SporkDAO was birthed to complete the evolution of ETHDenver from a wholly owned, centrally controlled entity to a Member-owned digital cooperative. $SPORK is the incentive alignment mechanism that governs SporkDAO along with being the unit of account for calculating distribution of profits to SporkDAO members should that time come.
In 2021, SporkDAO was formed as a Colorado Limited Cooperative Association (LCA). The State of Colorado has a flexible cooperative law framework and is often referred to as the "Delaware for cooperatives". This approach and jurisdiction were selected specifically to utilize a legal structure which supports sustainable benevolence on behalf of SporkDAO Members and for their self-determination under the law.
SporkDAO also holds three wholly owned subsidiaries (aka "Prongs") with specific roles in the SporkDAO ecosystem:
The totality of the ecosystem is designed to create more sustainable value accrual for the SporkDAO community as well as less dependency on sponsorships for the ETHDenver event.
Having engaged over 100,000 participants from 140+ countries over 8 years, ETHDenver (and now SporkDAO) has one of the largest, most engaged communities in the world. Both purposes are designed to expand the reach and influence of SporkDAO via a "Big Tent & Blank Canvas" community. Our community welcomes people from all walks of life to be free to express their unique creativity…with as few economic and geographic barriers as possible.
SporkDAO has two main purposes:
Membership in SporkDAO is open to individuals and groups from all over the world.
There are three requirements to be a full Member of SporkDAO LCA:
Other than the above activities, there are no membership fees or dues to maintain Membership in SporkDAO.
Members, however, must register themselves and/or their organization with SporkDAO and agree to the Bylaws and Community Standards as set forth by the Board of Stewards. This process will happen annually prior to each ETHDenver event installation.
A Spork is the most utilitarian instrument in the known world. It can be used to eat, dig, attack, defend, fork code, and, most notably, #BUIDL.
Bufficorns, PegaBufficorns, MegaPegaBufficorns, and BuffiGWEI all choose the spork as their tool of choice when collaborating to #BUIDL the decentralized future. Thus the name $SPORK for the community token.
$SPORK is designed as a Cooperative Patronage Rewards token used as a means of incentivizing stakeholders to engage in certain patronage activities deemed valuable by SporkDAO. $SPORK tokens are a unit of account to determine the amount of patronage profits a Member is entitled to if/when they are declared by the Commons.
| Polygon $SPORK: | 0x9CA6a77C8B38159fd2dA9Bd25bc3E259C33F5E39 |
| Ethereum Mainnet $SPORK: | 0xb624FdE1a972B1C89eC1dAD691442d5E8E891469 |
| Staked $SPORK: | 0x058d96baa6f9d16853970b333ed993acc0c35add |
| Staking Contract: | 0x39A3920Ca05E238D558F0c1786314Bca647d1b39 |
$SPORK has a capped supply of 528,000,000. This number is in honor of Denver being the mile-high city at 5,280 feet above sea level. Yes, we memed the supply number. 🙂
$SPORK allocations were split between a historical distribution that covered the first 4 years of ETHDenver, before the formation of SporkDAO in 2021, and planned distributions to cover at least the next 10 years of community activities (ending in 2032).
Circulating supply following the SporkDAO Launch Party completion was 47% (248,160,000 $SPORK). Since then, an additional 105,600,000 $SPORK has been distributed, with less becoming available each year.
16% (84,480,000 $SPORK) is held in the SporkDAO Treasury for future allocations as described below.
The Board of Stewards may choose to modify the distributions laid out here based on factors currently unknown to the Stewards who have crafted this blueprint, but has not done so.
34% of the total supply of SPORK was distributed to historical patronage from the 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 ETHDenver event installations.
| Year | % of Total Supply | $SPORK Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 10% | 52,800,000 |
| 2019 | 9% | 47,520,000 |
| 2020 | 8% | 42,240,000 |
| 2021 | 7% | 36,960,000 |
Stakeholders & contributors who fall within the following categories received $SPORK: Sponsors, Swag Merch Buyers & Event Vendors, Volunteers & Stewards, Attendees & Speakers, and Teams who submitted projects.
| Category | Percentage | $SPORK Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsors | 14% | 25,132,800 |
| Swag/Merch Buyers & Event Vendors | 14% | 25,132,800 |
| Volunteers & Stewards | 15% | 26,928,000 |
| Attendees & Speakers | 20% | 35,904,000 |
| Teams (Project Submissions) | 15% | 26,928,000 |
| Bufficorn Ventures & ColoradoJam | 20% | 35,904,000 |
| Community Discretionary Fund | 2% | 2,513,280 |
Note: Although Bufficorn Ventures and ColoradoJam did not exist during early installations of ETHDenver, the Board of Stewards determined that these entities would receive an allocation to ensure a better chance at success. We did something similar with historical Swag / Merch sales by putting most of those tokens towards the NFT Art Bazaar, Launch merch sales, and BBB drops. The ColoradoJam Incubator was absorbed by Bufficorn Ventures, including its token allocation, and was removed from the future distributions in 2023.
$SPORK allocated to historical contributors had a claim expiration of 2/27/22, directly following the 2022 installation of ETHDenver & ColoradoJam. Of the 179.52M retro drop, 68.04M $SPORK was absorbed back into the SporkDAO treasury. The Board since decided not to expire those claims for Members who can prove they did not claim but would still like to, on a case-by-case basis.
