The foundation's money
This page is about the foundation's money: where it can come from, what it may be spent on and what you will see of it. Your money as a user is covered on the How much Suveria costs page. As of 31 October 2026, the first payment is the founding fund, that is, the first money the founder put in to get started, shown in the register of contributions and expenses. From that day we also accept donations by bank transfer (Support the foundation). Everything below consists of rules that we intend to adopt as regulations.
Before we accept the first prepayment, we will have terms of service reviewed for compliance with consumer law, a legal opinion on payment costs and prepayments, a separate account for prepayments and rules for refunding balances.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 1.
Where the money can come from#
We do not show a single amount in the account; instead, we divide the money according to whom it belongs to and what it is intended for. The balance of the bank account is not a budget to be allocated.
The reserve is money set aside to keep Suveria and Omniforum running if contributions fall short; the whitepaper also calls it the Pillar I safeguard (Pillar I is Suveria and Omniforum).
| Kind of money | Where it comes from | What it may be spent on |
|---|---|---|
| Funds owed to users | Participants' unused prepayments | Only on their services; they can be recovered |
| Money entrusted for a specific purpose | Earmarked donations, for example for the Suveria pilot | Only on that purpose |
| Commitments made | Money already allocated to planned expenses | Only on those expenses |
| Safeguard for maintaining the services | A reserve built from donations, including from rounding up bills | On the things without which Suveria and Omniforum would stop working |
| Funds free to be allocated | Contributions without a specified purpose (donations, grants, subsidies, fundraisers), after deducting everything above | On new purposes, always with priority for Pillar I |
We assign each amount to only one category, so as not to count anything twice. We count toward the reserve only money that has actually been received and does not belong to anyone else; pledges of payments do not count.
People with smaller financial means are meant to be able to use the services on solidarity terms, always with the source stated: from payments earmarked for this purpose, from computing grants or from access paid for by a sponsor. When someone wants to give the foundation hardware or computing power, we calculate the full cost of use, not only the purchase price.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 4 and manifesto, section 6.3.
One rule: a fee no higher than costs#
The foundation does not make a profit from its services. You pay for what you actually use, together with a fairly calculated share of the shared costs, you see what you are paying for, and you set the limit on your own spending.
Why? This is what § 10(4) of the statute provides: payments from paid public benefit activity cover only its costs. The same follows from the Act on Public Benefit Activity and Volunteering: a fee higher than costs would turn this activity into business activity, which the foundation does not conduct. Before introducing fees, we will check this in a legal and tax opinion.
Savings lower the fees, while we fund development, security reviews and the reserve from donations. We will keep prepayments in a separate bank account and will not cover the foundation's costs from them before the service has been provided. We state prices in dollars, because that is the currency in which we buy computing power; we keep our books in Polish zloty.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 3 and manifesto, section 6.1.
Donations: separate and voluntary#
A fee covers the cost of a service; a donation is anything someone gives beyond that, always voluntary and shown separately, on the bill and in the books. The three most important routes are:
- Rounding up the bill. When you create an account, we ask whether you want to round each bill up to the full dollar or a similar equivalent in your local currency. The difference goes to the shared budget and the reserve for maintaining the services. We do not select this option on anyone's behalf, and you can change your decision at any time.
- Larger support for development. This is a separate decision. The money goes into the shared budget, whose use is to be decided by the community; until voting is launched, the rules described below apply.
- Earmarked donation. You can support a specific initiative consistent with the foundation's goals; we spend such money only on that purpose.
The size of a contribution does not increase the weight of a vote or any other rights. Separately, we will create a register of benefits, that is, a public list of the benefits and connections of the people who manage the foundation, decide on its expenses or represent it.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 3 and chapter 7.
Transparency: what you will see#
On the foundation's website we keep a public register of contributions and expenses, as up to date as possible. Every contribution and every expense appears in it with a date, an amount and a short description, and for expenses we add what the money went to and why it was needed. We name donors only if they themselves wish it. The register does not replace the accounting books or the financial statements. The first entry is the founding fund.
