Posting this application on behalf of Hungarian Polkadot DAO which I’m part of.
About our DAO
Our Twitter: Hungarian Polkadot DAO (@PolkadotHungary) / X
Our Telegram: https://t.me/polkadothungary
Our webpage: polkadothungary.net
Address to be promoted on Polkadot: 13z9CiETVYCrxz3cghDuTyRGbaYQrwSyRnRcJX5iFbXvrwhT
Address to be promoted on Kusama: Hgm7ELPfRmPKbHgGZCYEZGTjJX8VicXEnFKec7YAeFgAd4d
The Hungarian Polkadot DAO is a closed DAO that selectively admits new members based on their contributions. The DAO manages itself through an internal decision making process with a pure proxied multisig account. Currently the DAO’s multisig consists of 5 members: Zsófi Major, Vikk, Vonyi, Spectra and Six.
The DAO members, and their roles in the ecosystem:
- Zsófi has over a decade of experience in managing tech focused open source communities and events. She was working at Parity Technologies as hackathon and program manager in the DevRel team for 2 years. Currently working in the Polkadot Blockchain Academy team as education support specialist and is seeded as Senior Ambassador Rank III.
- Vikk, main organizer of the Polkadot Meetups in Budapest, joined the old Ambassador Program in 2022, and now is seeded as Senior Ambassador Rank III. into the current Ambassador Fellowship. Vikk is pushing his boundaries to strengthen the Hungarian Polkadot DAO and is always keen to teach potential DAOist candidates. Vikk is also a key member of an upcoming parachain, focusing on decentralized portfolio management, Mosaic Chain. He has also co-authored an article for the Centre of Social Sciences about OpenGov (will be published as a printed journal of Magyar Tudomány). Vikk has also participated and represented Polkadot at crypto expos at a Polkadot Booth, such as EthereumZuric.ch and was a host at stages in Sub0 and Polkadot Decoded.
- Spectra joined us with experience in managing DAOs coming from Aragon, the DAO creator tool and he is also the Board Member of the Blockchain Hungary Association, an NGO founded to advocate for blockchain and Web3 technologies in legislation, business and governmental circles. Spectra is now part of the Operational Committee of the Polkadot Ambassador Fellowship and now seeded as Lead Ambassador Rank II.
- Vonyi was running a community channel for Moonsama and was elected as Vice President by the community. He has moderated multiple unofficial parachain channels on Telegram and joined the ecosystem when Kusama was the only live chain. He is now seeded as as Senior Ambassador Rank III.
- Six, a former Head Ambassador in the first version of the Ambassador Program, is now dedicated to launching the G6 Network, an upcoming parachain designed to seamlessly interconnect multiple permissioned blockchains, enabling enterprise and governmental solutions.
The Hungarian Polkadot DAO is actively looking to grow while maintaining a high standard of membership, prioritizing critical thinkers with valuable insights. According to our soon-to-be-public manifesto, new multisig signers can be added based on their contributions and activity. Over the past few months, several DAOist candidates have participated in our weekly meetings, bringing valuable perspectives to our discussions. These promising candidates are likely to join the DAO, in line with our manifesto, which allows for a quarterly vote to add or remove multisig members.
Besides the core DAO members, several influential members of the Hungarian Polkadot community offer their support when needed. Their contributions and opinions are primarily advisory and ad-hoc. Wigy, a former member of the Core Substrate team at Parity, and currently the architect of Mosaic Chain, brings deep technical expertise and insights into the DAO. Eaposztrof, with a longstanding background in decentralized technologies, is a strong advocate for Web3 values. Gabo, a seasoned Polkadot Ambassador, has played a key role in organizing events and co-founding G6 Network alongside Six.
We are also actively engaged in the broader community, facilitating communication between multiple countries and representing their perspectives. Additionally, we are preparing to welcome delegations from these countries, fostering stronger international collaboration and ensuring their voices are heard in key discussions.
