The Illuvium DAO election of its governance council is just days away, starting on December 5, lasting through December 7. The election will take place here, and each staked holder of the governance token, ILV (including those staking the liquidity pool) will be able to select their candidate for the council. Nominations concluded on December 2, and below is a summary and some commentary on the candidates.
Disclosure: I am personally running for council, and I shared my candidate statement (and why you shouldn’t vote for me) here. I would be honored to serve this community for the reasons I shared, offering a dedicated and independent perspective to this governance body. Above everything though, I encourage every eligible stakeholder to vote for whomever they would most like to represent them at this critical time as the DAO approaches the first land sale and launch of the main game (likely late Q1 2022). Remember, voting is free and only takes a few moments. You can learn more about the election process and governance here.
The Candidates
Overall, there were 49 nominations received, with 45 unique candidates named. Vetemor (YouTube channel) received three nominations, current council member and CEO of Polemos, Stormi (Sascha), and former council member DickKingz both received two nominations. All other candidates had a single nomination, mostly self-nominated.
As you’d expect from me, I did some quick analytics on the candidates that I felt may help provide context to the candidates before selecting. You can see the full list of nominees and their official statements here, I share a number of these statements below in a more readable format.
Discord Response
Officially, candidates only had to submit their Discord name and a candidate statement to a Google form to be considered, though they were also encouraged to provide a brief statement announcing their candidacy in a nomination Discord channel. A discussion was held with community members asking questions of the candidates. I encourage you to check out the channels and review candidates’ responses for more information. Unfortunately for some candidates that posted to Discord, they didn’t also fill out the required Google form, so they are missing from the ballot.
The first gauge of a candidate’s response that I’ll look at is the reactions in form of emotes to their nomination. Since supporters (or detractors) can react more than once, I’ll only consider the most popular emote count for each candidate. Below is a table of the official candidates sorted by the maximum number of emotes.
Vetemor ran away with reaction popularity, with 249 reactions. Three of the next four were the current council members who participated in Discord nomination discussion, with Stormi, jeff, and Rahlord all coming in above 100 reactions. I appreciated my support, coming in fourth in this category with 123 heart reactions, so thank you! I really appreciate it.
This metric may not be completely fair as nominations came in across a period of about a week, so later nominees had less time for community review.
Discord Involvement
The second area of analysis is Discord involvement. While not strictly required, certainly Discord is the central hub of communication for Illuvium. I reviewed the stats for the Discord server, and sorted the candidates by number of Discord posts. For candidates above with NL, these folks were not in the top 1500 contributors to Discord, lacking 50 total posts. For several candidates, their first involvement on the Illuvium Discord was their self nomination.
Not surprisingly, the top four in this area include the three current moderator council members plus Kieran. Scoot and Vetemor represent the next two most active participants, followed by former council member DickKingz, who was followed by me with a little under 1000 posts. The other current council member, Santiago, has a total of 54 posts.
The Candidate Breakdown
Looking at the candidates, there are a couple of categories that I would break the candidates into - Incumbents (and Past Council Members), The Content Creators, The Discord Active, The Newcomers, and Kieran himself.
************The Incumbents************
Running for reelection or reinstatement, we have Stormi, jeff, Rahlord, Santiago, and DickKingz. Anton Bukov resigned recently, and likely will not be seeking reelection, though he was nominated by someone else. Below are each of their candidate statements.
Rahlord - Current Council Member
Emotes: 101, Discord Posts: 17700+, Finished 2nd in September election
Candidate Statement:
- I joined the Illuvium discord server during early February 2021 and watched the community grow from low 2000s to now over 218k members strong.
- Been assuming my lead moderator position in the discord and helping the community since February as well, analyzing and digesting all the information coming our way and then explaining it and dissecting it for newcomers.
- I am currently serving on the council for my second epoch. I have always been present, since the governance channels were created, to debate and discuss any ideas and/or new proposals and give my unfiltered opinion. I am not afraid of saying what I think is best for the long term health of the project while being able to disagree with the admins as well. I can take a step back and analyze both side of a debate while never putting my personal gains or loss in the middle of it.
