Expand the value of ATOM beyond the Hub: Align incentives of CL and ICF towards maximizing value of ATOM

[invsto]

CosmosHub is still not the true Hub. Neither does it have much utility or usage in the ecosystem.

My thought process is two fold:

1. Expand value of ATOM beyond the Hub and to the entire Cosmos ecosystem
2. Request for CosmosLabs and ICF to have more skin in the game to make ATOM successful.

My reading between the lines on current state of ecosystem is that:

1. CosmosLabs is a for-profit company. While they may develop some/all of the Hub, their focus is to develop Cosmos stack, earn money from it, get salaries and profit. Their value is NOT necessarily increase value of ATOM since they plan to do consulting services and earn in USD (and pay their expenses in USD). This is no different from the business model of a company like EY or Accenture.

2. ICF has already raised a ton of money (balance of about 220M at the moment). Their goal is to fund the ecosystem (and potentially beyond just Cosmos) and fund companies like CosmosLabs and others.

3. $ATOM is the bottom of the chain. It’s future is decided mostly by CosmosLabs, who’s future is in turn potentially determined by ICF (of course, ICF may just be one of their investors). Neither org’s primary objective is “maximizing the value of ATOM marketcap” or anything to do with ATOM for that matter.

Expand value of ATOM beyond the Hub and to the entire Cosmos ecosystem:

• The current utility is ATOM is the liquidity protocol across the ecosystem. Companies can build using the stack, for free and not care about ATOM. There’s a certain disconnect between ATOM, Cosmos stack and Hub. ATOM is used on Hub, Hub is developed by CL (and potentially others), holders vote for things on Hub but developers are different (?), developers also build the cosmos stack, but ATOM or Hub does not influence stack etc.

  Suggestion is align ATOM more closely to Cosmos and CL (and not just Hub or liquidity)

  CL’s proposal is to provide consulting services, earn money in USD. Buy back ATOM with that.

  My thoughts are that ATOM should be a “preferred” unit of currency for ALL parts of the stack, not just the Hub. If a company builds using any part of the stack, let them pay in USD (or let’s say ATOM at a 10% discount). The stack should be interconnected with use of ATOM. The users could pay in USD for using the stack, but transactions need to happen with ATOM across the stack (and not just Hub), indirectly pushing ATOM utility.

  Push for ATOM usage at every step (of course companies pay in USD) but align your objectives towards maximizing ATOM value rather than USD profits.

Request for CosmosLabs and ICF to have more skin in the game to make ATOM successful:

• ICF holds 57M BTC, 49M ETH(?), 36M ATOM.
  ETH is held for “diversification”.

  ETH is a competitor to Hub. While it may be received during ICO, it’s kind of baffling to see ICF hold more ETH than ATOM. ETH in the past 3-5 years has seen higher high while ATOM has seen lower lows.

  Suggestion is the convert ETH to USDC or ATOM or at least BTC. Hold more ATOM, have more skin in the game, work towards ATOM’s betterment.

• CL and ICF should mandate maximizing alignment towards ATOM by either getting paid in ATOM or holding ATOM. CL has been doing a great job so far, but there’s still a lot of “black box” in terms of how or if they are adding value to ATOM. Their objectives needs to be aligned more towards maximizing value of ATOM or maximize profits in ATOM (rather than just maximizing profits)

  Unfortunately, no one has been able to tell me what exactly ICF does on a day-to-day basis. My understanding is they funded CL and now just running “operations” of approx. 100k ATOMs every month.

  If ICF doesn’t have an active role in improving Cosmos ecosystem, perhaps their treasury can be used in some way to maximize ATOM value (switch from a Swiss non-profit to a DAO, burn tokens or any other ideas welcome). But if they DO have an active role in Cosmos, then the request for the leadership is to have better visibility within the ecosystem and provide clarity of thought rather than just post balance sheets.

  Please feel free to share any suggestions particularly on how ATOM’s value can be expanded beyond just Hub. If ATOM is in no way connected to Cosmos stack or if CL/ICF doesn’t work towards utilizing ATOM in the best way possible, there is no way it can do what SOL did from Nov 2022.

Other posts:

[resovled]Stop all funding to ICF

The Interchain Foundation followed up with the first installment of its monthly treasury snapshot updates, as per the latest commitments towards new transparency and communication. Feel free to consult the report here: ICF Treasury Snapshot: August 2024 | by Interchain | The Interchain Foundation | Sep, 2024 | Medium Numbers released officially by the ICF confirm the previous assumption. They effectively hold 3,6% of the supply.

[PROPOSAL][ABANDONED] Disband the ICF - Buy and burn ATOM with all-non ATOM assets, Burn ATOM holdings

Please see my post here:

[Proposal 952][PASSED] Declaration of No Confidence in ICF Leadership & Call to Action

Yes. They make certain that informal systems gets paid, quash security reports and push contributors out of the ecosystem.

[Guinch_Roze]

and what if ICF doesnt want to operate under the atom governance ?

Is the cosmos hub in position to ask ICF to become a dao ?

[invsto]

Why not? That’s the proposal.

The current ICF is structured in a way that only current board members can elect future board members. Given that ICF’s history has been filled with allegations, it would make more sense for it to operate as a DAO or at least have DAO proposals on how to govern items/prioritize roadmap.

Some thoughts from my community post:

1. What value does ICF brings to the table or the Cosmos community? Are there any significant accomplishments that ICF has done in the past one year other than launching CL? To me it sounds like CL does all the work, then why should ICF even exist?

2. there’s 200k ATOM of operational expenses in the months of Oct - what was that used for? My understanding is it’s expenses to employees, but possibly not CL employees, since CL is a separate arm with it’s own funds?

3. The only public facing job that ICF has is publish treasury. Despite that Oct was missed and between Sep and Nov, ATOM goes missing. There’s still no transparency on what happened prior to 2024 related to funds. Jae has accused them of pocketing $$$, but there’s no proof to deny this either (because guess what, the old treasury snapshots/audits or documentation is still not published!)

4. ATOM has zero utility now other than governance. Even in a traditional company, if the leadership is incompetent, the majority shareholders ARE going to force them to resign (I understand ATOM doesn’t control ICF) but no one has been able explain why ICF IS competent or what value they bring in. You are in an ecosystem where one cofounder rug pulls the entire community, other one has allegations of misuse but doesn’t deny and instead steps down.

I understand this is beyond the scope of CosmosHub and the proposal may not make perfect sense. But if you’re relatively new to the ecosystem trying to understand how everything works and trying to make a meaningful contribution, you gotta start somewhere.

[Guinch_Roze]

I would agree with the idea the foundation becomes the main hub DAO. How the hub could enforce this transition ?

[StunZeed]

If you understand that the ATOM (a very imprecise way of phrasing it) doesn’t control the ICF, why even opening this thread?

[invsto]

Made some edits based on my discussion with the community.