Previous work in DV cohort III.
The Hungarian Polkadot DAO has been elected as a Decentralized Voices delegate in the third cohort. At the time of the writing of this DV proposal, since we got our delegation in November 2024, we have voted on 156 proposals, which had 64 Nay, 86 Aye, 6 Abstain votes on both Kusama and Polkadot. You can see our statistics on our public Notion page.
According to our voting rules we have left 41 comments mainly on proposals we have voted Nay on. (On Aye proposals, - according to our voting rules - we don’t necessarily need to comment, but on the Abstain and Nay votes we must have to, except those Nayed proposals which we considered malicious, all written in low-effort quality.)
You can take a look at our work and how we voted in the past 4 months on our public Notion page.
We are actively following the weekly AAG shows whenever we can and recently started our weekly Office Hours where we did 3 weekly sessions already and all were fully booked. In addition we actively participate in discussions on the Polkadot Forum as well and share our thoughts and ideas on different topics, such as a discussion on the DV program, discussion on OpenGov’s liquid democracy, a discussion on the ambassador program, a discussion on sanctioning fake actors on Polkadot, discussion on the launch of People Chain and many more.
Our core members attend the Decoded conference annually, along with smaller regional events whenever possible advocating for Polkadot. We publish weekly news articles based on Polkadotter’s blog, sharing them on both our website and the local news platform Cryptofalka, which has helped us reach a wider Hungarian audience. Educating our community and advocating for Polkadot remains our top priority.
We hosted around 30+ Polkadot Meetups in Budapest, Hungary at Mosaic Chain’s office, now an official Polkadot hub, and this year we moved the meetup’s location to Corvinus University. During the January and February meetup we educated attendees about all aspects of Polkadot, including OpenGov, XCM, economics, and parachains as well, such as Polimec, Assethub and Hydration. With extensive experience in organizing in-person events, hackathons, project development, and DAO management, we have built a strong foundation for community engagement. Our largest event to date, Polkadot Day in March 2024, was part of Budapest Blockchain Week and attracted approximately 120 attendees (see our photos here).
We successfully secured PIF funding to develop a Small Community Development Framework designed to help emerging communities and small DAOs get started and support medium-sized communities in improving their operations. The framework consists of a Zero to DAO Guideline, a DAO Manifest template, an OKR Strategy template and a voting tool which connects Notion to a multisig (it is under development and we are collaborating with the Mimir team). The results of this initiative will be released by the end of March. We also started collaborating with other small communities from Czechia, Slovakia and Poland and further extending the relationship to Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia in March 2025.
In our government initiative we advocate for Polkadot in government and business circles researching real use cases for Substrate developments in Hungary.
Our voting philosophy
We envision Polkadot becoming the Web3 standard that Bitcoin set out to be a decentralised, unstoppable force driving positive global change. By leveraging our industry expertise, we aim to support both technical and venture-focused referendums that align with these goals. Our decisions will prioritize the stability and sustainable growth of the network, ensuring the benefits are shared across the community rather than catering to individual interests.
Hungarian Polkadot DAO embraces the vision of a solarpunk future, where everyone has a voice, and technological progress enhances individual freedom. We believe that Web3 technologies should empower individuals by giving them more choices and reducing dependency on centralised systems. This philosophy is core to our governance agenda: creating a decentralised ecosystem where innovation and inclusion drive collective success.
We advocate for a more sustainable and strategic approach to network growth. We disagree with the current marketing spending happening on Polkadot. We believe in funding sustainable and growth business models instead of sporting club sponsorships which have questionable results for network growth. These one-off marketing payments are crucial and should be evaluated on a case to case basis. But doing multiple sport partnerships at the same time in this early growth phase is not aligning with sustainable growth. Those can come later after a regular builder and user base is achieved.
