grant white list access, all the voters on the white list suddenly become a significant force. I'm not particularly fluent in English, but can we call this a conflict of interest? Or is there a more suitable term for it? Now, let's talk about OG. I've conducted various lists of users on the whitelist. I've looked at accounts with the fewest transactions, the fewest access keys issued, accounts with the shortest interval between account registration and SBT token acquisition. In essence, I've been looking for the most suspicious accounts. And here's the kicker: all the "bad actor" rankings are full of SBT token owners. There's an account created via a QR code (which they distributed at NEAR events), and within just 4 minutes, it'll get SBT verification. I'll keep the tradition of not pointing fingers at individuals since I don't personally know these people. But how can we grant OG accounts, which don't even have a named account, no profiles on BOS, haven't made even 20 transactions, and were created after tokens were sent from the exchange a few months ago? Is that what OG means in the blockchain ecosystem? Among the rules for receiving OG tokens, there are several peculiar points, but I'll [quote](https://t.me/c/1811690567/1507) this one: "You are a NDC Contributor that forfeited or received a bounty through June ’23 that is still actively contributing to the ecosystem." So, if someone received a bounty from NDC, do they now have the privileged right to be whitelisted and decide the future of the ecosystem? Will they vote for those who gave them that bounty? Are you tired of my rhetorical questions yet? Here's another amusing episode you might appreciate. They've set a 300 NEAR bond for the gray list. This is an unattainable amount for most developing regions, which is where many DAOs are currently focusing their efforts. Why so much? Who decided on this amount? I don't know; there were no public votes on this matter. However, there was a vote on the [minimum bond amount (which is 3 NEAR)](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4800/format:webp/1*12NfGNyXklfx1V2nsUO1Kw.jpeg), which, amusingly, didn't even include an option for 3 NEAR. The most popular answer was "from 1 to 5 NEAR," and the second and third options were "0 NEAR" and "< 1 NEAR." Someone apparently created a poorly constructed poll, and then they calculated the average. In general, these kinds of votes in NDC don't seem to be working too well. For example, there's a [current budget vote](https://near.org/easypoll-v0.ndc-widgets.near/widget/EasyPoll?page=results&src=chloe.near/easypoll-4.0.0/official/ac9161ba3d69dllx3v31t435aaf81e10bc) that started on September 1st, and one of the questions was, "Support $75,000 monthly allocation limit per project?" Here's the [transaction](https://explorer.near.org/transactions/9TaxW3nWRYabPA5XNnLmyQ1NHkhTj15wZ7HG16REm6cv) that created it. Then, on September 6th, a [transaction](https://explorer.near.org/transactions/4waLn1xTWA8MrbD9C44fyukH1Ag6mT28NhZF4WH2UMkK) came in that changed the question to "Support $100,000 monthly allocation limit per project?" You can see this on the voting website. Votes that people had cast for the old question were transferred to the new one. It's probably a minor mistake, and I have no complaints against the developers and administrators of these votes. I just thought it was an amusing fact to share, especially when we're talking about blockchain-based voting.   Alright, thanks for reading all of this, and I hope you've learned something new. Why did I write this? I propose removing OG/Community SBT and revising the principles of forming the white list while reducing the bond for the gray list to truly make it gray, not black. If it means postponing the elections, then so be it; it's the lesser of two evils. In reality, NDC needs trust more than anything else right now, and trust can only be gained through fair elections. Investing in trust is the best investment NDC can make at this point, and it will pay off handsomely in many other investments. I wish everyone peace. NEAR to the moon! 🚀