- My agenda is to see the Illuvium ecosystem grow and succeed for decades to come. My personal crypto portfolio is 100% ILV (SLP & ILV + Balancer NFTs) locked for 52 weeks. My crypto background is from 2016 and I went through the ICOs, Bitconnect, multiple scams, P&Ds, bear winter, etc. I can tell you for certainty that Illuvium is the best project I have seen in the space since 2016 and my portfolio and interests reflect my convictions.
- Owner of a construction and insulation company. Currently building a mega factory to produce premanufactured apartment buildings.
- Royal Canadian Navy, 6 years. Small arms and boats team leader. Boarding party team member. Multiple domestic deployments, two major overseas deployment and operations.
- Civilian commercial pilot.
- Mechanical engineering school
Jeff - Current Council Member
Emotes: 154, Discord Posts: 11,100+, Finished 3rd in September election
Candidate Statement
• Experience as a current council member.
• Authored/co-authored/drafted multiple proposals. Some of which have eventually become parts of other proposals.
• Constantly connecting with and strengthening the Illuvium community. Even offering my expertise to lead the Illuvium Tribe within the P2E Gaming DAO, Polemos.
• Following the project since late January and been a member of the community since February. Spent thousands of hours creating ILV content ever since.
• Strongly believe that our success will only be limited if there is no robust, engaged, and valued player base. Too often do AAA game studios eschew the concerns of their players, to great detriment. DAO first gives players a chance to take the power back.
• If you don't know me, you know my memes.
• Nearly a decade of combined professional experience as a full-stack developer in the advertising/marketing industry In the most recent years, I've specialized in business intelligence development and data architecture. I bring this data-driven mindset straight into the council.
• Been down the crypto rabbit hole since 2016, deployed contracts on ETH mainnet, played blockchain 'games' before ERC-1155 existed, participated in ICO mania, been rugged, covet my JPEGs, you name it.
• I am in regular communication with hundreds of community members, carrying their voices, ideas, and concerns into meetings and deliberations with other council members and the team.
• The council should serve to increase the efficiency of the DAO and not hamstring it in any capacity. The team should be enhanced, not hindered, by the council. Especially during this period of critical development.
• I believe that my real-life experience in addition to my devotion to the community more than qualifies me for a council seat
Sascha/Stormi - Current Council Member
Emotes: 154, Discord Posts: 11,100+, Finished 4th in September election
Candidate Statement
**Council experience**
Being a council member in the current - somewhat tumultuous - epoch certainly deepened my understanding of decentralized governance even further and personally, I feel that my background, my way of thinking and my approach to discussions has been helpful for both the team and the community.
**Long-term commitment**
Not only am I a strong believer in the team and their vision - who has all his ILV locked for the full 12 months - but I am also a Co-Founder and CEO of the just recently announced Guild/DAO Polemos. Next to additional insights into the Play-To-Earn space and highly experienced connections to lean on for guidance, it also adds to my knowledge about DAO’s in general and to my long-term commitment here since Polemos is heavily focusing on Illuvium and has many renowned Illuvium community members as part of the Polemos OG group.
**Gaming background**
Having experienced everything from being a Customer Support Agent answering tickets to being responsible for almost eighty employees and over a dozen PC/Mobile games as a VP of Product, I was able to get insights into game development and management that go beyond those without the experience of actually having worked in the industry.
*Additional experience*
Considering my programming background, a Master's Degree in History and the fact that I’ve been a chairman of a sports club with several hundred members, I have learned in a variety of ways to be professional, thorough and to shoulder responsibilities, all things that are valuable in the role of a Council Member.
Santiago RS - Current Council Member
Emotes: Did Not Post, Discord Posts: 54, Finished 1st in September election
Candidate Statement:
Early investor in Illuvium and served in the council since inception helping draft and pass IIPs
Close advisor to Kieran and the team on a range of areas since the early days. Ex-ParaFi Capital partner now angel investor thematically focused in the intersection of gaming, NFTs and DeFi. Investing in crypto since 2012.
DickKingz - Past Council Member
Emotes: 68, Discord Posts: 1600+, Finished 6th in September election
Candidate Statement:
I’ll be running for Illuvinati Council this time around again after a close close last minute loss in the last elections
Background:
Some of you may know and others may not. I have been involved with ILV since probably December 2020 I think first joining the Telegram community then making my way over to Discord in January 2021. The reason some of you are probably wondering who I am is because I am one of the "Lead" Moderators on our official Telegram and occasionally help out here.
