This proposal recommends appointing @Jinx , currently Head of Operations at PNF, as a director of PNF. This appointment is in addition to his existing responsibilities, which include Operational Management & Strategy, Governance & Compliance, Performance Monitoring & Continuous Improvement, Cross-Team Collaboration, and Financial Oversight & Budgeting.
Motivation
@Jinx has demonstrated pragmatic and values-driven leadership within the POKT Network ecosystem over the past 12 months, delivering consistent impact across multiple initiatives:
Foundation project management for the Shannon upgrade
Exchange relationships and expansion
Protocol economic fundamentals
Ecosystem tooling and support for participants
Creation and administration of ecosystem stability programs
Consistent leadership during a tough transitional period for the protocol during its all-time low in market value
Jinx has been active in the ecosystem since the founding team was four people and a dream. He has served in countless capacities including marketing, operations, community support, and investor relations. He has helped found a noderunning operation, advised and consulted with both suppliers and gateways on the protocol, and has developed utilities with and for the protocol (including the recent Telegram bot in the Den). He transformed the unofficial chat on Telegram into one of the busiest communications hubs for the ecosystem, and has hosted the weekly ecosystem office hours calls for four years. When others took the opportunity to exit the project during the peak of the 2021 bull run, he went all in on the project, investing heavily into the network infrastructure instead.
In short, no single individual in the ecosystem has demonstrated the drive and commitment to its long-term success as Jinx.
In the next 12 months, Jinx is focused on two key areas for growing network sustainability and profitability:
Network adoption - We must make it easy, effective, and cost efficient for developers to natively build their apps on Pocket from the ground up, and we must seek out and recruit models of emerging users that aren’t the standard defi data sources that most other commodity RPC providers focus on, including incubators, hackathons, research groups, etc. We must also work to expand non-crypto use cases such as LLMs, communications, and DePIN sensor data.
Capital expansion - While we have seen significant increases in total market capitalization and daily volume, we must continue to broaden our access to capital markets, particularly in the US. Our current capitalization is heavily influenced by a single exchange, and broadening exchange access is required for stable sustained market growth over the long term.
Additionally, the Foundation is focused on upgrading the ecosystem governance processes and supporting tooling to make us more inline with projects in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Implementation
Appoint Chris “Jinx” Jenkins as director of PNF.
Notify Supervisor Campbell Law to update the register of directors once DAO approval is obtained.
I fully support this appointment. He has been the strongest partner on the Foundation side, and without his leadership and determination, many of the initiatives critical to getting Shannon over the line—and ensuring the survival of both Grove and PNF—would not have happened.
As steward of the Token Product, he oversaw all major exchange launches and strengthened key relationships in Korea—an achievement that alone warrants this appointment.
As for the Protocol Product, he led the negotiations and agreements that secured Shannon’s completion and guaranteed ongoing improvements—another accomplishment that equally justifies this appointment.
Anyone who has been in this ecosystem since the beginning will see that we are the best positioned we’ve ever been, and a large part of that is thanks to the work Jinx has put in over the better part of the decade.
Fully behind this proposal,if there’s anyone in the ecosystem who deserves this it’s @Jinx ,his tentacles have cut across all things POKT,led by his vocal actionable leadership spanning years.
I think this proposal is just expected, @Jinx has been running things for a while now and making it official just makes sense.
However, the DAO is crippled by PIP-38. The current state provides the directors (a single one right now) too much power. The effects of that power concentration are not all good and I think we should not normalize the current state.
While it is known that the current mechanics of the DAO are broken and need revamping and that work towards that end is being done, the objective of normalizing the DAO governance process is only referred as:
I would like a much more descriptive take on the DAO role under this new administration. Specifically, I would like to see horizons on returning the DAO the power to shape the protocol. To be clear, I’m not asking for the technical implementation, but on the effective power of the DAO to:
Set parameters
Propose protocol changes
With Michael we knew that it was supposed to be a temporary state, with a 24 months horizon (based on his targets). We all know that much has changed and much of what Michael proposed is not valid anymore. How is this going to be with Jinx? When do we expect to see a working DAO again?
This has been a priority to me, and is why I created the DAO Governance committee. The DAO needs to be able to operate effectively, and is unable to in the current broken tooling and system.
@creepto@Cryptocorn@TracieCMyers and @mike comprise the DAO governance committee for the Foundation, and are working on the migration plan to transition to new tooling. They have created an outline for this process, and are in the process of documenting it ahead of a proposal for adoption by the DAO.
That being said, I think that presents a good opportunity to discuss some of the things I think are important in the DAO, such as broader representation, and the value of expertise. The latter, in particular, needs to be more clearly enshrined in our approach to governance.
Your opinion on data science and mathematical formulas is demonstrably more qualified than someone who has never worked in those disciplines. It makes no sense for someone with a more popular social media voice and none of the qualifications to have the same input value as you on questions relevant to your expertise. I intend to offer the DAO a path to weighted voting which incorporates those kinds of concerns.
All of this will be offered, reviewed, and voted on prior to the 24 month window agreed to, and is actively in progress now. I expect to see early drafts of that shortly (Mehrdad can speak to that).
I am in full support of this recommendation. @Jinx has been committed to this project since its inception and continues to remain actively engaged while many others have stepped away. If we are to entrust someone with this responsibility, it should be an individual who genuinely cares about the project and its long-term vision. Few embody this dedication as strongly as Jinx.
I have personally witnessed the tremendous pace at which he works to ensure that every requirement is met, all with the goal of giving the product the visibility it needs to succeed. Under his leadership, the ecosystem has evolved from being shaped by a select few to becoming a true community-driven initiative. A notable example of his integrity was when he resisted pressure to artificially increase inflation, choosing instead to act in the best interest of the project as a whole rather than serving a privileged minority.
For these reasons, Jinx has my full support and my vote .
This is a no brainer. Jinx is a pillar and driving force of the Pocket project. He is articulate, no-nonsense, hard-working, smart, principled, reasonable, and even has a good sense of humor.
I’m in full support of this proposal. @Jinx has consistently demonstrated the kind of pragmatic leadership that PNF and the wider ecosystem need. His contributions to operations, governance, exchange relationships, and ecosystem tooling have had a visible and positive impact.
Appointing Jinx as a PNF director will strengthen the foundation’s governance structure and help PNF remain resilient, transparent, and better equipped to navigate both challenges and opportunities ahead.
With myself as someone who still has long term stake with Pocket, and who was once heavy involved with the protocol, and in knowing extremely well on how @Jinx works, and continues to work his heart and soul for Pocket, I fully support this proposal. Especially as this was something I’ve long wished and have many times in the past, proposed for him to take on for years. He is simply the best person for the job and rightfully deserved.
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