Teams

Bisq is a FOSS project. Governance is decentralised through the DAO. Work is coordinated through a number of teams with some core members and other external contributors working with a particular team on a project basis. A Team Lead coordinates, assigns work and proposes new projects, always subject to DAO approval and funding. Horizontal control means that each Team Lead is controlled by his peers and the DAO. There is no CEO. True Names are not required. Anonymous and pseudonymous contributors are welcome.

List of Teams

• 1. Ops Team is responsible for operating Bisq infrastructure nodes and other services with high availability, decentralized and censorship-resistant.
• 2. Dev Team focused on developing and launching new Bisq releases.
• 3. Support Team is responsible for providing support for Bisq users.
• 4. Growth Team focused on promoting and growing Bisq, engaging with current and potential users to improve Bisq.
• 5. Security Team is responsible for keeping an eye on Bisq's needs for security - hunt bugs, design counter measures...
• 6. Infrastructure Team is responsable for scaling infrastructure.
• 7. Product Team focused on launching new products, frontends, etc.
• 8. UX Team responsible for improving user experience and making Bisq easy to use.
• 9. Projects Team coordinates projects developed by external contributors, creates bounties, etc.
• 10. Decentralization Team guides the DAO to be more decentralised, guard against corporate capture, automate governance.
• 11. Defense Team focused on legal, regulatory, privacy and other risks to contributors and the DAO.
• 12. Financial Team is responsible for keeping the DAO profitable and markets liquid.

Limits on growth

To avoid the bureaucratic decay that many startups and FOSS projects fall into once they exceed the Dunbar Number (~150) and horizontal communications become difficult, Bisq will limit the number of teams to a maximum of 12 and will make efforts to outsource as much work as possible to external contributors. This can be done on a per-project basis for some types of work, through bounties for one-off tasks or by opening it up to the market in an automatic way following the model of Bitcoin miners. Ideally 90% of work will require only in-team coordination and only a small part will require team leads to coordinate between them. In theory each team could behave as an external contractor, being assigned work by the DAO and then presenting a compensation request when the work is completed, just as an external contractor would present the bill for services rendered.

Privacy and security

Anonymity and pseudonymity are welcome at Bisq. Bisq is global and many countries have unfriendly regulations for Bitcoin, exchanges, DEX, FOSS, etc. Many countries do not respect Free Speech or Private Property. Contributors should be able to work for the Bisq DAO without requiring to endanger their privacy. This is another important reason to decentralise work and rely on external contributors that can complete a project, get paid and leave. Proof of work should be the standard for compensation and merit.

Control and Recruitment

Team leads are responsible for control of team members, external contributors and outsourced workers. They can exercise this control by approving their compensation requests every cycle (see Team Lead review). They can also recruit more members and greenlight projects, subject to final DAO approval. Team leads are controlled horizontally by their peers and by the DAO.

When a new team lead position has multiple candidates the recruitment process must adhere to Bisq principles being open and public.