Hey Locksmiths!

Welcome to the February edition of the 2026 Unlock DAO newsletter! It's been a wild month, but don't worry if you missed the action. This update covers the DAO's ongoing journey to navigate governance challenges, new tools for community engagement and contribution, and exciting partnerships taking shape. As always, the Unlock community continues to build, experiment, and push forward.

Let's dive in!

Governance

The Quest for Quorum

If you've been following the DAO calls, you've heard the term "quorum" come up more than a few times. Here's the situation: Unlock's governance requires 3 million tokens as a minimum "quorum" to pass proposals, and recent changes to token delegation have made hitting that threshold more challenging. A large number of tokens have been inadvertently delegated to inactive wallets, and previously active voting wallets have reduced their participation. This is everyday business for DAOs!

A key clarification emerged during recent discussions: For and Abstain votes count toward quorum, while Against votes do not. This distinction matters as the DAO explores solutions.

Two paths are currently being evaluated:

Multi-delegation from treasury — Danny is working with Julien on a contract that would allow the treasury to delegate voting power to active stewards and/or community leaders. Stella quickly fixed up a leaderboard based on the Tally API to verify voter participation:
Treasury abstains from voting — The treasury could vote Abstain on proposals to help reach a quorum without influencing the outcome. This approach has been discussed as a way to preserve trust while addressing the participation problem, but it is short-term because it creates security concerns during execution and adds overhead from coordination time.

If neither solution proves sufficient, a future proposal to lower the quorum threshold remains on the table, as do other potential solutions raised by active community members.

The Q1/Q2 2026 Budget Proposal was live on Tally and saw record voter turnout thanks to community mobilization efforts. Progress is being made, but a quorum couldn't be reached! Join the discussion on our Discord.

Promotion, Engagement & Contributions

Metopia

Two platforms are now live to help community members engage with and contribute to Unlock:

Metopia launched as a learn-and-earn platform where users can complete quizzes about Unlock Protocol and earn UP token rewards. It's a straightforward way to onboard newcomers while rewarding existing community members for deepening their knowledge.

Incented

The Incented campaign is moving forward for short-form video content creation, funded by leftover Carrot Castle resources. The structure:

USDC rewards for content creators
UP token rewards for voters who curate quality submissions
Hidden voting to prevent popularity contests
Carrot/stick mechanism — correct votes are rewarded, incorrect votes face slashing

A.I. virality scoring tools are being discussed to help creators gauge content quality before submission (with a 50% threshold as a benchmark). Office hours have been proposed to support participants through the process. Join the discussion on Discord and share your ideas & feedback!

A potential synergy: Metopia course completion could eventually gate Incented submissions, ensuring contributors have baseline protocol knowledge and brand alignment. This is collaborate2win optionality that DAOs do best!

Partnerships & Collaborations

CELO x GreenGoods
A co-marketing campaign is in development with the GreenPill DevGuild team. Their app, GreenGoods, tracks regenerative actions and uses Unlock for certification. More details in the collaboration document.
Phoenix Gate App
The Phoenix Gate NFC scanner app for iOS and Android is soon ready for community testing. Stella & Karel created the app together. This completes the mobile tooling needed for the Digital Spender's Club collaboration and burner.pro integration planned for 2026 events.
Merch Store Proposal
ALANA has proposed taking over management of Unlock merchandise through an immersive 3D boutique experience (currently ~65-70% complete). The community is invited to review and provide feedback in the merch store forum thread.

Community Spotlights

Danny — P2E Inferno & Teerex
P2E Inferno recently integrated CELO and Good Dollar verification and is running gaming tournaments, including Call of Duty Mobile and chess competitions. Teerex, his event ticketing platform built on Unlock, focuses on live event scheduling and is seeking additional community testers to try the platform and provide feedback.
Disky.eth — FigClank Studio
FigClank Studio is a Web3 design tool (think Figma alternative) with Farcaster integration. Plans are underway for the Unlock integration, including temporary subscriptions and membership lending features. Alpha testers welcome.
WillT — TreeGens & KF Media
The TreeGens Ambassador Program has minted 247 keys across 244 unique holders, resulting in 100 Unlock certificates launching on Base. KF Media now has a dedicated marketing team and participated in the CreatorFi Accelerator.
Thibault — Octant Integration
Research into Octant's staking and donation model identified opportunities to integrate membership to incentivize staker participation. A proposal has been pitched to the Octant team; response pending.

Current Action Items

Here's how you can get involved and prepare for the discussions coming up:

Vote on our onchain proposals via Tally or degov
Review the following topics to add to the discussion:
If you are an Unlock Community Member, don't hesitate to post in our spotlight channel so we can shed some light on what you are building on and with the protocol!
Share our social media posts and engage with campaigns across X, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Farcaster—let's amplify our message together!

Thanks for following along, fellow locksmiths, and always remember:

Unlock isn't just a tool for access— it's a protocol for belonging.

Stay classy out there, Trigs

Unlock DAO Newsletter | February 2026