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Thales Governance Structure
Thales is governed by a trio of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) which enable the community to manage the protocol. Using DAOs as a structure for coordinating a community is one on the main innovations of DeFi. The Synthetix governance structure is a foundational example of a functioning DAO, and because of this it has served as the inspiration for Thales governance.
Each of the three core DAOs work together to fill different roles within the protocol. By distributing responsibility to community members who are voted in by their peers, Thales is able to maintain high levels of transparency and accessibility. This type of representation allows the protocol to retain expert and experienced leadership without sacrificing the ability to react quickly to challenges.
You can vote for Council Members from the Optimism and Arbitrum Networks, with your voting power defined by staked THALES applied to either network. You must stake THALES to acquire voting power.
In honor of the Seven Sages of Greece, the Thales Council will consist of 7 members elected by token holders who have staked THALES in return for voting weight. Each epoch will last 4 months.
The duties of the Council Members include reviewing and voting on Thales Improvement Proposals (TIPs) submitted by the community. TIPs represent potential changes to the core protocol that require strict vetting and must achieve some level of community consensus before reaching the Council. TIP authors are interviewed by Council Members, who then debate the downfalls and merits of a TIP, before ultimately working with the Protocol DAO to assess any potential technical risks and eventually implement the change to the smart contracts.
To summarize, the community debates and submits proposals and votes on Representatives to review and vote on those proposals. It's a little like owning stock in a TradFi company, but with more say in the direction of the product and with the unique benefits of using a blockchain; transparent and immutable records, open to everyone equally.
The Protocol DAO is responsible for maintaining the core smart contacts that run the Thales protocol. They control a multi-sig wallet that is used to initiate upgrades to the code-base and deploy new releases as requested by the Thales Council. The Protocol DAO also implements successful TIPs and manages the day-to-day operational security necessary for a platform hosting millions of dollars in value.
The treasury is maintained by the Thales DAO. This DAO decides how to distribute incentives to the other DAOs in the form of stipends, as well as to community members and contributors for developing the protocol. They also manage and maintain funds put aside to guarantee the security and health of the platform.
All three DAOs work together to achieve efficient and distributed community control. This structure ensures that the users and token holders drive the protocol forward while maintaining the necessary level of decentralization and censorship resistance.