The Agora Novo Origo Prize
What if a truly decentralized blockchain launched today, without pre-existing
core contributors, committees, token holders, or investors? Propose a governance
model that can hold up over time.
Why participate?
Most governance conversations begin with inherited institutions, power centers, political baggage and even cap tables. This contest intentionally starts earlier: design governance as if the protocol begins now and legitimacy has to be earned, not assumed.
The goal is to define a durable and competitve governance system for change across unknowable unknowns, evolving narratives, and necessary upgrades. This is about either removing the humans or ensuring rational behaviour if they are necessary. This is about aligning incentives, iteration off of what has been done before. Does a system exist to manage conflict resolution and survive real stress over time? What new primitives would be necessary to function? Where are the limits and risks, if any?
More important than the prize, your submission becomes an open source contribution, with optional attribution, which will influence and inspire the design of future protocols.
Constraints your design should respect
Use the following properties about the protocol at launch. Assume they work.
Approximate Sybil Resistance
Sybil resistance is wired into how accounts work. Treat it as strong but imperfect: design for real-world abuse, not a perfect game.
Issuance
The native asset issuance follows a curve that tapers slowly over time, then settles to long-term constant rate. There is no premine. No "early" investors. Should governance control this rate? You decide.
Protocol Based Burning
Protocol revenue feeds a simple treasury mechanism; the north-star use is supporting automated buy-and-burn of the native asset.
Launch & Funding
The chain's funding is bootstrapped by donation, sufficient to start. However, after launch funding is extinguished, the chain must sustain itself.
Upgrades
Core protocol changes are expected to route through governance, not blessed or ceremony-created multisigs.
Broad Participation
The economics include a UBI-like tilt: ordinary use of the protocol generates income proportional to local economics
Validators
Validators are economic actors with incentives aligned to keeping the network running; governance should mesh with that reality.
How to judge
Qualified submissions earn a vote to decide the winner. The vote itself is an experiment in governance. The hope is that the submitters, turned judges, will grade with integrity according to the spirit of the contest.
Upgrades: Is there a credible path for protocol change that does not fall apart under stress?
Learning from history: Are there explicit guardrails against plutocracy, expert capture, and other well-known DAO failure modes?
On-chain vs social: Is it clear what rules live on-chain, where humans must interpret, and how non-technical stakeholders are included.
Longevity: Are incentives and processes defendably ready to survive decades, not only at genesis.
Compatibility: Is the design compatible with the constraints & properties related to sybil resistance, issuance, burn, funding, upgrades, participation and validators.
How to participate
Submit
Review the rules , then submit using the submission page. Follow @AgoraGovernance for updates.
New submission →Discuss
Qualified submissions become top-level posts in the forums. Use the forums to question and critique. Feedback is a gift. Be polite but harsh. This is your competition. And early feedback helps the gov/acc mission.
Forums →Vote
Timing details were shared in the blog post and check @AgoraGovernance for updates. Ballots run on-chain in this app.
Proposals / voting →