If you want to talk about “fair” - why don’t you mention Stride, where you were chosen with other ~30 validators to be in the VIP validator set and get all ATOM delegations from Stride.
Was that “fair” because you were chosen? You and other VIP validators benefited for years from the commission, while other validators were forced to validate Stride for basically no benefit, Neutron at least rewarded all validators involved with a decent amount.
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Fully in support of this move. Neutron took a big leap of faith as the first ICS chain in arguably the worst period in the Hub/Cosmos’ history. It turns out that the economics and coordination layer were untenable, but I’m excited what this move means for Neutron. Probably the cleanest way of moving forward with respect to the hub’s fellow ambitions.
As a holder and frequent user of both Atom and NTRN, I hope the 2 networks will continue to have a lasting, synergistic relationship.
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This might be best to split into 3 different proposals
- Support for Permissionless Smart Contracts on the Hub
- Support Neutron’s migration away from replicated security
- What to do with the NTRN tokens in the hub community pool
That being said, here are some initial thoughts.
The governance proposals were very loosely worded, and like mentioned above most still cannot come to agreement on even what “do no harm” & “cooperation” mean for the NTRN allocation to the hub. People shouldn’t be surprised that there has been little allocation of these funds for a few reasons: the Hub had the most reason of any investor to wait to see the upside of Neutron, the protocol level solutions that people were banking on to solve the issues of capital deployment & voting, some considered selling as “harm”, and it was in the benefit of NTRN to let those tokens sit idle while ATOM was used to fund projects and incentives. I would say the hub more than held up its end of the deal to that regard. In the traditional world, this seems more like founders going their separate ways and one becoming a silent partner. That means that the continuing team needs proper control, but the original founding partner that separated all of the sudden loses their rights to their shares in the company. This should be done knowing that both sides have to give in order to get.
ATOM 2.0 was never approved and was not tied to Neutron. The Hub provided liquidity and funded projects on Neutron to the benefit of Neutron over the Hub. It may have been an agreement to be the premier CW layer for the Hub, but does that mean exclusivity in perpetuity? This was never really outlined and was based on a lot of trust. I also don’t think it was realistic to expect there would never be CW anywhere else, especially if Neutron was seeing the kind of traction that justified that and CW remained useful.
Depending on your point of view, which is super relevant to you @Elijah, Neutron was the beneficiary of multiple projects that the Hub deferred to Neutron. Duality is one level to it, but then there is also Hydro. Would you say that since Neutron didn’t deliver on it’s commitments that it should relinquish the Hydro deployment at the very least? Not choosing either side here, just playing devil’s advocate here and pointing out that there are remedies needed for commitments broken on both sides. The Hub was essentially a seed investor as well, does that deserve consideration?
This is going to be a tough one. It makes the most sense to come to some sort of amicable agreement, but it doesn’t make sense for Neutron to clawback all of these funds. You could consider the Hub as the main investor, LP, and the core infrastructure that Neutron lived off of. There was a lot of opportunity cost for the Hub that will no longer pay off, especially if it is accepted to give back the entire amount. Neutron probably lost some value in different ways as well. There should be good faith negotiation from both sides, as well as understanding what the future will look like for Neutron and the Hub partnerships.
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Appreciate your response, some clarifications :
Duality wasn’t deferred to Neutron. The Cosmos Hub never invested in Duality, Neutron did.
The only reason Hydro is on Neutron is because the Cosmos Hub didn’t have an execution layer. Now it will so Hydro will move there. I think that makes sense and am supportive.
The Cosmos Hub’s “seed grant” does warrant some consideration. There was a considerable airdrop to ATOM holders that was worth signficantly more than that seed grant already though.
The Cosmos Hub was not the main investor in Neutron. They actually contributed
a small minority of the total funding contributing to Neutron’s development, and ATOM holders received a considerable airdrop in compensation on Neutron’s launch that was worth way more than the original grant.
ICS was a failed experiment, it is being deprecated for a reason. There were a multitude of issues that were never resolved and caused considerable expense to Neutron. All of that said, I do think validators who spent costs validating Neutron throughout this time should receive fair payment for their services. But expecting excess of that for poor service and constantly shifting goalposts isn’t reasonable.
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Yes ATOM 2.0. wasn’t tied to Neutron, this is why I referred to some things as “non-binding”. I am using it as an example of cases where previous Cosmos Hub contributors set expectations that fell through. At the time I was still working on Duality independently from Neutron, but because of that I can still say from experience that this was a big part of the pitch that CH contributors were making to Replicated Security teams.
