Member agreement

Version 2. These are the house rules every member accepts when joining. They will be refined as HackingDAO grows.

1. What this agreement is

By joining HackingDAO you accept the rules below for how hackathon entries are built, graded and paid.

• HackingDAO is a collective of builders who enter hackathons as squads and share any prize by a points ledger.
• HackingDAO is run by its members, and this agreement is how we agree to work together.
• Nothing here promises income. A squad that does not win is paid nothing.
• You accept the version in force when you join. The site records the version and the time you accepted it.

2. Membership, tiers and roles

Membership is by application, and standing is earned through merged work.

• Each member declares one primary guild and may declare one secondary: Frontend, Backend, Onchain, AI, Design, Video or QA.
• Per-hackathon roles are scout, lead, squad member and points auditor. The auditor is a Core member who is not the lead.
• Roles are scoped. A squad lead has authority over that squad only, and a guild lead over that guild only.
• The founder is the member who holds the site's super admin role.
• You act under one GitHub account, the one tied to your membership.

3. Squads and how an entry runs

Only members named on a locked squad list take part in, and are paid from, that entry.

1. A scout posts the hackathon brief: prize, rules, deadline, team size cap and payout method.
2. Core decides whether to enter.
3. Members sign up. At squad lock, the squad list and the split are published and frozen.
4. The lead breaks the work into issues and sizes each one.
5. Squad members claim issues and open pull requests. The lead reviews and merges.
6. The lead submits the entry and the repository is frozen.
7. The points ledger is posted, followed by a 48 hour dispute window.
8. On a win, funds go to the HackingDAO multisig first and are then paid out per the ledger.

After squad lock, only the founder can change the squad list or the split, and any such change is recorded in the audit log.

4. How proceeds are shared

Every prize is split four ways, and the split is fixed at squad lock.

Your share of the contributor pool is your points divided by the squad's total points.

• The split is not renegotiated after a win.
• The lead receives the lead share and also earns points for their own issues.
• Approved entry costs (APIs, hosting, fees) are reimbursed from the prize before the split, and only if approved in advance.
• Non-cash prizes (credits, hardware, tokens with lock-ups) are handled by a Core decision recorded before submission where possible.
• Each member is responsible for their own taxes on what they receive.

5. How work is graded

Work is sized before it starts, and points are awarded only when it is merged.

• Every piece of work is an issue, including design, the pitch video, the writeup and testing.
• Sizes are the same across guilds. There are no multipliers by sector.
• Abandoned or rejected work earns nothing. Fixing your own bug earns nothing extra.
• A claimed issue with no pull request after the agreed time returns to the pool.
• Resizing an issue during the build needs agreement from both the lead and the auditor.
• The lead's own issues are sized and approved by the auditor.
• The lead's merge decision is final on code.

6. Code ownership and projects that continue

Everything built for HackingDAO belongs to HackingDAO, and returns to its authors only if HackingDAO closes down.

• All code and other work written for HackingDAO belongs to HackingDAO as an entity.
• If HackingDAO ever closes down, each contribution reverts to the member who wrote it.
• You confirm that what you contribute is your own work, or that you have the right to contribute it.
• Prize money and ownership are separate. The prize is paid once, under section 4.
• If a project continues after the hackathon, squad points convert into a share of that project's proceeds, and HackingDAO keeps a fixed share of 10 to 15%, set before work continues.
• Those shares vest over time and only while you keep working on the project. If you leave, you keep what has vested.
• No member may take HackingDAO code to a separate venture without HackingDAO's written agreement.

7. Payout wallets and payment

You are paid only to a wallet that has cleared the wait and been confirmed.

• Your payout wallet for an entry is the one on record at squad lock.
• A change of wallet waits 72 hours and must be confirmed by the founder after checking with you on a second channel before it takes effect.
• Once a change is confirmed, any of your entries not yet approved for payout will be paid to the new wallet.
• An entry already approved for payout is paid to the wallet it was approved with.
• Payouts are made from the multisig after the dispute window closes.
• The website records who is owed what. It never holds keys or funds.
• HackingDAO may hold a payout while a misconduct review under section 9 is open.

8. Security rules every member follows

These rules protect other members' machines and the funds, and breaking them is misconduct.

• Keep two-factor authentication on your GitHub account.
• Contribute through pull requests from your fork. Do not ask for or share write access, secrets, deploy keys or wallets.
• State the reason for any new or changed dependency in your pull request.
• Do not submit minified, obfuscated or binary code, or hidden instructions aimed at other members' coding tools.
• Install with npm ci --ignore-scripts, and do not run unreviewed pull request code on a machine that holds real funds or personal keys.
• Use development wallets only on the machine and browser profile you use for HackingDAO work.
• Do not run scripts or open files sent by direct message, even from a known member.
• Report a suspected compromise of your account, or of the repository, as soon as you notice it.

9. Misconduct and consequences

Deliberately harmful conduct ends your membership and forfeits what you have not yet been paid.

Misconduct includes:

• Submitting malicious code, including drainers, backdoors, or code that targets other members.
• Stealing or leaking secrets, keys or other members' work.
• Plagiarism, or submitting work you have no right to contribute.
• Manipulating points, the ledger or votes.
• Breaking a hackathon's own rules in a way that puts an entry at risk.

Consequences:

• Removal from HackingDAO and from any active squad.
• Forfeit of unpaid points and of unvested shares in continued projects.
• Disclosure of the incident to members.

The founder may suspend a member at once while an incident is reviewed. A removal decision is confirmed by Core, and the member is told the reason.

10. Disputes, leaving, and changes

• Points disputes are raised inside the 48 hour window and go first to the auditor. Either side may escalate once to a Core member who is not involved in the entry, and that decision is final.
• Leaving. You may leave at any time. You keep payouts already earned on locked entries and anything already vested.
• Reputation. Lifetime points are your reputation. They are not transferable and carry no cash value by themselves.
• No token. HackingDAO has no tradable token, and points are not one.
• Changes to this agreement are made by Core vote and published with a new version number. A change never alters the split of an entry that is already locked.