Can i expect a comment on above feedback and or any of the other points i mentioned in the 2 posts i placed here?
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I too would like to see more extensive response to many of the important points raised above, and not selective answers when uncomfortable issues want to be ignored.
Hey @Ertemann,
On AADAO giving an overwhelming % of grants to Neutron, this is factually not true. Out of 39 grants issued, 4 were for projects on Neutron (10%). The Hub doesnât have smart contracts and Neutron has become the de facto execution layer on the Hub.
Not funding any projects on Neutron would mean that AADAO wonât be able to support any dapp, which wouldnât sit well for a grant program.
Some additional context as well:
- There is currently $34M of NTRN tokens sitting on the ATOM CP from the unclaimed airdrop. Neutronâs success is the Hubâs success
- The projects we funded on Neutron clearly drive value for ATOM. Whenever we fund a project on Neutron, we make sure there is something in return for ATOM. For example, we negotiated with Amulet to use ATOM as the default gas token and ATOM is clearly at the center stage of this lending protocol as the most desirable asset. Neutron is becoming a strong competitor to Osmosis as a DeFi Hub and having ATOM as the leading liquid token in their ecosystem is a must we should embrace to fulfill the narrative of ATOM as money. To become money, ATOM has to be everywhere in DeFi which means finding use cases for ATOM outside of staking. ATOM as a capital asset and preferred collateral in the Interchain is how we make it happen.
- Neutron has just launched their grant program a few months ago which means AADAO will fund fewer Neutron deployments going forward. We have a direct liaison with their team to exchange information about teams that apply to both programs.
@Gnoman as per the community request, we have published salary brackets for all AADAO positions and we will update the post with more details around bonuses in the next 24 hours. I hope this responds to some of your inquiries. Salary brackets are in the budget section under Note 2.
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Thank you, the effort is appreciated.
My sense is that the clearest possible disclosure in terms of salary would be an answer to the question:
What is the estimate for each person for the total period of the ask?
Coupled with what other part time/full time jobs they will have in parrallel.
This is the crucial kind of info that Iâd like to see in bold so that it can easily be picked up.
Crystal clear numbers please!
Thank you for continuing to provide more clarity - working a proposal myself as we speak and realize the challenges.
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Hi @Gnoman
We updated the main post. In the team section, we added the % FTE for each person.You can calculate the annual salaries by annualizing the hourly rate now that we have disclosed the % FTE for each contributor. 100% FTE corresponds to 40 hours per week.
Regarding AADAO contributors having parallel professional activities, you can check the team description section. For each contributor, there is a disclosure of other professional endeavours.
Please note that the team section doesnât include the future hirings who will all be full time: a Grant Lead, a Marketing Lead, a Developer (Go + Rust) and a Technical Product Lead. Once the hiring is complete, weâll have 8 full time and 5 part time contributors as opposed to only 4 full time currently, meaning weâre doubling our number of full time contributors. This is as part of our commitment to professionalize the DAO going forward.
I hope this helps, good luck with your own proposal!
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Several suggestions:
-The first cycle was around 9 months and now it is +12 months/undefined, this seems a very long time period. I think at least every 3 months there should be a governance discussion and on-chain vote regarding whether the community wishes the AADAO to continue for another quarter or not, this gives you a motivation to perform. Otherwise, if you have sure salaries for one year or longer you might relax and perform worse
-Before approving any batches of grants and distributing funds, an on-chain signaling proposal should be submitted to ensure that the community agrees and also approves each batch, since the funds given are from the community, ie. from the community pool. In the case where for 2 or 3 batches the community rejects the proposal, then a discussion could be started about adding/removing members of the AADAO or other modifications so it would be continuous improvement managed and supervised by the Cosmos community. It cannot be only one on-chain vote, and then you are on your own for an indefinite period controlling like $10 million from the community pool funds
-I didnât see info about any multisig, who will have access and manage these $10 million worth of ATOM? If ATOM price increases significantly in 2024 and this becomes $20 million, $30 million or more, what is the plan in this case? Will ATOM exceeding the requested dollar amount be returned to the community pool earlier?
What do you gentleman do that All in Bits or the Interchain Foundation doesnât? Is the Atom Accelerator DAO a formally organized entity? Would working remotely for either of the mentioned established organizations overseeing these duties/responsibilites be more practical? I generally think organizations should have a lead, and people compensated for their efforts - but, as a six-sigma adherer, Iâm also pro-efficiencies in organizations. Organizations have structure. Instead of several organization doing all these different things with potentially fractured back-office set-ups - I would say having different departments would be more efficient.
For example - the DAO could use something like Lit Protocol to access web2 backoffice tools where everything can be done collaboratively. Iâm actually sharing the way I would go about things myself to accomplish many of the things Iâve suggested.
Just think of Gaia as the organization. What is the most efficient way to organize people around that organization? I think these other organizations should merge too, so there is that.