I don’t think there was ever a perfectly “explicit” agreement for anything wrt ICS, and this is one of its largest failures in hindsight. We can try to interpret forum posts and rehash what the exact implicit agreements were/weren’t but this would be a waste of time in my opinion. One thing is clear : the goal posts have been constantly shifting and ICS was a failed experiment. Neutron should not be punished for this - the proposal tries to come to a good outcome, some of the funds will be used as incentives on ATOM (creating demand for ATOM usecases on Neutron) and some should be used to fund validator services (past and future) from the Cosmos Hub set.
If people are serious about change, this next phase of the Cosmos Hub should include a genuine effort around setting a good precedent about how the Cosmos Hub works with it’s partners.
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I think there is a miscommunication. The 10.8M reflects changes in NTRN price from the proposal you’re mentioning until now. If you look at the timestamps, you’ll see they come out to about the same.
Just to be clear there are numerous mentions of using the NTRN for the security budget in the NTRN community pool proposal. I don’t deny that you all also supported this but I don’t think it’s fair to make it seem like there was avoidance on Neutron’s part to using it as part of the security budget. Also keep in mind recent NTRN price action, at the time of the security budget proposal the 1.8m NTRN was worth a considerable amount more - there was no bad faith effort to undermine validators interest, and I continue to support making validators whole for previous services rendered.
The proposal has been updated to provide more clarity on the rational and clarify the scope.
Key items:
- Updated governance votes language to clarify the scope of the proposal, namely Neutron’s migration to a sovereign network and the allocation of NTRN.
- Clarified that the Cosmos Hub’s decision on whether or not to enable permissionless smart-contracts is a separate matter that will be handled in dedicated governance votes.
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Oh so when it is in your interest you talk about NTRN % of ownership, and in other circumstances you talk about the $ value of NTRN? But this is not the main issue. All validators were subsidizing Neutron, and remember you are still part of replicated security. You can’t just choose a few validators you are friends with and give them 10.8M NTRN, sorry but no. Any validator in the Cosmos hub should have a chance to validate neutron as independent chain and get a piece of the NTRN cake, since you benefitted from all of us, running for years your chain for free mostly paying all costs from our pocket. Either you allow any validator from the hub that wants to validate neutron, or we will vote NO against this proposal to give such a ton of NTRN to your few friend validators, while previously giving just 1.8M to the whole set
Neutron promised a lot before launching, but then 0 revenues for validators for many months. There were so many complaints but no solution. I did a poll on twitter, should we use NTRN from the airdrop in the Cosmos hub community pool to pay a bit validators running neutron? Some liked the idea, others thought it was crazy. Finally, you took my idea and implemented it, not even once you said thank you or even invited to join your hand picked validator set.
In summary, let’s analyze the timeline of events:
-You asked a lot of funding from the Cosmos hub community pool to develop neutron, and promised NTRN in return
-You joined the Cosmos hub as consumer chains promising good revenues, but 0 revenues and just kept the promised to send unclaimed NTRN from airdrop to the Cosmos Hub community pool
-You got top security from the Cosmos hub for basically free for years, just paying some peanuts not from your pocket but from the NTRN already belonging to the Cosmos hub in the community pool, and not from your own initiative but after so many complaints and validators like us giving you all the ideas and plan
-Now, you want to separate from the Cosmos hub, take away again most of the NTRN belonging to the Cosmos hub, and give a large chunk of these to your few selected validator friends, they will vote yes for sure, I guess you chose validators well to ensure the proposal will pass?
Also, if Neutron is fine with so much less security being independent chain why did you choose to be a replicated security chain, the whole point of this being the high security of the Cosmos hub? This makes it even worse, that you just wanted to join to have top security for free like a parasite instead of having to pay your own security budget
I appreciate the response.
Just to level set - I wasn’t involved in validator selection, there is no need to be hostile or make threats to me.
I didn’t even write this proposal so I’m not sure why you’re saying that when it’s in my interest I talk about % of ownership but when it’s not I talk in $ value. I am just presenting my record of things.
All I’m saying is that you are comparing nominal amounts, between proposals at very different times and insinuating there was some mal-intent behind that. This is not true. Both times, times the security budget has been calculated in $ value (this much I know which is why I’m sharing it).
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It’s quite possible this was your idea. If it was I’m sorry for not properly crediting you. To be fair, this was also mentioned in the original proposal as well (it was clearly stated that a good and preferred use of the funds would be to pay for validator security costs). I tend to believe this is the best use (agree with you here) and am advocating for that.