Opolis received 10% (52,800,000 $SPORK) of the total supply in recognition that its core team was largely responsible for seeding the original capital necessary to fund event operations, executed the event in the past, and covered cash shortfalls in order to keep the event free. John Paller, the Founder & Executive Steward of ETHDenver, is also the Founder of Opolis.
The SporkDAO Launch Auction & Bazaar had a goal of raising at least $2M in funds to support investments, hiring of full-time staff, community development and other activities, but fell short. ETHDenver 2022 was a struggle, but we were able to put on one last amazing event at the Sports Castle, while maintaining low economic barriers (free attendance & virtual events) to participation.
5% (26,400,000 $SPORK) of the total supply was set aside for the SporkDAO Launch Party NFT Auction & Art Bazaar sales.
$SPORK was not sold directly or indirectly to anyone, and still has not been. It has no economic value aside from the voting rights & patronage profits distributions for Members holding $SPORK.
In order to properly align the incentives of SporkDAO community stakeholders and ensure a sustainable ecosystem, a % of $SPORK Rewards total supply has been earmarked by the Board of Stewards for each event year.
The SPORK emissions began at 6% in 2022 and were reduced according to the following schedule:
| Year | % of Total Supply | $SPORK Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 10% | 52,800,000 |
| 2019 | 9% | 47,520,000 |
| 2020 | 8% | 42,240,000 |
| 2021 | 7% | 36,960,000 |
| 2022 | 6% | 31,680,000 |
| 2023 | 5% | 26,400,000 |
| 2024 | 5% | 26,400,000 |
| 2025 ← You are here | 4% | 21,120,000 |
| 2026 | 4% | 21,120,000 |
| 2027 | 3% | 15,840,000 |
| 2028 | 3% | 15,840,000 |
| 2029 | 2% | 10,560,000 |
| 2030 | 2% | 10,560,000 |
| 2031 | 1% | 5,280,000 |
| 2032 | 1% | 5,280,000 |
In 2022, just prior to the 2023 distribution, the SporkDAO Board of Stewards renovated the buckets and made the following changes to better align incentives and adjust to "Spork per dollar spent." Most notably, the BUIDL bucket was split into Awards and Submissions, the Colorado Jam Incubator was disbanded and absorbed by Bufficorn Ventures, which saw an increase to incentive investment into BV1.
The community team received a discretionary budget of $SPORK to encourage engagement and the Board of Stewards was allocated a discretionary budget of $SPORK to allocate. Stewards and Volunteers/Crew were separated into two category. Speakers and general attendees were also separated into two categories.
In Summer 2024, the Board voted to add Mentors to the Volunteers/Crew category and add Judges to the Speakers category. The Board passed a standardization of $SPORK allocation to Stewards:
This required the Board of Stewards' discretionary budget to be lowered to 15% to accommodate this standardization. At this meeting, the Board also granted 10M $SPORK to a committee tasked with setting up a Bufficorn BUIDL Brigade DAO.
From 2018 to 2023, ETHDenver operated at breakeven margins, placing all revenues into enhancing the experience each year. It wasn't until after ETHDenver 2023 that the organization started operating in the black.
In the summer of 2024, the SporkDAO Board of Stewards voted to distribute $52,800 USDC to the 3,026 SporkDAO Members who staked enough during the 2023/2024 cycle to earn at least $0.02 worth of $USDC.
After that distribution, the Board shifted the snapshot cycle to coincide with the ETHDenver fiscal year, which runs from June 1 to May 31, and removed the minimum cutoff. In spring 2025, the SporkDAO Board voted to distribute $420,000 USDC to SporkDAO Members who earned at least 1 Staked Spork Day between June 1, 2024 and August 31, 2025.
SporkDAO governance is unique, because all of the legal and financial responsibility resides with the Board of Stewards. There are 9 Members of the Board of Stewards, elected by popular vote on Snapshot, based on staked $SPORK with quadratic weighting. Electing Board Members is the primary governance function of $SPORK. This model was innovated to prevent voter fatigue and streamline decision-making, while maintaining a system of accountability. Per the By-Laws, Board Members can be recalled or dismissed.
The nine Founding Stewards of the SporkDAO Board of Stewards were Susie Batt, Shannon Ewing, Casey Gardiner, Joshua Lapidus, Justin Moskowitz, John Paller, Hannah Oreskovich, Dani Osorio, and Elena Sinelnikova, elected and seated in October 2021 for an unspecified term.
Summer 2024, the Board of Stewards updated the by-laws to create 3 staggered cohorts of Board Steward, to preserve continuity, and be able to hold an election each year at our annual shareholder meeting held during ETHDenver.
In fall 2024, Board Stewards Ewing, Batt, and Lapidus offered their seats for the first election, with Ewing and Batt choosing not to seek re-election. Lapidus was re-elected and was joined by fellow newly elected Board Stewards Russell Castagnaro and Dave Anderson.
At ETHDenver 2025, Osorio, Gardiner, and Sinelnikova were up for re-election. Osorio and Gardiner were re-elected, while the third seat was won by newly elected Bill Warren.
The next election will be held at ETHDenver 2026 for the seats held by Paller, Moskowitz, and Oreskovich, thus completing the staggered schedule of the genesis board.
SporkDAO boasts one of the largest, most diverse, global communities. We're a "Big Tent & Blank Canvas" bringing thousands of new souls to the decentralized future every year. ETHDenver is, and always will be, free to attend while we continue to break down economic barriers to participating in person and ethereally from the Metaverse.
The Stewardship looks forward to seeing the community grow by wielding our $SPORKs together.
#BUIDL