We will also show what share of expenses directly serves the statutory goals, together with the cost structure, because security, maintenance and legal services also have real value.
| Register | What it contains | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Register of contributions and expenses | Every contribution and every expense with a date, amount and description | operating |
| Register of benefits | Benefits and connections of the people who manage the foundation or decide on its expenses | to be created |
| Decision log | Important decisions: the goal, variants, basis, budget and result | to be created |
| Register of mistakes and lessons learned | Significant mistakes, their effects and the lessons learned | to be created |
| Statute change register | Versions of the statute and planned changes with justification | operating |
| Append-only register | Hashes of the other registers, which make it possible to detect a silent change | to be created |
None of these registers except the statute change register is operating yet.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 4 and chapter 12.
Further pillars and the transitional board pool#
Pillar I has priority. Pillar II “Hardware” (open material solutions) and Pillar III “Nature” (contact with nature) can be funded from the shared budget only once we meet all three conditions together:
- Omniforum is working, with voting based on zero-knowledge proofs, in which the choice is secret, one can check that a vote has been counted, and every eligible person has one vote;
- a separate account holds funds actually collected for at least six months of maintaining Suveria and Omniforum, untouched after the full budget of the new project has been set aside;
- the community has approved the project and its funding in a vote open to everyone eligible on equal terms.
A mock-up of voting, unpaid pledges and other people's balances do not meet these conditions.
Before that, small initiatives with a defined end have two paths. The transitional board pool is a small, temporary amount that the board can allocate to short initiatives of the further pillars until binding community voting is working. An earmarked initiative is a project paid for from contributions intended specifically for it.
The transitional board pool is governed by four rules:
- Accrual. Each month the pool can grow by at most 5% of new, free funds, that is, contributions without a specified purpose that remain after covering costs, commitments and the reserve. When there are no such funds, the pool does not grow.
- Exclusions. We do not calculate the percentage from the reserve, and refunds and transfers between accounts are not new income.
- Carrying over to the following months. The unused part of the pool can add up, but only as long as the corresponding money remains free; never at the expense of Pillar I.
- Expiry. The authorization expires as soon as binding voting is launched; unspent funds remain for the community to decide on.
We plan to publish every decision on using the pool, including a refusal, with a justification.
The second path is an earmarked initiative: donors and sponsors fund its separate budget. It can start when its full cost is already covered by funds paid in, it has people to carry it out, and the reserve remains untouched. If someone wants to fund infrastructure at the start, we will accept this only as an earmarked initiative: with full cost, public accounting, no influence on decisions and no right to promotion. In this way we want to cover first the fixed cost of the Suveria pilot and the first trials of security measures.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 8, section 8.2 and section 8.3; manifesto, section 6.3.
What we do not do with money#
- We do not make a profit from our services: the fee covers costs and nothing more.
- We do not create cryptocurrencies in order to sell them and do not earn money from trading them.
- A contribution does not give additional votes, management powers, access to users' data or a right to promotion in our services. We appoint people to the board for their competence, never for a contribution.
- We do not accept benefits conditional on promotion, a recommendation or a concession in decisions.
- Personal support for co-creators, for example for housing, food or medical care, does not come from the foundation's assets and does not pass through its accounts; it flows directly between people, for example through patronage platforms. The statute forbids using the foundation's assets for the benefit of members of its bodies and volunteers on terms other than those applying to third parties. Such support for the people who manage the foundation goes into the register of benefits.
- A user's unclaimed balance does not go into the foundation's budget.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 3, chapter 6 and chapter 7.
Read and tell us what you think#
You will find the full description of the financial rules in the Foundation Principles whitepaper, and the commitment to people in the manifesto, section 6.1 and section 6.3. If something puzzles you or seems wrong, highlight that passage in the document and use the “I have a comment” button, or write to salve@novusignis.org.