Also like I mentioned before - I wasn’t involved in picking the genesis validator set, I’m just representing my experiences here.
Like I said before, the CH funding to Neutron was a small minority of the funding Neutron received and was more than made up for through the initial airdrop of NTRN directly to ATOM holders.
I wasn’t involved in the original decision to move Neutron to ICS so I can’t speak to their decision. But speaking from my own experience, there were a number of broken expectations pitched about RS. In theory ICS provided more economic security, but there were other practical aspects of security which it hurt (like smooth chain upgrades and code complexity). Even if one type of security - economic security - was higher, overall security was/is lower. Uptime is incredibly important for apps within the ecosystem.
I think this exactly why the proposal makes sense. If this is how you view Neutron, it should make sense that the best path forward is to provide a payment for previous security costs and press the restart button on the relationship moving forward.
The NTRN allocated to the community pool was in good faith with the condition of it being allocated collaboratively (this is very clear in the proposal). What was presented is a proposal for how to spend it that meets the conditions of the original allocation given new (and exciting) details about the future of the Cosmos Hub and Neutron.
Yes there needs to be a proposal because validators need to agree to stop running Neutron’s binary.
I also think it makes sense to pair this with the CP pool ask, because the conditions of the relationship have clearly been changed - the CH is deprecating Replicated Security, and is likely plans of launching a permissionless CW layer.
We are supportive of both of these, but the CP pool funds were clearly allocated under an expectation that the relationship that first existed would continue (this is evident in the wording of the CP pool proposal and the original Neutron ICS proposal).
A fair outcome in light of this would be to give some of that NTRN a mutually beneficial purpose :
- Use a meaningful amount as ATOM (and Eureka) incentives
- Use a meaningful amount to pay for security costs rendered up to this point
Which I think this proposal accomplishes pretty decently
Please give me the original link of the proposal you speak of pls.
V tor., 18. mar. 2025, 20:35 je oseba Elijah via Cosmos Hub Forum <notifications@cosmos1.discoursemail.com> napisala:
Respectfully, I think you misunderstand how the proposed compensation and staking model will work.
Neutron implements a custom module called x/revenue which pays a fixed dollar value to validators based on their performance each month.
The proposal doesn’t transfer the tokens to the validators, it simply tops up the system so that it has enough funds to cover this base cost over the coming two years.
You can read about it here: Mercury: Towards the Integrated Endgame - #5 by possibility - Main DAO Proposals - Neutron Forum
Regarding the validator set composition: as mentioned in the proposal, we selected an initial validator set for the migration because it is required for the upgrade to happen smoothly.
There will be an open process for applying to network delegations after the upgrade has been completed.
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Is it unthinkable to have one proposal for Offboarding and one for talk about the HUB’s Neutron, that were given as a thanks for the community?
Here’s the original proposal link : [PROP #835][PASSED] Transfer unclaimed NTRN airdrop tokens to Cosmos Hub
I’ve also attached a screenshot for clearer record, it clearly states “the terms of the security agreement between Neutron and the Cosmos Hub…, include the transfer of unclaimed tokens…”
Since the terms of the security agreement are now null (RS is being deprecated, permissionless CW is coming to the Cosmos Hub - i.e., Neutron is no longer the CH CW layer) it also makes sense to revisit this allocation.
I don’t even mean this in a negative way - as I mentioned previously, I am very excited about the future of the Cosmos Hub under new leadership and the continued prospect of collaboration (hence why some of the NTRN allocation should go to incentives on ATOM and Eureka adoption).
But if the agreement shifts, it doesn’t make sense for some of it to conveniently shift, while leaving other large components the same.
The Cosmos Hub has the opportunity to reinvigorate it’s brand under new leadership. Part of this will be assuring potential partners that the Cosmos Hub is a reliable partner. And a large part of being a reliable partner is that if an agreement is nullified (even if it’s nullified for fair and exciting reasons), so to should any outstanding payments with that agreement.
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I wouldn’t say it’s “unthinkable”, BUT in my other post I included a screenshot that the NTRN was allocated as part of an agreement though (which is being changed) as such so to should the allocation attributed as part of that agreement.
Also just to emphasize : some of the NTRN is still going to ATOM and Eureka incentives. Others are going to fund past and future validator operations.
Summation on my thoughts:
Neutron is leaving and ICS is being deprecated no matter what.
Split this initiative in to 2 proposals.
-Proposal 1: Neutron is leaving. As part of this, to ensure a smooth transition, we would like to allocate X amount toward validator compensation for services rendered to this point, and to ensure a smooth transition to the sovereign chain.