Our process in voting:
Our process is publicly documented on our public Notion page: Hungarian Polkadot DAO OpenGov votes. We have automated parts of our workflow and will soon release an open-source version that enables other communities to adopt the same fully automated methodology.
See the internal decision making process below:
In our internal weekly calls we discuss upcoming plans, review proposals and technical developments, and provide feedback to referendum authors and communities that seek our input. We publicly share our feedback on the referendums we vote on, and we also leave comments for Nay votes to explain the rationale behind our decision.
While we value networking and collaboration within the ecosystem, we think aspects of OpenGov have evolved into a popularity contest. Those with public, influencer-like profiles have become the most visible voices, often shaping governance decisions. We believe the era of indiscriminate rewards should end, and decision-making should become more selective and merit-based.
Meritocracy is essential in OpenGov, but we prioritize expertise and efficiency over popularity or reputation. Overemphasizing a proposer’s track record can lead to populism, which stifles competition. Instead of favoring a single dominant player in any given area, we support fostering a competitive environment by backing multiple industry participants working in the same space.
Additionally, we seek to contribute to the operational processes of both existing and newly established bounties, offering guidance and support. We believe well-managed bounties can significantly reduce the burden on OpenGov decision-makers, making bounty review and support a key pillar of our candidacy.
We also advocate for more experimentation on Kusama. We plan to support all referendums that push the network’s limits and encourage teams to take full advantage of Kusama’s experimental nature by testing new features there first, rather than on Polkadot.
Considering the learnings from the previous months, we are voting based on these criterias on Polkadot referendums:
I. Necessity of the proposal
Reasoning: Fundamentally, does the proposal provide value for the ecosystem and is it supported by qualitative or quantitative research?
II. Retroactive funding > upfront funding with milestones > upfront funding
Reasoning: Retroactive funding ensures that value is delivered before payment, minimising risk.
III. Native apps with multi-chain features > non-native multichain apps
Reasoning: Native apps that prioritise multi-chain compatibility show commitment to interoperability within and outside of the ecosystem.
IV. Proposals with competition price research > without research
Reasoning: Proposals backed by competitive price research demonstrate market awareness, reducing risk of overspending or underestimating costs.
V. Proven team with track record > new team with potential
Reasoning: A proven track record of success provides confidence in a team’s ability to execute. While emerging teams can show promise, the risk is higher without tangible results.
VI. Transparent reporting & KPIs > lack of clarity on progress
Reasoning: Proposals that include detailed, trackable KPIs and a commitment to transparent reporting ensures accountability and adaptability.
VII. Ecosystem synergies > isolated project impact
Reasoning: Projects that create synergies with existing platforms, protocols, or communities in the Polkadot ecosystem will drive more sustainable growth than isolated initiatives with limited integrations.
VIII. Proposals with clear revenue models > without clear monetization
Reasoning: Sustainable growth often requires a clear plan for financial independence. Projects that have a well-defined revenue or sustainability model are more likely to contribute long-term value.
IX. Emphasis on security and audits > lack of security measures
Reasoning: Proposals that prioritise audits, vulnerability assessments, and security layers are preferable, ensuring the stability and reliability of the ecosystem.
X. Open-source development > closed-source development
Reasoning: Open-source projects offer transparency and encourage community involvement, long-term growth and innovation. Closed-source projects can limit contributions and sustainability.
Rules to avoid COI
To prevent conflicts of interest, the DAO multisig may vote on proposals related to entities and projects affiliated with its members; however, any directly affected individuals will recuse themselves from the decision-making process. Currently, the following teams within the Polkadot ecosystem fall under this category: G6 Network, Mosaic Chain, Polkadot Blockchain Academy, and, of course, any proposals submitted by our own DAO.
If our DAO publicly supports or advocates for the acceptance of a proposal we will announce this publicly in advance and vote with Abstain. In addition, our DAO members pledge not to vote in other DAOs (such as KusDAO) while serving as a DV in any active cohort, thus we are strictly avoiding “double-voting”.