Crypto Experience:
Through it all I learned many valuable lessons about communities, development teams, protocols, what works and what doesn't. Since 2019 I got a bit more serious into crypto by taking on some of my first official community moderator jobs on telegram, while holding a Full time job IRL. Now I can say I help moderate at least 5 or so (still working IRL) very prominent communities that I couldn't be more proud to be apart of, Illuvium being a major one of course.
Reason to Elect:
I like to think of myself as a man of the people. I'm not a developer or a marketing guy, I'm honestly kinda average which I think sometimes allows me to have different but good perspective on things. I'm a big fan of Blizzard games as well and would love nothing more to see Illuvium in their ranks sooner than later which I believe will happen as well. I have time and money already deeply invested into many aspects of Illuvium and look forward to what may come. I would love to once again represent the Telegram community, Discord community, and what I believe will be the pillar of P2E gaming for many years to come as one your next Illuvinati Council Members.
************The Content Creators************
Including myself, several candidates have been creating content independently for Illuvium. Below is the candidates and their statement for this group.
Vetemor- https://www.youtube.com/c/VetemorIlluvium
Emotes: 249, Discord Posts: 1900+
Candidate Statement
Why Vote For Me?
-I am an Illuvium Content Creator and have made many Educational Videos surrounding the ILV Project, allowing new and seasoned members of the Community to enhance their understanding of the Protocol (Tokenomics, Staking and more...)
- As of December 4th I will no longer have a Full-Time Job outside of Illuvium so will be dedicating my time to the Illuvium Community as a whole!
-Over 95% of my Portfolio is Staked in Illuvium, All with 12 Month Lock!
-I am Dedicated to Illuvium Long Term!
-Will only Vote in Directions that truly serve the Illuvium DAO Long-Term (even if perceived as contrary to popular opinion, DAO above all else)
My Intentions
-To serve the DAO, ensuring Illuvium prospers Long-Term
-To serve the Community, ensuring everyone's voice is heard
-To Make the Council, Governance, Voting & Proposals clearer and more approachable to the community at large in addition to my duties as a Council Member
-To Create ‘how-to’ videos on Proposals, Voting & Nominating
-To Host Live Weekly Q&A Podcasts, having on guests from the community to Encourage Engagement, Participation and Debate in Illuvium Governance
-Sharing Content from Council Meetings to promote transparency and further engage the Community in the governance process. (*where permissible within NDA and competitive advantage requirements*)
My Experience
-Various Managerial Roles within the Construction and Food Sectors.
-Start-up experience, assisting in building a family-owned business from scratch, establishing the brand for one of London’s Best Vintage and Bespoke Fashion High Street Stores (featured in Vogue)
If You Have any Questions feel free to DM me on Discord vetemor#7777
YouTube Nomination Video: https://youtu.be/xVU_umuNdEM
Deraji - https://www.publish0x.com/ilvfi
Emotes: 123, Discord Posts: 941
Candidate Statement
I, Deraji#0798 am announcing my candidacy for Illuvinati council, expanding on my commitment to the Illuvium community. If elected, I seek to drive transparency and knowledge for all while being true to myself by sharing an impartial, balanced, and informed perspective for the betterment of Illuvium's long-term success.
**Background:**
-Ph.D. Scientist from a Top 25 Global University
-R&D Manager for 10+ years at a USA-Based Fortune 500 company, leading a team of engineers and scientists in the development of new consumer products
- Blogger with an emphasis in distilling complex technical and financial topics to educate, entertain and inform.
-Knowledgeable in finance, management, economics, and psychology capable of nerding-up everything I do, often with excessive use of spreadsheets.
**Illuvium Qualifications:**
-Highly active in Illuvium Discord since August, directly or indirectly helping many understand crypto and staking.
-Long term Illuvium investor, locked for 12-months in all transactions. Illuvium is my largest single entity investment.