-Proposal 2: Request for additional CP NTRN for use cases mentioned in initial post other than validator/transition funding.
Ultimately the only contentious part of this is the clawback. The use of the non-validator earmarked funds is where there is a snag for most, i’d imagine.
I recommend anyone who has proper use cases for the funds to speak now, i.e. Informal for use in Hydro. Otherwise, I feel like this isn’t a hill worth dying on and people going nuts over. If Neutron wants a clean break and nobody has any other use cases they want to bang the table for, I’d say just roll with it.
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To be fair the rationale is not just that “Neutron should want a clean break”. It’s also that the NTRN in the CP was explictly allocated as part of the original ICS agreement (which is clearly in the process of being broken). Nobody is trying to claw back funds unrightfully here - if an agreement is changed, so too should the payment terms. (Screenshot from the original post is included here for clarity).
There’s no reason why both sides shouldn’t be able to walk away from this excited about their respective directions. There’s no reason to hold either Neutron or the Cosmos Hub back from pursuing exciting visions. But there’s also a fair and reasonable way about going about that which should be honored - if at least because it’s the right thing to do, but at most because it’s an important precedent for the Cosmos Hub to set if it wants to signal it’s a reliable partner for chains moving forward.
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At Govmos, we hold mixed feelings regarding this proposal. While we acknowledge its intent, several aspects are highly disputable. Below, we aim to provide clear and consistent reasoning for why we cannot support the proposal in its current form.
Key Points of the Proposal
The proposal centers on three main topics:
- Leaving ICS Replicated Security
- Discussing Future Political Alignments
- Transferring 40,567,950 NTRN from the Cosmos Hub to a Joint Committee
We will address each of these points in detail.
1. Leaving ICS Replicated Security
In previous discussions on this forum, we publicly advocated for Neutron to migrate to a smaller validator set using Partial Set Security (PSS) rather than remaining within the Replicated Security framework. While we support Neutron’s decision to leave Replicated Security, we believe the preferable path would have been transitioning to ICS v2.0’s Partial Set Security model instead of pursuing a fully sovereign economic model.
2. Discussing Future Political Alignments
This is where we have the strongest criticisms. The proposal states:
“The Hub no longer needs an execution environment and wishes to deprecate Replicated Security. Neutron has sufficiently matured to become an ecosystem of its own.”
This statement acknowledges Neutron’s intent to become sovereign, which is entirely within its rights as a chain in the Cosmos ecosystem. However, we strongly oppose the following claim:
“The Hub will no longer be providing the services it was granted NTRN for, and former Cosmos Hub contributors generally overpromised and failed to deliver on their commitments to the project.”
This assertion is misleading. The Cosmos Hub has not failed to deliver on shared security. Instead, it has evolved to a more flexible framework with Partial Set Security (PSS), making the deprecation of the outdated Replicated Security (RS) model a logical step. Furthermore, it is important to remember that the Hub granted Neutron 50,000 ATOMs through Proposal #72, which explicitly funded smart contract applications leveraging Interchain Security. By leaving the ICS framework, Neutron is the party choosing to dissolve the agreement, not the Hub.
3. Transferring 40,567,950 NTRN from the Cosmos Hub to a Joint Committee
The core of the proposal revolves around recovering funds allocated to the community pool to finance Neutron’s sovereign migration. The authors state:
“Therefore, the fair and constructive way to proceed is to distribute payment for the services rendered by the Hub so far, allocate resources to fund the network’s security budget, and return the outstanding tokens for the services that were not and will not be provided to the Neutron DAO.”
We find this reasoning concerning. Neutron was partially funded by the Hub and is now the party breaking the agreement established in Proposal #72. If the Hub were to apply similar logic, it could demand the return of the 50,000 ATOMs granted to Neutron.
It is also worth noting that Neutron could have chosen to migrate to PSS instead of pursuing full sovereignty, which would have aligned with the terms of Proposal #72.
Conclusion
Our stance on this proposal is clear: the Cosmos Hub has no viable reason to relinquish custody of the allocated funds. These funds were entrusted to the Hub under the community’s responsibility, and we believe they should remain so. While we support responsible and cooperative use of these funds (in line with the “do no harm” and “cooperation” principles), we cannot endorse the proposed retrieval of NTRN.
We are, however, aligned with @Thyborg’s suggestion to explore a joint allocation between Neutron and the Hub via Hydro. This approach would better reflect the spirit of collaboration and shared responsibility.
Thank you for reading,
Govmos
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