Unless the chain forks - then an organization should head the management of each fork.
why would AAdao get funded again when they failed to provide a narrative for $ATOM after having over a year to come up with one?
ATOM isnt interchain âmoneyâ $USDC is
LSDs wont be 50% of ICS volume, cosmos LSDs are a joke and their main customer is the CP
everything they have funded was either an obvious yes that could have easily passed governance or failed to do anything meaningful. they even funded a previously rejected proposal and then were pressured into revoking partial funds by the community.
AAdao has overpromised and under delivered. we would be better off with a bunch of suggestions thrown into a proverbial hat and selected using $NOIS to fund proposals.
Hey @Youssef, is there an open application period for the following roles?
Grant Lead, a Marketing Lead, a Developer (Go + Rust) and a Technical Product Lead
For instance, generate community awareness that AADAO is hiring for the above. Post JDs, and requirements for roles. Create an open application window (of some defined duration). For efficiency, AADAO should preserve discretion and authority in hiring decisions, but many in community (including me) would like to see a more open consideration and solicitation process.
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We 100% intend to do this going forward for all roles that are full time, not necessarily here on the forum though. They will be posted on our website and the community will be made aware each time there is a full time job opening.
We recognize we had our challenges with community involvement in year one (mostly due to a lack of resources, not intentionally) and hopefully we can do better going forward.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.
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Why not share job openings for AADAO here on the forum, on twitter and everywhere so that the community can be aware? Not many check often the AADAO website. Candidates should share their applications also publicly in the forum so that the Cosmos community can also evaluate and comment about potential candidates?
Dilan is founder of Imperator and Xavier is a full time employee at Chorus One. It is mentioned they will work 50% FTE. Does this mean they will work 50% less for Imperator/Chorus since this time will be for the AADAO? Or they will still work 100% FT for Imperator/Chorus, and another 50% FT during all evenings and weekends? Because 50% FT is 2.5 days of work, or ~20h, so either they need to work 4h extra all evenings Monday-Friday, or work all weekends 10h Saturday and Sunday, or if this is not the case, which I think because I doubt they will work +12h daily or during every weekend, it means they are using time of their FT jobs at Imperator/Chorus for AADAO?
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Thank you for the comments, although i agree Neutronâs success is important for ICS i would have liked to see a reply to the core of my argument, namely paying for porting code.
Can you still comment on the goals of AADAO with respect to growing Neutron without being a vampire on the rest of Cosmos?
The website seems to be fixed (although i am still missing some) but none of the new items have descriptions or links. Please post a little more information about the projects that were funded!
Best regards,
Ertemann
Lavender.Five Nodes
We would be a strong NO on any requirement for AADAO to post their Grant batches on-chain first.
The whole idea of AADAO is to move away from the slow process that is on-chain governance and trust them as stewards of the ATOM they receive. The question we should answer is If we trust the AADAO to make decisions for the Hub at large. Micromanaging their decisions will do nothing good - you might as well not fund this group all together if you disagree.
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I think funding via on-chain community pool spend proposals is faster and more efficient than the AADAO. The whole point of the AADAO is so they review applications and decide, instead of the Cosmos community reviewing and deciding. Is the AADAO better at reviewing applications than the whole Cosmos community? Iâm not sure. Does the Cosmos community prefer the AADAO reviewing and deciding about grants applications for them? Iâm also not sure. Where the AADAO could add value is by creating RFPs and sourcing projects. However, while Reverie for the Osmosis grants sourced many grants projects and created many RFPs, it seems the AADAO was mostly waiting for applications to arrive, rather than actively drafting RFPs and sourcing teams to fullfill the RFPs?
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Again - I just donât know what this entity does outside of what Interchain Foundation or All in Bits does, or why it couldnât be performed inside the capacity of those other organizations - with appropriate compensation of course.
Iâve seen people historically raise concerns about use of funds. Greed is a real thing, but so is expertise. Iâm more trusting and more naively than I should, but Iâve seen teams who create value get rewarded. Rising tides raise all ships so to speak.
What happens if the chain forks in the next year, which I think different architecture styles for the hub would be interesting, but is there going to be some rift or allegiance in the power dynamics where one of the forked tokens get dumped?
Personally, Iâm not a huge fan of all the derivative DeFi token drops that fracture liquidity or the speculative inflationary aspect of many chains. There are a few chains that I think are really innovative - derivatives of those innovations is a second mover attempt at relevancy, is it possible - yes, is it highly speculative and risky - very much so. Does talent get paid to work - yes, but what kind of long-term value does highly speculative, risky and inflationary investments create for the community?
Cosmos has some innovative apps. It needs more life woven into the fabric of itâs existence to expand beyond the competition of the money capture in the blockchain space. Solana. Etherum. Avalanche. Separate itself from the competetion. I think DAO driven businesses are a significant opportunity, but I would go out on a limb and say 99% of people in the industry would look for different things as it relates to what constitutes a legitimate DAO opportunity. Perhaps even a difference of opinion in what necessitates a legit DAO business.
