Taking stock and way forward

On Tuesday 19th the Board of Directors of OffChain Luxembourg asbl called an Extraordinary General Assembly (EGA) in conformity with its Articles of Association, as reported in the previous post.

The EGA took place last Wednesday, December 4th, in hybrid mode (in presence but also on-line) and we are going to post here the meeting minutes in a separate post.

Because we are an association of volunteers and, although we are dedicated to the cause, everybody has a job and a family, almost nobody can keep up with all the it is happening in the different "Nodes" of the association. Therefore, I started with a presentation aiming at bringing all the participants up-to-speed on what has been happening lately, where we stand on the various "fronts" and what remains to be done.

I started by reminding everyone our core mission: bridging the #cryptoverse with the world of laws and regulations.

I then proceeded to describe the state of play in the four major domains where were active.

Governance

1. We come in offChain Luxembourg asbl to collaborate free from coercion. The mechanism of collaboration is based on incentives - people pay a 100€/yr membership fee to display a minimum level of commitment, but are then free to contribute as much or as little as they wish.

2. We are organized in Nodes. There's a lot going on and not everybody can keep up with everything. There is a "General Affairs" Node that groups all the members, but aside from it, people choose to join freely the Nodes they are more interested in like "IT", "Legal and Compliance", "Marketing and Communication", "Content and Training", "Finance and Accounting", "Governance", etc. We use mostly WhatsApp to communicate, after having tried TG and Discord. We have a Google Workspace for Non-profits account with a Google Drive to save documents, and Gmail accounts.

3. At the Node level operational decisions are taken via consensus but there is a hierarchy to resolve tie-ups

4. At the organization level decisions are taken on the basis of a weighted voting under the formula described in a previous post here. In practice, because we know and respect each other, as you'll see when reading the meeting minutes of the EGA, decisions are taken mostly via consensus. It's an interesting observation that merits further reflection and a philosophical exploration about the fate of DAOs versus DHOs

5. From a legal standpoint, we have the original "Conseil d'Administration" that became outdated, and on the agenda of the EGA was renewing it.

Finances

1. We have bootstrapped the association through a voluntary contribution of 5600€ (4*1400€) that paid an intern for 4 months. A few other smaller fees were paid from membership fees and occasional donations from members.

2. The first significant source of income for the association has been our class, "Introduction to Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and the Web3" where 11 people registered and paid around 1000€ in fees.

3. Most of the work (totalling around 800 hours) was voluntary and rewarded with our own currency, OCLT. The leader of the Node "Finance and Accounting" has prepared a balance sheet.

4. We have also gathered in the EGA in order to pledge "significant donations" ranging from 1k€ to 10k€, in the conditions described in a paper prepared in advance. The content of the paper was approved during the EGA.

IT

1. On the IT side, we have secured the offchain.lu domain name

2. We acquired a "team" license for 1Password to manage passwords

3. We have an (initial) website

4. Into which we have successfully integrated the crypto on-ramp solution used by peakd.com, Transak, which worked well for enrolling in the class and for paying membership fees.

5. We are currently working on a revamp of the website in the wake of the ITO (initial token offering)

Marketing and Communication

Probably the most critical domain.

1. As regards social media, we have pages and accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, but in practice we have focused our limited resources on LinkedIn where we reached (meanwhile) 600 followers

2. We are present "live" at Indie's weekly with a roll-up and invite people from the open group, from House of Web3 (HoW3), from the course, to come and experience "paying with crypto"

3. We give trainings which spread awareness and bring new members

4. We have been invited to the Luxembourg Blockchain Week where we'll organize a side-event

5. More is cooking.

Legal and Compliance

Last but certainly not least, what brought us together in the first place was the concrete objective of running the first "legal ITO" under MiCA and offering a MiCA-compliant token, possibly the first in Luxembourg.

1. It is the main reason why we have written and published our statutes complying
   with the Law of 7 August 2023, in the Luxembourg Business Register

2. We have signed a partnership agreement with the HoW3 which was instrumental in them helping us market our class

3. We have wompleted a MiCA-compliant whitepaper following the latest draft recommendations from ESMA as the 2nd level legislation has not yet been published by the Commission

4. We have contacted the CSSF Innovation Hub with a form and a short presentation and are going to meet them online on Dec. 17th

5. We have debated in the EGA whether to go ahead and "notify" the whitepaper officially.

These were the news that all participants at the EGA became aware of so that everyone was on the same level during the subsequent discussions.