TLDR

UIP-15 is a clarity and maturity vote. It settles real 2024–2025 obligations cleanly, then locks in the end state: the DAO is the single center of authority and value, the Foundation executes legally on the DAO’s behalf, and the protocol IP transitions to DAO ownership on a defined timeline. Going forward, development is no longer implicit; it must be explicitly mandated, scoped, budgeted, and reported.

Context & Objectives

As the Usual protocol moves further into DAO-led governance, it becomes necessary to formalise certain arrangements that were established before the DAO was fully operational.

UIP-15 is a proposal for institutional clarity. It starts from a simple observation: a protocol does not decentralize through intention, but through explicit rules. As long as ownership, flows, and mandates remain partly implicit, governance becomes a matter of interpretation, and therefore friction. UIP-15 aims for the opposite: to make the system legible, and therefore governable.

Governance Principles

1. The first principle is continuity and responsibility. UIP-15 addresses 2024–2025 obligations that already exist under current agreements and real operational costs advanced to keep the system running. The point is not to “choose” an economic reality, but to settle it cleanly. Refusing to settle does not make the obligation disappear; it increases legal uncertainty, reputational strain, and operational risk. A mature protocol pays what it owes precisely so the past cannot become leverage over the future.
   
   

2. The second principle is unity of ownership. UIP-15 states a clear political thesis: value must be concentrated in a single sovereign entity, the DAO. This does not mean there are no execution bodies; it means final authority over the protocol’s trajectory, system assets, and decision rights must be unambiguous. The Foundation is a legal executor: it allows the DAO to act in the real world without confusing governance with a commercial operator. This separation is not cosmetic; it is a robustness requirement. It prevents the ability to sign, pay, or hold rights from becoming an independent political power.
   
   

3. The third principle is intellectual property aligned with decentralization. As long as the protocol IP is not held by the DAO, via its legal executor, there is a gap between who governs and who owns. UIP-15 locks in a direction and a deadline: transferring the protocol IP to the DAO. The objective is not to multiply agreements, but to make transitional arrangements, such as licensing, disappear over time by converging on a coherent end state: the protocol belongs to the DAO; the DAO mandates and funds development; and the outputs become system assets.

What Changes Going Forward

Finally, UIP-15 sets a governance norm for what comes next: pay for delivery, not for existence. In other words, any relationship between the DAO and any development entity must be structured around an explicit mandate, a defined scope, a validated budget, and reporting. This is not a stance against anyone; it is a design rule that mechanically reduces gray areas, and therefore conflicts.

In substance, UIP-15 is not a story. It is a mechanism: settle the past to remove governance liabilities, concentrate authority where it belongs, and align ownership, IP, with sovereignty, the DAO. These are not flashy decisions, but they are exactly what makes a protocol durable.

For more details please check out the full UIP Proposal here: https://snapshot.box/#/s:usualmoney.eth/proposal/0x73dd2059a794acb720695668a3dd9421f9fa7d0870da3e8a019c66015b512d7d