Weâd like to express a few words of thanks and support here for the AADAO as the team building Amulet Finance, a protocol which will enable users to obtain self-repaying loans from staked assets without being liquidated, using smart contracts deployed on Neutron.
We self-funded for many months during the bear market while looking for the right CosmWasm-enabled chain to build on. The technology stack on Neutron is perfect for cross-chain staking of ATOM, so it was clear to us that it was the right place to build Amulet Finance. Weâre really excited to show Cosmos Hub what weâve been building. Given the high cost of audits and the work that still needed to be done, we would have really struggled to get this far without the support of Neutron (in particular Spaydh) and the AADAO.
The value adds we intend Amulet Finance to bring to the Cosmos Hub and the AEZ are extensive - not only will ATOM be the default gas fee on Amulet Finance, it will also be the flagship asset for enabling self-repaying loans from staked assets. There will also be support for ATOM staking derivatives. Liquidity and leverage are the lifeblood of finance in general and DeFi is no exception - by empowering users to stake and spend ATOM itâs our mission to unleash locked up liquidity on Cosmos by enabling users to monetise their assets at low risk. The bigger picture ambition is that this will generate a flood of liquidity into other DeFi protocols on the AEZ and across Cosmos.
We would also add that we donât have any special, âinsiderâ connections to any particular interests â we are simply a very committed team of builders who want to contribute to the success of ATOM, the Cosmos Hub and the Cosmos ecosystem as a whole.
We really look forward to demonstrating our appreciation for the support of the Cosmos Hub and the AADAO by making Amulet Finance a successful protocol that benefits existing ATOM users and brings new users to Cosmos.
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It should be relatively clear that Iâm not in opposition to the people doing the work of the AADAO. Iâm not in favor of inefficiencies though. I perhaps even think them working under the umbrella of the Interchain Foundation or All in Bits might improve those organizations and/or their transparency.
A Guernsey Trust is a legal arrangement where a person (settlor) transfers property (trust fund) to another (trustee) to hold for the benefit of another person/s (beneficiary/beneficiaries) or purpose. Is this already established?
Perhaps the existing described entities could also stand to be restructured to fit the form of a DAO.
cc: @Better_Future
A Guernsey Trust is a legal arrangement where a person (settlor) transfers property (trust fund) to another (trustee) to hold for the benefit of another person/s (beneficiary/beneficiaries) or purpose.
@jasonsprouse This is the correct description of a trust, Guernsey or otherwise. It is primarily an instrument for existing persons or entities to earmark assets for specific purposes, and not a legal wrapper per se.
The problem is: Who is the settlor? The Hub still does not have a legal wrapper (i.e., personhood).
Moreover, if the Hub is to remain the owner of the trustâs assetsâi.e., a revocable trustâthen the Hubâs community pool is entirely liable for the debts and obligations the trust incurs. This means this trust is actually opening the legal door for opportunistic attorneys to go after the entire Community Pool. The alternative would be an irrevocable trust, but in this case the Hub would not be in control of the assetsâit turns them over once and for all.
I have no doubt that this arrangement appeals to AADAO as well as the legal firm they are working withâit either puts all the liability on the Hub or is actually cutting off the Hubâs oversight, while freeing AADAO members from liability.
What should really be happening is AADAO, as a grant-making entity (and not an investment/VC firm), should be creating a nonprofit legal structure for itself, e.g., with Marshall Islands DAO Directory Service (https://midao.org)âwhich costs $9500 in start-up fees and an annual maintenance fee. As a nonprofit MIDAO LLC, they would owe 0% taxes on their revenue (their effective tax rate is the annual maintenance fee).
The desired purpose of the trust, as explained to me by Bendyâi.e, to leave the Hub in ultimate control of the AADAO fundsâis easily achievable with DAODAO contracts. No need at all to spend $50k for that; certainly no need to spend $50k to willingly open the door to the Hubâs entire community pool being held responsible for AADAOâs obligations.
I feel that AADAO has been âtaken for a rideâ by the law firm theyâve retained, sold on an exotic and frankly opaque structure which results in extreme centralization without benefits of limited liability protections, jurisdictional clarity, or tax advantages for AADAOâs actions.
I was advised by Bendy to contact Better Future, but BFâs Twitter DMs are closed to me (I donât pay for checkmark), so I hope CCâing him here is okay. I encourage AADAO to create an actual LLC where liability starts and stops with AADAO, and to use the brilliant smart contract tools we have on blockchain to achieve the desired control structure.
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There are several jurisdictions where DAOs have legal status. Might be something All in Bits and Interchain Foundation explore too. Shape Shift dissolved their LLCs or corporate formation and relaunched as a DAO. I think this structure is something that will be more common.