-Founded an Illuvium-focused blog, sharing 40+ articles and videos since August to engage and educate within the P2E space, generating over 100,000 views (publish0x.com/ilvfi)
-Creator of various tools, calculators, and dashboards to promote transparency in Illuvium staking
-Lifetime gamer, from original Nintendo to a decade of raiding in WoW, now more focused on Hearthstone Battlegrounds, converting to Illuvium in Q1 2022.
As a council member, I will listen to core contributors and community alike to guide the project for long term success. I will advocate for further transparency while not impeding the vision and implementation of the project during this critical period. Not being connected to Illuvium or any other crypto organization, I will do all of this with honesty, integrity, and independence, committed to help anyone who asks.
iluanor.eth - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vQ29Dtz2-BWZJarbwBUqg
Emotes: 68, Discord Posts: 550
Candidate Statement
I created this discord user and got the ENS @iluanor.eth to nominate myself in absolute transparency. My name is my address, you can track all I did and do.
Crypto related: I got in crypto in 2017, got burned in 2018 and came back in dec2020 to jump in DeFi. I discovered Illuvium in September and am now all in, with a bit over 1000 ILV+sILV. I also got all NFT badges except the Diamond one. By sharing this I do not attempt to brag, but to show my commitment to the project and how a successful DAO is in my best interest. I recently over invested in sILV thinking the land sale was in Nov and understand the part of the community that feel there should be faster/clearer information sharing.
Professional life: I worked in Brazil, France, China and Argentina in different fields. I spent the last 10 years in automation and data science and lead a global team (India, Pakistan, Philippines, US and LatAm) of 80+ automation specialists, data scientists and machine learning engineers in a notorious fortune500 company (CeFi) where I have been pushing for a crypto transformation from the inside. I believe I can provide a lot of value as a council member based on my experience and also think that being in the council would help me further break resistance in the traditional CeFi leaders around me.
As a council member: Voting for me is voting for somebody that constantly challenge the status quo and will always focus on value. I will be a devil advocate to make sure we take the best decisions.
Why Illuvium: I believe Illuvium will not only revolutionize the game industry. It will be used as a role model of people hiring and management, and of a working DAO
************The Discord Active************
Below are the candidates that have been active in Discord, demonstrating at least 249 posts in the community.
Scoot#0595
Emotes: 28, Discord Posts: 2200+
Candidate Statement
Illuvium Experience
I discovered Illuvium in August and immediately fell in love. Over the last few months I have been a very active member of the community on discord and have learned just about everything there is to know about this protocol. From helping new users to contributing to discussions on IIPs I have done my best to be a meaningful participant.
Crypto Experience
Like many others here I first got into crypto in 2017. I have been full time in crypto since March 2020 and my approach has a been a mix of long term investments and short term trading in BTC perpetual contracts. After finding ILV I consolidated about 80% of my portfolio into Illuvium because I believe in the team and their vision for this protocol.
Gaming
I have been an avid gamer since I was a kid. Warcraft III was my first love and I spent thousands of hours playing as well as building custom games in the map editor. Strategy games have always been my favorite but I enjoy all kinds of game genres.
About me
I studied Architecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder for my undergraduate education and afterwards moved on to work in the construction industry. I have held few positions in the construction management field such as working as a project manager for a drywall subcontractor as well as an estimator.
Vision
I would like to see the council facilitate greater communication between community members and the dev team. While the team works to complete the game for release next year I hope to help create avenues to disperse information to the community for comment, as well as bring worthwhile ideas and community sentiment to the team for their consideration. I believe that I would bring a helpful perspective...
