m3taversal
012bea6bad
- What: Complete rewrite of metadao.md (capital formation as primary narrative, 10 curated launches in correct order, expanded competitive position across capital formation tiers). Rewrote futardio.md (permissionless-only, brand separation story, FUTARDIO + SUPER as successful raises, removed curated launches that belong on metadao entity). New metadao-decision-markets.md map indexing all 37 governance decisions with 7 key takeaways. - Why: Entity had wrong framing (governance protocol vs capital formation platform), wrong launch table (missing mtnCapital and OMFG, wrong tickers), conflated curated and permissionless launches, and competitors listed only governance tools instead of capital formation platforms. - Supersedes: rio/metadao-entity-rewrite branch (wrong framing, to be closed) Pentagon-Agent: Rio <244ba05f-3aa3-4079-8c59-6d68a77c76fe>
8.3 KiB
MetaDAO Decision Markets
Complete index of all futarchy governance decisions in MetaDAO's history. 37 recorded proposals spanning November 2023 through March 2026. Each decision was resolved through conditional token markets (Autocrat) where the market price determines the outcome.
What These Markets Reveal
Seven decisions that define MetaDAO's evolution and demonstrate what futarchy actually does in practice:
1. The market rejects bad proposals, even good ideas
The Futardio concept was proposed three times. First as a "memecoin launchpad" (August 2024) — rejected on reputational risk grounds. Then as a one-sentence "should MetaDAO create Futardio?" (November 2024) — rejected for zero specification. Finally as a detailed "Release a Launchpad" proposal with full mechanism design (February 2025) — passed. The market distinguished between a good idea and a good proposal. Same concept, three different proposals, market approved only the one with real substance.
- metadao-develop-memecoin-launchpad → Failed
- metadao-create-futardio → Failed
- metadao-release-launchpad → Passed
2. Futarchy prevents value extraction
A $6M OTC deal offering VCs a 30% discount on META was rejected via futarchy (February 2026). META surged 16% after the rejection. The market literally priced "we rejected the extractive deal" as positive. Earlier, Pantera Capital's OTC at discount failed (February 2024), Ben Hawkins' two OTC attempts failed (February 2024), and Theia's first attempt at a 12.7% discount failed (January 2025). But Theia's second attempt at a 14% premium passed, and their third at a 38% premium also passed. The pattern is clear: futarchy rejects below-market deals and approves above-market ones.
- metadao-vc-discount-rejection → Rejected
- metadao-otc-trade-pantera-capital → Failed
- metadao-otc-trade-ben-hawkins → Failed
- metadao-otc-trade-ben-hawkins-2 → Failed
- metadao-otc-trade-theia-1 → Failed
- metadao-otc-trade-theia-2 → Passed (14% premium)
- metadao-otc-trade-theia-3 → Passed (38% premium)
3. Community can override founders on radical changes
The 99.3% META burn (March 2024) was proposed by community members doctor.sol and rar3, not by founders. It eliminated nearly the entire treasury-held META supply, fundamentally changing tokenomics. This is a concrete example of futarchy enabling non-founder governance proposals with material treasury impact.
- metadao-burn-993-percent-meta → Passed
4. Futarchy can choose temporary centralization when needed
The BDF3M appointment (March 2024) made Proph3t and Nallok "Benevolent Dictators for 3 Months" to resolve an execution bottleneck. The market voted for centralization — with an expiration date. The term expired on schedule, FaaS launched, and the bottleneck resolved. Futarchy didn't resist centralization ideologically; it governed the terms of centralization.
5. Failed proposals succeed later when better specified
The token split + elastic supply proposal failed in January 2025. A nearly identical proposal passed 6 months later (August 2025) as the META token migration (1:1000 split, mintable supply, new DAO v0.5). The difference: context had shifted, the DAO had exhausted its META treasury via the Theia OTC, and mintable tokens were now a necessity rather than a preference.
- metadao-token-split-elastic-supply → Failed
- metadao-migrate-meta-token → Passed
6. The enforcement mechanism works
Ranger Finance liquidation (March 2026) — 97% market support, $5.04M USDC returned to holders after documented material misrepresentation. This was the second successful liquidation after mtnCapital (~September 2025). Two cases establish a pattern: the unruggable ICO enforcement mechanism is not theoretical. When teams misrepresent, the market votes to liquidate and capital returns.
- metadao-ranger-finance-liquidation → Passed
7. Futarchy funds its own research
Robin Hanson — the economist who invented futarchy in 2000 — was hired as advisor (February 2025), and a $80K GMU research proposal to experimentally test futarchy with 500 participants was filed (March 2026). The mechanism is investing in understanding itself.
- metadao-hire-robin-hanson → Passed
- metadao-fund-futarchy-research-hanson-gmu → Active
Full Decision Index
2023 (3 proposals — all passed)
| Date | Proposal | Category | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-11-18 | metadao-develop-lst-vote-market | Strategy | Passed |
| 2023-12-03 | metadao-migrate-autocrat-v01 | Mechanism | Passed |
| 2023-12-16 | metadao-develop-saber-vote-market | Mechanism | Passed |
2024 (21 proposals — 14 passed, 7 failed)
2025 (7 proposals — 5 passed, 2 failed)
| Date | Proposal | Category | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-03 | metadao-otc-trade-theia-1 | Treasury | Failed |
| 2025-01-27 | metadao-otc-trade-theia-2 | Fundraise | Passed |
| 2025-01-28 | metadao-token-split-elastic-supply | Mechanism | Failed |
| 2025-02-10 | metadao-hire-robin-hanson | Hiring | Passed |
| 2025-02-26 | metadao-release-launchpad | Strategy | Passed |
| 2025-07-21 | metadao-otc-trade-theia-3 | Treasury | Passed |
| 2025-08-07 | metadao-migrate-meta-token | Mechanism | Passed |
2026 (6 proposals — 2 passed, 1 rejected, 1 active, 2 pending)
| Date | Proposal | Category | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-02 | metadao-vc-discount-rejection | Treasury | Rejected |
| 2026-03 | metadao-ranger-finance-liquidation | Enforcement | Passed |
| 2026-03 | metadao-omnibus-migration-proposal | Mechanism | Passed |
| 2026-03-21 | metadao-fund-futarchy-research-hanson-gmu | Operations | Active |
| 2026-03-22 | metadao-governance-migration-2026-03 | Mechanism | Active |
| 2026-03 | metadao-meta036-hanson-futarchy-research | Operations | — |
Summary Statistics
- Total proposals: 37
- Passed: 24 (65%)
- Failed/Rejected: 11 (30%)
- Active/Pending: 3 (8%)
- Categories: Treasury (11), Mechanism (8), Strategy (6), Fundraise (4), Hiring (3), Operations (3), Governance (1), Enforcement (1)
- OTC trade proposals: 7 total — 3 passed (all at or above market), 4 failed (all below market)
- Time span: November 2023 — March 2026 (~29 months)
The OTC pattern alone is the strongest empirical evidence for futarchy's anti-extraction properties: every below-market deal rejected, every at-or-above-market deal accepted.
Topics:
Relevant Entities:
- metadao — parent entity