WFC: Establish a legal entity or entities to provide limited liability, contractual assurances and commercial interests specific to the Kusama collective

Polkadot now has a Foundation established to enable the community to enter service agreements and benefit from legal protections through a proxy organisation in the Cayman Islands however this does not include Kusama...

Can this Foundation service Kusama as well?

As the Foundation reserves certain rights and powers for tokenholders, it is unclear how the combination of DOT and KSM holders, with differing governance instances, can jointly indicate their preferences.

After gathering input from key members of the Polkadot community and legal counsel, we suggest moving forward with a Foundation to serve only DOT holders initially. Later as a separate initiative we can consider creating a similar but separate foundation to serve KSM holders, and perhaps even help facilitate the creation of similar foundations for any parachain or DAO in the Polkadot ecosystem.

KSM holders could benefit from the creation of a similar entity or entities related to its own emergent development priorities.

We have discussed the opportunity over a couple of calls with Autonomous Projects, who have worked on establishing the Polkadot entity.

Whilst working with them could be a viable route, we believe with the work already done mapping OpenGov to legalese we can fast track the process in cost-efficient manner with existing legal partner Sara Hall at Walkers and Lisa McClory of D2 Legal Tech who are advising us in the UK.

Whilst Polkadot's Cayman Foundation structure is suitable for service agreements, it would likely not be fit for purpose for negotiating the ABO Digital treasury financing deal, whereas a British Virgin Islands (BVI) entity could potentially be more suitable.

It is worth noting that Walkers provided the legal and accounting foundations for the Polkadot Foundation - as you can see in the articles of association.

If this proposal passes then we would submit a proposal for funding the legal research and structuring - we have agreed in principle an initial £10,000 retainer with Walkers subject to the results of OpenGov referendums.

If it fails we'll figure an alternative approach.