MrFuzzles#5396
Emotes: 77, Discord Posts: 269
Candidate Statement
Council members are the liaison between core contributors and stakeholders/players. My aim is to create a more decentralized decision-making/feedback voting structure that, at some point, eliminates the need for the Illuvinati Council. In tandem, I also plan on continuously pushing for more financial transparency with our launchpad and treasury tokens (without compromising our competitive advantages). Even if it’s at a high level (for example, percentage allocations), the DAO needs this deeper level of understanding so that potential obstacles can be avoided and further improvements can be proposed. I’m new to crypto and DeFi; however, I see this as a positive for my candidacy rather than a deterrent. There is a major barrier to entry before mass adoption can occur and it is a fear of the unknown with crypto. After experiencing it first-hand by getting involved in Illuvium, I believe the council has an opportunity to work more closely with content creators to set up official educational material that is organized and easily accessible to the masses. When a new person wants to better understand Illuvium and how to get involved either as a gamer or a stakeholder, they have been bred to visit a website. Once there, we can’t expect them to read the whitepaper, go through blog posts, and/or spend hours digging through Discord. We have an opportunity to create educational materials that are front and center on the website that also serve as impactful marketing/sales enablement pieces. In addition to being an avid gamer for over two decades, I’m also a Co-Founder and CTO of a multi-million dollar SAAS training company. Onboarding, processes, and systems are my thing and I hope to leverage my expertise for the betterment of the DAO. I ask you to vote for @MrFuzzles as a member of the Epoch 4 Illuvinati Council.
Mark#7654
Emotes: 83, Discord Posts: 250
Candidate Statement
Experience:
- Angel in gaming/crypto last ~2 years
- VP Strategy at 9-figure gaming co
- United Nations/UN-adjacent advisory
- Formal legal education (Ivy League - honors)
- Involved here since early August
Rationale:
- Understand high stakes decision-making
- Intimately familiar with issues involved in ‘0-to-1’ing a company, and the myriad trade-offs therein
- Heavily invested in Illuvium both as an investor and as a gamer
- Absolutely no issues being contrarian if I believe it’s in the long-term interest of the protocol
Approach:
- The long-term should always take priority over the short-term
- We should aim to speed up/augment the team with process/decisions, not shackle it
- We should treat decentralization as critical to the value proposition
- Our core moat is the potency of the team and of the community; this should be protected at all costs
If enough interest, happy to jump in voice one-to-many - or calls one-to-one - to elaborate on the above.
Zertus#1919
Emotes: 15, Discord Posts: 249
Candidate Statement
I am currently working as a registered Financial Advisor in New Zealand. I have worked in the financial services industry since 2009 with a special focus on the equities, fixed income and real estate/property markets. I hold a degree in Economics and master’s degree in Business and Management. I would like to bring my passion for gaming in conjunction with my background in finance and economics to be of service to the DAO.
As an “investor” I have done my due diligence on this project and having been in the traditional financial services sector, I am very much convinced there is no other project like Illuvium at the current moment. To be honest I am very much a skeptic when it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies because most of these are just too good to be true, but Illuvium is different as it is using the blockchain technology to deliver value to gamers that was considered taboo in the past and that is “real-money-trading.” This had a bad connotation in the past because game studios just wanted to hoard the resources that are created by players themselves and that is our “time” that we spent into games especially those that are in the MMORPG realm. So, they made RMT a violation of the Terms of Services, obviously a very self-serving move. Illuvium is going to change this landscape and would start a revolution.
We the player base is the largest asset of this DAO. Without us there is no value created, there would be no economy. As a potential council member, I recognize that fact and therefore, I will commit to improving player experiences by collaborating both with the community and the game studio and by doing so extend the longevity of Illuvium for generations to enjoy!
************The Newcomers************
There are a number of other candidates of varied quality, though with little past visible involvement in Illuvium. For the interest of space, I will not include their statements here, though you may see the full list here.
************Kieran Himself************
The final post on the nomination Discord was an announcement from Kieran himself, co-founder and core contributor to the project, accepting his nomination for Illuvinati Council. There has been quite the discussion since regarding Kieran’s involvement on the council directly, as he already attends all council meetings representing the core contributors. As there is no official policy against him running, it will be up to the DAO should they choose to select Kieran as their representative on the council. Certainly, no one familiar with the project can question Kieran’s personal commitment and dedication to Illuvium. In the discussion, Kieran indicated that he did NOT write his nomination statement (only “absolute boss”), though he is accepting the nomination.
Kieran Warwick - Illuvium Co-founder and Core Contributor
Emotes: 55, Discord Posts: 7200+
Nomination Statement:
Absolute Boss
Those are the nominees for the December-February 2022 Illuvinati Council. Remember to vote on December 5-7. Again, it’s free and only takes a few minutes. Select who you want to represent you on the Illuvinati Council!
