I read the proposal as posted on IPFS. If your team’s experience with other notable ecosystems like NEAR and protocols like Aurora are any indication, there are various things that I believe your team does well, but there are other things that I’m concerned about.
Summary
- I will only comment on the vision and mandate for now because until these issues are addressed this proposal should not be considered in any serious capacity.
- There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about the Hub’s role in the Interchain which should invalidate any request for funding or authorities to solicit builders on behalf of the Hub.
Preamble
First, I should mention that I advocate for plurality. I think it’s important that different and diverse funding platforms exist on the Cosmos Hub. However, given that the previous proposal is not on-chain yet and you’ve framed it as a competing proposal, I will leave comments with that mind. I generally agree with @maximus and @Govmos regarding finding opportunities to collaborate.
Current Stance
I do not, by any means, support a significant pool-spend proposal that comes solely from you or your team at the moment. I do not think you understand the Hub or her needs. Your proposal strikes me as opportunistic and hastily put-together.
I raise the below points because I believe they are deeply relevant to anyone seeking the authority to represent and grant funds on behalf of the Hub. I say this representing only my own viewpoint (not that of the wider community) and unaware of a lot of what y’all do (though I have visited and read your website). If I am mistaken in any areas, I am very open to changing my opinion.
Vision and Mandate
Reading this section seems to indicate that you either don’t understand the Hub very well or that you’ve hastily put together your proposal based on a similar “competing grant proposal” you recently raised on Osmosis.
Taking a closer look (block-quotes contain unaltered quotes from your proposal):
It’s not explicit that staking two-thirds of the token creates the secure infrastructure for the rest of the IBC to exist.
- It’s not explicit because that’s not the case. The Hub’s ability to produce blocks does not “create the secure infrastructure of IBC” (aside from subsidizing development work on the inter-blockchain communication protocol, IBC), nor does it enable the existence of the rest of the Interchain.
- I believe in this context you were referring to the “IBC ecosystem” but even so, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how Cosmos functions.
The utility of ATOM must become explicit for the narrative to grow. Drawing
inspiration from other successful DeFi projects across crypto at large, there are
multiple strategies that can be applied immediately to add utility to the ATOM
token.
- Which narrative?
- Why do you mention “other successful DeFi projects”? The Hub is not a DeFi project.
- The Hub and the Interchain have continued to grow despite not having an explicitly-stated utility.
With the understanding that the security of the bridges drives all current value
of the ATOM token, offloading DeFi risk to external appchains to provide token utility is of utmost importance. With the success of the Osmosis appchain as the prominent Cosmos-based DEX, we can see a path on how to build or partner with existing appchains to increase DeFi activity and token utility.
- What do you mean the “security of the bridges” currently drives value to the Hub? Unless I am severely misunderstanding what you wrote, this is untrue.
- Can you expand on the link you made between the Hub and Osmosis as “seeing a path on how to build or partner with existing appchains”?
ATOM should have all the same DeFi categories applied to it as ETH, with
multiple alternative appchains and dApps to choose from. On a categorical
level, this includes but is not limited to ATOM-centric
- What does it mean to have DeFi categories applied to a token? Does that mean that ATOM should be used in the same way that ETH is used in its ecosystem?
Speaking of real yield, the ATOM 2.0 white paper fundamentally aims to
increase the footprint of the Cosmos Hub to help generate more fees in ATOM
token.
- This seems reductive. The 2.0 whitepaper’s main purpose wasn’t to generate more ATOM fees, it was to “secure and capitalize ecosystem-critical applications, while serving as the port of entry for new Cosmos participants, and a coordinating center for the infrastructure and administrative concerns of the interchain.” Please note that while this would help increase the Hub’s utility as the Interchain scales, it is not simply an extractive method to generate ATOM fees (in fact, one could say that fees in other tokens are more important).
While these are revolutionary ideas, they have not been battle-tested in the
wild. It is our opinion that these concepts should be funded experimentally on
appchains before risking the security and entirety of the ATOM market cap.
- How much will the grants program focus on the 2.0 vision?
Conclusions
I do not believe this proposal should be considered in any serious capacity at the moment. There are additional problems waiting in the next section of the proposal, namely: “End game? Number. Go. Up.”