Coordinating Trust for the Stacks Endowment and DeGrants
Building transparent, community-led infrastructure in the post-SIP-031 era
The Stacks ecosystem has entered a new chapter. SIP-031 unlocked a major endowment designed to fuel innovation, fund builders, and accelerate growth on Bitcoin’s smart contract layer. But alongside this influx of capital comes a critical question: How do we ensure that these funds are allocated fairly, transparently, and effectively?
At Zero Authority DAO, we believe the answer lies in building the tools for trustless coordination. Tools that make it possible for the community—not committees behind closed doors—to steward resources, reward contribution, and grow the ecosystem in the open.
We’re not just watching the Stacks endowment take shape. We’re building the infrastructure that will help it succeed.
SIP-031: A Turning Point for Stacks
SIP-031 created a formal endowment to support the growth and sustainability of Stacks. This pool of capital represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fund builders, support public goods, and help the ecosystem mature.
But funding alone isn’t enough. The way we coordinate that funding—how we track contributions, verify work, and measure impact—will define the legacy of SIP-031 far more than the size of the treasury itself.
Traditional grant systems often rely on opaque processes: spreadsheets, private reviews, and trust in individuals rather than in systems. That model doesn’t scale for a decentralized ecosystem. And it doesn’t reflect the values of Bitcoin or Stacks.
We need onchain transparency. We need community ownership of the coordination process. That’s where Zero Authority DAO comes in.
Zero Authority DAO: Tools for Onchain Coordination
At Zero Authority DAO, our mission is simple: build public infrastructure that helps the Stacks community coordinate trustlessly. Our tools are designed to make every satoshi traceable, every contribution verifiable, and every process auditable.
Here’s how we’re helping to bring trust and transparency to the endowment and to future decentralized grants—or what we call DeGrants—on Stacks:
✅ Profiles Onchain
Reputation matters. But in web3, reputation shouldn’t depend on resumes or who you know. It should be earned, proven, and portable.
Our onchain profiles let contributors build a verifiable record of their work—bounties completed, gigs delivered, endorsements earned. No gatekeepers. No unverifiable claims. Just public, auditable proof of value creation.
✅ Gigs Onchain
Small contributions are the lifeblood of any growing ecosystem. Gigs make it easy to post, claim, and complete microtasks that move projects forward.
For grant programs, gigs enable lightweight, low-risk experimentation—allowing newcomers to contribute and earn, and allowing stewards to fund work without friction. All activity is onchain, so there’s no question about who did what, or whether funds were delivered.
✅ Bounties Onchain
Bounties help surface solutions from the wider community. By putting a problem (and a reward) out in the open, stewards can engage contributors in a way that’s transparent, inclusive, and accountable.
Our bounty system ensures that submissions, reviews, and payouts are all visible onchain. No one has to “trust” that the right people got paid—the proof is there for anyone to see.
🚀 Teams Onchain (coming soon)
Many of the most impactful projects aren’t built by individuals—they’re built by teams. Our upcoming Teams feature will let working groups, squads, and DAOs coordinate contributions and manage shared rewards.
This is about empowering collectives, not just individuals, to contribute to the ecosystem in ways that are transparent and verifiable.
🌐 Nova: The Social Layer (integrating soon)
Onchain reputation is powerful—but social proof matters too. Nova will bridge the gap between onchain contribution and offchain presence, integrating social platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Farcaster.
It’s about making sure the full picture of a contributor’s value—both their work and their influence—is visible and provable.
Why This Matters
The Stacks endowment is more than just a treasury. It’s a public good. And public goods deserve public infrastructure.
When we rely on closed processes and private ledgers, we miss the opportunity to build trust at scale. We miss the chance to show contributors—new and old—that their work is valued and their rewards are fair.
With Zero Authority DAO, everything happens onchain. Everything is verifiable. Everything is built for the community, by the community.
Our tools don’t just support the distribution of capital—they support the distribution of confidence in that capital. They make it easier for everyone in the ecosystem to see where funds went, what was built, and who made it happen.
Trustless, Permissionless, On-chain.
We’re proud to be part of this next phase of Stacks. The endowment gives us a chance to fund builders. Zero Authority DAO gives us a way to do it right.
If you care about transparent funding, open coordination, and trustless infrastructure, we invite you to join us.